Lake/dime – distributed multi-disciplinary team projects in product design supported by international coaching networks and digital libraries

The Center for Product Design (CPD) focuses on the education of design engineering students well prepared for the development of successful products. The design and development of products for the global marketplace require engineers to perform in internationally situated teams, utilizing cutting edge information and collaboration technologies.
The implications of the Bologna reform and the situation in industry call for appropriate courses on the master’s level with students learning and working on real world problems in multi-disciplinary, distributed international teams.
Effective design engineering teams are composed of autonomous learners, who can independently determine and pursue their learning goals and content. Such teams need a different learning scenario with the pedagogical paradigm shift from classical teaching to coaching. It also requires an adaptation of the use of digital media and tools supporting the learning process. Information and factual knowledge arranged in digital libraries serve for a scenario of consultative learning. Digital libraries enriched with videos about the collaboration process allow for the reflection on the learning process itself.
A network of partner universities includes Stanford University (US), Strathclyde (UK), Åarlborg University (DK), Helsinki University of Technology (FI), UAS Aargau and Nestlé as the corporate partner for the student collaboration project of summer term ’05.
The project will utilize and integrate various services and infrastructures of ETH Zurich (ETH World video conferencing, video streaming, ETH library services, IWF VirelalLab, ETH Profis).