Active Engagement in Collaborative Engineering Design: How to Measure and Use It in a Feedback System?
Year: 2023
Editor: Kevin Otto, Boris Eisenbart, Claudia Eckert, Benoit Eynard, Dieter Krause, Josef Oehmen, Nad
Author: Farshad, Sabah; Fortin, Clement
Series: ICED
Institution: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech)
Section: Design Methods
Page(s): 0455-0464
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.46
ISBN: -
ISSN: -
Abstract
Engineering design is typically a collaborative process, and in the era of digital engineering, online collaboration platforms are increasingly being used to perform the work. Despite the development of e-collaboration technologies, there is a significant gap between actual collaboration and what is really needed. However, improving collaboration requires a proper measurement system. Yet, the common methods to measure and improve collaboration are challenging, usually not compatible with digitalized collaboration, and have limited scalability. This paper presents a new data-driven method for measuring, visualizing, and monitoring Active Engagement (AE) in web-based teamwork, which is a key element of effective collaboration. We applied the method in a case study of four engineering teams during a Technology Planning and Road-mapping course. The results suggest that measuring AE in web-based teams, with an available history log, is technically feasible and can meaningfully represent the team’s collaboration. The presented approach can be used to upgrade e-collaboration platforms as a toolkit or for further investigation on improving web-based collaborative design and learning through monitoring dashboards and feedback systems.
Keywords: Collaborative design, Teamwork, Case study, Digital engineering, E-collaboration