Are student assignments that are not textbook exercises, but projects linked to real clients from business or the community. The results may or not go into production and the students gain valuable experience in dealing with real design problems, access to production processes and feedback from marketing teams and sales staff.
Published in Chapter:
Designing Toys, Gifts and Games: Learning through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
Friedemann Schaber (The University of Northampton, UK), Vicki Thomas (The University of Northampton, UK), and Randle Turner (The University of Northampton, UK)
Copyright: © 2011
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-617-9.ch026
Abstract
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) is a program in the United Kingdom (UK), administrated on behalf of the Technology Strategy Board, a Government Agency, where academics give their expertise to provide a solution for a particular problem, helping organisations to improve their competitiveness and productivity. The academic partners at universities, colleges or research institutes bring their knowledge, skill and technology. In return, KTP enhances the business relevance of their research and teaching, in particular, deepening their expertise of ‘real life’ projects. This investigation exemplifies some of the strengths and pitfalls of this type of knowledge transfer in the context of the global toy, games and gift markets, through case studies of the design and prototype development process for a range of toys, giftware and seasonal products.