A Novel Frame Work of Design Realization Course at IIITDM Kancheepuram: Critical Evaluation

Consistent evaluation and analysis of academic courses is a good practice in order to make the content more relevant to the current needs of industries and academia. In this work, “Design Realization Course” at IIITDM (Indian Institute of Information Technology Design & Manufacturing) Kancheepuram, which is a part of the novel curriculum, framed for the undergraduate engineering studies, is taken as the subject for critical evaluation. A thorough user study is done for 6 months using contextual inquiry and questionnaire methods. We report findings of a survey that investigates how a design course is taught in a technical institute, its limitations and scopes. In order to validate the interpretations a comparative study is made with other reputed design schools. Some of the key findings are that design courses need to emphasize on hands-on way of doing things, students perform better if they are given more time and flexibility and so on.