What Constitutes a Good Design Education Research Paper That Would be Suitable for JMD?

Abstract

Have you heard? Did you know? The Journal of Mechanical Design (JMD) has been accepting and publishing quality design education research papers for the last 2 years. As the associate editor handling this area, I am all too often surprised. First, I am surprised that the word has not spread widely and that there are not more design education submissions to JMD. Clearly, there is a tremendous surge in the interest of engineering educators nationwide to increase student learning and skills through design projects, often with genuine experiences and with the participation from industry, the community, or individual “customers” working with student design teams. Design education seems to be the new focus of how engineering educators are going to fix what is perceived to have been broken for many years: a content focused curriculum, lacking in the context of real problems that would motivate and engage students and deepen their learning and increase their confidence in how to think, reason, problem-solve, and apply mathematics, science, and engineering methods and tools.