Facilitating sustainable partnerships between university, industry and the community within a new model for tertiary digital media design education

Facilitating sustainable partnerships between industry, community and tertiary design education is a focal point in a new model for digital media design education, referred to as the POOL Model. This model is a multidisciplinary system of interdependent collaboration and expertise exchange across university, industry and community sectors. Practice-informed design education and research perform as dialectical drivers, creating dynamics within the model that propel adjustments in design education relative to the changes in the design industry. The model is being developed to address two primary shortfalls in current design education. A range of recent studies show that current tertiary digital media design education fails to equip students with appropriate expertise and skills for the requirements of the design industry. This is as a result of design education adhering to a curriculum model developed for and applicable to multimedia design practice in the 1990's. Utilisation of this model persists, however it has become increasingly unviable due to rapid technological advances and a resultant shift in the industry away from the individual deSigner and toward design within collaborative teams. In response to the increasing complexity of design technology, attempts have been made in design education to collaboratively engage social and commercial enterprises as part of the educational process. As the second shortfall, these attempts have however been sporadic and have had no enduring effect on design education adjusting to the ongoing dynamics of the digital media design market. The lack of close ties between industry, community and design education is identified as a key problem of the existing educational model to accommodate change. The POOL Model addresses the first shortfall of existing design education through the formation of multidisciplinary teams within the university environment. The formation of these teams then facilitates the integration of industry into the design curriculum, effectively addressing the second shortfall: multidisciplinary and sustainable partnerships with industry must be established. Currently under development and testing at James Cook University, the POOL Model is intended to facilitate three different types of partnerships between: design education and the creative industries; design education and industry, and design education and community organizations. Each partnership is distinct and vitally important in its contribution to the educational model that uses attributes of continuity and flexibility to establish qualitative and sustainable partnerships between university, industry and community