About the Design Collaboration Project
The DesignCollaboration.org website contains case studies of student collaborative projects, aimed at helping tutors share best practices relating to planning, managing and assessing issues of collaborative work. In addition, the website also contains practical resources for design tutors to use with students in order to foster collaborative learning.
The idea behind DesignCollaboration.org
The initial thoughts behind DesignCollaboration.org originated from a book produced by Kathryn McKelvey alled ‘Inside Out’, which documented student collaborative learning projects and design processes at Northumbria University's School of Design. The website has been developed by Dr. Joyce Yee, Kathryn McKelvey and Emma Jefferies through a research project funded by Northumbria University.
The Research behind the Idea
The research project identified common problems in different types of collaborative
learning and translated this implicit knowledge into an online resource
for the design education community. The development of these tools is divided
into four stages (see image below). The first seeks to identify a range
of common issues and challenges faced by tutors during collaborative projects
through a questionnaire. The second stage involves reviewing existing collaborative
learning tools in order to evaluate and match their appropriateness with
the list of issues identified in the first phase. The third stage is the
development and translation of collaborative tools into a format that is
communicable and usable for tutors. These resources are published on the
Design Collaboration website. Finally, the issues and tools are connected
back to the real experiences of design practitioners through a series of
filmed interviews. These are meant to serve as a teaching resource for students
and to provide real-world grounding of the challenges and issues related
to design teamwork. The teaching resources provide design tutors with the
tools to encourage and foster collaborative learning amongst design students. 
DesignCollaboration.org was created by Ki Media and the video editing carried out by RADMedia.