1. Martin Šperka, Alena Kovárová Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia DIGITAL MEDIA ENGINEERING AND DESIGN: PROPOSALS FOR THE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY PROGRAM

2. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava CONTENT INTRODUCTION DEFINITIONS OF DIGITAL MEDIA DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRES EVALUATIONS CONCLUSIONS

3. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava MOTIVATION Developing new products containing digital media interfaces and systems: 1. Integrating interactive media text, image, animation, video, sound, virtual or enhanced reality such as computer network applications, interactive CD/DVD ROM, mobile devices, information kiosks and objects 2. Requires specific knowledge and skills in electronic engineering information technology and design.

4. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava INTRODUCTION 1/2 Companies There are many companies where engineers and designers work together, but in many there are just engineers or designers. The need to find a common language for communication and the knowledge of fundamentals in other field is very valuable. Education In many countries exist schools providing a combined education in IT and design. In Slovakia there exists no such school. Goal The goal of the project is to explore the effective use of existing facilities, resources, expertise, competences as well as existing subjects within one university - STU in Bratislava.

5. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava INTRODUCTION 2/2 The main idea: FIIT could provide a major IT oriented program with a minor in design and vice versa, FA the bachelor in design with minor in digital media design Graduates of this type of study program should cover the lack of experts in our market area. Problems: Existing subjects should be modified to meet existing knowledge for both groups of students. Traditional border between world of science and engineering on one side and the art and design on the other.

6. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava The main idea

7. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava DEFINITIONS OF DIGITAL MEDIA DESIGN 1/2 Digital media belongs to a group together with multimedia, intermedia, cross-media, new media and interactive media. Design is understood differently. one can tell that web-design is art emphasizing creativity and attraction. others define it as an engineering discipline, where visual-design rules are standardized, which are necessary to learn and respect.

8. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava DEFINITIONS OF DIGITAL MEDIA DESIGN 2/2 Another project International Socrates Erasmus project Joint Degree in Media Development Engineering where the goal is to define a common body of knowledge and an international study program. Our faculty is among universities from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Slovakia and Spain. Same field – different groups All of these definitions certify the fact that there exist different groups of people working in the same field. Each group has its own vocabulary and when they meet, they don’t understand each other.

9. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 1/8 To answer these and other important questions, we prepared 3 types of special questionnaires. 1. Companies associated with software, hardware and digital media development 2. Students of FIIT STU 3. Students of FA STU (Institute of Design) We asked also students of design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design ( AFAD ) students. Questionnaires should help devise a student profile and create a suitable curriculum of the current studying program

10. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 2/8 Companies To find out what kinds of profession/knowledge they would require from their employees provided that they would be graduates of Digital Media Design program. Students FIIT STU To find out in which of the FA existing courses these students would be interested, if they had the chance to make the choice. Students FA STU To find out in which of the FIIT existing courses these students would be interested, if they had the chance to make the choice.

11. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 3/8 Companies Does your institution/company develop/design … 1. both software and user interfaces? 2. contract websites? 3. websites on its own? 4. interactive CD/DVD ROM-s (catalogues, text books, games...) ? 5. product devices that require creation of digital interface…? 1.-5. a) By programmers (experts in informatics) 1.-5. b) Only by graphic designers or artists. 1.-5. c) Programmers collaborating with graphic designers or artists. 1.-5. d) Others (please specify). 6. In the design process of presented products….

12. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 4/8 Companies 7. Do you think that creating a study program where curriculum is focused on –Informatics courses - basics of programming, Internet technologies, multimedia technologies,... –Esthetics and design courses - basics of audiovisual communication, basics of design methodology and tools for creation, image processing, animation, video, audio... –Business/law courses - management and marketing of electronic content, intellectual property, copyrights,... is needed and useful in Slovakia?

13. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 5/8 Students of FIIT STU 1. If you work in a company, do you take part in the creation of human-computer interface design ? Such as interfaces for programs, for cell phones, for information kiosks, CDs, DVDs, presentation etc. 2. If you work in a company, do you take part in web-pages design ? 3. If there would be such study program at FIIT that would extend your knowledge and skills about design of DM, would you join this program? 4. Which of the following courses (from FA) would you prefer to have in this study program?

14. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 6/8 Students of FIIT STU The list of courses (provided by FA): History of Fine Arts I, II Design History, Design Basics I and II Ergonomics Color Fonts Drawing I Drawing Design Graphic Design Visual Communication Design Graphic Presentation Photography Photographic Design Working with Camcorder Video Production Computer Aided Design,

15. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 7/8 Students of FA STU 1. If you work in a company, do you take part in creation of human-computer interface design ? Such as interfaces for programs, for cell phones, for information kiosks, CDs, DVDs, presentations etc. 2. If you work in a company, do you take part in web-pages design ? 3.If you work in a company, do you take part in the creation of computer games? 4.If you extended your knowledge within your study at AFAD getting informatics knowledge and skills, which are connected to interactive DM design, web-design, and games, which of the following FIIT courses would you choose from a list of subjects?

16. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava QUESTIONNAIRES 8/8 Students of FA STU –Procedural Programming –Object Oriented Programming –Principles of Information Systems –Computer Networks –Operating Systems, –Database Systems –Human-Computer Interaction –Development in Java 2 Platform –Artificial Intelligence –Computer Graphics –Multimedia Systems –Principles of Web- Engineering –Internet Security. Other Subjects (not all now provided): Web-design, Markup and Scripting Languages for Internet (HTML, JavaScript, PHP), Information Searching, Data Mining, Semantic Web, XML, Web3D – Virtual Reality The list of subjects (provided by FIIT STU):

17. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 1/8 Companies The majority of data from the companies was obtained from FIIT students working in different companies as we did not find any effective way how to have them obtained directly from company leaders. We got 119 questionnaires. The following chart shows the percentage of every positive answer in each group of questions.

18. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 2/8 Companies other type of answer by programmers by designers by collaboration other type of answer

19. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 2/8 Companies FIIT STU students work usually in companies where programmers are needed, art designers wouldn’t be able to do this work on their own (see the low percentage of 2b, 3b and 4b). An interesting result is that about ½ of these students work in companies where collaboration with graphic designers or artists would be effective. Finally, the majority of respondents ( 80% ) thought that creating a new study program where curriculum is focused on informatics, esthetic, design and business/legal courses is needed and useful in Slovakia.

20. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 3/8 Students of FIIT STU 3 rd year bachelor students of the Human Computer Interaction course. We had 193 responders. The percentages of positive answers on 4 questions were web-page design 1. 71% Do you work in a company… HCI design? 2. 44% Do you work in a company… web-page design? 3. 83% Would you join DM study program? 4.T he following chart shows their preferences on different FA courses related to DM design.

21. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 4/8 Students of FIIT STU

22. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 4/8 Students of FIIT STU It is obvious that students really do not care about history. Less than a half would like to know more about things like font, color, drawing staff, ergonomics and visual communication design. More than a half of responders, but less than ¾, was interested in the rest of the courses. The most attractive courses are Design Basics and Graphics Design, which show the lack of information from this area in our educational process.

23. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 5/8 Students of FA STU Students from Institute of Design We had 36 responders. The percentages of positive answers on 4 questions were web-page design 1. 33% Do you work in a company… web-page design? 2. 6% Do you work in a company… computer games? 3. 64% Would you join DM study program? 4.T he following chart shows their preferences on different FIIT and other courses related to DM design.

24. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava EVALUATION 6/8 Students of FA STU

25. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava CONCLUSIONS 1/2 It is reasonable and necessary to create a new study program on Digital Media Design. –As the companies would often find it effective to have somebody understanding both the programming and the art design. –FIIT STU students like to know most about Design Basics and Graphics Design –FA and AFAD students about Web-design and Web3D and Human-Computer Interaction or Computer Graphics We need more data from companies, in order to estimate needs of the industry.

26. ICETA 2007 Digital Media Engineering and Design Šperka, Kovárová: FIIT STU, Bratislava CONCLUSIONS 2/2 This work is partially supported by the Slovak Cultural and Education Agency (KEGA) grant 3/3206/5 Interdisciplinary Study Program: Design of Interactive Digital Media. Special thanks to professor Lubomir Hornik from the Institute of Design at the FA STU, who helped us with the questionaries at the FA STU and Mgr. Olga Zemanovicova, PhD student at the FIIT STU for the helping us with the questionaries at the AFAD.