Session: CIE-09-02 AMS/SEIKM: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Design and Manufacturing

Paper Number: 142450

142450 - Applied AI in Assessing Design Education: A Comparison of Design Progress Evaluation Between AI Dashboard and Conventional Human Evaluators 

The process of design in education is generally broad which makes it not straightforward to measure. It is human-centric in nature, thus it is often qualitative to make an assessment when it comes to comparing student performance or grading. The dynamic nature of design processes also consumes as large amount of time resource for educators to fully understand the progress made by student design teams, in order to provide critical and essential feedback. As such, time becomes a valuable and important resource that educators need to ration in order to keep the pace of the class while ensuring students meeting learning objectives and milestones. This paper showcases a method of visualising the design process of students through a dashboard using divergent and convergent as a matrix across individual, team and cohort levels with the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. Such dashboard allows educators a quantitative mean to receive “real time” feedback of the progress performance made in a large cohort, thus able to reference and optimise their time resource accordingly. An evaluation of this approach compares the difference of visualisation results produced by the AI enabled dashboard and conventional human evaluators, showcasing similarities and contrasts. This papers ends with a discussion about the viability of the AI tool, presenting the current limitations and future potential.

Presenting Author: Arlindo Silva Singapore University of Technology and Design

Presenting Author Biography: Arlindo has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and more than 30 years of teaching and research experience. His current research interests rest on engineering design, product development, creativity, materials selection methodologies, additive manufacturing in composite structures, cost modelling and management of uncertainty in design. He published over a hundred and fifty papers in journals, conferences and book chapters, more than 50 patents and authored/co-edited five books in engineering related topics. He received the MIT-Portugal Education Innovation Award in 2009 and was a Professor of Excellence at the University of Lisbon in 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2015, before joining the Singapore University of Technology and Design as an Associate Professor with the Engineering Product Development Pillar. He was also a Senior Materials Education consultant during 2012 at Granta Design Ltd, Cambridge, UK, and was the NAMIC (National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster) Hub Director at SUTD from February 2018 to September 2023, liaising Singaporean companies with SUTD’s expertise in Additive Manufacturing and Composites Technologies through the DManD (Digital Manufacturing and Design) Center. He is an active member of PDMA, ASEE, ASME, ASTM International, INCOSE, DS and SPEE. He currently teaches Design-related topics at all levels of higher and executive education and develops his research between the SUTD Design Z Center, i-Trust, and DManD. He is also the Program Director for the Master of Engineering in Innovation by Design at SUTD, the Master of Science in Technology and Design, Sustainable Product Design, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Design Business Chamber Singapore.

Authors:

Matt Chiu Singapore University of Technology and Design
Arlindo Silva Singapore University of Technology and Design