Apologize for unintended cross-mailing
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Special Issue on
Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education

to be published at the
Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal (IxD&A)
(ISSN 1826-9745, eISSN 2283-2998)
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*** Since 2012 also in Scopus ***
*** Since 2015 also in Emerging Sources Citation Index and Web of Science ***
*** Since issue N. 47 integrates video presentations and issues e-certificates blockchain anchored***
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IxD&A implements the Gold Open Access (OA) road to its contents
with no charge to the authors (submission & paper processing)

Help us in improving the quality of the editorial process and of the journal, please donate:
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CFP: http://ixdea.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=102&link=call50
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Guest Editors:
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• Ingi Helgason, Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
• Enrique Encinas, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Ivica Mitrovic, Arts Academy, University of Split, Croatia
• Michael Smyth, Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
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Important dates:
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• Deadline: September 9, 2021
• Notification to the authors: October 14, 2021
• Camera ready paper: November 11, 2021
• Publication of the special issue: end of November, 2021

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Overview
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Speculative and Critical Design approaches and related Design Fiction practices are increasingly finding their place within interaction design and technology design educational programmes. The guest editors of this special issue are partners in the SpeculativeEdu (http://speculativeedu.eu/) project (Speculative Design – Educational Resource Toolkit), funded by the European Union, to explore novel educational skills and practices for the 21st century, especially those focused on the critical relations between technology and people. The inherently discursive and provocative nature of the Speculative or Critical Design approach makes it potentially useful for both teaching practical design skills and for reflecting on theoretical positions and the implications of introducing designed objects and systems into the world. There are however tensions and unresolved issues, and there is much potential for further development that deserves examination, particularly in the context of education, such as practical questions around; how to develop and share sets of tools, techniques and methods for concept creation, address aspects such as worldbuilding and the communication of narratives, and how best to apply criteria for assessment in educational domains as diverse as product and service design, architecture and urban studies, fashion design, media and communication, human-computer interaction, socio-technical studies and other creative fields. Further fundamental and overarching themes also deserve deeper interrogation, for example around; inclusion, diversity and participation, the influence of global and local cultures, understandings of the past, the present and the future, and the role of primary research in creative, imaginative work. Not least is the question of how to nurture the development of constructive tactics and strategies amongst students who are facing a world where problems seem too complex, too inextricably interwoven and too intractable to begin to address.
For this special issue we invite contributions that extend knowledge on this domain, for example, submissions addressing how educators are tackling, or aspiring to tackle, these challenges both in the classroom and in professional situations, or which discuss the collation and presentation of resources, methods and perspectives specifically in educational contexts. These can include stories and experiences along with critical reflections on the outcomes, impacts and implications.
Discussing research carried out by the SpeculativeEDU project, Julian Hanna (2019) explains, “our survey suggests that the influence of Speculative Design is constantly expanding into new regions and disciplines as new waves of designers embrace and adopt its techniques in different aspects of their work – and the approach itself is also evolving and adapting to new realities and calls for change.” The family of speculative, critical, provocative and fictional design approaches offers techniques and entry points for interrogating relationships between people and technology. This broad set of methods and perspectives places emphasis on developing imaginative designed concepts and provocations that might or “could” exist, rather than those that “should” exist or are deemed preferable or profitable. The purpose of this process is to experiment with alternative ways of living and being, and to question current norms, assumptions and structures by speculating on the world through designed objects and systems.
Overviews and discussion of the speculative design approach can be found in writings such as; Galloway (2013), Dunne and Raby (2013), Auger (2013) and Malpass (2017). Addressing education more specifically, Ward’s (2019) essay, “Critical about Critical and Speculative Design” discusses the challenge of cultivating a critical design education, of “sharing and building a set of processes, practices and questions that allow for both production and reflection, analysis and making, critique and creation”. This challenge has been emerging in response to the driving forces that Ward lists as; “a shift away from an aging modernist educational culture; a growing acknowledgment and frustration with the cultural impact of mass consumption; a rapidly shifting technological culture, through the invention of microprocessors, personal computation and networked communication; and a growing disciplinary awareness of the impacts and responsibilities of the designer.”.

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Topics of Interest
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The indicative list of topics of interest for this special issue includes, but is not limited to:

• teaching and learning activities, methods and resources
• reflections and viewpoints on critique and theory
• assessment strategies, and program and course development
• disciplinary and interdisciplinary working
• skills development for post-education routes to employment and industry
• the use of speculative and critical design in industry, and professional training and skills development
• perspectives on globalization and the specifics of local contexts
• future directions for the field

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Submission guidelines and procedure
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All submissions (abstracts and later final manuscripts) must be original and may not be under review by another publication.
The manuscripts should be submitted either in .doc or in .rtf format.
All papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers.
Authors are invited to submit 8-20 pages paper (including authors' information, abstract, all tables, figures, references, etc.).
The paper should be written according to the IxD&A authors' guidelines
->http://ixdea.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=101&a=7

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Authors' guidelines
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Link to the paper submission page:
http://ixdea-2018.uniroma2.it/ojs/index.php/ixdea/login
(Please upload all submissions using the Submission page. When submitting the paper, please, choose the section:
"SI: Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education")

More information on the submission procedure and on the characteristics
of the paper format can be found on the website of the IxD&A Journal
where information on the copyright policy and responsibility of authors,
publication ethics and malpractice are published.

For scientific advice and queries, please contact the IxD&A scientific editor marking the subject as:
Speculative and Critical Design: approaches and influences in education

• i [dot] helgason [at] napier [dot] ac [dot] uk

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Forthcoming issues:
http://ixdea.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=102

• Winter 2021
Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development: toward the 'new normal'
Guest editors: Oscar Mealha, Mihai Dascalu, Tania Di Mascio

• Springer 2022
'Gamification of the Learning Process'
Guest editors: Davide Carneiro, Pilar Cáceres, Mariana Reimão Carvalho, Rui Silva
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