The Value Sensitive Design in Higher Education (VASE) project is based on a collaboration between Malmö University (coordinator), Aarhus University, and Eindhoven University of Technology, and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
The aim of the partnership is to design, develop, pilot test and implement research-based and innovative teaching resources for teaching value sensitive design* approaches to students at design and development programmes at university levels. The teaching resources will be packaged as an Open Educational Resource (OER) and published online to be freely downloaded and used by teachers that are interested in teaching the topic, and in fostering a discussion around values in design among their students.
The project will run for three years (2018-2021). The final output of is a set of modules, units of teaching and learning activities that teachers can pick and choose from based on their own specific educational setting and cultural context.
The direct target group of the teaching resources developed is teachers at different design and development programmes, such as interaction design, information science, computer science, technology enhanced learning, educational technology, industrial and product design programmes, at university levels. Through the teachers’ adoption of the outputs of the VASE project students will be educated to become responsible designers of tomorrow’s design and technologies.
*Value Sensitive Design is a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that accounts for human values in a principled and systematic manner throughout the design process. It has been under active development and use since the 1990s, led by Professor Batya Friedman at the University of Washington, along with a wide range of other researchers.
