Abstract
As transdisciplinary design education evolves to meet complex societal and technological demands, it is increasingly challenged by curricular fragmentation and pedagogical inefficiencies. To address these issues, this paper first proposes the Input-Output Design Education Model (IODEM), which conceptualizes design education as a structured interplay between three categories of knowledge inputs (procedural, product, and contextual) and three types of design outputs (conceptual, representational, and critical). Subsequently, the course Product Design Based on Origami Structures is introduced as a representative case to examine how a Rigid Origami Knowledge Graph (ROKG) can facilitate transdisciplinary education, which is developed by synthesizing structural engineering knowledge and design case studies. ROKG enables students to navigate, internalize, and meaningfully apply complex technical content in their conceptual designs. Ultimately, a comparative design experiment demonstrated that students utilizing ROKG generated significantly more valid, functional, and innovative design concepts than those relying on conventional self-guided research methods. The findings highlight the value of knowledge graphs as a pedagogical infrastructure that bridges domain- specific knowledge and design practice. Embedded within the most cognitively demanding type of input-defined courses under the IODEM framework, knowledge graphs can significantly improve students’ capacity to engage with complex design challenges, offering a scalable and adaptive strategy for advancing transdisciplinary design education.
Keywords
Design education; Education model; Knowledge graph; Transdisciplinary design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.311
Citation
Dong, L., University, T., Lu, C., Huang, Y., Feng, X., University, T., Chen, C., University, T.,and Wang, M.(2025) Knowledge Graph Application in Input-Defined Design Education under Transdisciplinary Contexts, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.311
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 12 - Design Education
Knowledge Graph Application in Input-Defined Design Education under Transdisciplinary Contexts
As transdisciplinary design education evolves to meet complex societal and technological demands, it is increasingly challenged by curricular fragmentation and pedagogical inefficiencies. To address these issues, this paper first proposes the Input-Output Design Education Model (IODEM), which conceptualizes design education as a structured interplay between three categories of knowledge inputs (procedural, product, and contextual) and three types of design outputs (conceptual, representational, and critical). Subsequently, the course Product Design Based on Origami Structures is introduced as a representative case to examine how a Rigid Origami Knowledge Graph (ROKG) can facilitate transdisciplinary education, which is developed by synthesizing structural engineering knowledge and design case studies. ROKG enables students to navigate, internalize, and meaningfully apply complex technical content in their conceptual designs. Ultimately, a comparative design experiment demonstrated that students utilizing ROKG generated significantly more valid, functional, and innovative design concepts than those relying on conventional self-guided research methods. The findings highlight the value of knowledge graphs as a pedagogical infrastructure that bridges domain- specific knowledge and design practice. Embedded within the most cognitively demanding type of input-defined courses under the IODEM framework, knowledge graphs can significantly improve students’ capacity to engage with complex design challenges, offering a scalable and adaptive strategy for advancing transdisciplinary design education.