The initial seed for your project, if you will, is a written ‘design brief’. Design briefs are common in the industry and stipulate a challenge, a range of constraints applying to the challenge, potential stakeholders, a bit of the back story to the project, perhaps also information on the socio-economical context giving relevance to your challenge. The brief is designed to help you get started. It will come with a number of reference documents and resources to firm your understanding.
In advance to the module start, I will have been working hard to establish and elaborate project briefs that are sufficiently bounded. The briefs will likely contain the following information: The project partner, project description, list of other stakeholders, information on your mentor, key datasets, a statement on the ideal outcome (from partner’s perspective), a set of keywords, and related files.
How will you be paired to briefs? In pairing projects and challenge partners with you, I make an effort to consider your topic interests in advance. A survey will be sent around to the students registered on the module to establish interests along, for example, the following topics: cycling, mobility, public health, air pollution, open data, data stores, planning, planning applications, engagement.