Restructuring of Graphic Science/Engineering Design and Drafting Courses at Japanese Universities

In “graphic science coursis (hereafter, GS courses) ” and “engineering design and drafting courses (hereafter, EDD courses) ” at Japanese universities and colleges, descriptive geometry and manual drawings have been taught as a fundamental graphics language used by engineers. Recently, computer graphics (hereafter, CG) and its application to engineering design (hereafter, CAD) have been widely used in industrial fields and competence in the use of CG/CAD is becoming increasingly important. To accommodate this need, CG/CAD have been gradually implemented into GS/EDD courses. The implementation has, then, caused serious dis-cussion in graphic educators. The discussion in-cludes course philosophy, course contents, teaching methodologies and evaluations in education. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the present status of the restructuring of GS/EDD courses based on the implementation of CG/CAD, and to review briefly related papers reported by Japanese authors in this Proceedings. In Chapter 2, the implementation of CG/CAD into GS/EDD courses are summarized based upon the survey studies performed by JSGS (Japan Society for Graphic Science) and by JSDD (Japan Society for Design & Drafting) . Discussion includes the educational purpose of implementation and the course contents. In Chapter 3, CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) in GS courses at Japanese universities are summarized. They are classified into 4-types, i. e., Tutorial-type, Drill-type, 2D/CAD-Assisted-type, and Visualization-type. The advantage and disadvantage of each type are discussed. In Chapter 4, evaluations in education are discussed. First, a recent view of evaluation in education is reviewed briefly, then, the related studies in GS/EDD courses are summarized. They include evaluation of students' attitude in the GS/EDD courses and evaluation of students' spatial abilities by the use of MCT (Mental Cutting Test) . Recent researches on 2D-3D problem solving process of students are also included.