Abstract

A shared design memory emerging from the contributions of novice designers affords, theoretically, unique opportunities to support individual and organizational learning. StoryNet, is a shared design memory implemented, using a groupware technology, to support learning information systems analysis and design. It allows the retrieval of precedent design cases for re-use and adaptation, and the examination of the peer reviews and comments that have been attached to such design cases. Its architecture is finalized to operate in synergy with a specific methodological approach to design, to offset some of the cognitive biases and difficulties that novice analysts and designers have to face. Starting from the premise that the effects of shared memory on learning have to be understood within a framework that takes into account the social and cultural nature of the "distributed" system that becomes realized, this exploratory, qualitatively grounded study addresses the relationships among the learners' individual characteristics, the use of design precedents, the perceived difficulty of the design activity, the attitudes towards StoryNet, and the quality of the outcome design artifacts that are generated. Organizational learning is reflected in the emergent qualities of the design produced by different generations of design teams, indicating what design weaknesses typical of novices are being offset, and what good design practices and features are diffused and gradually incorporated as new quality standards. The findings of the study point out some differences in using the precedents and the information provided in StoryNet that arise from differences in the learner's initial design experience, and some limits of the shared memory in representing design knowledge in context. The analysis of three generations of designs suggests that the shared memory was instrumental to attaining a new overall design quality, sustained by an increased emphasis placed on structuring and communicating according to visual, temporal and hypertextual modalities, and on explaining key design steps. A socio-cognitive account of the dynamics of individual learning and of the process of increasing the quality standards of the design for the community, through socially regulated, adaptive evolution mediated by the shared memory, is provided