The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep cracks of inequality within the South African educational system (Gustafsson & Deliwe, 2020). The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has presented a range of new technology applications (Lacy, Long, & Spindler, 2020). These technologies can be leveraged to provide more equal access to the technology needed for remote learning (Du Preez & Sinha, 2020). This paper uses a systemic design approach to reflect on the challenges faced in design education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student feedback on the online learning experience during the COVID-19 lockdown was reflected on. Observations were organised in themes and then explored using the first step of Namahn and shiftN’s Systemic Design Toolkit (Van Ael & Vandenbroeck, 2016).

Emerging IR 4.0 systems have the capacity both negatively and positively to disrupt. While currently much of the design in this regard has for practical reasons focused on technical systems, there is an urgent need to ensure that these systems due to their physical fabrication, pervasive deployment, and autonomous capabilities, are integrated into our human world in a manner that enhances the human condition and ensure planetary sustainment. Supporting this urgent need, this paper suggests that human-centred design (HCD) can make a substantial contribution, albeit with a recasting of its traditional design role.

This paper reports on a qualitative case study exploring design student reflections about their experiences of a transdisciplinary online collaboration in a real-world learning project implemented in October 2020. The spread of a global pandemic that caused a primary and rapid shift from a contact-based learning model to fully fledged online teaching marked the year and learning for student participants. Applying an interpretivist paradigm, the researchers thematically analysed reflection essays from a sample of thirty-two design students to expose dominant perceptions.

As we enter the era of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) faced with potential ethical and security risks, ensuring sustainable and inclusive innovation within the design industries will be essential. However, this proves unlikely when the design industry itself has inherent biases and inequalities.

Emerging technology is developing at an exponential rate and has a direct impact on design education. This boom in innovation has been dubbed the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). This economic initiative was framed at the 2015 World Economic Forum by Klaus Schwab and has been echoed since 2016 by South African politicians as a government and education policy transformation catalyst to South Africa’s struggling economy. Academic scholars are critical about these objectives against the face of high unemployment, poor education and developing foundational skills in South Africa. Educators are confronted with very little support to address this technological development, often leaving design educators with scepticism.

The urgent need for pedagogical change, made possible by Digital Transformation (DT), is indisputable in design education (DE). This study considers the relationship between the evolution of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) and the need for modernised pedagogy suitable for learning DE online, particularly by African students. The focus of the investigation is on the methods used in delivering DE curricula in relation to these technological platforms. This is carried out using a qualitative research approach with a phenomenological analysis framework. A conceptual model is constructed to explain the phenomena of interest. The research process reflects a constructivist epistemological paradigm based on the direct experiences and perspectives of the participants.

This paper considers the importance of preserving ‘hand-skills’ in fashion design education for students to acquire the ability to visualise the shape, proportion and fit of a garment instead of relying solely on a computer. In addition, the apparel industry requirement for patternmakers to be familiar with digital patternmaking technology to speed up the efficiency of the patternmaking component of the manufacturing process is of equal importance. Both techniques are examined and compared in the research.

As fashion is becoming increasingly more inclusive of environmentally friendly fibres and sustainable textile solutions, consideration needs to be given to other applications of sustainable strategies within fashion design praxis (Gwilt & Rissanen, 2011, p. 57). Concepts such as design for sustainability, which centres on cutting waste, upcycling and fibre recycling strategies have become commonplace within the industry. A greater focus needs to be placed on developing new ways of clothing construction processes (Fletcher & Grose, 2012, p. 48).

In this paper, four educators teaching undergraduate jewellery design and manufacture recount our adaptations to online learning during the COVID19 lockdown, and how this impacted our ideas about lecture content and delivery. We look at the possibilities for online study in jewellery design in relation to the developments of the fourth industrial revolution, such as blended learning, simulations and computer-aided design and manufacture. We share adaptations that may serve educators in distance or blended learning scenarios. However, the lockdown created difficult learning circumstances in South Africa in which we often ‘lost connection’ due to high data costs and inequalities in students’ living conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been declared a global pandemic forcing many countries into a widespread lockdown. In South Africa, contact higher education institutions were forced to develop and introduce online learning and teaching platforms. Considering the fourth industrial revolution, patterns of digital access are unequal across South Africa whereby rural areas are likely to be most disadvantaged. Students who returned home during the national lockdown may not have been equipped for online learning due to a lack of resources.

The industrial revolution, a steady process of change that started in the eighteenth century, has been characterised as presenting different phases. The fourth phase (4IR), which signals an unprecedented convergence of physical, digital and biological spheres into technological forces, is transforming jobs faster than employees can adapt, and setting the base for a different kind of skill. Hence, everyone, including arts and design educators, are asking similar questions about its potential challenges and opportunities in their fields, particularly in the African universities of technology that place emphasis on career-directed courses.

Keeping participants anonymous is a core principle in research ethics and accepted as international best practice. In this paper, we consider ways of improving the ethical quality of visual communication research in the ‘new normal’ situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we use an argumentative discourse approach to discuss issues and concerns surrounding anonymity from a principlist perspective. The first section provides an orientation on international best practices and core research ethics principles. The second section reflects on South African research ethics committees, their functions, and the poor fit between a health research-orientated approach and research in art and design departments.

The 2020 South African Presidential Commission on the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) presented five development pillars for the South African 4IR strategy, with the People and Skills pillar emphasising the role of the education sector in South Africa’s successful global participation in the 4IR. The report identifies a lack of soft skills such as creativity and problem solving in new graduates, adversely affecting their work-preparedness and employability. The World Economic Forum’s 15 top skills for 2025 also placed soft skills as the top six future workplace skills. Tertiary educators have the opportunity and responsibility to prepare graduates for this shift to the 4IR-workplace by developing soft skills relevant to their discipline.

Klaus Schwab defines the word "revolution" to convey the "abrupt" and "radical" change, which brought about the first, second, third and fourth industrial revolutions. Schwab explains that the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) will transform the way humans communicate, socially connect, function day to day and operate their jobs. The 4IR is not only about technology; its fundamental difference is due to these technologies combining: as a result, the physical, digital and biological spheres overlap.

This paper aims to propose and motivate further research in the sphere of Interior Design education in a private college environment in South Africa. The study focuses on finding strategies that motivate for student-staff partnership and collaborative learning in the theory subject of Critical Studies (CS) within a hybrid/online learning environment. The discussion takes the reader on a journey of analysis and discussion starting with traditional method of education and alternative pedagogies; the value of critical thinking skills in the twenty-first century and research based-education. The emphasis is on Critical Theory in Higher Education (HE) as a valuable drive in stimulating self-reflection that produces graduates that are contributing members to our society.

The purpose of this paper is to publish research findings on the use of automation and artificial intelligence as a sub-set of knowledge management domains in architectural organisations in South Africa. Automation and artificial intelligence are two aspects that the fourth industrial revolution deals with, and automation may drastically change the way humans work.

For this paper, research data was collected by means of a qualitative research study. Consisting of 14 semi-structured interviews. The paper presents a discussion and research on the use of automation and artificial intelligence in the service architectural organisations provide.