KMDI is currently involved in teaching through the Knowledge Media Design Collaborative Specialization (KMD CS). The KMD CS addresses the ways media and media technologies shape, and are shaped by, human activity. We design, build, use, evaluate, and critique the media and policies of our networked world. The KMD CS provides graduate students opportunities to collaborate with people from diverse backgrounds on interdisciplinary human-centered projects that explore the interaction between media, technology, design and society. KMD courses allow students to work with experts from across disciplinary boundaries to tackle complex socio-technical issues around the design, dissemination, preservation and interaction with knowledge systems, focusing on hands-on practices. Through experiential learning, students engage in each stage of the design thinking process – brainstorming, prototyping, and evaluation. Projects are geared towards real-world problems and give students opportunities to publish papers, deliver conference presentations, and in some cases, provide the ground work for start-up businesses.
What is a Collaborative Specialization?
Unique to U of T, the KMD Collaborative Specialization involves the cooperation of multiple graduate units (departments, centers, or institutes). In order to participate in the KMD Collaborative Specialization you must be enrolled in a graduate degree program at the University of Toronto at the graduate or doctoral level. The specialization is meant to be taken in addition or as an accompaniment to your Graduate/Doctoral degree and not as a stand alone.
Collaborative Specialization Director
Dr. Mary Elizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka was appointed as the KMD-CS Director as of July 1, 2020. Dr. Luka is Assistant Professor of Arts, Media & Culture Management and Interim Program Director, Arts Management, at the Department of Arts, Culture, Media (UTSC), with a cross-appointment at the Faculty of Information.
Dr. Luka is also an award-winning scholar, activist and digital media producer for arts, social enterprises, broadcasting and telecommunications, and creative management policy, planning and practice. She studies modes and meanings of creativity and innovation in the digital age, to investigate how arts, culture, media and civic sectors are networked together. Her research examines co-creative and collaborative production, distribution and dissemination in the intersecting fields of media, arts and culture.