Developments in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Higher Education (HE) have sparked debates regarding its potential to enhance teaching, learning, and administrative processes while raising concerns about ethical, pedagogical, and institutional implications. This qualitative case study explored faculty perceptions of GenAI through three focus groups with 17 multidisciplinary faculty members, representing non-users (NU), low-engagement users (LEU), and users (U) of GenAI. Conducted as part of a larger mixed-methods study on GenAI adoption in HE, the study employed visual metaphors and projective techniques to elicit deep-seated attitudes and beliefs that may not surface through traditional research methods. Findings revealed a spectrum of perceptions, ranging from optimism about GenAI’s potential to enhance productivity and creativity to concerns regarding autonomy, cognitive overload, dehumanisation, and ethical dilemmas. The study stresses the need for institutional policies that support faculty GenAI literacy, ethical frameworks, and discipline-specific guidance. By leveraging qualitative insights into educators’ engagement with GenAI, this research provides evidence-based recommendations for its responsible adoption into HE.

Images are central to our understanding of and learning about our world. We argue that visual training needs to be improved in the higher education system to enhance the potential of visual thinking to mediate productively our relationship with the context we inhabit. Initiatives from the social sciences and humanities since the end of the twenty century have highlighted the importance of training in visual research methods and visual literacy, but they also expose the scarcity of tools for understanding and applying images in research processes. In this paper, we examine the way visual methods were organised and employed in earlier studies and propose a new taxonomy. This classification will map these methods in an interdisciplinary framework that allows practitioners to use images in the development of projects. This proposal also seeks to inform future methodological approaches where images are recognised as a language of knowledge, analogous to numbers or linguistic expressions.

In today’s world, visual competence plays an increasingly important role. Proficiency in visual literacy is an essential competency in various fields, including marketing, design, education, and journalism. The competency to convey messages effectively, attract audiences, and promote engagement is crucial for success in these industries. At the university level, visual literacy is an essential competency for university students studying visual communication. A lack of sufficient visual literacy leads to several key challenges. Research indicates that most university students in China do not have sufficient visual literacy competencies. However, there has been a dearth of scholarly inquiry looking specifically into the visual literacy competency standards of students studying visual communication design in China despite its close association with visual literacy. The study aimed to evaluate the visual literacy competency of students majoring in visual communication design in Shanghai, China, through interviews. The interview questions utilised in this study were developed based on four visual literacy standards created by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). This study includes the competencies to determine visual materials needed, efficient image retrieval, interpret visual materials’ meanings, and evaluate image credibility when performing visual artworks. The study’s results indicate that students face difficulties in analysing and evaluating images due to their limited exploration of images related information, background, technology, and design elements. Consequently, they encounter challenges such as an inability to distinguish authenticity and judge reliability. These findings are valuable for the curriculum development of students majoring in visual communication design.

New technologies have made the world highly visual, making visual literacy an important and relevant 21st-century skill. Educators and students are often required to produce visual communication products such as infographics, but they often lack the confidence and proficiency in visual design skills to create higher-quality infographics. We conducted a case study to examine how graphic and instructional designers perform the visual design process (i.e., a series of actions performed in composing an infographic, such as creating layout and alignment) when applying visual design principles. The goal was to investigate the visual design processes and identify differences in the strategies used to develop higher versus lower quality infographics rated across 18 design criteria. We identified the design actions and computed the transitional probability between the design actions to construct a process model for composing effective infographics. Results reveal that high-rated infographics were developed using a more systematic approach, starting by creating a well-planned structure (e.g., setting margins and columns) followed by setting spatial zones to map out a visual hierarchy prior to working on fonts, colors, and graphic elements, and using a consistent application of visual rules. These target processes were encapsulated into a five-stage Infographic Visual Design Model.

Visual literacy is essential for engineers. Technological professions have important visual characterization, both in the transmission of information and problem-solving. This means that future engineers must be proficient at communicating, thinking, and learning visually. However, engineering curricula takes partially the need to have visually literate students. The VLEE project was established to develop learning resources to enhance engineers’ visual skills and abilities. VLEE recently published the ‘Visual literacy for Engineering Education Competence Framework’, which, for the first time, addresses visual literacy learning specific to engineering. Our approach offers new opportunities for engineering students, following competency-based education, and attempts to contribute to a campus-wide collaborative effort to develop students’ communication, learning, and critical thinking skills using visual materials. This guide is considered relevant for all educators and experts in engineering education in order to help them successfully tackle the challenges that future professionals will inevitably face in the 21st century.

This article introduces a new method for understanding the principlesof art and design. It combines meditation techniques, practised and conceptualized proprioceptive body experiences. Starting with a reflection on the so-called ‘sensorial turn’ and on proprioception in particular, the text offers a protocol for proprioceptive art experiences in the museum and a reflection on its theoretical foundations. The greatest advantages of the method are its inclusive nature, applicability to a broad range of artworks and art forms and its ability to overcome the mind-body dichotomy. It can be done by anyone, regardless of age or physical impairments. The approach achieves the best results in a group led by a museum guide, but individual visitors and families can use it as well, with the proper support from the museum.

This article presents a pedagogical–visual process developed in a traditional frontal-format course with a multi-identity group of students set in a large lecture hall. It examines an assignment that required students to analyze a meaningful personal photograph and connate it culturally, while internalizing visual general patterns utilizing a sharing digital forum. This activity promotes combining visual theories with relevant introspective self-expression, emphasizing multi-identities. One can relate this utilization of visual tools to Paulo Freire's approach to dialogic pedagogy, which emphasizes the relevance to learners and the shift between the personal and the cultural, helping to confront the heterogeneity of the class.

There are many examples of visual camouflage among animals, and in the military. The objective with camouflage by crypsis is to become invisible by blending in with the background or by disruption of outlines. The objective with camouflage by mimesis is to become totally ignored and unnoticed. The objective with camouflage by dazzle is to confuse the opponents. Some visual camouflage may be called cultural camouflage. Here people use disruptive pattern materials to express ideas. We may see visual deceptive camouflage as a special kind of information design.