Digital media have become indispensable to the profession. Design ideas, whether produced digitally or analogically, are shared through multiple channels on screen and in print. We believe it is critical that students become proficient in documenting and sharing their work through various media. The Kepler Review System was developed by the technical staff at NJSOA under the premise that students, faculty and the administration would benefit equally from a transparent and continuous record of student work.

Kepler is, in part, an internet-based archiving and retrieval system used to collect all student work produced in every NJSOA course each semester. In the spring of 2004, we began developing the Kepler System. After 18 months of in-house development, we beta-tested Kepler throughout the fall of 2006 and made it available to all studio-based, non-studio, and elective classes during the spring semester of 2007.

The system works by having each student - both graduate and undergraduate - upload every assignment. This requires the student to perform their own individual self-assessment and consider carefully what will constitute the record of his or her work. Kepler offers the student not only the chance to compose and post a set of final record documents of each project but to compare it in both form and content to other posted projects. This ability to compare one's work with that of their peers galvanizes students to become better designers, raising the bar on the overall quality of work produced at the NJSOA.

Kepler is also a critical self-assessment tool. The students, faculty and administration at the NJSOA are committed to improving our ability to self assess the B. Arch and M. Arch programs. We recognize that an accurate qualitative assessment of the school is founded on the study of performance evidenced in student’s completed assignments. The larger the body of evidence, the clearer the view of how the school is performing and what can be improved. With a current NJSOA population of over 800 students, Kepler provides a comprehensive collection of work upon which we can immediately evaluate teaching efficacies and pedagogical changes over the near and long-term.

Kepler continues to evolve both technically and socially. We continue to address concerns about wholesale plagiarism and have mechanisms in place to make some classes or projects secure, especially where graded tests and papers are the final product. The system also includes a number of features important to the quality of life of the NJSOA community, including event calendars, information on NJSOA activities, facilities and organizations, and open discussion forums.