The Design Principles Database as a Means for Promoting Design-Based Research

The emergent design-based research (DBR) paradigm is often criticized for having unclear methodologies for warranting claims. This paper proposes a mechanism the Design Principles Database, which can augment claims made via DBR studies, by enabling researchers to systematically connect these claims to a network of other DBR studies. The potential of the Design Principles Database to support DBR is illustrated by analysis of a particular DBR study focused on peer-evaluation. The analysis shows three phases in which the Design Principles Database supported the researchers in the process of conducting the peer-evaluation study. In the first phase, the researchers articulated design principles based on a literature review and contributed these principles to the database. In the second stage, they designed a peerevaluation activity based on these principles, enacted and revised the peer-evaluation activity in a three-iteration study. In the third phase, they incorporated the lessons they learned through these iterations back to the database. The analysis of this process indicates that the Design Principles Database can contribute to the development of theory on one hand, and to design practice on the other.