Mind the Gap: A Collaborative Competence E-learning Model between University and Industry

Abstract

This article departure from the effects that inter-organizational collaboration brings for the participating partners, specifically from design-related activities of e-learning courses and co-production. The research focus is on critical factors for inter-organizational collaborative e-learning and co-production between university and industry. We describe the process of a six-year longitudinal collaborative action research project including six cases and three phases, initialization, implementation and dissemination. The analysis is conducted from a multi-stakeholder perspective; managers, teachers, and practitioners. Overall aim is to reach for a sustainable collaborative competence e-learning model (CCeM) that will increase industrial employees’ competences. Main contribution is that co-production of knowledge entails three levels of activities among actors; to have insight into the purposes and practices of others, the capacity to transform the problems of a practice and together build common knowledge and finally the capacity of mutually co-produce knowledge acted upon in practice towards transformations in the workplace.