This chapter outlines challenges and opportunities for teachers in higher education in their design work of e-learning courses targeting practitioner’s competence development of production technology knowledge. Teachers are challenged to develop up-to-date learning material and digitize learning tasks such as virtual labs and machine-related cases that align to workplace knowledge needs. Design work used for campus education is argued to be insufficient to meet e-learning education while targeting industry competence requirements. Teachers and practitioners are in a transformative process when they engage in mutual design work that both encompass a new e-learning situation, and a new target group of experienced practitioners and workplace demands within smart manufacturing. The theoretical concept knotworking, is applied to shed light on the complexity of designing courses for work-integrated e-learning aiming to enhance professional competences. Knotworking refers to tying, untying, and retying together seemingly separate threads of activity. Based on a longitudinal competence development project, this chapter analyzes considerations of an e-learning design practice through the knotworking concept for understanding learning and practices across professional boundaries.
Part of the book: E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century