Modularisation as a Key Success Factor for Academia–Industry Collaboration

Abstract

In 2013, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences started the training programme “Academic Trainer in Railway Services”. This innovative programme consists of two streams in which pedagogical skills, rail-related topics and interpersonal skills are trained. The target group of the programme are workplace trainers in railway companies. The initiative for the programme came from a railway company that identified a need for those skills and for such a programme. The course was started and was successful in the end. While planning the next courses, it became obvious that attendance during the course hours will be a very difficult if not unmanageable task for the participants. Therefore, it was necessary to find new ways to integrate course lessons into daily working lives. The solution presented here is modularisation and flexible design of courses, which seems to be imperative in an academia–industry collaboration.