Cognitive disorders, such as disorders on the autistic spectrum, Downs’s syndrome, etc. often imply significant constraints on communication between persons suffering from those, and the environment where they act. Meanwhile, governmental propositions on human rights emphasize equality concerning information, where overcoming such interaction challenges should be considered as strongly encouraged. This contribution discusses studies that have been performed towards municipalities, public institutions, and non-profit organizations, in southern Sweden. The studies aim to involve users throughout the development of an innovative concept of communication assistive software technology, by involving multiple types of users, such as: persons with disabilities, personal assistants, teachers for students with special needs, academics, and others. The studies and the resulted findings are discussed in regard to the participatory action research framework.

The core of CDIO addresses criticism from engineering industry according engineering education having too much focus on theoretical training. Here, practice, and especially integrating theory and practice, has had a peripheral role implying students not being well enough prepared for the complexity of industry’s real world problems and solutions. CDIO aims to meet that criticism through especially illuminating on project based educational forms, where sections of the, so called, CDIO Syllabus point out desired knowledge and skills that are needed to fulfil complex enough projects in engineering education. That approach not only prepares students in appropriate ways for the benefits of industry, but also increases their value of being employable. CDIO does not explicitly point out industry close work placement in education, neither in the CDIO syllabus, nor in the CDIO Standards. Still, many universities strive after work integrated learning, in purposes of, e.g., employability, and real world preparation. Experiences show problems in work integrated learning due to several reasons, such as, establishing sustainable academy–industry contacts, strategies for project ownership and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights), and guarantees according fulfillment of academic requirements on learning outcomes.

The concept of Demola relates to a platform for collaborations between academy and industry with focus on multi-disciplinary student projects. Especially focus is on innovation, where industry may experiment with new ideas at low cost. Demola has proved itself to be a successful approach, with developed templates for student-industry contracts, and process models. Still, to be an attractive choice for work integrated learning, the Demola approach also has to be clear with respect to academic contexts of courses’ learning outcomes, and course evaluations.

The aim of this contribution is to point out a set of learning outcomes in a purpose of clarifying on such set being an inherent part of Demola. That set, which is based on CDIO Syllabus, shall map towards a tool for evaluations, where the two-dimensional multi-valued tool ZEFsurvey, is chosen. Overviews and discussions will be provided, as well as test cases, and comparisons between the chosen set with the Swedish national framework for education, will be outlined in the purpose of pointing out adaptability in an international context.

Project-based educational forms are at the core of the CDIO concept, where students should be trained in contexts of complex enough tasks to prepare for the complexity of industry projects. Besides from fulfilling a project in itself, CDIO points out the importance of achieving integrated learning skills, including personal and interpersonal skills (CDIO Syllabus sections 2 and 3), where those are desired to meet the challenges of the working processes.

Projects in education moreover correspond to active learning, where students are encouraged to learn through solving the problems required to fulfill the goals of a project. Being active in the process of completing a project, does not only imply disciplinary training, but also training in achieving generic skills, such as experimentation, knowledge discovery, system thinking, teamwork, and communication. All in all, a conclusion is that student activities in project-based teaching and learning relate to all four sections of the CDIO Syllabus, and hence active learning will here contribute to integrated learning. Thus, activating students in project-based courses should have several positive values.

However, experiences show that one problem in project-based courses is that of activating a major part of a student group. Here, a common pattern is that some students are not contributing enough, resulting in other students covering up for them, or risking the whole project. Therefore, teaching efforts should be put on finding ways to widen the group of active students.

The project-based course Software Engineering 2, at Kristianstad University, Sweden, has undergone several years of improvements in order to, on one hand reduce the number of passive students, and on the other hand increase values of generic skills from the CDIO Syllabus. This paper will present development steps of that course. Methods, where some have been inspired from the Software Engineering industry, will be covered, and results of using those will be provided. A major result is that of increasing values of integrated learning, where this in itself contributes to the core of CDIO.

An important aspect of elderly people's habits can be connected to food and meal. To be able to make your own choices according good, and healthy food, even in situations of high age, and functional disabilities adds to quality of life. This contribution covers outcomes of the Active Ageing project, dealing with studies of elderly people's food situation, to be able to find suitable computer based support systems in order to provide appropriate food. Especially, background investigations will be covered, and prototype support systems will be outlined.

The  core  of  CDIO  addresses  criticism  from  engineering  industry  according engineering education having too much focus on theoretical training. Here, practice, and especially integrating theory and practice, has had a peripheral role implying students not being well enough prepared for the complexity of industry’s real world problems and solutions. CDIO aims to meet that criticism through especially illuminating on project based educational forms, where sections of the, so called, CDIO Syllabus point out desired knowledge and skills that are needed to fulfil complex enough projects in engineering education. That approach not only prepares students in appropriate ways for the benefits of industry, but also increases their value of being employable. CDIO does not explicitly point out industry close work placement in education, neither in the CDIO syllabus, nor in the CDIO Standards. Still, many universities strive after work integrated learning, in purposes of, e.g., employability, and real world preparation. Experiences show problems in work integrated learning due to several reasons, such as, establishing sustainable academy–industry contacts, strategies for project ownership and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights), and guarantees according fulfillment of academic requirements on learning outcomes.

The concept of Demola relates to a platform for collaborations between academy and industry with focus on multi-disciplinary student projects. Especially, focus is on innovation, where industry may experiment with new ideas at low cost. Demola has proved itself to be a successful approach, with developed templates for student-industry contracts, and process models. Still, to be an attractive choice for work integrated learning, the Demola approach also has to be clear with respect to academic contexts of courses’ learning outcomes, and course evaluations.

The aim of this contribution is to point out a set of learning outcomes in a purpose of clarifying on such set being an inherent part of Demola. That set, which is based on CDIO Syllabus, shall map towards a tool for evaluations, where the two-dimensional multi-valued tool ZEFsurvey, is chosen. Overviews, case studies, and discussions will be provided, where one purpose is to point out the adaptability of Demola in an international context.

Academia plays a main role in knowledge discovery and dissemination of knowledge. Amongst the fundamental reasons behind university education lies preparing students to use and contribute with that knowledge within contexts of industry, as well as society in large. We here see three types of actors, i.e., universities, students, and industry, which by several reasons all are gained by close cooperation already in university education. Quite often though we see a gap between education and possible student recruitment. Here, the value of being employable increases through work based projects supported by education. Even though we can see willingness according such kind of cooperation from both academia and industry, experiences show that there are barriers towards actually implementing this. That may in turn depend on common lack of knowledge on how to establish university-industry connections, and how to negotiate on student involvement, ownership of work, etc. Conclusions therefore show a need for an established organization that mediates between academia and industry, and that have well developed structures for project workflow, project result ownership, etc. Demola may here have that role as an award winning platform for industry driven projects with focus on students. Demola provides a win-win-win relationship between university, students, and industry, and has clear structures for cooperation between those. Experiences have shown that Demola is promising as a mediator, as well as a provider of multi-disciplinary industry close projects, where those may be plugged into educational programs in suitable ways. This contribution will provide an overview of Demola as a platform for industry close student projects. Demola may furthermore be used as a platform for research projects. Experiences will here be covered as a concrete example on a Demola student project. Moreover, learning outcomes in contexts of CDIO Syllabus, evaluations, and corresponding CDIO-standards, will be presented.

There is an urgent need to facilitate the development of more effective breastfeeding support strategies. The desired research will focus on knowledge-based service innovation that include intervention in form of computer-based training program aimed for training of health and care professionals involved in breastfeeding support. The intervention in the proposed study will contribute to more effective adoption of new knowledge in healthcare organisations. Further, the proposed project will be organised as an interdisciplinary and crosswise sectorial collaboration and will be customized at a national and international level, by involving decision-makers, researchers, health care professionals and care users. Ambition with this project is to contribute to increased breastfeeding frequency by increasing competence in professional support in related healthcare services and midwife education program. There is also an urgent need for evidence based technical solutions as a professional support for the professionals to more effectively implement new research in practice. This project will contribute health care with high quality and resource use. The overall aim for the project is to implement and evaluate new innovative solutions in order to improve long-term strategies for professional support and quality of care, related to knowledge-based breastfeeding support. The design method for the project is longitudinal randomized controlled intervention trial. The intervention will be computer-based training education program developed in collaboration with decision-makers, professionals and researchers. Data will be gained before and after intervention by using: Breastfeeding attitudes among counselling health professionals (An instrument based on WHO standards was developed to measure breastfeeding attitudes), Mother-to-infant Relation and Feelings (MIRF) scale and Mother-Perceived-Professional-Professional support (MoPPS) scale. For successful intervention, it is important that decision-makers are involved in the research process, so that suggested changes can be possible if they actively participate and encourage the project as well as the adoption of research results in practice. Involvement of stakeholders in the research demand facilitation of the research process. This can enable cooperation by using project management techniques as co-counselling and clinical reflection. The outcome of the project will be multiple may be placed in a regional, national, international or global context. Firstly, the project will contribute to development of knowledge-based professionals’ competence with focus on to support breastfeeding from first breastfeeding time, to minimise usage of infant formula during first week of life, longer exclusive- and predominant breastfeeding and stronger connection between mother and child. This topic will fit with theme Nutrition and Lactation.

The paper presents a case-study at Kristianstad University, with the focus on the Software Engineering project based course, given on the second academic year of the programmes within computer science.

This paper discusses the course design with regard to two main parts of the course: seminars and project, and how those were organized in order to facilitate student’s active learning.

The active learning here is focusing on several main factors: course design, course design and its relation to the programme, academic loop (i.e. academic loop is part of a couple of selected courses that develop student’s academical skills), seminars forms, individual feedback and course feedback, as well as documented reflections on project work.

More in deep, the paper presents examples on the pedagogical findings when it comes to seminars organization and how the changes made in the course helped to an increased student active learning. Such information includes: best practice on course design, best practice on seminars exercises, and project work. The results presented are empirical and are based on observations, as well as on a formal and informal feedback.

Moreover, the paper addresses also the theme of the importance of feedback in students’ active learning. Here, feedback is discussed in terms of: student-course instructor feedback, course instructor-student feedback, individual vs. group feedback, and peer-review.

Finally, the paper shows reflections on a two dimensional (2D) survey where the results from 2015 and 2016 are compared and discussed, in order to suggest further improvements for an increased student active learning.

The degree of students’ involvement and participation in non-examinatory parts of courses at higher level, such as lectures, is often significantly lower than in the examinatory parts. This can especially be seen in project based courses, where the main examination form is done through the application of the-ory into a practical project, rather than through a written examination. More spe-cific, this paper focuses on two such courses, from the area of software engineer-ing. The courses are given on the second, respectively third year, of the Bachelor Programme in Software Development, at Kristianstad University. These are also part of the academic loop of the programmes. Here, the lectures were replaced by seminars based teaching, with the purpose of raising the students’ degree of ac-tive- involvement and participation into the courses, ensuring a better learning quality, enabling more interaction between the groups of students, and finally fa-cilitating a higher application of the theory into the practical project. Through concrete examples, the paper will showcase the changes that were made in these two courses, with regard to the learning outcomes, the academic loop, and forma-tive examination forms, such as seminars, with the purpose of increasing the qual-ity of teaching and learning. Finally, the immediate positive effects of these changes show we need to look further on how we can find more innovative ways of teaching and learning, especially in the project based courses, in order to in-crease student’s degree of involvement and participation.