In this section general design guidelines for an online course are introduced to involve multidisciplinary teams (representing a variety of water-related interests) in a learning process that entails the collaborative engineering of a unique solution for the supply of drinking water. Learning goals for online courses on drinking water solution engineering do not only include students gaining, applying and sharing domain knowledge, but represent a clear focus on multidisciplinary cooperation and system thinking, for reasons as argued above. Since we are assuming that (upcoming) professionals from different global locations will be involved in this approach, the students will have to subscribe to the course online. When they apply they should provide some background information (e.g., indicating the discipline they are affiliated with or want to learn about, and provide an indication of their current level of pre-knowledge in this field). The facilitator of the course develops a course schedule that represents the course trajectory, including e.g., course milestones and (synchronous, online) contact-moments. The teacher describes in broad terms the ways of working in the course, and his/her own role. Also, the students will be informed about the learning goals and possible assessment procedures. The teacher sets up a platform for online collaboration around case studies. How a teacher does this depends on their level of sophistication in the use of online tools, media and platforms. It is generally recommended to start working with a platform that you know and are feeling comfortable with (e.g., Skype/ Google Drive/ Dropbox/ Facebook/ Elgg, or a combination of these). For inspiration and support materials which can assist the trainer in preparing and teaching ICT-enhanced courses, teachers can consult the leading European portal called the ‘Open Discovery Space’ (ODS, www.opendiscoveryspace.eu). It offers resources (OER) to enhance training and learning (http://portal.opendiscoveryspace.eu/tr-activity/section-2-teaching-and-learning-669741) as well as many online communities established for and by teachers. The 'Inspiring Science Education' (ISE) portal (www.inspiringscience.eu) is providing similar communities, services and tools in particular for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects plus an authoring environment for re-using, designing, adapting and sharing learning scenarios and lesson plans. Both portals (ODS and ISE) are offering many selected e-learning tools, too. In addition the teacher can get inspiration, discuss ideas and find help at Cloudworks, an online social network focussed strictly on learning design. On this platform, resources, ideas and scenarios for integrating new technologies in education are discussed and shared: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/. Sometimes teachers feel like like experimenting, and there are many online communities which can help them set up platforms completely adapted to their own requirements; for instance the open educational tools of openEdX: https://open.edx.org/features-roadmap/teaching-and-learning-tools/all (it is recommended to also use the community discussion board, under ‘Getting Started’). If the teacher is comfortable with computer code, or has someone to help with this, the open EdX site offers, e.g., a tool for creating discussion experiences; https://open.edx.org/features/cohort-specific-discussion-experiences. Preparing interdisciplinary group work requires considerable thoughts and planning, because all professionals are shaped by their own traditions and have to work within well defined professional boundaries (with associated norms and working methods). They also have most often implicit assumptions about what people in the other professions do. When learning in an interdisciplinary, collaborative group these professionals should not resort defending the interests of their profession only, nor implicitly dismiss the interests of another. Exercises can be devised to encourage each professional (group) to externalise their views on the other's priorities, and state their own key roles. Common problems and comparable challenges will surely arise in these exercises. The team can then be encouraged to share their own practical techniques and methods for working with such problems. The team may arrive at naming some long-standing common difficulties and decide on their approach to devise new, practical initiatives to tackle them. The trainer will provide the multidisciplinary team with guidelines to this effect.
