The novices, including makers who relied purely on the online resources and support from their online community, were able to move on within a few weeks to making very competent folding knives, not only demonstrating the ability to make a technically functional knife but to produce knives that were innovative in their form.
One of the ideas behind this research has been the hope that it could help recapture some of the quality of the pre-industrial approach to craft skills, in which artistry and innovation were a normal feature. The industrial craft tradition in many fields of work has tended to emphasise utility and the more creative aspects of the work have devolved to professional designers. This project has shown that we can use new methods to transplant skills outside the industrial setting into the hands of people who have the motivation to innovate.
In a subsequent short research project, these methods were used to develop a learning resource to support design students in the University workshops at Sheffield Hallam. The outcome indicated that this would be a good way of taking pressure off technical and teaching staff and supporting learner autonomy.
Areas for future research include finding ways of developing learners' use of wikis as a collaborative medium. This would allow students to share ideas and learn as a group, as might be expected in a more traditional skills learning setting. There is much development in this field in informal, online learning communities and we feel they have the potential to influence the design of more formal learning environments.
In addition, we feel there are potential wider applications for this research in other practices which involve skills with a significant element of tacit knowledge. In future research we would hope to involve partners from areas such as healthcare, performance, catering, music and sport.
