Introduction In collaboration with five Swedish universities of technology, Prevent has produced an online course in English, based on the textbook ‘Work and technology on human terms’ to be used as a modern, highly accessible study material. The purpose is to contribute to safer and healthier workplaces and to improve organisational performance.

The online course targets students at universities who are pursuing degrees in engineering, economics or human relations as well as professionals holding equivalent university degrees.

Methods The production of the online course was organised in a project managed by Prevent and a producer in collaboration with lecturers and researchers at the five universities.

Results The online course was available in August 2017 at www.onhumanterms.org. It’s free of charge, held in English and covers subjects as; Human-Technology-System, Psycho-social and organisational environment, Physical environment, Information and interaction in technical systems, Methods and design processes, and Economic and legal conditions (in Sweden). It also contains workplace cases for practical application of the theory.

Theory and theoretical models are presented using animations supported by interviews with experts and researchers active in the various disciplines. The content is closely linked to different types of businesses, as reflected by company reports and interviews with product developers, managers and safety representatives.

The user is free to start and finish the online course independently of others. The course comprises totally approximately 20 hours of study and the user will get a certificate after finishing the complete course including knowledge tests.

Conclusion A comprehensive and scientifically based work environment online course has been developed and made available on internet free of charge. Prerequisites have been a co-operative project management and broad participation from Swedish universities, an online course producer and Prevent, owned by the parties of the Swedish labour market and providing knowledge for improved work environment.