Italy from Re.ViCa

Partners situated in Italy:

• International Telematic University UNINETTUNO

The International Telematic University UNINETTUNO - U.T.I.U., recognised with Ministerial Decree of the 15th April 2005, is the Italian partner of the Re.Vica Project and has its headquarters in Rome (Italy). The U.T.I.U includes also Technological Poles, facilities at the students’ disposal located both in Italy and abroad, equipped with all the technologies needed to attend distance education courses, participate in training activities by videoconferencing and which represent a true meeting place to host face-to-face exams and meetings and seminars with professors and tutors as well. The Technological Poles put at the students’ disposal technologies, courses educational materials, free access to high-speed Internet; several Technological Poles, connected to each other by transmitting and receiving satellite dishes, are operational both in Italy and abroad The International Technological Poles are:

• The Technological Pole at Helwan University campus (Cairo)
• The Technological Pole at the Secretariat of State for Vocational Training of Morocco
• The Technological Pole of “Don Bosco” Institute in Cairo
• The Technological Pole at Tunis Virtual University - UVT

The National Technological Poles are:

• The Technological Pole of Imola
• The Technological Pole of Palermo
• The Technological Pole of the University of “Roma Tre”
• The Technological Pole of Sorrento
• The Technological Pole of Naples
• The Technological Pole at the “Misericordia” of Viareggio
• The Technological Pole at the Politecnico di Torino

In these last months new Technological Poles are being implemented in order to widen and enhance U.T.I.U.’s network.

Country in a nutshell

Italy is a parliamentary republic. The State’s republican set-up was established by the referendum of the 2nd June 1946 by which the Italian people abolished monarchy in favour of Republic. The Constitution of the Republic is the fundamental and founding law of the Italian Republic. It was approved by the Constituent Assembly on the 22nd December 1947, promulgated by the Interim Head of State, Enrico De Nicola, on the 27th December 1947 and came into force on the 1st January 1948. It consists of the Republic’s fundamental principles, the rights and duties of the citizens and lays down the organisation of the Republic also as it regards the national education system.

The Italian population is 59.715.627 (source: ISTAT, 2007) and the per-capita GDP is about 27,000 euro per year. Italy extends from the southern side of the Alps’ arc and stretches out to the Mediterranean Sea; its territory includes also Sardinia and Sicily, two large islands, beside a range of smaller islands. The sea at the Eastern side of the peninsula is the Adriatic Sea, at Southeast there is the Ionian Sea; at the West, along the entire peninsula, there is the Tyrrhenian Sea, whereas in the Northwest of the peninsula there is the Ligurian Sea. From a geographical viewpoint Italy’s regions are divided into: northern regions (Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Emilia-Romagna); the central regions (Tuscany, Marche, Umbria, Latium, Abruzzo); the southern regions (Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria) and the islands (Sicily and Sardinia).

Administrative division

The President of the Republic is the State highest charge and he represents national unity. He is appointed every seven years by the Parliament, convened in a joint sitting, integrated by the regional representatives. He does not have a policy-making role, nevertheless the Constitution entrusts him legislative, executive and judicial functions. In periods of political stability his role is actually limited to representative and monitoring functions. However, the powers conferred to him by the Constitution make the role of the President of the Republic get more importance in situations of political instability or of institutional drift of the State.

The State legislative power is entrusted to a bicameral Parliament composed of the Chamber of Deputies (630 Deputies) and of the Senate of the Republic (315 Senators elected, plus the life Senators). Both houses are elected by universal suffrage (at present, the electoral law provides for the allocation of the sieges among the candidates of different blocked competitive lists in proportion with the votes obtained, with a majority bonus assuring the governability to the most voted coalition lists). In Italy is in force a perfect bicameralism: the Houses have the same functions and the same powers. A law has to be approved, in its same text, by both Houses. In case of contrast between the Houses the law is not approved. As a consequence, the electoral laws of the two Houses are quite similar in order to avoid that differences in policy-making paralyse the Parliament. This system was conceived in order to have a higher balance of the decision-makers in approving the laws. The Houses hold office for 5 years, but the President of the Republic can dismiss them in before the term office.

The executive power is held by the Government, which, according to art. 92, paragraph 1 of the Constitution, comprises two distinct bodies: the President of the Council of Ministers, the Ministers and the Council of Ministers consisting in the union of the above-mentioned bodies. The Ministers are responsible on an individual basis of the acts of their offices and, on a collegial basis, of the acts of the Council of Ministers. The President of the Council directs the Government’s policy, but in the framework of the Council he is primus inter pares among his colleagues. However, if he resigns, the entire Government resigns The President of the Republic, further to consultations with the main political leaders, appoints the President of the Council and, upon proposal of this last one, the Ministers. After taking office, the Government shall present itself to the Parliament and obtain confidence vote by both Houses. Since the Ministers cannot be revoked, sometimes. in order to force them to resign, each Chamber votes for no confidence for an individual minister.

The Magistrates exercises the judiciary power (both the inquiring and the judging one and it is an autonomous and independent body from any other power. The ordinary Magistrates have the jurisdictional function (see jurisdiction entry), which they govern in the name of the people. The Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (the Higher Council of the Magistrates), elected for one third of its members by the Parliament in joint sitting and for two thirds by all Magistrates is chaired by rights by the President of the Republic and has self-governing tasks of the Magistrates.

Country education policy

The Italian State is the main provider of financial support for the school. In 2006 it invested a bit less than 47 billions euro, corresponding to 82.5% of the public expenditure for the education sector (Source: SISTAN - Sistema Statistico Nazionale - "LA SCUOLA IN CIFRE 2007” - Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 2008). Local Agencies follow with less than 8 billions (13,5%) and the Regions with approximately 2.2 billions euro (3,9%). In 2006 public intervention in favour of the school system was about more than 57 billions euro by an increase of 11% in real terms compared to 2005 (Tab. 1.1.1). The general incidence on GDP is about 3.8% compared to 3.5% of the previous year (+0.3% rate). The trend of the 1997-2006 decade shows an overall variation of a +0.2% rate of expenditure of the GDP, even if, within this period, some years were caracterised by considerable drops (1997, 1998, 2002, 2004). One has to remember that the increase had last year includes also the salary increase for the school personnel of the last economic two-year period 2004-2005 (Source: SISTAN - Sistema Statistico Nazionale - "LA SCUOLA IN CIFRE 2007” - Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 2008).

Country education system

The reform of the Italian school underway affects the entire Italian Educational and Training System. One of the most evident aspects of the reformed school system in compliance with the change specified in Chapter 5 of the Second Part of the Constitution, is the emphasis put on the autonomy of the individual school institutions and the introduction of the subsidiarity principle and decentralisation by the assigning to the Regions exclusive or competitive skills as it regards education and training. Compulsory education (up to 18 year-old) can be completed according to educational and training (also integrated) pathways within the school system and the education and vocational training system.

The school education system is structured according to a cycle including:

• Non compulsory, three-year nursery school;
• Compulsory, five-year primary school;
• Compulsory, three-year first level secondary school.

This cycle ends with a final exam and once passed it is possible to enter the second cycle of the secondary school.

The second cycle of compulsory school is characterised by the right-duty to education and vocational training that lasts for at least 12 years or, anyway, up to the attainment of a qualification by the age of eighteen. There are two kinds of educational offers: the system of the licei (secondary schools) and the system of vocational training and education. They are two profiles that contribute to a single final profile, but that differentiate to meet the needs and the kind of study the young woman/man wishes to devote her/himself.

The system of the licei envisaged by the act of reform of the education system is composed of liceo classico (high school specialising in humanities), liceo scientifico (high school specialising in sciences), liceo linguistico (high school specialising in languages) and liceo artistico (high school specialising in arts) – that is to say already known high schools – and in the new licei: the economics one, the musical one and dance (education to dance) one, the technological one and human sciences one.

The education and vocational training system falls under the authority of the Regions, even if the regulations required to establish the minimum educational standards and the spendability of the professional qualifications at national level and also for the shift from the training to the school paths, are established by the Government in agreement with State-Regions-Towns Unified Conference and of Local Autonomies. That is the reason why in Italy the vocational training paths are significantly diversified and mainly linked to the economic and peculiar characters of the territories (tourism, for instance).

In Italy, the diploma obtained at the end of the education and vocational training path, as well as the completion of the fourth year of the secondary school, entitles the student to access to high technical education and training courses which represent a specialised path which is parallel to the university one, aimed at preparing highly specialised and professional executives. The rules also envisage other modes to facilitate the shift from one system to the other by the acknowledgement of education and training credits.

Higher education

In Italy the higher education system can boast a pre-eminence of unparalleled intellectual and historic value thanks to the fact that in the city of Bologna was established the Alma Mater Studiorum, considered as the most ancient university of the western world. The date of its establishment is uncertain and during the Nineteenth Century 1088 has been agreed on by a Committee of historians, lead by Giosuè Carducci, an important Italian poet and writer, to celebrate its eight-hundredth anniversary.

A sure date is 1158, when King Frederick 1st Hohenstaufen (named as Barbarossa) promulgated the “Costitutio Habita”, further to which the University became a place where research work developed independently from any other power. The presence of many foreign students in Bologna led to the creation of associations, named as "universitates", that gathered the students with the aim to defend their rights.

Such origins assure to the Italian university system solid cultural foundations and an exceptional rooting to the territory. In the national social structure the need to have prestigious and qualified scientists is deeply felt. Even if choosing an academic career represents a very hard commitment, many are the young Italians who are keen to start a career as university researcher and as academician.

Universities in Country

In Italy there are state and non state (that is to say private ones) universities as well, legally recognised and authorised, by deliberation that are legally binding, to bear the title of university or university institution and to deliver academic titles linked to the university system, having the same legal value as those issued by the state universities.

In Italy there are 58 state universities:

1. University of Bari
2. University of Basilicata
3. University of Bergamo
4. Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna
5. University of Brescia
6. University of Cagliari
7. University of Calabria
8. University of Camerino
9. University of Cassino
10. University of Catania
11. University of Catanzaro "Magna Græcia"
12. University of Chieti and Pescara
13. University of Ferrara
14. University of Firenze
15. University of Foggia
16. University of Genova
17. University of Insubria - Varese
18. University of L'Aquila
19. Polytechnic University of Marche (ex University of Ancona)
20. University of Macerata
21. University of Messina
22. University of Milano
23. University of Milano - Bicocca
24. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
25. University of Molise
26. University of Naples "Federico II"
27. University of Naples "L'Orientale" (former Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples)
28. University of Naples "Parthenope" (former Istituto universitario Navale)
29. Second University of Naples
30. University of Padua
31. University of Palermo
32. University of Parma
33. University of Pavia
34. University of Perugia -
35. University for Foreigners of Perugia
36. University of Piemonte Orientale Amedeo Avogadro
37. University of Pisa (ex University of Pisa)
38. University of Reggio Calabria "Mediterranea"
39. University for Foreigners of Reggio Calabria "Dante Alighieri"
40. University of Rome "La Sapienza"
41. University of Rome Tor Vergata
42. University of Rome Tre
43. University of Salento (ex University of Lecce)
44. University of Salerno
45. University of Sannio - Benevento
46. University of Sassari
47. University of Siena
48. University of Foreigners of Siena
49. University of Teramo - Avezzano
50. University of Torino
51. University of Trento - Rovereto
52. University of Trieste
53. University of Tuscia - Viterbo
54. University of Udine
55. University of Urbino "Carlo Bo"
56. University Ca' Foscari of Venice
57. University Iuav of Venice (ex Iuav University, ex IUAV - Istituto universitario di architettura of Venice)
58. University of Verona

In Italy there are many non state universities and can by divided into private universities and blended universities, that is to say non-state, but having a public character, since they were promoted by territorial boards (regions, provinces, municipalities) or by foundations, consortia or agencies directly depending on them.

Non-state universities promoted by public bodies:

1. Libera università degli studi non statale legalmente riconosciuta della Sicilia centrale Kore
2. Libera università di Bolzano
3. Università della Valle d'Aosta

Non-state universities promoted by private bodies:

1. Libera università degli studi San Pio V - Rome
2. Libera università di lingue & comunicazione Iulm (former IULM - Istituto universitario di lingue moderne) - Milan, Feltre
3. LUISS - Libera università internazionale degli studi sociali "Guido Carli" - Rome
4. LUM - Libera università mediterranea "Jean Monnet" - Casamassima
5. LUMSA - Libera università Maria SS. Assunta (former Istituto universitario Maria Ss. Assunta) - Rome, Gubbio, Mussomeli, Palermo, Taranto
6. University Carlo Cattaneo LIUC (ex Libero istituto universitario "Carlo Cattaneo" - LIUC) - Castellanza
7. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Milan, Rome, Brescia, Campobasso, Piacenza, Cremona
8. Università Campus bio-medico of Rome - Rome
9. Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi - Milan
10. Università degli studi Suor Orsola Benincasa (ex Istituto universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa of Naples, former Istituto universitario di magistero pareggiato femminile "Suor Orsola Benincasa") - Naples, Pomigliano d'Arco, Salerno
11. Università di Scienze Gastronomiche Bra, Colorno
12. Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele - Milan, Cesano Maderno
13. Università Europea of Rome

Higher education reform

In Italy’s recent history the university system has been affected by significant reforms started already with the appearance of the Republic during the first after-war period, when the rigid system imposed by Fascism was reformed and was sanctioned the right to university autonomy granted by art. 33 of the Constitution (published on the 27th December 1947) recognising to higher cultural institutions, universities and academic the right to give themselves autonomous rules.

A second important phase of reforms of the organisation of the Italian universities took place at the beginning of the Sixties with Maranini-Miglio project of reform, implemented in 1969 and whose organisational format was left mostly unchanged up to the new cycle of reforms starting at the beginning of the Nineties and going on between the two millennia.

The phase of renewal of beginning Nineties represent a veritable divide among the university system know up to that time and the developments produced with the opening to the new multimedia systems for higher education. By the Law n° 341 of the 19th November 1990, was realised the “Reform of the University Educational Rules”, by means of which were launched significant innovations as it regarded the universities educational autonomies, the teaching and research personnel, tutoring and scientific-disciplinary sectors. More specifically, it was art. 11, paragraph 3 of the Law n° 341 that had a deep impact on the university system and that states:

<<In the framework of the university development plan and taking into account the universities’ proposals deliberated by the concerned bodies, it can be envisaged a financial support to initiatives of distance university education implemented by the universities also in the form of consortia and with the cooperation of other public and private agencies, and also to national research programmes and structures linked to the same sector. These structures can be established by decree of the Minister of the University and Scientific and Technological Research in agreement with the Treasury Minister >>.

Consortia between traditional universities and companies enable the creation of distance teaching system based on the didactic modes of traditional universities allowing to:

• make the places where knowledge is created through research work coincide with those where it transferred through teaching, that is to say University successfully meeting the education qualitative needs;
• improve educational offers;
• enhance educational productivity;
• give a consistent support to graduate and undergraduate courses having high-rates of students and to the newly established ones;
• bring nearer the world of education to the production one, starting up cooperation relationships during their designing phase and during the course delivery as well matching theory to practice. In other words, it is possible to directly connect trainers to users to better meet the strategically important need for continuous vocational training for human resources.

The Consortium structure, supplying experience from several universities located in the national territory allows for selecting high-level quality teaching staff and educational subjects and contents as well, since it can make its choices among a higher and more diversified range than a single university or local or regional consortia can do. In addition, Consortia can be developed also at European and international level and thanks to the enlargement of computer-based networks and to the new technologies the best universities can offer to everybody, in an open and democratic way, the teachings of the best scientists, intellectuals and masters of the world. We shall be able to build in a virtual way the model of university that gave birth to the European culture: the medieval university. In the medieval universities, curricula were common; students did not belong to a single university, but they could attend courses in all existing universities; in order to follow the lessons of the best professors, the moved from one site to another facing wearying travels on foot or riding a horse to attend a course on law at the University of Bologna or a course on theology at the University of Paris, where one of the most loved masters of the times delivered his courses, Saint Thomas. Masters too travelled from one site to another; actually they were called “wandering scholars”; the universities contended for the best ones since their presence gave prestige and power, but above all because they attracted masses of students and youths.

Today the physical displacement of professors and students can be virtually replaced by the new technologies that allow for the mobility of ideas. Therefore, the student can listen to the lessons of the most renowned masters of the world while they sit on their sofa at home. Virtual university can allow professors and student of several universities of the world interact, it can globalise culture and knowledge and can actually rapidly meet the real needs for internationalising university educational systems to prepare for the professional skills required by the new production systems, that are also characterised by trends toward the internationalisation and integration of the markets. By the end of the Nineties, a strong drive for transforming university toward a “European model” was given by the reform introducing the Universities’ autonomy. It is the Law nr. 127 of the 15th May 1997, enforced by the Decree of the Minister of the University and Scientific and Technological Research n° 509 of the 3rd November 1999, by which the study courses were redesigned introducing the so-called “3+2” structure, based on the Anglo-American model. The aim was that of harmonising all the European educational systems by inter-governmental treaties concerning the homogenisation of university cycles according the “3+2” structure, an aim established by the Sorbonne agreement undersigned in 1998 among Italy, France, Germany and United Kingdom and with the Bologna agreement of 1999 with the other countries members and satellite countries.

In Italy, this important reform was implemented during the 2000/2001 academic year. It envisages a structuring of the university courses into three cycles:

I. First cycle

It includes university Degree Courses (DCs) and first-level Master’s Courses (1UMCs). The university degree courses aim at granting the students an adequate mastery of general scientific contents and methods and the acquisition of specific vocational knowledge. The access minimal requirement is a secondary school diploma or equivalent foreign title; admission can be subject to the check of further requirements. The DCs last three years. In order to get a degree the student shall acquire 180 ECTS credits.

The 1UMCs are scientific specialisation or life-long and continuous high level training to which one can access if he has a University Degree or an equivalent foreign title; admission can by subject to the check of further requirements. Duration is one year, minimum; to get a first-level university master’s course one has to have acquired 60 credits at least.

II. Second cycle

The second-cycle studies include: 1) Magisterial Degree Courses (MDCs); 2) First-level Specialisation Courses (1SCs); 3) Second-level University Master’s Courses (2UMCs). The aim of the MDCs consists in supplying the student an advanced-level training to carry on highly qualified activities in specific sectors.

Access to MDCs is subject to the possession of a university degree course or an equivalent foreign titles; the studies lasts two years; the Specialisation Degree is delivered to the students who acquired 300 ECTS credits in total, including those obtained with the Degree and recognised as valid for the Specialisation Degree (max. 180). In order to get a Specialisation Degree it is required to prepare an original final dissertation.

A few SCs, regulated by EU directives (SCs in Medicine and Surgery, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry and Dental Prosthesis, Pharmacy, Architecture) have as access requirement the secondary school diploma and a admission test; these study courses last 5 years (6 for Medicine and Surgery).

The SC1s aim at supplying the knowledge and skills for exercising highly qualified professional activities; they can be established only in application of specific Italian laws or EU directives. It is possible to access to them with a university degree or equivalent foreign title; admission is subject to passing a competition; in order to get a 1SC one has to have acquired between 300 and 360 credits, including those obtained with University Degree and considered valid for the 1SC. Therefore, the duration of 1SC is comprised between 2 and 3 years.

The 2UMCs are scientific specialisation courses or continuous and life-long higher education courses to which it is possible to access if one has a Specialisation University Degree or an equivalent foreign title; admission can be subject on the possession of further requirements. The minimal duration is one year; in order to get a 2nd Level University Master’ Course title it is necessary to have acquired 60 ECTS credits at least.

III. Third cycle

The third study cycle include: 1) Research Doctorate Courses (PhDCs); 2) Second-Level Specialisation Courses (2SCs); 3) Second-Level University Master’s Courses (2UMCs).

The PhDCs’ aim is to that of acquiring a correct methodology for scientific research or very high-level professional skills; they can envisage specific didactic methodologies, such as the use of new technologies, study periods abroad, internships in research laboratories. It is possible to access them with a Specialisation University Degree or an equivalent foreign title; admission is subject to passing a competition, the minimum duration is 3 years at least; at the end one gets a PhD.

The 2SCs aim at supplying knowledge and skills to perform highly qualified professional activities; they can be implemented only in application of specific Italian laws or EU directives. In order to access them it is required a Specialisation Degree or an equivalent foreign title; admission is subject to passing a competition; duration is generally one year, excepting the 2SCs in Medicine, whose duration can be up to five years maximum.

The Bologna Process

1999 Bologna Process represents an important phase of the harmonisation path of the higher education systems at European level. In short, the objectives of the Bologna Declaration are:

• Creation of a European Higher Education Area
• Worldwide promotion of the European Education System
• Harmonisation of the European University Systems

The Bologna Process is a European-level reform process aiming at realising a European Area for Higher Education by 2010. At present there are 45 countries involved with the support of a few international organisations. It’s a big effort towards the convergence of the university systems of the participating countries that is directly involving the European institutions and their components. The aim is that by 2010 the higher education systems of the European countries and the single institutions be organised in such a way as to grant:

• transparency and readability of the educational paths and or the study titles
• concrete possibility for the students and graduates to easily continue their studies or find a job in another European country
• a higher attractiveness level for European higher education for non-European countries’ citizens
• supply of wider range of knowledge to assure Europe’s economic and social development

This Process is not based on an international treaty that has a binding character for the governments of different countries. Even if the concerned ministers have undersigned many documents of different kind, each country – and the relative academic community – freely and voluntarily joins the agreed on principles, urged only by the wish to attain a shared objective. In addition, the process does not aim at homogenising the European education systems, but it pursues the preservation of their diversities, even if in a common framework; it engages to create bridges among countries and different education systems, preserving at the same their specificities.

At national level the Process sees the involvement of the Government, of the Conference of the Rectors and of the Students’ organisations. Main adjustment modes were adopted such as: the study credit systems – on the ECTS model, the two-cycle system and the quality assurance system.

Quality assurance

In Italy it is envisaged that in each University an Internal Evaluation System dealing with the administrative management system, with educational and research activities, measures aimed at promoting the right to study, is established. The University Evaluation Committee that is granted a certain level of operational autonomy and the right to access to all the necessary information carries out the Universities evaluation activities.

In order to evaluate and assure the high quality standards to the Italian university system, in compliance with the Law n° 370/1999 it was established a National Committee for the Evaluation of the University System. This Committee is an institutional body of the Ministry of the University and Scientific and Technological Research having the tasks of: establish the general criteria to evaluate university activities; prepare an annual report on the evaluation of the university system; promote experimentation, the application and spreading of evaluation methodologies and practices; identify the nature of the information and data that the boards of evaluation of the universities are required to transmit; implement an annual plan of external evaluations of the universities’ or of the individual training structures; carry on technical evaluations based on the proposals of new state and non state university institutions in view of the authorisation to issuing titles having legal value; prepare reports on the implementation status and on the planning results; prepare studies and documents on the situation of higher education, on the implementation of the right to study and on access to university study courses; prepare studies and documentations for establishing the criteria of allocation of the share of readjustment of the fund for university ordinary funding; carry on consulting, preliminary, evaluation activities; identify standards, parameters and technical rules, also as it regards the universities’ specific activities and projects and proposal presented by these ones to be transmitted to the Minister.

The Committee is an independent body that interacts autonomously with the Universities and with the Ministry. Therefore, it has a technical-administrative secretariat, a specific item of expenses in the Ministry budget and can entrust to groups of experts, bodies or specialised companies the carrying out of research work and studies.

Country's HEIs in the information society

(From the article “The University for the New Market of Knowledge”, by Maria Amata Garito, ITU TELECOM AMERICA 2000, Rio de Janeiro, 2000)

New communication technologies greatly increase access to knowledge. Telecommunication networks, satellite television, Internet and virtual reality modify processes of communicating knowledge as well as their acquisition. Widespread channels have been created which offer new possibilities for a fully democratic access to training and education. This new potential marks the passage from an information society to a cognitive society. We are going through a social and cultural revolution which challenges traditional, institutional models of schools and universities. Training courses now available due to new technologies allow for the acquisition of knowledge and skills outside traditional educational facilities. Anyone can learn through telecommunication networks. Faced with these processes for change which increasingly characterize this phase of transformation, educational institutions must constantly innovate subject content, reorganize curricula, decide on new development policies tied to the requirements of a flexible, international job market. At the university level, it is clear that there is a need for university education to carry out a new function, that of continuing education and of developing the instruments and mechanisms necessary to do this.

What attracts individuals today to higher level continuing education courses is not the same as in the period after World War II, when further training allowed one to be promoted to a higher level of the production chain. Nowadays the aim is to rapidly gain specialized skills which will allow one to find a new type of job in a changing system. This requires universities to be able to impart knowledge "just in-time", in constant flux, which they were not set up to do. Apart from changes in contents, it is necessary to rethink teaching and learning models and methods due to the profound modification which new technologies have brought to the new ways of transmitting knowledge. The university, an institution which for years has satisfied the need for higher education, must therefore find new strategies which allow it to respond to new situations and reach new users if it wants to maintain a role fitting to its tradition and potential in cultural and social development.

If universities do not face this challenge, they risk following the same path they did concerning research. In the post-war period, most European universities lost their role as principal producers of knowledge. Applied research was developed mainly in public research institutes and in large industrial plants provided with prestigious laboratories which were often financed by national governments. Research was oriented to the development of products responding to market demands. The sometimes negative consequences of this process are evident.

Going back to education, it is necessary to note that today there are many agencies outside the university which have set up advanced training facilities and organized their own distance teaching systems based on the utilization of new teaching technologies. An analysis of contents and psychopedagogical models of these training courses make it clear, however, that in many cases training endeavors are not oriented towards developing knowledge and skills in a critical and problematic way. Thus we have within the information society the development of an extended and open educational and training system with considerable potential but containing high risks as well.

As far as traditional educational facilities are concerned, there is the risk of progressive decay if no profound changes take place. If universities want to maintain a key role in transmitting knowledge they must:

• pinpoint new policies of intervention to respond adequately to training needs through an increase in flexibility;
• redefine their functions to compete in a new context and in the new environment of the information society;
• modify the professional role of teachers;
• compare the parallel and separate programs they have been developing.

In other words, in universities there should be a mechanism for transferring innovation which is comparable in commitment and breadth to what takes place when new technologies are introduced into an enterprise, changing the facilities, production processes and professional skills. Industrial production models have all evolved into new flexible models as a consequence of the use of new technologies. The same evolution should take place in the training system; the rigid division of training paths should be abandoned for a more open and flexible system.

This is the challenge which all educational institutions must face. Universities can successfully respond to this challenge thanks to some of their distinct features: the fact that they are both research and teaching centers can play a key role in order to define new means and ways of communicating knowledge using new information and telecommunication technologies to activate new, flexible, diversified teaching and learning processes. And they can carry this out guaranteeing both quality and freedom in the training process, thanks to the strength of their traditions and independence.

The framework outlined above includes the transformations being brought about and the experience being developed in the construction of new models. It is happening within single universities and between different universities through cooperation programs. In the latter case there is greater potential for planning and creating innovations, starting from the process of involving more than one campus in a common project.

Information society strategy

In Italy, as anticipated in the previous paragraphs, further to the approval of the law n° 341/1990 on the restructuring of the university didactic rule (university autonomy), public-private consortia were established for distance teaching universities. Further to this law, in April 2005 the “Moratti-Stanca” Decree about “the criteria and procedures for accrediting distance education courses of the state and non state universities and of higher education institutions enables to issue academic titles, was enacted”.

This act, commonly called the “Moratti-Stanca” Decree, since it was enacted by the then Minister of Education, University and Research, Ms Letizia Moratti, with the then Minister for Innovation and Technologies, Mr. Lucio Stanca, concretely implements the institution of the telematic universities, authorised to issue academic titles.

In Italy distance education courses are established and implemented by state and non state universities and make use of computer-based and telematic technologies in accordance with the technical requirements indicated by the “Moratti-Stanca” Decree. These universities have to be organised “according to the most advanced computer-based and telematic technologies and are aimed at issuing academic titles envisage by laws currently in force”. The academic titles “can be issued by university institutions promoted by public and private bodies and acknowledge according to the criteria and procedures envisaged by the Decree”. There are specific rules as it regards the acknowledgement of study courses. More specifically, it is envisaged a Charter of Services that envisages a didactic methodology and the conclusion of a specific contract with the student. The distance education courses are characterised, as stated in the Decree: “by the use of web-based connections for the use of training materials and the development of educational activiteis based on the interactivity with teachers-tutors and with the other students, by the use of PC , by the continuous monitoring of the learning progress according to the selective and rigourous criteria envisaged to assure the quality of the courses and the reliability of the educational offer […] "The didactic organisation of the distance education courses valorises potentials of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at the highest degree and more specifically as it regards multimediality and interactivity in order to favour customised study paths and to optimise learning”.

Starting from the 16th April 2003 in Italy too it is possible to get a distance university degree through the use of the most advanced multimedia computer-based technologies applied to e-Learning. There are many motivations indicated by Ministers Morattia and Stanca to support this Decree:

1. Distance University allows to extend university training to the whole span of life (lifelong learning) reaching segments of the population who, for many reasons, are unable to access to higher education, such as students-workers, elderly people, the sick and the weak and disadvantaged individuals.
2. This provisions allows realising an Italian university that is able to valorise Italian cultural and national specificities worldwide.
3. 'e-learning is a useful tool to enhance the links between university and the world of labour since it promotes the participation of private bodies that benefit form the experience made by business management, retraining employees by using then education tools.
4. Thanks to technological innovation it is possible to dramatically decrease the costs needed to get a degree make university actually accessible to many people.

Virtual initiatives in HE

The situation we had in Italy can be better understood if one takes into due account the recent history of distance higher education initiatives and the experience of renewal we had beginning Nineties with the Law n° 341/1990. The “Reform of the University Didactic Rules” that was started up caused the appearance of new higher education multimedia systems whose achievements only Consorzio NETTUNO, in which 12,000 students were enrolled, seemed to be able to build on. With the “Moratti-Stanca” Decree of April 2003, which we referred to in the previous paragraph, it was established that the Minister of the University could acknowledge the establishment of new telematic universities by decree. Starting from 2004 it acknowledged 11 universities as a whole. The path undertaken by the Italian legislator was full of initiatives, even if not all of them were up to the undertaking. Actually, not all the telematic universities acknowledged by ministerial decree were able of carrying on proposals for distance education complying with the standards set a national level.

Therefore, one has to point out that, among the officially acknowledged telematic universities, only a few are able of being fully and satisfactorily operational. In addition, the final implementation path of all acknowledged telematic universities has not been completed. In fact, the law provides for that all telematic universities undergo an extraordinary evaluation procedure by the National Committee for the Evaluation of the University System. At the end of the third academic year of activities and after the fifth year, the Committee should evaluate the results obtained by the telematic university also on the basis of the annual reports submitted by the University Board of Evaluation. The check involves also the appropriateness requirements of the computer and telematic infrastructures of the telematic universities (actual requirements of the computer-based e-Learning platform and its capacity to actually deliver what is provided for by the Charter of Services; availability of appropriate resources for the maintenance and update of the system during time; consistency between the scaling of the compute resources and the existing users; etc.) The checks made by the National Committee are a crucial moment that could even imply the revocation of the acknowledgement with consequent closing down of the telematic university. For this reason too, it is impossible to surely establish which telematic universities will last in Italian scene in the next few years.

Currently, the telematic universities recognised by Ministerial Decree are:

1. International Telematic University UNINETTUNO - established with Ministerial Decree of 15 April 2005;
2. Università Telematica TEL.M.A. - established with Ministerial Decree of 7 May 2004;
3. Università Telematica e-Campus - established with Ministerial Decree of 30 January 2006;
4. Università Telematica Pegaso – established with Ministerial Decree of 20 April 2006;
5. Università Telematica Leonardo da Vinci - established with Ministerial Decree of 16 November 2004;
6. Università Telematica Marconi - established with Ministerial Decree of 1 March 2004;
7. Università Telematica Giustino Fortunato - established with Ministerial Decree of 13 April 2006;
8. Università Telematica delle Scienze Umane UniSu - established with Ministerial Decree of 10 May 2006;
9. Università Telematica Internazionale Unitel - established with Ministerial Decree of 8 May 2006;
10. Università Telematica Universitas Mercatorum - established with Ministerial Decree of 17 May 2006;
11. Università Telematica “Italian University Line” - established with Ministerial Decree of 2 December 2005.

Major E-learning initiatives in Italy

In Italy there is an atypical situation compared with any other country which lead to a substantial scientific and didactic contents preminence of the NETTUNO System compared to that of the other recently established telematic universities. Therefore, in Italy the two main e-Learning initiatves actually operating by distance education high standards are basically two ones: Consorzio NETTUNO and the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO – U.T.I.U.. Consorzio NETTUNO was established in 1992 to put into effect article 11 of the Law n° 341 of the 19 November 1990, the “Reform of the University Didactic Rules”. Being born as non-profit association, promoted by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, Consorzio NETTUNO gathered Universities and companies with the aim of realising Distance University Courses.

From that time onwards, the Italian university system will not have been the same. With NETTUNO model the places where teaching takes place are no longer only universities’ lecture halls, but also real and virtual places: private homes, workplaces, study centres; anybody, with no limits of space and time, can attend university in actual democratic way. The students’ feedback was ready and higher than expectations and so was the support from the most prestigious Italian and foreign university teachers who gave their contributions by recording videolessons of the highest academic and educational value. Consorzio NETTUNO’s success lies in the quality of the higher education courses supplied and, above all, on the Psycho-pedagogic and Didactic model utilised for producine all videolessons. This Model, designed through the research work carried out by Prof. Maria Amata Garito, full professor of Teaching and Learning Technologies at the Psychology Faculty of the University of Rome “La Sapienza”.

From Consorzio NETTUNO’s experience was born the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO - UTIU, established by the Ministerial Decree of the 15 April 2005, logic and natural follow-up of the the use of information tecnologies in the field of distance education. As it clearly appears, UTIU benefits from the know-how acquired during over fifteen years of practice in the framework of Consorzio NETTUNO.

It being understood that this is the situation, below we introduce some of those that can be considered as the most important e-Learning initiatives in Italy:

1. Consorzio NETTUNO
2. International Telematic University UNINETTUNO
3. Università Pegaso
4. Università Marconi
5. Università e-Campus

1. Consorzio NETTUNO

Consorzio NETTUNO was established in 1992 and it included three universities and five companies, in compliance with the law on didactic university rules of the 19 November 1990, n° 341, thanks to which in Italy distance university can count on an institutional reference framework. This law gives the university the opportunity to develop a new training model that is characterised by the implementation of first-level university diploma and also by the enrichment of the training processes modes. Actually, article 11, paragraph 3 provides that distance teaching is included among the distinctive didactic modes used by the universities.

The model proposed by the Italian law is grounded on the idea that distance teaching should be based on the universities’ peculiar functions with the aim of enhancing their higher education offer in framework which is inspired by autonomy and which is open to the flexibility of the initiatives undertaken. The choice is motivated by the belief that university, an istitution basically aimed at advanced level education, can be enabled to play a still crucial role also as it regards the new training needs and the new environment where they are deemed to develop. Consorzio NETTUNO, as organisational and structural mode, adopted the form of a consortium of traditional universities and companies and, as teaching-learning system, was based on a massive use of communication technologies already mature and available on the market at low costs.

The consortium was born in 1992 and included three universiteis and five companies. In only three years we passed from three to twenty-four universities: Politecnico di Bari, Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino an the Universities of L'Aquila, Bologna, Camerino, Cassino, Florence, Genoa, Lecce, Milan, Modena, Naples "Federico II", Seconda Università of Naples, Padua, Parma, Pisa, Rome Tor Vergata, Salerno, Siena, Turin, Trento, Trieste, Viterbo "La Tuscia" and companies such as: Telecom Italia, IRI, RAI, CONFINDUSTRIA and also eleven Technological Poles.

The consortium’s general objectives were:

• creating an area fore education and training with characters of high quality, great capacity of innovation both in terms of contents and methods;
• offer an educational service eliminating space and time limits at the users’ advantage and favour the access and participation both on an individual and group basis;
• use the telecommunication highways, built by means of satellite, cable TV, computer-based and telematich networks and multimedia and hypermedia products to establish new links between the university and industry and new teaching/learning processes or new evaluation systems.
• use technologies as new tools to promote the creation of new educational products, new distance teaching institutional models and new communication and interaction models among individuals having different cultures;
• launch research programmes allowing to identify suitable methodologies also with the purpose of using in more satisfactorily way the ressources provided by a rapidly evolvine technology.

More specifically, Consorzio NETTUNO aims at realising a distance teaching model refuting the ideas of mass production and industrialisation of the training process and valuing the availability of equal educational opportunities to all types of students. The educational practice is characterised by the high quality of the teaching that is delivered by the best university teachers who are fully responsible for the distance teaching-learning process since distance teaching is actually based on traditional universities’ institutional functions. Distance university students enrol to the same course, broadly speaking, they follow the same programme, they are supporte by the same teachers, the take the same exams and get the same title as the face-to-face students. It is the same teaching body that usually share their time between internal and external students. As it regards distance students the professors perform all the tasks envisaged for in-campus students besides other ones that are more specifically related to the distance education teacher. It is up to the distance professor to design and prepare the lessons to be delivered on the screen and prepare the materials supplementing the videolesson, such as texts and software, answers to the questions asked to the distance students, exercises made both on a face-to-face basis and telematically using ISDN networks and INTERNET connections, assessments and final exams. All these activities are coordinate among professors belonging not to only one university, but of all universities members of the consortium. This is surely the most innovative component since it allows to involve the professors that are most open to innovate and the best teachers into a collegial educational project. From the organisational and structural viewpoint, the project upon which Consorzio NETTUNO is based relies on structures that, year after year, keep on evolving their model and organisation.

These structures are: the National Centre, the Technological Poles, the Workstations “at home”, the University Technological Centres and the Supplying Universities. Beside individual students, distance education courses are addressed to companies’ staff and in particular to those operatine in the fields of telecommunications, computer science, consumer electronics who are located in geographical areas that are close to the partner universities’s sites. This way companies have the possibility not only to meet the educational needs and/or retraining needs of their staff, but also to offer their staff the chance to continue their university studies to get an academic title that could be used also for carreer development purposes. At their own sites or in premises located in the nearby, companies can set up an area equipped to receive, video record, archive and consult remotely delivered courses supplied with computer/telematic workstations to comunicate with the Universities and Technological Poles. Currently, three technological Poles have been set up at the following companies’ sites: ALENIA, in Naples, ILVA , in Taranto, IVECO, in Turin.

Qualitative results achieved

Consorzio NETTUNO’s history is a success story that can be checked, first of all, against the figures that since 1993 up to now demonstrate as the Consortium has developped for the benefit of of people, increasing its enrolments, for the benefit of the development of some geographic areas, setting up new Technological Poles, for the benefit of distance education, increasing the number of videolessons recorded and the technologies used to spread it.

The significant objectives achieved on the qualitative level can be briefly reported as follows:

• Valorisation of the cultural and scientific assets available in the Italian Universities;
• Enhancement of the didactics resulting from the experimentation of new languages and new technologies, with the consequent positive impact also on traditional didactic activities carried out by the professors also in their academic sites;
• Select teachers by co-opting them according to the scientific and academic achievements;
• Innovation produced within traditional universities in structures such as Technological Poles and by educational methodologies and technologies put at the teachers’ and students’ disposal. In addition, the training activity carried out in the Technological Poles located in traditional universities allows fully respecting Universities’ autonomy that, even if the authorised to deliver distance courses at national level, have the possibility to customise also distance education offer also thanks to the fact that the Tutors, selected among their own teaching staff, and the exams teachers can customise their paths according to the study pathways provided by the own Faculties;

In addition NETTUNO organisational structure allowed to:

• Put at the partner universities’ s disposal services, as those ones offered by the Internet site and by RAI NETTUNO SAT 2 satellite television channel allowing partner universities to support educational offer, putting at the students’ disposal training paths to be performed according to both face-to-face and distance education modes and to enhance their international profile since NETTUNO television channels has a geographic coverage that embrace all Europe and the Mediterranean Countries as well;
• Assure a high qualitative standard both as it regards the teaching staff and the issues and learning contents since they have at their disposal the experience supplied by the different partner Universities;
• Supply the Universities with full-comprehensive distance teaching courses and also individual didactic modules that can be exploited with the least organisational, economic and above all bureaucratic procedure compared to the implementation of traditional courses;

In the following table are included the main results achieved by Consorzio NETTUNO between 1993 and 2007 in comparative terms

Data related to Consorzio NETTUNO years 1993-2007

	1993	2007
Partner Universities	3 University of Naples“Federico II” Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino	43 among Italian universities, international universities and bodies
Supplying Universities	2	18
Distance teaching courses	1 University Diploma Computer Engineering and Automatics	27 University degree courses
University Technological Poles and Study Centres	2 Technological Poles	32 Poles 8 Study Centres
Students enrolled	80	9900
Graduated students in Acad. Year 2005-2007	//	Over 8000
Didactic modules	10	658
Video Professors, tutors and exam professors	20	7.000
Hours of videolessons produced	400	25.455 + 29.120 hours of Internet-based exercices
Contacts on the Internet Portal	//	Approx. 465.000 monthly
Technologies used	RAIUNO Satellite Olympus	Internet Internet via Satellite RAI NETTUNOSAT 1 RAI NETTUNOSAT 2 RAIDUE
Videolessons broadcast	2 hours per night	24 hours during the whole year on RAI NETTUNOSAT DUE
	//	187 Video courses usable online
Videolessons distributed	Vhs	Dvix and DVD
Staff employed in the poles	5	85
Staff employed in the head office	4	44 employees 44 consultants

(Source: Report on activities 2007 by Consorzio NETTUNO – 2008)

Didactic Model

The didactic activity that is carried out with distance teaching courses allows the students to benefit from services and technologies allowing to realise the synchronic model: live broadcasting of televised lessons, interactivity among students and students, professors and professors, students and professors through ISDN network, INTERNET and personal computer, and also materials, products and tools (texts, videocassettes, hypertexts, multimedia products) allowing to realise the diachronic model. In the former case the didactic model is characterised by high degree of flexibility of the educational offer enable the learners, i.e. the students, to get educational autonomy, cognitive autonomy and no limits of space/time. Consorzio NETTUNO educational activities is coordinated by the National Centre through Didactic Committees in charge of a single diploma, composed of at least 3 professors belonging to the partner universities and to the thematic areas that characterise the diploma. At present, 7 committees were established, one for each diploma plus a general coordinating committee for each thematic area.

Therefore, the didactic model, is the result of cooperation among different university contexts and, in some cases, it is the object of debate also with the business world.

The Didactic Committees identify:

• the study programme;
• the general didactic rules;
• Courses and other didactic services delivery modes;
• practical exercises and exams carrying out modes and selection of professors in charge of the video courses.

The professors, selected as responsible for specific courses, video record all lessons included in the course at the University Technological Poles, set up in the various sites. The videolessons represent one of the elements that characterise the distance teaching and learning process: “the pre-produced course”.

Each didactic module comprises 40 hours of videolessons, broadcast every night by the national television networks of RAI 1 and RAI 2, from 2 o’clock to 6:30 am and it is supplemented by 15 hours of exercises and tutoring. The tutor, besides assigning practice exercises supplementing didactics, it sets up interactive relationships among students and teachers and customised relationships, based on personal meetings at the facilities located in traditional universities (Technological Poles) and in writing by e-mail, fax, telephone, computerconferencing and videoconferencing.

The distance teaching model proposed by Consorzio NETTUNO, considers the distance system as including activities in which the student works alone and activities that making him contact other people. A blended model, therefore, that matches experience supplied by a teaching mode carried on by the new technologies and a self-learning enriched by the use of the new technologies, with moments where teaching-learning take place still in a traditional way according to a bi-directional face-to-face interaction and communication. With this model we succeed in reaching that difficult synthesis between interaction and independence.

Television in Distance Teaching

Television is used in its main function of direct shooting of reality and in this case of the university lecture, where the professors addresses an audience of students and to a virtual class, trying to stimulate them and make them feel they play an active role in the teaching-learning process, even if communication is essentially one-way. The videolesson appears as guided didactic conversation in which the professors addresses the virtual student inviting him to think and involving him also from an emotional point of view; he asks him to take notes, proposes some tests and stimulates his self-assessment asking him question about the subjects treated. The students have the possibility of submitting the exercises carried out to the professors via fax or e-mail and get an assessment of the results achieved. So doing, the teacher has also the possibility of checking the comprehension level that he has obtained through his teaching method.

The videolessons are lectures where the professor, beside transferring knowledge on given subject, leads the student towards a study and learning method and to critical reading of the exam texts; this is the reason why it is basically linked to a traditional didactic methodology even if it takes into account the fact that it uses television as communication medium. As it regards the teaching modes it is interesting to note that how the same university lesson, recorded and delivered to the student according to mainly traditional criteria, undergoes a great change in its use thanks to the use of particularly popular and mature technology: the video recorder. By means of a video recorder and DVD player the student can choose the modes and rhythms of his own learning. A video recorded lesson allows to be able to get back to unclear passages of the speech, watching again the same passage and benefiting from an explanation as many times as one wishes.

The video recorder and the DVD player allows to perform an blended form of interaction: the essentially one-directional aspect of the communication relationship between the video professor and the student at home is mediated by the possibility the student has to interrupt the lesson, to go back to the more difficult passages, to take notes stopping the pictures, to build a path of his own through the reading of one or more lessons according to the points he is most interested in. The possibilities of utilisation of video recorded lesson are, therefore, notably different from those of a traditional student ones, since this last one can follow the lessons only in real time.

Television is also used as an electronic blackboard: each user can consult the Teletext pages to know the broadcasting schedule, the recommended texts and didactic software packages and any information about Consorzio NETTUNO’s activities.

Exercises and Tutoring

Exercises and tutoring are carried out at the Technological Poles. The National Centre receives from the professors who realised the videolessons the videolessons supplementary materials such as printed materials (lecture notes, texts of exercises, software, video exercises) and it sees to making the necessary copies and to quickly deliver them to the Technological Poles located at the various universities’ campuses in order to put them at the tutors’ disposal who work as researcher and professors at the traditional universities and to the exams professors’ disposal. Every day the Technoogical Poles send to Consorzio NETTUNO all information data related to the activities, schedules and places, situated in the various sites, where exercises are carried out, tutors’ availability be contacted by phone to get support, e-mail details, the calendar of the exams. Consorzio NETTUNO collects all these information and, after having processed these data, puts them on Teletext and on the Internet to spread them.

At present, 242 tutors and 203 professors who organise the exams, besides 130 video professors, carry out practice work and tutoring activities at the Technological Poles of the various universities. The relationship between tutors and students is still an essential component in distance education system.

The tutor has to:

• motivate the student, give him his advice and encourage him;
• support and facilitate the student’s learning process whether working by himself or with other groups of students;
• check the knowledge and the skills acquired by correcting his assignments; this should be done by the tutors who have to make remarks on the students’ mistakes, giving suggestions and giving further explanations;
• assess their progress and give them a tool by means of which they can assess their condition and their needs.

The assessments of the learning progress, made also through personal meetings, represent elements that can be used more or less systematically to modify the courses on the basis of the students’ needs and wishes. Even if many people believe that the tutor should be identified only with the one who carries on practice work, that often doubles the video course, Consorzio NETTUNO tutoring model is characterised by a system that sees the tutor as the person who carries on practice work activities for most of the time in traditional universities’ classrooms. This educational option is not exclusively based on rational decisions, but it is due also to the power of tradition and to negative prejudices as it regards the applicability of dissimilar teaching-learning modes. There is not a study that proves that students studying at distance work less than the other students who do teamwork in a classroom. Some studies show that they works as well and other ones show that the work even better (Childs, 1965:81).

Many students cannot or do not want to spend their own time in face-to-face sessions: the would rather call (or write) to their tutor instead of moving; the prefer working according to their own learning rhythms by themselves. Since most of the users include working students and students who cannot attend the university, distance courses effectiveness is assessed also according to the flexibility degrees assured by the educational offer.

Personal consulting, on the tutoring line realised in Oxbridge (stimulating periods of exchange between tutor and student) and group discussions, organised and spontaneously arising possibly before the exams sessions, are preferred by the students instead of face-to-face exercises.

As shown by the 1995 Questionnaire on Quality, the Consorzio NETTUNO students proposed many solutions to enhance exercises and tutoring facilities includine: send to the student’s home exercise materials; exercises more closely linked to the exams subjects; possibilità to implement face-to-face courses scheduled in specific periods of the year for those who are unable to go to the Technological Poles; for all courses, in addition, video recorded exercises would be greatly appreciated: 75% on average of the students expressed this wish.

This last issue is particularly interesting since it confirms that the use of educational contents via video is an effective learning mode and allows affirming that it would be advisable to maintain distance teaching and learning modes not only for the more theoretical lessons, but also for study sessions that are more aimed at practical issues. In order to answer to the needs directly expressed by distance students, some professors of Consorzio NETTUNO have already realised from 10 to 12 hours of video exercises for each course that are available also on videocassette. The realisation of the video exercises is carried on by the same professor who delivered the course video lessons; he shows concrete exercises and explains the relative solutions, gives suggestions on how to solve further questions and show the virtual students the exercises to be made by oneself; in addition, some video exercises are devoted to the illustration of simulations of exam texts. Beside this kind of materials that allows to transmit the exercises also at the students’ home, technologies allowing to start up bi-directional and interactive communication relationships are being tested. More specifically: videoconferencing, telematic systems such as the ISDN network, audio-conferencing and computer-conferencing and Internet.

The video/computer-conferencing system for remote tutoring that was experimented in Consorzio NETTUNO didactics between the Technological Pole of the Polytechnic of Turin and the Technological Pole of Alessandria allowed for testing a remote tutoring system; in particular a multimedia point-to-point connection through two H320 videoconferencing stations was set up. The following services are supplied:

• video-telephone services for tutors and students’ sound and picture broadcasting;
• window-sharing services to display and share documents in electronic format;
• white board services for tutors-students interaction on documents acquired by a scanner;
• file-transfer services for document exchange.

As it regards the use of systems such as the ISDN and Internet networks the audio/video-teleconferencing is being tested through the ISDN network. Teleconferencing is realised in three sites: National Centre, at the Technological Pole at Politecnico di Torino and at the Technological Pole at the University of Naples "Federico II". This is aimed at:

• increasing interaction among professors, giving chances of meeting for the professors in charge of the courses, who are distributed over the national territory to assure the operational coordination of the Diploma;
• promoting a higher level of interaction among professors and tutors in order to assure a higher homogeneity of the didactics and fix evaluation sessions between the professor in charge of the course and the tutors who assure their support to the students at the Technological Poles;
• promoting a higher level of interaction between professors/tutors and students. This objective, in particular, envisages the organisation of exercises by the a tutor/trainer for the students located in the far-off sites and the supply of tutoring service by videoconferencing during which the tutor is at their disposal (according to a pre-established schedule).

In addition, the exams session will scheduled in such a way as to enable also the students living in far-off places to take the exams and know the exams mode in advance. Interactivity between professors and students that takes place with these systems is, of course, an interactivity that can work only among small groups. Actually, the word interactivity is often used in superficial way in distance teaching systems since the interactivity between professors and students in a distance teaching process, addressed to large masses of users, is difficult to obtain, as it is difficult to obtain in the over-crowded classrooms of traditional universities, where face-to-face teaching takes place. The situation is quite different, if distance teaching is addressed to few students, therefore to small groups to carry on guided practice work or in doctorate and specialisation basic courses.

As it regards the Internet, we realised a Website (http://www.agora.stm.it/NETTUNO) with the aim of:

• creating a database for documentation, the realisation of communication infrastructure among students, professionals and the community of Internet users;
• start up a dialogue with those who work at education and tutoring questions to keep the adopted solutions at a cutting-edge level and to be able to create international bibliographical references that is available on NETTUNO website and also virtual one, that is a set of references, links etc. related to Internet users and sites that deal with similar questions.

This natural openness to communication allows all categories of users/managers to exchange views and it also represents a basis for an auto-implementation (some sort of web-based expert system) above all for what concerns the documentation and experimentation of an interactive tutoring support.

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