Online Teaching in Higher Education with the Support of Start@Unito During Covid-19 Pandemic

Online teaching, open online courses, and higher education form a close union of elements that orbit around the same objective: enhancing students’ tertiary education quality. This entanglement has been emphasized by the new educational needs that arose during the recent Covid-19 crisis since many schools and universities worldwide shut down. Teaching paradigms usually undergo stepby- step changes, but sometimes, after a global event, the development is major and relevant. In this framework, the start@unito experience at the University of Turin appears as a useful model to shift didactics into an online setting. Start@unito is a Digital Learning Environment that promotes 50 Open Online Courses related to the main first-year disciplines. This paper analyzes the start@unito model from the teachers’ perspective to understand howmuch teachingwas facilitated through this experience. Data will be deeply investigated using quantitative and qualitative measures. Results also contain teachers’ comments and remarks on their approach to students through start@unito.