Opening-up higher education. A case study

OER-Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2002), OEP-Open Educational Practices (OPAL (Ehlers, 2013) and MOOC-Massive Open Online Courses (Siemens, 2008) set the basis to discuss the value of opening up higher education, taking into consideration the potential impact of open institutional models, in line with the new challenges that universities are facing in the knowledge society. However, every university has to find its own way to set up open education in order to produce effective and quality transformation towards an open learning culture. In this paper, a case study from the Italian (and European) context is discussed. After a brief review of the line of actions developed to introduce Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in pedagogical practices, and a discussion of the difficulties and obstacles to the full engagement of both academics and students in spite of the widespread availability of technology enhanced learning, some comments are offered on the need of ,a bottom-up approach and pedagogical principles for successfully engage people and institutions in open learning culture. Finally, a strategy of intervention will be presented that takes into account the role of professional communities of practices and the provision of tools as key for the generation of “hubs of excellence for openness” which in time could have progressive and systematic impact on the institutional model.