Open platform of self-paced MOOCs for the continual improvement of academic guidance and knowledge strengthening in tertiary education

In the academic year 2014/2015, University of Turin started the Project Orient@mente1, aimed to support students in the transition from high school to university. Several Massive Open Online Courses have been developed to support three main actions: guidance to the University offer, automated self-testing of basic knowledge, self-paced review of fundamental disciplinary concepts learned in high school; all of them are useful to help students successfully attend scientific courses of the first year of University. A key feature of the Project is the continuous open-access to the platform. Contents are built according to educational models grown thanks to the experience and the research in e-learning carried out by the University, especially in the use of an accessible learning management system integrated with an advanced computing environment, an automated assessment system and a web conference system to enhance teaching and learning. In this paper, the adopted methodologies are discussed, the obtained results are presented and future developments are proposed in light of relevant data collected from the platform usage and feedback received by users.