Instructional design to “train the trainers”: the start@unito project at the university of Turin

Online learning has become essential in higher education. In order to follow the best practices in education and innovation and provide quality of online courses, careful and thorough instructional design is necessary. In this research we analyze the instructional design methods employed and focus on the training of the professors and grant holders who created and developed the 50 open online courses in a variety of disciplines developed in the start@unito project, a recent enterprise of the University of Turin with the aim of bridging the gap between secondary and higher education and provide open online courses that can be accessed anytime anywhere. The data gathered from the questionnaires given to the grant holders before and after the training show encouraging results as far as the effectiveness of our instructional method is concerned. At the same time, though, they reveal a lack and a disparity of technical, pedagogical and linguistic competences, which in turn require tailored and individualized support. In light of the feedback received, we conclude by envisaging possible improvements and further research, in order to understand what can be done to perfect the instructional design of an ever-expanding project.