Start@unito as Open Educational Practice in Higher Education

Open Educational Practices mainly refer to the use of Open Educational Resources, the adoption of innovative pedagogical models, and educators and learners’ engagement in both formal and non-formal learning settings (Cronin & MacLaren, 2018; Koseoglu & Bozkurt, 2018). There are many experiences of open education context all over the world, and international organizations are redefining concepts of education that contribute to a change of perspective (UNESCO, 2019). In the context of open education, start@unito is an experience that delivers 50 open online courses in a Digital Learning Environment. Moreover, start@unito teaching practices are devoted to improving actual and prospective university students’ learning and training, using innovative methodologies, like automatic formative assessment and adaptive teaching and learning, and technology, with advanced tools connected via an integrated system. This research analyzes the model of start@unito to show that it falls under the Open Educational Practices. The analysis compares the pedagogical strategies and evaluates adherence to the international OpenEdu Framework (Inamorato dos Santos et al., 2016). Quantitative and qualitative data promote the positivity of the start@unito experience. This research will show how such a model can improve OEP because of some of its peculiarities, such as the continuous availability and the use of adaptive methodologies.