Abstract

Introduction

The problem we faced when designing the NETTUNO teaching model was to create a distance education structure that, while meeting the educational needs of students, would take account both of the evolution and development of information technology and the results of educational psychology that form the theoretical basis for implementing the process of distance learning.

The proposed distance university model is based on the idea that distance teaching should originate within traditional universities, which have to reorganise in order provide an adequate response to the qualitative and quantitative needs for education and the demand for flexibility, diversification and internationalisation of teaching-learning processes.

The NETTUNO experience shows that the university can meet this challenge, thanks to the research and teaching functions that have always characterised its objectives. In fact, in the NETTUNO project the university plays a leading role in innovation, providing new contents and new models for communicating knowledge, based on the new technologies and new organisational systems. The universities have not only ensured the flexibility of the whole process but also given it quality and freedom. In order to carry out their tasks, the universities joined together to create new organisational models parallel to, but totally different from, the traditional ones.