Located in central Milan, Università Bocconi, founded in 1902, was the first Italian university to grant a degree in economics. Recognized as one of Europe’s leading institutions in business and economic education, Bocconi grants B.S., M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees, offers numerous executive courses and customized Masters, conducting them both in English and Italian language, in addition to a range of full double degrees, at both undergraduate and graduate level. A research university of international standing in business, economics, and law, whose research projects are funded by national and supranational institutions, Bocconi has played a leading role in Italy’s social and economic modernization. By remaining true to its founding values of being a major research university, democratic and open to the world, as well as financially and politically independent, Bocconi contributes to the advancement of European higher education by teaching business and economic knowledge to prospective managers and researchers from all over the world.
The University has been ranked among the top 20 best business schools in the world by The Wall Street Journal international rankings, thanks to its M.B.A. program which placed 17th in the world in 2007 in terms of graduate recruitment preference by major multinational companies. In 2003, Forbes ranked Bocconi as the 7th-best business school outside of North America and in 2005 Forbes named Bocconi 1st in the World for “Value for Money.”
Since its inception, Bocconi has stood for liberalism, pluralism, and social and economic progress. While a private institution, Bocconi has traditionally been more than an elite university. It has consistently promoted and practiced equality of opportunity among its many generations of students, by actively subsidizing the education of disadvantaged students. And to remain on top, Bocconi turned to Wimba to reach students and staff throughout Italy.
A couple of years ago Bocconi’s Public Administration Department offered an adult education programme for high schools teachers working in south Italy. The programme reached nearly 250 persons from 110 schools divided in eight local groups. The Department needed to teach its teachers how to use the features and functionality its virtual learning environment, Blackboard, and also needed to explain a variety of other documents during these seminars. And since it was difficult to get its geographically dispersed staff from throughout the region to the actual campus, they realized they could do all of this teaching and demonstrating easily via Wimba Classroom.
“We used Wimba at Bocconi for a blended course for 250 teachers of south of Italy,” says Luciana Castellini, Project Tutor. “First we used it in order to train our tutors. Most of them lived in the south of Italy very far from Milan and it was not possible to meet them frequently.”
Wimba Classroom was received very positively because Bocconi’s staff was able to quickly learn how to use Blackboard even though they were taking these seminars online from their homes and offices all throughout Italy. So now that Bocconi was comfortable with Wimba Classroom, it decided to expand its usage.
According to Bocconi, Wimba allows students to:
- Feel like members of a community
- Keep in closer contact with their instructors and classmates
- Exchange opinions and ideas
- Clarify doubts
- Build relationships with tutors and instructors
“Later, we also used Wimba with our students to support their online activities,” Castellini says. Castellini, along with Project Coordinator Gianmaria Battaglia and Project Tutor Clea De Luca, used Wimba Classroom to ensure students understood their tasks, to answer their questions, and to virtually meet each other in order to problem-solve and share ideas. Every week the Public Administration team organized a live session of tutorship. In fact, they even recorded their live sessions so that everyone could listen to them afterwards for review.
As those who regularly use Wimba know, its simple and intuitive interface makes it very easy to utilize, even for those who aren’t very technologically savvy. Bocconi saw this as well. “It’s not difficult to use Wimba so our instructors easily became familiar with it. They just needed to try it one time before the lesson.”
Battaglia noted that the Wimba Wizard – Wimba’s self-check troubleshooting tool – has also been very valuable because it allows her users to test their systems beforehand. “The important thing was that everything worked well during the first check [Microphone, headphones, webcam, connection, file upload]. Then we support them during the presentation in order to manage the participants, answer their requests, and solve technical problems.
As with most new technologies, there were some users at Bocconi who had initial hesitations, but many found ways to quickly overcome their fears. “Some of them were not used to talking with a virtual audience without seeing any facial expressions,” De Luca recalls. “But they asked questions more frequently such as: Is everything clear?, Any doubts?, Do I have to repeat?”
Using Wimba Classroom for online meetings and instructions has also taught its staff a few tips about instructional design principles. They’ve found that they need concentrate on speaking clearly and slowly while not taking long pauses. But they find making these simple adjustments helps keep their students’ attention.
“At the beginning, instructors were afraid about this technology, but thanks to our support they enjoy this instrument,” Castellini says, contently.
“Wimba has changed the way we communicate with and support students during their courses,” Castellini says. “Students could ask questions to more than one teacher at the same time, the presenter could create a more human atmosphere, and Wimba helped us to schedule activities and respect deadlines. People who were not used to speaking in public during the lessons felt at ease with Wimba and all the staff have appreciated this instrument and are going to use Wimba more frequently.”