The ECDL programme in Italian Universities

The European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) programme aims at testing practical skills and competences in using ICT tools. This paper presents the results of a monitoring exercise aimed at analyzing the impact of the ECDL programme in the Italian Universities. The ECDL programme, adopted in most Italian Universities since the year 2000, has involved several tens of thousands of students. Our investigation focused on the experiences of the Universities in the year 2003 and, in particular, on the organizational and teaching issues addressed for the implementation of the programme. The analysis has shown that the implementation relied on a large variety of choices about what concerns the teaching organization, the credits awarded to the students and the type of ECDL certification required. These choices varied as a function of the size of the Universities, whereas their geographical location did not seem to have any influence.