International Telematic University UNINETTUNO

Master in European Union Studies: Cultures and History, Policies and Global Perspectives

Teaching structure

The Master's degree lasts for one academic year for a total of 60 ECTS credits, divided into video lessons, seminars, Interactive Classrooms, tutorials, video conferences, and research activities. The modules are delivered by video professors, with the assistance of qualified tutors, who will follow students online in the Didactic Cyberspace during the whole training process. Each Module of the Master's Degree concludes with a final assessment test, the result of which concurs in defining the grade for admission to the discussion of the Master's Final Dissertation. The Master's Final Dissertation will be on a topic agreed upon with the teacher of the chosen subject.

The highly qualified teaching staff consists of distinguished university professors, officials from European institutions, experts, and other internationally renowned personalities.

All courses of the Master's in European Union Studies: Cultures and History, Policies, and Global Perspectives at the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO are organized in modules, which vary in duration depending on the educational credits awarded to the Module and whose delivery is repeated three times during the Academic Year.

Alongside you, to support you in your training path, there are two specific professional figures:

• The Mentor, who is in charge of your reception and will offer you support throughout the entire Master's course, listening to your needs and ensuring the best conditions for the fruitful carrying out the Learning Process;
• The Professor/Tutor, specific to each teaching, who has the task of facilitating your online learning path, providing you with the tools to profitably approach the study of the subject.

During the period of delivery of each Module, the Professor/Tutor will follow you in the course of the teaching activity, proposing ad hoc teaching materials, checking your learning progress through follow-up questions and exercises, and planning teaching interactions in Interactive Class, chat, Virtual Classroom, and Forum, which you will find on the Tutor Page in the Teaching Cyberspace.

At each course delivery, students can select the courses they wish to take, up to a maximum of three teachings per delivery. The student will immediately have all the teaching materials available for individual study for each of the Master's courses. In addition, during the periods of delivery, the student will have the support of the Professor/Tutor, who will guide him/her in the study, plan in the Agenda the teaching activities of the class, organize synchronous tutoring sessions in Interactive Class, chat and Virtual Classroom and asynchronous on the Forum.

Students are advised to start the course from the first three modules and then continue with the subsequent ones to create a cluster with other participants.

Mid-term and Final Assessment

During the delivery of the module, the Tutor carries out qualitative and quantitative learning assessments in order to constantly monitor the results of the learning progress and provide customized support to students with a view to obtaining the assessment at the end of the module.

Quantitative assessment of student participation is carried out by the Tutor on the basis of statistics related to the student's navigation in the Didactic Cyberspace, in terms of: the number of accesses and time of use of the Learning Environments, and Online Tutoring tools, number of exercises completed, and average assessment/self-evaluation.

To complement this monitoring, the Tutor checks the students' learning progress during Interactive Classroom sessions, through follow-up questions and exercises related to the topics of the Module video lessons and through discussions on the module’s Forum. At the end of the delivery period of each module, the professor/tutor organizes final review sessions through interviews and/or follow-up exercises. The outcome of the qualitative and quantitative assessment forms the basis for the implementation of targeted initiatives by the Tutor for the enhancement of learning by learners, as well as for admission to the Master's course final exam.

The final examination consists of the discussion of a paper prepared on a topic related to the courses given during the Master's lessons.

In order to obtain the Master's degree, the student must have acquired the credits prescribed by the course regulations, including those related to the final exam.

Teaching model

The training activities take place on the Internet, in the “Master” section of the portal.

The psycho-pedagogic model adopted or the Master’s Course in European Union Studies concretizes the shift:

• From the teacher’s central role to the student’s central role;
• From knowledge transfer to knowledge creation;
• From passive and competitive learning to active and collaborative learning.

The students play an active role in their learning progress and can study whenever and wherever they wish to. In the course of their learning path, the students are guided by an online tutoring system which is able to facilitate their learning and web-based communication process and to supply them with the tools to carry out their study of a specific subject successfully.

Online tutoring is organized into classes of students, through an advanced system of agenda that is able to recognize each individual and obtain the tracking of training activities and a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the learning process of each single student.

How to study

Enrolled students must follow all activities included in the Didactic Cyberspace.

Didactic Cyberspace

The Internet-based training activities take place in a web-based macro-area, which is called the Didactic Cyberspace. In the Didactic Cyberspace, the training and learning process takes place, and accesses are diversified through customized login and password depending on the role played by the different actors of the training process: Professors, Tutors, and Students. These three categories of users can access the same information regarding each module. More specifically, the Professor and Tutor can modify or replace training materials and add new ones for the whole course duration, whereas the student can dispose of an area of his own where he can include data, information, and personal notes.

The student can access to:

• The Appointed Teaching Professor’s Page;
• The Tutor’s Page.

On these pages, there are the Learning Environments where is possible to access:

• Training Materials, which represent the course contents: digitized video lessons including bookmarks allowing for hypertextual and multimedia linking to books, selected bibliographical references, texts of the exercises, and selected webographies. The system of dynamic bookmarks gives Internet-based video lessons a hypertextual character allowing different levels of navigation: from one lesson to the other one, among subjects of a single lesson, between the materials referring to the same subject.
• Distance Tutoring. The students enrolled in the Master’s course will be assisted in every step of their study path by Telematic Professors-Tutors. The Telematic Professor-Tutor represents a guide as well as a constant presence along the Learning Process.
  The distance Tutoring activities may be carried out in two ways:
• in a synchronic manner, by using chats, video-chats, video, and audio-conferencing, implemented in the Didactic Cyberspace, but also the three-dimensional classroom created on the UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge on Second Life.
• in a diachronic manner, through tools such as e-mail and discussion forums on the Internet. The discussion forums, related to the topics of a given teaching subject, enable to enlarging of dialogue trigger collaborative learning, and allow autonomous thinking on the issue being discussed and on the study activities carried on.
  • in a synchronic manner, by using chats, video-chats, video, and audio-conferencing, implemented in the Didactic Cyberspace, but also the three-dimensional classroom created on the UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge on Second Life.
  • in a diachronic manner, through tools such as e-mail and discussion forums on the Internet. The discussion forums, related to the topics of a given teaching subject, enable to enlarging of dialogue trigger collaborative learning, and allow autonomous thinking on the issue being discussed and on the study activities carried on.
• Virtual Classroom in UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge on Second Life On UNINETTUNO (International Telematic University) the Island of Knowledge a 3D lecture hall was realized and it is devoted to this master’s courses. In this environment, the students and professors/tutors’ avatars interact in the three-dimensional world of UNINETTUNO by their voices. Practice work, assessment tests, and videoconferences with the protagonists of the Master’s Course, who will be attending through their avatars, are carried out, as well as real-time practice activities guided by the professors/tutors’ avatars.

In the virtual classroom of Second Life in the UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge, the students and the professors/tutors teach and learn in a collaborative and cooperative way. They build and share knowledge with people belonging to different political, cultural, and religious settings, they dialogue, cultural differences are confronted, and socialization processes are implemented as well as the creation of new knowledge.

The Master's Course in European Union Studies: Cultures and History, Policies and Global Perspectives is designed for all students holding a Bachelor's degree who wish to enhance their specialized knowledge of the dynamics that govern the Community’s activities, particularly from a legal and administrative perspective. In addition, the Master's course is an excellent training and professional development opportunity for practitioners in NGOs, private companies, consulting firms, ministries, and other public institutions both locally, nationally, and internationally. A working knowledge of the English language is required.

• Introduction
• Module 1 - European History and Culture
• Module 2 - History, Institutions, and Protagonists of the European Union
• Module 3 - Foreign Policy of the European Union and Global Context
• Module 4 - The Global Trade Policy of the European Union
• Module 5 - The Economics of European Integration and Sustainable Development
• Module 6 - European Citizenship and Fundamental Rights in the Digital Society
• Module 7 - European Funding and Europlanning
• Final Dissertation

Thanks to the inclusion in the new edition of the module in Euro-planning, the master's degree can train new experts in this field and transfer the skills necessary to create a professional figure capable of identifying and drawing on European funding within the official programs of the European Commission.