MOOCS to bridge the gaps

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Since 2014 Politecnico di Milano has been developing Polimi Open Knowledge (POK), the first Italian Open EdX MOOCs portal, with the aim of contributing in bridging the gaps in learning, teaching and social contexts, opening up knowledge in a frame of social responsibility. Based on data analysis we first identified the main gaps in the different steps of our students careers, and started planning courses that would support the student for their next steps.  For prospective engineering students we provided mathematics and physics review courses, topic-specific review courses for students wishing to enroll in the master programs at Politecnico, soft skills courses for students that will be moving to the workplace. We then enlarged our vision to provide courses for teachers to learn of new teaching methodologies and to citizens to raise awareness and provide basic skills in different areas of interest and social challenges.

About the panel speaker:

Donatella Sciuto is Vice Rector of Politecnico di Milano and full professor in Computer Engineering at the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria. She is a member of the Consiglio Superiore (Board of Governors) of the Bank of Italy. She received her degree in Electronic Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a Master in Business and Administration from SDA Bocconi University.

Her main research interests cover the methodologies for the design of embedded systems and multicore systems, from the specification level down to the implementation of both the hardware and software components, including reconfigurable and adaptive systems. She has published over 250 research papers. She is a Fellow of IEEE and has been President of the IEEE Council of Electronic Design Automation until 2013.

She has been associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computers, and she is Associate editor of the Journal of Design Automation of Embedded Systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers and of the IEEE Embedded Systems Letters. She is or has been member of different program committees of electronic design automation conferences, among which: DAC, ICCAD, DATE, CODES+ISSS, CASES, DFT, FDL, PATMOS, IFIP VLSI Conference.

She is in the executive committee of the conference IEEE/ACM Design Automation and Test in Europe, for which she has been Program Chair in 2006 and General Chair in 2008. She has been General Co-Chair of ESWEEK in 2009 and 2010. She has been Program Co-Chair for the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference in 2012 and 2013. She is in the main board of the European Design Automation Association. She has coordinated and coordinates different European and National research projects. She is an expert member of the Ministry of Research and University (MIUR) in the evaluation of research and innovation projects.