The International Telematic University UNINETTUNO signed in February the constituent charter of the global Consortium for the Quality of Online Universities at the opening ceremony of the Innovation Arabia Conference organised in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).

This consortium aims to establish specific criteria allowing identifying, in scientific terms, the quality benchmarks on which the structures and systems for online universities on a global level must be based.

Among the founding members of this consortium are the Association of the Arab Universities, the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities, the Asian Association of the Open Universities, the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the Commonwealth of Learning, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University of Dubai.

During the ceremony of the signature of the constituent charter, the Rector of UNINETTUNO, Maria Amata Garito explained that “as it happens with the fight against fake news, it is high time to create a movement to fight against fake education in the Internet. Every day, new online universities and new Internet-based teaching courses are created. However, clear information on teaching methodologies, psycho-pedagogic models, names and curricula of those authoring the contents are lacking”. “As members of the international scientific and academic community, we have an obligation to protect both the students from fake online education as well as the academic world, the reputation of the true online universities that are growing more at global level and are more characterizing themselves as a winning model of the University of the XXI Century”, Garito concluded.