Teaching and Learning Centers and Coordinated Technologies for an Effective Transition at COVID-19 Pandemic Time to Massive Distance Learning and Online Exams

In higher education two key factors for achieving resilience during an emergency are the presence of a teaching and learning center, in charge of supervising all the switchover activities and providing daily assistance to lecturers and students, and the adoption of a variety of technological tools, each with a specific purpose but used in a coordinated way. In this paper we illustrate the rapid transition in the second half of the academic year 2019/2020 to massive distance learning and online exams guided by the teaching and learning center of the University of Urbino. The toolset featured the learning management system Moodle and the webconference tool Blackboard Collaborate, both employed for online lectures and oral exams, together with the e-proctoring tool Smowl for computer monitoring and the webconference tool Google Meet used on students smartphones for environmental monitoring, additionally employed for online written exams. We finally present the outcome of a survey of students opinions on massive distance learning.