Abstract

In close co-operation with the University of Turin, Italian Armed forces (Afs) have been introducing e-learning as a training method for their personnel for some years, making extensive use of Moocs and developing progressively a specific digital education model, based on particular management characteristics, as well as on specialized personnel, able to respond to servicemen’s lifelong learning needs. Italian Afs have long been aware of the potential of digital education; in fact, after a starting up incubation period, they have embarked a gradual process of emancipation from the University model, in order to develop an autonomous framework. But how far has this process of emancipating the digital education of Italian Afs from the University model gone? If in an early stage Italian Afs leant on the University to get fully understood the dynamics and capacities of the e-learning and digital education in the Military field, by creating a hybrid training environment for their personnel, the competition between two public model of digital education, one civil (open), the other military (closed), as well as the particular training and strategic needs of the military sector, are imposing a separation of their respective governance systems of digital education, aiming to create an interforce training environment, in close collaboration with the Armed forces of the other Nato countries. This paper aims at outlining the possible developments of a new governance system of digital education, the Military one, tracing the evolution of the Italian Afs model, from the first stage of incubation into the University model, up to the progressive detachment from it