Geotechnical engineering education in Italy: a survey

The paper presents the results of a survey of the current state of practice for teaching geotechnical engineering subjects at Universities in Italy. The main aims of the survey are the followings: compare strategies for teaching geotechnical engineering topics; identify common core geotechnical curricula for civil, environmental and land management engineering degrees. The survey, which refers to the Academic Year 2012/2013, was conducted by means of a purposefully-designed questionnaire filled by one reference person for each Italian University where at least one full-time professor in geotechnical engineering is employed. The questionnaire comprises two sections: 1) brief description of the educational offer in geotechnical engineering within bachelor and master degrees; 2) detailed description of the programme of all the geotechnical engineering courses listed in the previous section. The results of the survey are used to conduct a comparative analysis of the main characteristics of the geotechnical engineering courses currently offered in the different Italian universities. In particular, the following issues are investigated: relationship between type of degree and course offerings in geotechnical engineering (i.e. number of credits); homogeneity of course offerings across Italy; comparison of names, number of credits and programmes of analogous courses.