QEEE-WORKSHOP

A workshop for QEEE (Quality Enhancement in Engineering Education) Coordinators was held on 13th Dec, 2014 at IIT Madras. It was aimed at hands-on session on QEEE classroom set-up, classroom utilization, optimal audio-video set up and trouble shooting to conduct smooth live classes. Ashwani Kumar represented Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida at the QEEE Workshop.

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Chairman-QEEE, IIT Madras welcomed all the coordinators and had a brief introduction session with them.

Prof. Jhunjhunwala said that QEEE’s “Direct to Student (D2S)” program has completed two phases of implementation across institutions in India. In the first phase (Jan - April 2014) QEEE saw participation from 70 colleges followed by 125 colleges in Phase II (Aug - Nov 2014). This workshop was a pre planning towards Phase III of the program starting January 2015.

He said that based on his experience of first two phases and the feedbacks received from the participating colleges he has framed several changes in Phase-III Program. It will include:

# Increased engagement between IIT faculty and the college stakeholders such as the teachers and students by having an “always on” communication channel. Also bring in interactive in – class quizzes to improve participation from students during live classes.

# Address issues of synch with respect to syllabus; since there were a large variety of colleges, parts of what was taught did not fit into the syllabus of many a colleges.

# Address issues of timetable and program calendar since several colleges felt that the course timetable was difficult to adjust within the existing college timetable.

# Address issues of depth of content; colleges had varying course coverage which led to a mismatch with respect QEEE content covered.

Prof. Jhunjhunwala said that accordingly they have redesigned the program for Phase III to:

1. Adopt a “Topic – centric” approach

Key optics from various core engineering subjects identified in collaboration with local faculty Offered as pre-packaged (digital course pack) modules comprising all background/course material to support live sessions Topic taught through 3 two-hour live sessions in total These live classes to be scheduled between 10-12 noon and 2-4 pm

2. Focus on Interaction

Discussion forums to be provided for each course for off-line interaction with IIT faculty One hour out of 6 hours per topic/module to be dedicated to problem solving 2 hour live class sessions to provide more time for live interaction In - class quizzes to be introduced during live class sessions

3. Focus on Monitoring, Diagnostics and Analytics

College “preparedness”, network status, interaction, attendance and activity to be monitored and reports to be generated for college to have an understanding of their status Student activity on digital course package to capture data regarding student log ins, download of videos, attempt of quizzes, time spent on a particular chapter/video/document etc. to be captured per student and report to be generated for the local faculty .

He said that Phase III will be rolled out from January 19th 2015 which will include the “Live Class” and “Bridge Program” modules. IIT faculty from IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IIT Madras have been finalized to deliver around 20 modules as live classes. The course on Spoken English and the Industry – Bridge series in collaboration with CII are to be delivered as Bridge Programs.

Post lunch, Mr. Srihari, QEEE System Administrator, demonstrated the method to download and install the QEEE Software. He gave a detail of the infrastructure requirements such as Server, PC, Projector, DTH, Connectivity, etc. Mr. Srihari said that during reception of live classes there will be a presentation in one screen and DTH in another screen. He asked the System Administrators to remain alert as most of the courseware will be made available for downloading during late evening hours. He also said that SMSes would be sent to them in case the institute server is not reachable at any time as well as for any re-scheduling of classes.

Mr. Srihari explained that it was necessary to synchronize the institute server with the QEEE cloud to get courses and their CoursePacks, PPTs, Lecture Notes, Quiz, Assignment, Forum, recorded lectures, calendar – schedule of the QEEE programme. Students/Local Faculty can access the available content anytime to be prepared for the session. This would minimize the internet bandwidth usage at the Institutes

Mr. Srihari said that Weekly Connectivity reports along with measured upload and download Bandwidth will also be shared with the system administrator and QEEE co-ordinator at the end of each course. The local-faculty co-ordinator will be responsible for maintaining and sharing the record of the no. of classes attended, no. of students attended, no. of students who have completed quiz and assignments during a particular course.

Institute Server application user interface will have the facility for:

# Login     # Faculty addition     # Student addition      # Course Management

The Institute Server can be used by QEEE Sys Admin, Local Faculty and the Students.

He asked the coordinators to be see to it that maximum number of students are able to utilize the opportunity of having to interact and learn from the best brains in the country.

The workshop concluded with distribution of Letter of Participation to the coordinators.