WORKSHOP

IIT Madras organized a National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) awareness workshop for SPOC on 2nd July 2016 at IC & IR auditorium, IIT Madras. Two faculty members Ms. Prachi Agarwal and Dr. Aditi Paul represented Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida at the workshop. The objective of workshop was to take up the queries of the SPOCs and enlighten the new SPOCs who have joined the TEAM.

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a project funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), provides e-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Sciences, Technology, Management and Humanities. NPTEL is a curriculum building exercise and is directed towards providing learning materials in science and engineering by adhering to the syllabi of All India Council for Technical Education and the slightly modified curricula of major affiliating Universities. It’s lectures utilize a multitude of facilities of the video medium such as chalk - and - talk, tablet writing, power point, two and three dimensional animations, interactive codes, etc. Each course comprises approximately 40 video lectures of about 1 hour duration. An online discussion forum is incorporated wherein students can post and review questions. Wherever applicable, course assignments, handouts, self - evaluation tasks, etc. have been integrated. Workshops are routinely conducted for institutes, students, mentors, etc. under the auspices of NPTEL.

The session was inaugurated by Prof. Mangala Sunder Krishnan, National Web Course Coordinator, IIT Madras Prof. Pratap Haridoss NPTEL Coordinator, IIT, Madras started session with the data of previous runs and the statistics for the past semester. He further advised the audience of the mission and vision of the program and shared the success stories of the past semester. He welcomed the new colleges who have joined the program and assured all the necessary help and assistance from NPTEL TEAM in making this program a success. He also asserted the role and the importance of the local chapters in the execution of the program.

Prof. Andrew Thangaraj NPTEL Coordinator, IIT, Madras took over the session. He started with the appreciation for all the local chapters and the SPOCs and motivated them further to do the grooming of the students with the same perfection. He took over the audience with features of the exam and asserted the fact that it’s a proctored exam with the certificate directly from IIT and also verifiable through NASSCOM portal. He discussed the percentage required for the certification and also told about the weightage of assignments and proctored exam.

Moving further, he explained the audience the types and duration of the courses available. He also shared the past statistics about the impact of these courses and the percentage attendance in the examinations. He also shared the best practices of different colleges /universities which have adapted the NPTEL certifications in their curriculum.

Prof. Thangaraj also elaborated on the fact of how to use the NPTEL certificates. He stated that these certificates are very useful in placements and internship. NPTEL is also thinking to invite the top scorers for the internship at IIT Madras. Moving on in the same line, he told the audience about the process of establishing the exam center in their city and how to send a request to them.

Later on the session was taken over Ms. Bharathi Balaji, Senior Project Officer, NPTEL, IIT Madras She advised the audience of all the administrative requirements to be met online for the portal.

The session post mid - day was dedicated to the feedback /queries / questions of the local chapters SPOCs. We all had a very eventful interaction. All the SPOCs shared the best practices they are adopting in their respective colleges about the NPTEL TEAM. Some of the queries / feedbacks were-

1. The offline / Online mode for the question paper must be decided in advance.

2. The timings for the end exam must be changed as the female students need to travel in the evening. To this query, Andrew sir stated that the time has been kept for evening as few students need to travel in the morning from the far off places.

3. The NPTEL courses must be recognized by all the colleges / universities to be a part of their curriculum.

4. The difficulty level of the course must be analyzed before selection of any course to generate the maximum impact factor. 5. The emphasis must be given on the quality of students and not quantity.

After grabbing all the feedbacks and discussion, the NPTEL Awareness Workshop ended with the Vote of Thanks by Ms. Kamala Ramakrishnan, Facilitator, NPTEL IIT, Madras.

Some Glimpses: