The Scholars' Avenue

The NPTEL project began in 1999-2003 with suggestions from Carnegie-Mellon University. The aim was to address the discrepancy in standards of teaching in engineering colleges across India. In a number of colleges, the qualifications of educators is not high enough to appropriately deal with the syllabus. Such faculty can be trained by exposure to online content on subjects prepared by IIT/IISc professors. Free to all, the video lectures and web content can be accessed via the NPTEL site and YouTube among other sources. They can also be freely downloaded from IITM’s server, to facilitate which mirror sites are being set up. Hard copies can also be ordered for a nominal price. 125 courses have been prepared under Phase 1 of the project, with many more in line as part of Phase 2. The courses are designed as per AICTE curriculum.
NPTEL workshops are conducted for faculty from nearby engineering colleges, from where informal feedback and suggestion is also received. User traffic analysis indicates that corporations too have been viewing the lectures. And of course, there are students who view them to supplement courses they are taking or through interest.

To coordinate efforts across the contributing colleges, a hierarchy exists, with a Programme Implementation Committee at the top level, followed by NPTEL Coordinators at the institute level and finally, Discipline Coordinators for each department. Which courses are to be filmed may be decided on the basis of repute. They could also be the result of collaboration between colleges or with the industry (examples are courses under Naval Architecture). Recording at IIT Kharagpur is done at the Center for Education Technology. Currently in SD, there will soon be a shift to HD. The videos are edited online, and some graphics, video clips, animation, question answers may be added later. Each video course also has a website where quiz and question answers are dealt with.

Apart from the valuable resource of easily available lectures, one can ask if and how e-Learning can be further promoted. The practice is common in the corporate world to train employees and has been successfully implemented in countries like Australia and Sweden. Of the two major blocks to online education, one is the lack of laboratory components. To meet this need, virtual laboratories are being developed. Take the case of a first-year electrical technology laboratory. The idea is to provide users with software platforms to perform simulated experiments. They may subsequently also seek opportunities at the institute to perform some hands-on experiments. The other difficulty is the testing necessary to award any certification. It’s relevant to mention here the ElNet-3L (Electronically Networked Life Long Learning) programme under IIT Kharagpur that functioned some 10 years back. 120 centers across the country were part of this off-campus distance education model. In order to attend, an entrance test was required. The selected would view videotaped lectures in the presence of a facilitator (trained by IITKgp). In this way, personal contact and group learning were incorporated. Finally, after an exam requiring the organizational effort of a mini-JEE, certificates were awarded. Around 20,000 took the programme, but it became complicated to continue with a demand to open more centers. This is one of the models that could be drawn upon to achieve the final aim of the larger education programme NPTEL is a part of, which can be said to be a virtual IIT, with diplomas offered with the help of online tools.