US varsity keen on campus in India

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| Last year, the institute sent a three-person team from its textile engineering, school of business administration, and science and health department to study the market potential and feasibility. |
| "There is great potential for courses from our science and health department, like disaster medicine management, besides the regular textile engineering and business administration programmes," said McGee. |
| Meanwhile, the university has signed an MoU with Tenable Learning Solutions for a certificate programme in instructional design in e-learning. |
| This will be a 12-week virtual training programme offered under the guidance of Philadelphia University's faculty. The pilot for the programme will be launched in September with 25 students in Hyderabad. |
| Depending on the success, the course would be offered to three batches in a year, regularly in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. |
| The initial fees for the course would be $3,000. This is 50 per cent of the actual course fees at University of Philadelphia. |
| "We would bring the fees down to $1,500 in the next one year once we achieve more automation," said C V Chandrashekhar, chief executive officer, Tenable Learning Solutions. "At the end of the programme, the students will get a certificate," he added. |
| There are over 60 e-learning companies in India employing over 5,000 professionals. "India has quality programming skills. But in e-learning applications, the projects executed here are not upto the mark due to the poor communication skills," said McGee. |
| However, "The lack of communication skills does not mean a problem in the understanding of English by the programmer, but of training in instructional design," clarified McGee adding that the course will bridge the gap by imparting instructional design education. |
First Published: Jul 23 2007 | 12:00 AM IST