IITs, IISc mull certificates for online courses

NPTEL would send a proposal in this regard to HRD ministry soon

If the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, have their way, those registering for online courses under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) would soon be given certificates.

Meant to benefit students, faculty members and working professionals alike, NPTEL is a joint venture by seven IITs - Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee - and the IISc. The programme offers web and video-based course material for basic sciences, engineering and humanities. It was started along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare programme.

"We are on our way to completing the second phase of the project. Under NPTEL, we are exploring the possibilities of offering certificates to online web and video course users. Currently, there is no compulsion or motivation for students and professionals to learn through NPTEL. Certificates could be an incentive," says Kushal Sen, NPTEL coordinator at IIT-Delhi.

Discussions are underway to decide which entity would offer the certificates. "The certificate could come from NPTEL or IITs, or even from an industry consortium, making users employable. Once the discussions are over, NPTEL would send a proposal to MHRD (ministry for human resource development) soon," says Sen.

Launched in 2007, the programme introduced engineering courses on Google and YouTube in the first phase. During this phase, NPTEL had developed 260 courses, available online for 4,500 hours, free of charge. The course material (both web and video) can be accessed by anyone, irrespective of their location.

"So far, NPTEL was being used informally by millions of viewers and online users. But we are in discussions to bring in a formal way of offering these courses," says Sen. The courses are designed by faculty members of IITs, IISc and other technical and engineering institutions.

LEARNING INITIATIVE

• NPTEL is a joint venture by seven IITs — Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee — and the IISc
   
• The programme offers web and video-based course material for basic sciences, engineering and humanities
   
• The programme introduced engineering courses on Google and YouTube
   
• In phase-I, NPTEL had developed 260 courses, which were available online for 4,500 hours, free of charge
   
• In phase-II, 1,000 more courses were added to the programme
   
• The course material (both web and video) can be accessed by anyone, irrespective of their location

After about 6,000 hours of video were uploaded on its YouTube channel, the viewership of the NPTEL course material rose to about 80 million, with about 160,000 subscribers. The technology institutes have also roped in 25-30 engineering colleges for content creation. Today, about 700 engineering and management institutions across the country are using course material designed under NPTEL.

In the second phase, about 1,000 courses were added to the programme.

Sen says, "Within NPTEL, we are discussing the possibility of a third phase, in which the project could be made more formal. Apart from possible certificates for users, we are also talking to the industry, primarily information technology companies, about recruiting those studying through NPTEL. Talks are also underway on the possibilities of using industry premises for conducting online tests for NPTEL participants."

In a boost to the project, most of the grant of Rs 96 crore from MHRD has been released, Sen says.

Among the IITs, it is IIT-Madras that officially handles the venture and distributes web contents free of charge to government-funded institutions. Mangala Sunder Krishnan, national web course coordinator at IIT-Madras, was unavailable for comment.

In addition to the courses on Google and YouTube, as well as web and video courses on the NPTEL website, the project also allows content to be hosted on local websites in institutions (intranet). For a fee of Rs 1,00,000, privately-funded institutions receive the entire web course content on DVD ROMs, to be hosted on their intranet.

Faculty members from new IITs are set to develop course material for NPTEL. Various universities, research laboratories and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research are also part of the programme.