NPTEL in talks with universities, Nasscom for MOOC endorsement

NPTEL, which is offering 990 course today, has seen rise in number of registered candidates to over 620,000

Taking its massive open online courses (MOOC) platform to next level, the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is in talks with universities as well as industry bodies such as The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) for endorsing its course certificate for students and recruitment candidates.

Run by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) including IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, and IIT Roorkee, along with IISc Bangalore, NPTEL is in the process of partnering with colleges and universities for endorsing its course certificates as part of their curriculum. Moreover, talks are on with industry bodies like Nasscom for recognising the MOOC certificates as part of recruitment in the IT industry, sources said.

"Already couple of universities have recognised NPTEL course certificate and are asking students to take up the same. Some of them have incorporated NPTEL course credits as part of their assessment system. What's more, the NPTEL MOOC certificates are also emerging as a faculty development program add-on with educational institutes asking their faculty to also take up these courses," NPTEL sources said.

Offering already over 990 courses, NPTEL has seen a rise in number of registered candidates to over 620,000. Since January, NPTEL has been offering certificates for 65 courses for which evaluation will be conducted based on assignments and exams.

"In September, NPTEL conducted exams for 18 courses which were taken by 5,500 students. Of the total 65 courses now being offered as certificates, exam for 29 courses would be conducted in March which are likely to see 13,500 students taking the tests," sources said.

NPTEL has been conducting tests at across its test centres in 70 cities through testing partner TCS iON.

The MOOC certificate are also being showcased as skill upgradation tools for employers. Already product engineering and software firm Aricent is learnt to have been using NPTEL's MOOC certificate courses as pre-training material for its recruitment process, NPTEL sources said.

Meanwhile, NPTEL is also likely to approach All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for a wider reach for the MOOC program.