The institutes will be able to access these courses free of cost
Engineering institutes in the country will now be able to access course materials designed by the Indian Institutes of Technology free of cost.
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is planning to make it mandatory for engineering institutes in the country to use basic sciences and engineering courses which IITs have introduced on Google and YouTube.
This will be done under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a joint venture by the seven IITs — Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee — and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.
At present over 200 engineering institutes across the country are using the complete content that IITs provide free of cost on You Tube and Google.
“AICTE is planning to make it mandatory for the engineering institutes to have access to NPTEL and update their libraries accordingly. The engineering institutes will also be able to access these courses free of cost,” said Mangala Sunder Krishnan, National Web Courses Coordinator at IIT-Madras.
NPTEL, an endeavour by IITs, was launched around three-four years ago to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum-based video and web courses. NPTEL was started along the lines of Open Courseware by MIT in the US.
Around 15 institutes — Seven IITs, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and other engineering institutes — have collaborated to carry out the venture. The IITs have been nominated as the one of the best institutions in providing free university courses.
IITs which are implementing the second phase of the project, plan to introduce around 950 courses in basic sciences and engineering, in the next two years on NPTEL.
| SNAPSHOT # NPTEL based on Open Courseware by MIT in the US # To introduce 950 courses in second phase # MHRD releases a grant of Rs 50 crore # NPTEL has around 4,400 videos on You Tube in 120 courses # 2.6 million viewers and about 23 million uploads so far. # 2nd most popular site to IPL at present # Over 200 engg colleges using NPTEL content |
The Ministry for Human Resources and Development (MHRD) has recently released a grant of Rs 50 crore for the second phase. Total budget for second phase is Rs 96 crore.
NPTEL in the first phase of the project, had developed around 250 courses. All of these are available online for a duration of 4,500 hours, free of charge.
The course materials (both web and video) are freely accessible by everyone independent of their geographic location. “Professionals can use these courses to update themselves. Open and distance education using NPTEL contents are long-term prospects for IITs,” added Krishnan.
IIT Madras which officially handles the venture, distributes web contents free of charge to the government-funded institutes.
In addition it will allow the content to be hosted on a website local to the institutions (intranet). Privately-funded institutions obtain the entire web course contents on DVD ROMs for hosting them on their Intranet for a fee of Rs 1,00,000. The IITs are also planning to revise the fee shortly.
NPTEL is planning to have text of the video (of one hour) in the second phase.
Faculty members from the new IITs will also develop course materials for NPTEL. Universities, research labs and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research are also part of the programme.
NPTEL has around 4,400 videos on You Tube in 120 courses and 2.6 million viewers (channel) and about 23 million (uploads) so far.
“Its the second most popular site to IPL at present. A lot of students and professionals are using it,” said Krishnan.
