Establishment of an e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education (e-KrishiShiksha) http://ecourses.iasri.res.in/ Activity of the Education Division of ICAR Dr. R C Goyal Emeritus Scientist Wednesday, April 08, 2015 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – 110012 Background Under Learning and Capacity Building program of NAIP, several interactive & multimedia UG level e-Course contents in different disciplines of agriculture have been developed at SAUs and other organisations The online contents has been implemented from the respective organisation’s servers For remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents are made available offline on (CDs / DVDs) Present Requirements Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of e-Courses developed under NAIP For coordination and execution of the above, responsibility has been entrusted to IASRI, New Delhi Accordingly, the following programme is being executed e-learning Portal For Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of the e-learning courseware, A Centralised e-learning Portal on Agricultural Education that provides 24/7 services to all the Faculty, Teachers, Students and other learners is being designed and developed The portal has been hosted on the server of IASRI Specific Objectives 1. Designing, development and maintenance of software to establish Centralised e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education 2. Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of e-learning courseware contents developed under Learning & Capacity Building program of NAIP 3. Establishment of an alternate e-learning strategy for remote area institutions/ faculty/ students Design of e-learning Portal The Portal is developed using 3-tier web technology in .Net framework environment The Portal has the following 7 options: 1. Online e-Learning for UG 2. Off-line e-Learning: Free Downloads - UG Courseware 3. e-learning for Farmers 4. e-Course Content Data Management 5. Automation of Contents Refinement Process 6. System Administration 7. Reports Online e-Learning for UG Free Access as Guest User of all disciplines has been made available to the users community B.Sc (Agriculture) B.Sc (Horticulture) B.Sc (Home Science) BFSc (Fisheries) BVSc ( Veterinary & A.H.) B.Tech. ( Dairy Technology) B.Tech. ( Agri. Engineering) Access to Online e-Learning of UG Courseware Accessible to all Faculty teachers, students and any one interested in the field of agricultural sciences For the first time, new user will have to register by submitting his/her brief identity details The email-Id is used for authentication of the Registered users Portal usage records has been maintained in the system Off-line e-Learning Free Downloads – UG Courseware Under NAIP programmes for remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents were made available offline on (CDs / DVDs) In present portal, e-learning courseware contents are made available as Free Downloadable component The downloaded file content folder could be independently executed from desk top and used for teaching/learning exactly in the same manner as the existing CDs/DVDs contents can be used for offline elearning This will eliminate the process of physical supply of e-courses on (CDs / DVDs) by post/courier services e-learning for Farmers Linkage of Farmers/Women level short e-training material under different disciplines may be made available Some of the SAUs under extension programmes have already created farmers level e-contents for short term training programmes on agriculture, horticulture, fisheries etc. Attempt will be made to collect, compile and made available through this portal e-Course Content Data Management The Data Management sub-module option is being designed to provide access to the Content Creation Team for refinement and updation of the e-courses The Activity involved in coordinating for refinement and updation of the e-courseware by the universities/ institutes identified for the same are as follows: Liaison with Nodal Officers of universities/ institutes identified to coordinate for refinement and updation Linkage/access to the Nodal Officers, Expert Review Team and Content Creators of each university/institute for uploading the e-courseware to Central Server after refinement and updating Automation of Contents Refinement Process For refinement and updating of e-courses by concerned team members, a process will be designed, developed and established for periodical online monitoring The process may be established in consultation with concerned Nodal Officer & Discipline Experts The operational flow of periodic monitoring process may be as follows: Online submission of refined e-courses by PI of the content creators team of the e-courses Reporting remarks by the Nodal Officers of the concerned discipline Review remarks by the concerned Review Experts Team Feedback of User’s community System Administration Generation of UserId and Passwords for Faculty and Reporting/Reviewing team involved in content creation/updation of different courses Adding/deleting/modifying accounts information Resetting passwords, etc Briefly the following options may be made available Creation of new users with different access rights Resetting user passwords Lock /unlock user accounts Defining levels for process of refinement and updating Monitor special services etc. Reports Reports useful to the user’s as well as administrators /managers has been designed and made available on the portal. This includes: e-courses available under different and/or selected discipline(s) Degree-wise Courses Downloads User’s registered for offline e-Courses downloads University wise courses download status System utilization statistics at different point of times Most popular courses among users Utilization Trend over the years etc Content creators / evaluators /review team etc. Refinement Updation Maintenance and Sustenance of e-learning courseware contents Activities for Refinement Major activities to be undertaken at the concerned SAUs/organization level Identification of concerned discipline Expert Faculty Group Outlining of course expectations, concerns and challenges by Expert Faculty Group Determination of the gap in course contents Knowledge and skills requirement Fixing of proposed contents for refinement Adoption of online refinement process Activities for Updation: For updation, major activities to be undertaken at the concerned SAUs/ organization level would be the following: Identification of the e-course content creator team (original content creators and additions and/or deletion, if any) for content revision, updation and uploading Fixing of some time frame for updation and uploading Updating of the e-course contents as per suggestions emerged from the refinement group Uploading of the revised e-course contents to the Centralised e-learning Portal Activities for Maintenance and Sustenance: Software Maintenance For sustenance, popularization and effective utilization of the system, awareness meetings/ sensitization workshops will be organized by the Education Division of ICAR in collaboration with the SAUs and Institutes identified to coordinate SAUs to coordinate with Education Division of ICAR: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. For e-Courses on B.Sc.(Agriculture) : Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar For e-courses on B.V.Sc. & A.H. : Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai For e-Courses on B.F.Sc. : Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar; College of Fisheries, Mangalore For e-Courses on B.Tech Agri. Engg. : Anand Agricultural University, Anand For e-Courses on B.Sc Home Science : Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Saifabad, Hyderabad; College of Home Science. For e-Courses on B.Tech. (Dairy Technology): National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal For e-Courses on B.Sc. (Hort.) : Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Solan An Overview of e-learning portal Some Reports…… Wednesday, April 08, 2015 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – 110012