NATIONAL PROGRAMME ON
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING
(NPTEL)
National Knowledge Commission
New Delhi, August 18, 2006
Dr. K. Mangala Sunder
Professor, Department of Chemistry
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Chennai 600036
mangal@iitm.ac.in ; mangala_sunderk@yahoo.com
Devise and guide reforms that will transform
India into a strong and vibrant knowledge
economy in coming years
Focus areas of interest for the project
in several phases
Higher Education:
Professional Education
Distance Education
Continuous Learning
Objectives (in 2003)
• 100 Web based Courses– Supplements
• 100 Video Courses (40 hours duration for each course)
in five major branches of engineering at the
undergraduate level.
Deliverables (in 2006)
• 120 Web based Courses– Supplements
• 115 Video Courses
in core sciences, Civil, Computer Science, electrical,
electronics and mechanical engineering (40-50 hours
duration for each course)
DISTANCE EDUCATION
 Clear and easily documented need: 450000
seats; 35000 reasonable ones; demand
increasing exponentially!
 India has no choice: even to maintain the
current levels a new major university needed
every week!
 Massive online education is an important
emerging market and therefore a business
opportunity.
NPTEL – AN OPPORTUNITY
• Technology already available and will only
improve. Communications band-width and
computer power per unit cost will continue to
increase
• NPTEL offers an opportunity to provide reach
as well as exciting improvement in quality
NPTEL’s PREMISES
• Today's students prefer to plunge in and learn through
participation and experimentation in a media-rich
environment
• Faculty members should become facilitators and
designers of learning experiences, processes, and
environments
• Intelligent software agents that can browse far and wide
through robust knowledge networks effortlessly may
replace specialists.
• Role of the library will be more that of a knowledge
navigator, a facilitator of retrieval and dissemination
Details of the Programme
Courses by discipline
Core Sciences
Web (14)
Video (16)
Civil Engineering
Web (27)
Video (22)
Comp. Sc. and Engg.
Web (18)
Video (19)
Electrical Engineering
Web (18)
Video (18)
Electronics and Comm.
Engg.
Mechanical Engg.
Web (20)
Video (19)
Web (23)
Video (21)
Total
120
115
Courses by Institute
IIT Bombay
Web (17)
Video (13)
IIT Delhi
Web (12)
Video (18)
IIT Guwahati
Web (15)
Video (6)
IIT Kanpur
Web (14)
Video (19)
IIT Kharagpur
Web (19)
Video (18)
IIT Madras
Web (19)
Video (20)
IIT Roorkee
Web (7)
Video (13)
IISc Bangalore
Web (17)
Video (8)
Total
Web (120)
Video (115)
ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES
• Design Team made up of the IITs/IISc
• Organization Synergy - more than just a division
of labor between eight institutions
• Continued support from Government
• Long-range effectiveness will depend on the
strength of the relationship between the IITs and
the user organizations
Creation of a hierarchy of faculty for Implementation
National Programme Committee
Programme Implementation Committee
TEL
Coord
IITB
TEL
Coord
IITD
Contents
Review
Committee
TEL
Coord
IITG
Core
courses
TEL
Coord
IITKgp
Civil
Engg
TEL
Coord
IITK
Comp.
Sci. &
Engg
TEL
TEL
Coord Coord
IITM
IITR
Elec.
Engg
E&C
Engg
Faculty coordinators for each course from
Partner Institutions and
Associate Partner Institutions
TEL
Coord
IISc
Mech
Engg
DESIGN ISSUES
– Target audience: initially professors in the user
institutions; finally students
– Selecting and building the courses around the
demand in user organizations
– Modules as units of change in education - flexibility
– Role of exams in creating value for the user
organizations
– All the modules developed to be used in IITs for
teaching the courses. Other Institutions can use the
relevant ones for every course.
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
– Large number vs smaller number of courses of a
higher quality in the first year
– A mix of standard lecture videos and more
innovative interventions
– Incentives to generate, to re-calibrate the
materials, to remove poor materials
– Getting the college Principals on board increases
to help introduce changes in the system.
Web Courses --Objectives
Summary of the programme for web supplements
• Localization of examples
• Elaboration of key concepts and theorems to
facilitate clearer understanding
• Case studies to provide more comprehensive
design experience
• Examples that require the use of different
categories of engineering knowledge under
different sets of assumptions.
• Question banks to assist instructors to design
good test and examinations
• Additional reading material for underperforming students, especially those with
difficulties with English.
• Additional reading material for over-achievers
• Historical information and anecdotes related to
specific topics
• Creation of the e-learning material in those
formats which ensure that the content creation
and course management platforms are
decoupled.
•
Simple course management packages that
provide features like e-mail queries by
students, bulletin board and frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ).
• Many modules are being prepared preferably
by a team of faculty.
• The material will be suitably organized to
create CDs to meet the needs of students of
different universities.
•
The same material can be suitably
restructured for printing.
Video Courses --Objectives
The programme for video lectures:
The course will consist of around 40 video lectures.
Each video lecture will be of one hour duration
To enhance the longevity of the video lectures.
Video lectures are confined to core concepts.
Its contents are distinct from text book and web
support material
Video Courses --Objectives
• The video lectures utilize the facilities of the
video medium and are expected to contain
interactions with professionals from industry as
appropriate.
• The lectures will emphasize the relations of
theory to industrial practice as appropriate
• Creation of video lecture units is not tied with
the scheduling of regular courses in the
Institution.
Deployment and follow-up Services
The following possibilities are being examined
regarding dissemination of web content:
• Host the e-content on a web site that students can log on to.
• E-contents be made available in the form of CDs.
• Colleges be encouraged to host these materials on one
of their servers and allow students to access.
• E-content converted into print form and then distributed
at a low cost.
• Navigational flexibility of e-material, not possible in print
format.
Several workshops in IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IISc
Bangalore and IIT Bombay.
Review of E-support material by various faculty outside of
the PIs in progress.
Generation of E-Support Material for the video: All the
courses to be broadcast through Eklavya, or, are in the
queue for broadcast in the coming months
• Course syllabi drafted for every course based on AICTE
model curriculum
• Syllabi adopted by major affiliating Universities such as
Anna University, Tamil Nadu, Jawaharlal Nehru Technical
University, Andhra Pradesh and Viswesvaraiah Technical
University, Karnataka.
• The total number of faculty involved in content creation is
well over 300 from all IITs and IISc.
• Syllabi posted in the NPTEL website in detail—module-wise
and/or lecture-wise wherever provided by the faculty.
IIT Madras, IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur
working together in the development of a
standard internet template for hosting web
contents
NPTEL WebSite available for updating the
contents at IIT Madras, the Coordinating
Institute.
The site address : http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
Deployment/Transmission of video courses
• Current transmission is through Eklavya Channel which
footprints all of India
• Several institutions have antenna to receive Eklavya
• Individual users access through cable
• MHRD to work with Prasar Bharati to carry this channel on
the DTH
ASSESSMENT
• Specifying levels of analysis (i.e., program/ target level/
specific course level/ module level within a course)
• Articulating outcomes early in the design process
• Spelling out clearly the kind of skills students are
expected to acquire and be able to demonstrate
• factoring in time when specifying outcomes
ASSESSMENT AND DESIGN
• Stating overall objectives in an operational
way
• highly interdependent activities
• assessment criteria should precede design
• iterative process of doing assessment and
redesigning assessment
IIT Madras Infrastructure as a
coordinating institute and its own
web course content creation
programme
Integrate the institute facilities--software, hardware, human resource
and training for the new technology
into one walk-in centre for faculty
and students.
Web and video Studio
Centre for Continuing Education.
Facilities-Hardware
• 50 Pentiums and 10 Macs running several operating
systems—Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X.
• Digital scanners, high quality laser color printers
• A number of low and medium end servers
• Two fully integrated video recording studios
• A non-linear video editing studio with the movie
editing capabilities
Facilities-Hardware
• SunFire 15K Enterpise Server with complete Sun
Microsystems software package (Solaris 9/10)
• Storage Rack (4 TB)
• Apple X Serve for QuickTime streaming (Proposed
hardware)
• Electronic classroom with 100 nodes (proposed
facility)
Software
• Web design, content creation, dynamic and static,
interactive: Macromedia Suite (Dreamweaver, Flash,
Authorware, Director, Freehand and Fireworks)
• Adobe suite and Acrobat Writer
• MSDN on site license
• Mathtype, Tex for windows
• Any other as proposed by faculty from time to time.
• Corel (Draw, word perfect)
• 3D Studio Max
• 3D Maya (currently being added)
Human Resource
• Current -- 25 project associates/
assistants/technicians/ attendants
• (qualifications: M. C. A., M. Sc., B. E. /B. Tech., M. B.
A.)
• In-house development of software skills.
• Work with individual faculty.
Sun Server for e-learning and digital library 1.
Sun Server for e-learning and digital library 2.
Thank you