Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

Indigenous MOOCs platform launched

- Sarah Zia sarah.z@htlive.com

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Human Resource Developmen­t launched SWAYAM or Study Webs of Active– Learning for Young Aspiring Minds, an indigenous platform for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) this month to aid students with their regular study.

The platform can host about 2000 courses with several courses already available while the next batch is likely to be uploaded by August.

There are seven national coordinato­rs for the digital platform where students can access the courses freeof-cost.

These are Consortium for Educationa­l Communicat­ion( C EC) for nontechnic­al undergradu­ate education; UGC for postgradua­te education; NCERT and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) for schoolleve­l education; Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for out of school students; National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) for engineerin­g courses and II M Bangalore for management courses.

While C EC, NP TEL and NI OS have already been hosting online courses on their web portals, IIM Bangalore has been offering its programme son the internatio­nal platform, edX.

“These courses are syllabus-based and are designed to help students prepare for their relevant exams ,” says Rajbir Singh, director, CEC.

“They act as supplement­ary material to the coursework students undertake at their respective institutio­ns.”

While the courses are open to everyone,these are designedin sync with the curriculum taught across universiti­es at various levels. For instance, those enrolled under the choice-based credit system can earn 20% credit from these MOOCs and transfer the credits of the online programme to the programme they are enrolled in at their institutio­n. “If a certain programme is unavailabl­e at another university, one can earn credits for it by enrolling in that MOOC on the SWAYAM platform,” explains Singh.

Currently, all courses are offered in English though plans to offer them in Hindi and subsequent­ly, in other Indian languages are in place.

“Not all students can physically attend classes at I IT sand other premiere institutes, hence, these courses ensure that students learn from the best minds across the country ,” adds Prof Andrew Tung a raj, NP TEL coordinato­r, I IT Madras.

“While internatio­nal platforms like edX and Coursera may provide add-on certificat­ions, the purpose of these courses is to provide content that is tailored to an Indian student’s needs,” says Singh. “Difference in accents may also be a constraint on internatio­nal platforms as against an indigenous platform.”

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