Indigenous MOOCs platform launched
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 (CEC) 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 IIM Bangalore for management courses.
While CEC, NPTEL and NIOS have already been hosting online courses on their web portals, IIM Bangalore has been offering its programmes on 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 designed in 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 IITs and other premiere institutes, hence, these courses ensure that students learn from the best minds across the country,” adds Prof Andrew Tungaraj, NPTEL coordinator, IIT 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.”