How about studying English Literature, psychology or electrochemistry courses virtually at IIT or IISc? Or if you’ve just joined engineering and already rueing the quality of teaching, fret not. Started in 2003 by the seven IITs and IISc, funded by the Union Human Ministry Resources, NPTEL is a web portal exclusively for engineering students and also helps teachers and professionals to brush up their knowledge.
Simply log on to http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/ to get your daily dose of courseware.
“At that time, a lot of engineering colleges did not have teachers. Even if some did, they were not qualified. Through NPTEL, we aimed at giving these students the best teaching through distance learning mode,” says Usha Nagarajan, principal project officer, NPTEL IIT-Madras.
Now around 350 institutions formally use the content on NPTEL, that cost INR 116.5 crore to create. Around 250 courses covering all major branches of engineering at UG level and five branches at PG level (civil, electronics and communication, electrical, computer science and mechanical) are available on the web portal. Each session is for an hour. Apart from IITs, around 25 institutes including government research labs contribute to the content on NPTEL.
There’s only course material online, though. For doubts, the “students and professionals can post their queries on the discussion forum and the faculty members will reply to them,” explains Nagarajan.
The video courses are also available on YouTube that has already got 28 million hits. Government-aided institutes can also get the material on a 500GB hard disc by paying for the disc alone.
“I took up a course on power systems out of my own interest six months ago, just to brush up my knowledge. I really found it (NPTEL learning material) very comprehensive,” says Sriharsha Devarapalli, a Bangalore-based software professional, who has completed his engineering degree.
Future plans of NPTEL include “subtitling the video course. This is to aid students, who are unable to understand the instructor’s accent. We intend to implement some courses within the next year,” says Nagarajan.
The big plan, however, is to increase the ambit of NPTEL with material for over 1,000 courses and get science, economics, sociology and management students logging on to the website in the near future.
—janani@expressbuzz.com