BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to supplement classroom teaching and in the absence of adequate faculty members, the Department of Higher Education has directed all colleges and public universities to use e-lectures for both undergraduate and post-graduate courses, developed by Utkal University.
The university had developed a ‘virtual tutorial’ project (vtputkal.odisha.gov.in) under phase 1 of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) and at present, e-lectures for core papers of first, second, and third and fourth semesters in 11 subjects are available in it. Spanning across all three streams, arts, science and commerce, the recorded video lectures and other e-contents are available in physics, chemistry, zoology, botany, political science, Odia, history, English, psychology, commerce and economics.
Although the virtual tutorial was created in 2017, it was put to use by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic when educational institutions were shut down in 2021. However, after the institutions were reopened, less number of students were using the virtual tutorials.
Realising this, the Department of Higher Education has recently directed all the government and aided colleges besides universities to ask all students to use the resources to supplement their studies. “The e-lectures cover a wide range of subjects, ensuring that students from all disciplines can benefit from these valuable resources. This endeavour aims to enhance the learning experience by providing quality educational content in a digital format,” said Chittaranjan Patra, special secretary, RUSA.
Under RUSA, Utkal University’s Directorate of Distance and Continuing Education (DDCE) created a studio to prepare an audio-video syllabus in 2017. Till Sunday, it has uploaded 1,909 science lectures, 760 commerce and 3,799 arts lectures. All the content is being created by senior faculty members and uploaded to the website every day. This will help students to understand the subjects clearly even after their class hours, said university officials. “Students who do not have access to the internet can download the videos and can see them later. The videos will also help students in colleges which do not have adequate numbers of teachers”, they added.
Online teaching
Virtual tutorial has lectures of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th semesters
E-lectures of 11 subjects available
Students can click on vtputkal.odisha.gov.in to see the lectures
It has 1,909 science lectures, 760 commerce and 3,799 arts lectures