Online assignment Technology & Communication

 

ONLINE E-LEARNING PLATFORMS

 

Massive open online courses (MOOCs)

            A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education. A MOOC is an online course with the option of free and open registration, a publicly-shared curriculum, and open-ended outcomes. MOOCs integrate social networking, accessible online resources, and are facilitated by leading practitioners in the field of study. Most significantly, MOOCs build on the engagement of learners who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests.

Features that are typically required for a course to be considered a MOOC are:

Course: It should have some learning objectives to be achieved by students after certain activities within in a given period of time (therefore, it should have a beginning and an end). In addition, it should have some quizzes and exams to assess the knowledge acquired by students. And there should be some kind of interaction between students and teachers in every possible way (student-student and student-teacher).

Open: Open has several meanings in MOOCs. On one hand, the course should be open to everyone and should not require some prerequisites such as possession of a qualification or a level of performance in earlier studies. On the other hand, the access to educational resources (videos, lecture notes) should be free (but other things, like being able to ask direct questions to the teacher, the correction of the activities, or obtaining a certificate at the end of the course may have an economic cost). Open is also often interpreted as it does not make use of a closed learning platform, but educational resources are hosted in different places like websites, blogs, wikis, or multimedia repositories. Finally, "open" is also often interpreted as the course makes extensive use of open content, and in turn, content generated by the course is also published open so it can be reused by others. This latter interpretation of "open" is the least fulfilled nowadays, as the most successful MOOCs are organized by companies, such as Coursera or Udacity, who have little interest in sharing their courses open.

Online: The course is done remotely via the Internet and does not require physical attendance at a classroom. This feature is essential for anyone from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection can participate in these courses.

Massive: It should allow access to a very large number of students, much larger than a face-to-face class, or a traditional online course. In addition, the course should be prepared to accept changes in the number of students in several orders of magnitude, for example, going from 1,000 to 100,000 students, without a major problem for operation.

·         The Advantages of MOOCs

1. Courses are offered for free

2. Access to courses offered by professors at the top schools

3. Courses are available to a vast and diverse audience across the globe

4. Learners’ performance can be monitored easily using the data captured during the start of courses

5. Both professors and learners get world-wide exposure, thus improving pedagogical techniques and knowledge sharing

6. Can be used as a tool in a blended learning program, where students can access more information than what is provided in the class

·         The Disadvantages of MOOCs

1. Can’t provide for personalized courseware and attention from a tutor

2. It is difficult to keep track of students’ assignments and involvement

3. Learners with disabilities and a poor Internet connection can’t use MOOCs

4. Language can be a barrier while offering MOOCs

5. MOOCs can’t be used as a credit-earning course at universities

 

 

1.      SWAYAM

            SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active–Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged. SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy. This is done through an indigenous developed IT platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses taught in classrooms to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time. All the courses are interactive, prepared by the best teachers in the country and are available, free of cost to the residents in India.

            SWAYAM platform is indigenously developed by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with the help of Microsoft and would be ultimately capable of hosting 2000 courses and 80000 hours of learning: covering school, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering, law and other professional courses. UGC has already issued the UGC (Credit Framework for online learning courses through SWAYAM) Regulation 2016 advising the Universities to identify courses where credits can be transferred on to the academic record of the students for courses done on SWAYAM.

·         National Coordinators of SWAYAM

In order to ensure best quality content are produced and delivered, seven National Coordinators have been appointed. They are as follows.

 NPTEL for engineering

 UGC for post-graduation education

 CEC for under-graduate education

 NCERT for school education

 NIOS for school education

 IGNOU for out of the school students and

 IIMB for management studies

 

·         How to access SWAYAM

 You can access the SWAYAM portal on the web - https://swayam.gov.in

 You can access the SWAYAM mobile apps for - Android and iOS

 

2.     NPTEL

            The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a project funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), provides e-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Sciences, Technology, Management and Humanities. This is a joint initiative by seven IITs and IISc. Bangalore. Other selected premier institutions also act as Associate Partner Institutions. NPTEL is a curriculum building exercise and is directed towards providing learning materials in science and engineering by adhering to the syllabi of All India Council for Technical Education and the slightly modified curricula of major affiliating Universities. It has developed curriculum based video courses and web-based e-courses targeting students and faculty of institutions offering UG engineering programs. NPTEL provides free online courseware in the form of web courses and video lectures. These lectures utilize a multitude of facilities of the video medium such as chalk-and-talk, tablet writing, power point, two and three dimensional animations, interactive codes, etc. Each course comprises approximately 40 video lectures of about 1 hour duration. An online discussion forum is incorporated where in students can post and review questions. Wherever applicable, course assignments, handouts, self-evaluation tasks, etc. have been integrated. Workshops are routinely conducted for institutes, students, mentors, etc.

·         Features

1. Interactive video lectures with subtitles and indexing on subtitle (Downloadable).

2. Text transcriptions of all the video lectures are available in the following formats:

 a. audio file (mp3 format)

b. transcript (pdf format)

3. Study materials like ppt with audio, notes, etc (Downloadable).

4. Different lecture add-ons like illustrations, 2D and 3D animations, lab demos etc.

5. Online test of different types like quiz, final exam, etc.

6. Discussion forums.

7. Progress report.

8. GATE Mock test.

9. Ordering course DVDs online.

10. Evaluation through problems, quiz and assignments.

11. It also has YouTube channel for viewing course videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd).

12. Emails and Notification facilities for registered student.

13. Provision of certification.

14. Registering for a course using your Gmail credentials.

15. Ask a Question: learner can directly ask question to course coordinator.

16. Support for a large traffic (Users at particular time).

3.     Coursera.com

Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University that offers massive open online courses (MOOCs).Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses available online, and  offers courses in physics, engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other subjects. Coursera has an official mobile app for iOS and Android. As of October 2014, Coursera has 10million users in 839 courses from114 institutions.

The contract between Coursera and participating universities contains a “brainstorming” list of ways to generate revenue, including verified certification fees (started in 2012 as Signature Track), introducing students to potential employers and recruiters (with student consent), tutoring, sponsorships and tuition fees.

·         Features

1. Interactive video lectures with subtitles and indexing on subtitles.

2. Study materials like books, notes, cheat sheets, etc.

3. Emails and Notification facilities for registered student.

4. Provision of certif5. Online test of different types like video embedded quiz, practice sessions, midterm exam, final exam, etc.

6. Calendar based schedule.

7. Multi lingual support.

8. Discussion forums.

9. Contacting authors through mailing.

10. Different kinds of assessment systems for submitted assignments (open response problems).It includes: Peer Grading, Machine Grading

11. Wiki edits for implementing collaborative learning.

12. Registering and deregistering from a course.

13. Progress reports and other kinds of embedded analytics.

14. Students also arrange face to face study meet ups using meetup.com

15. Analysis of keystroke dynamics during typing is used in combination with webcam images to identity of fee-paying “signature track” students during tests and quizzes

 

CONCLUSION

            Massive open online courses are making huge impact on distance education. Large enrolment numbers clearly provide proof of that. While coursera and EdX have made great progress in terms of user base in just two years of launching, NPTEL hasn’t evolved fast enough. While it is commendable that NPTEL is made great progress in terms of developing content, making it one of the largest open accessible repository of education content. India and other developing countries face different set of problems like low bandwidths, lack of digital infrastructure and less digital literacy etc. NPTEL’s effort to reach out to libraries and colleges and even to students across the country through sending course DVDs and Hard disks is prime example of innovation driven by circumstances. Though more efforts needed in technology enhancement and promoting the NPTEL platform. We noted in the study that both on EdX and Coursera, highest number of visitors are from India only second to United States of America. This clearly tells us that students and learners across the country are looking for quality and diversified education content. Integrating innovations like mobile learning with MOOCs like NPTEL is equally important as cell phone users in India are growing at double digit rate.