Date:March 18, 2011

Venue:VSB Engineering College, Karur . Tamil Nadu

Participants profile: Faculty of Engineering college from Tamil Nadu attended the workshop

Number of participants :45

Participant List:

Click Here to View Participants List

Speakers Profile:

1. Dr. Mahendra Gowda, Principal, V. S. B Engineering College
2. Dr. Mangala Sunder Krishnan, Web Coordinator (NPTEL), Indian Institute of Technology Madras
3. Mr. Vaidyanathan, CEO, Classle Learning Solutions, Chennai

Agenda:

Venue: CLT - Studio 2, ICSR Building, IIT Madras

No	Time	Agenda
1	9.00 - 9.20 am	Registration, followed by TA form submission
2	9.20 - 9.30 am	Welcome address: Workshop Coordinator, VSB Engineering College, Karur.
3	9.30 - 10.40 am	Address by chief guest : Principal, VSB Engineering College, Karur
4	10.40 - 11.10 am	About NPTEL: Prof. K.Mangala Sunder, National web courses coordinator & NPTEL                          Coordinator, IIT Madras
5	11.10 - 11.35 am	About Classle: Mr. Vaidya Nathan, CEO, Classle Knowledge Pvt Ltd
6	11.35 - 11.50 am	Refreshment
7	11.50-12.30 pm	Group discussion Group 1: Targeting: the NPTEL course materials at the students               How do we get the students to obtain and use the course offerings? Group 2: Campus-level /: Environment               What can be done at the campus-level for increased use of the material? What                   is working? What is not working?             What are your suggestions for an engaging TEL environment at your campus? Group 3: Participation What are the ways in which you / your institute can add to the NPTEL material?
8	12.30–12.45 pm	Q & A session
9	12.45 – 1.00 pm	Participants fill out the Workshop Feedback form
10	1.00 pm	Lunch

Summary:

VSB Engineering College organized a one –day NPTEL Awareness workshop at their campus in Karur on March 18th, 2011. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Mahendra Gowda, Principal, V. S. B Engineering College on 18th March, 2011 at 10 am in the seminar hall.

Highlights of Dr. Mangala Sunder’s Speech:

The futuristic goal is to create a virtual technical university and issuing certificates online

• Currently NPTEL is providing effective video course material for around 200 courses; they got the syllabus from ACITE blue books.
• NPTEL wish to make the facilities setup through this mission, available for every faculty and student in each institution.
• This is the larges technical video lecture repository on higher education in the nation on open access.
• At present students are utilizing these videos for the preparation of GATE and regular semester examinations.

NPTEL is being implemented in different phases
Phase – I:

• Conducting workshops
• Concerned about the education quality
• How we have to prepare notes, etc

Phase – II

• Establishment of virtual labs to enrich the student’s practical knowledge.

 Phase – III

• Interfacing all the students as a social network to learn from each other.

 Development

• They are going to enhance the current project for betterment through National cloud computing project
• Establishing virtual labs to increase the practical ability of the students

Highlights of Mr. Vaidyanathan’s speech:

• He suggested us to ring the power of social learning to every institution
• Explained about how NPTEL serves the community of students and faculty of various colleges
• He has given a list of activities which will increase pass percentage and placement opportunities

They are,

• World class teaching and mentoring, Round the clock availability of learning material
• Discussion on projects, soft skills and placement.
• By using www.classle.net , we can avail all the facilities uninterruptedly round the clock.

Points discussed in Q & A session:        

No	Queries by participants	Response by Prof. Mangal
1	Conducting contests for faculty	NPTEL is planning this aspect, probably within 6 months
2	NPTEL is taking proper steps for UG and PG students learning. In the same manner, can we expect any help from your side for school students?	Dr. Mangala Sunder Krishnan opined that certainly it can be done, but we are having plenty of projects for the next 3 years yet to be completed.
3	We are following the NPTEL videos. What about the doubts which we get the time of watching the videos?	Dr. Mangala Sunder Krishnan answered that in NPTEL website itself, the concerned professors address, mail-id and contact no is there; u can post your queried and get the doubts clarified
4	Availability of MBA material in NPTEL	Dr. Mangala Sunder Krishnan informed that I phase – I we haven’t concentrated much more but in phase – II, we have included the materials related with management. We have started with few courses but the number will increase in future.
5	NPTEL is providing course material for all theory courses, but not for professional courses.	Virtual lab courses are made available by IIT Delhi which is providing 150 important lab exercises, tutorials and the link in virtual-labs.ac.in
6	Asked about animated content in the lecture videos	As per the requirement we have provided the animation wherever required and according to the suggestion of the viewers we can increase. And if you have better animated material send it to us. We will incorporate it.
7	Summary of each and every video courses	Viewers have to view each and every video course and they have to create their own summary and email it to NPTEL. The best summary will be selected for published
8	About the industry relevance to NPTEL course	Dr. Mangala sunder Krishnan answered that definitely we are having collaboration with lot of companies. We got support from them because we are doing a free service, so they are also giving us a helping hand. By in which industry experts, we can provide relevant training material to the students and faculty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feedback:
Participants overview:

• 29 % from Computer Science
• 13 % were  from Management Science and Core Sciences
• 11 % were from ECE
•   9 % were from English
•   7 % were from EEE  and Mech
•   2 % were from Engineering Physics, civil, Aeronautics and Humanities and Science and Librarian 

Regarding participation in various activities:

• 67% were positive to set up Question bank
• 64.4 % were interested  to participate in preparing FAQs
• 56 % answered in positive in taking part in discussion forum
• 45% were interested  to contribute as a Mentor
• About 56 % participants came to know about NPTEL through the announcement of the workshop, while others came to know through Newspaper, while browing internet ,FEP programs, through  academics friends.
• During the questionnaire session and a considerable number of participants from the various institutions showed interest and requested to inform their respective institutes to adopt NPTEL at their respective colleges.
• Almost 97% of the participants were keen on having NPTEL courses at their institutes, and suggested contacting the Head of the organisation to include NPTEL at their institutes.
• Only 3% of the participants of NPTEL workshop have already using NPTEL material in their local intranet at their institution
• Participants suggested few difficult topics in their respective branch on which short videos of 5 min can be made.

Regarding format of the workshop

All of them claimed that they were happy and satisfied with the organisation of the workshop, the sequence of presentations and the relevance of the presentations, and they felt that adequate time had been provided to them for expressing their views. They had received excellent response to their respective queries. The facilities at the conference sites and the reception offered to them were highly appreciated.

Regarding arrangement of the workshop

Almost all participants agreed that they had received prompt communication regarding the workshop. 90% of them showed interest for future participation in similar workshops; regarding recommending to other faculty members in their institutes about the NPTEL workshop and their courses.
Participants suggest few other models for the workshop.

• Participants suggested that similar workshop should be also conducted for student community.
• Workshop has to be replicated with good number of audience
• Sample Video lectures can be shown during the workshop
• Topic specific workshop can be introduced
• Model lectures should be given to all participants as a workshop kit
• To Conduct contest to the faculty and student at least twice a year