 So, welcome back. We hope you are able to have some tea or coffee and come back refreshed so that you do not go off to sleep. We are still in this Teacher's Day week and all educational institutions in India have been celebrating Teacher's Day. It is a very interesting event that we celebrate in India that exemplifies a kind of relationship between the teacher and the student that is not to be found in most countries in the world. So, since we are in this Teacher's Day, let me say that I personally and all of us in this team here are honored to be part of this course. We are honored because we see so much of enthusiasm on your part. We are honored because more than 25,000 of you have chosen to register for this course which shows how much you are interested in learning, but also how much you respect the kind of knowledge and skills we have acquired and which we are trying to pass on to you. Professor Fatak who gave the introduction earlier and who is the coordinator of this MOOCs course, he likes to say something about soft skills or personality development or workplace communication skills. He says these are not soft skills, these are life skills. I must say that I agree with him because what you are going to learn is going to stay with you for the rest of your life, but what you are going to learn is not just about acquiring a specific set of skills like calculation, mathematics, language and so on. This is something much more even than the knowledge in your own specific subjects that you will be acquiring, you are already acquiring as part of the various courses that you are undergoing. So we are trying to go beyond complimenting the knowledge that you already have and which will help you to get jobs in the future. So what we are trying to do in this particular module on workplace communication is that we want you to be part of a workplace which ensures dignity, we want you to be part of an organization which provides a space for you to grow, which achieves which helps you to achieve aims and objectives for everybody even as you achieve your own goals. When I was young like you and like all young people I used to believe that older people do not know much and we younger people know more than them. I used to wonder sometimes looking at friends of my father and parents and uncles and aunts and so on how these people get jobs because they did not seem to have much skills. Over a period of time I realized what it takes to work in an organization but I want to be as a team want to alert you that the modern workplace is much different from what it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago. There is a lot of expectation from you, a lot of skills, a lot of abilities, a lot of knowledge is expected to you beyond the knowledge that you have of your own subjects. So these are not just soft skills that we are providing you, these are not just technical skills, we are not just talking about personality development but perhaps we are talking about what is, what can be referred to as person development or life skills for survival that Professor Fatak talks about. So we are interested in you as a person, as a human being who is going to be working with other human beings. So workplace communication is about addressing the issue of what kind of a person you as an individual are and what kind of a person you wish to be. How do you like to be seen by others, your co-workers? How can you acquire skills which will help you to take advantage of opportunities? I am reminded of a quote by our late President Dr. Abdul Kalam who said, not everyone in the world has equal talent but everyone has an opportunity to acquire talent. Perhaps that is not entirely true because not everyone has equal opportunity but through this course what we hope to do is to provide you that opportunity to acquire talent which will stand you in good stead when you move from college to corporate. But it is not just about creating opportunities for each of you individually. So when you graduate and start your careers how can you create opportunities for others because that is what distinguishes good human beings that we are not just concerned about ourselves how can we collaborate and associate with others so that we all can enhance the opportunities available for us so that we contribute to certain common goals and objectives of the organization of society of the family and so on. So as Professor Seti mentioned earlier this course is about honoring yourself but it is also about respecting others irrespective of who they are, what kind of background they come from, what kind of gender they belong to, what kind of ethnic, religious, language, regional communities they come from. So it is something that is beyond what we are traditionally taught as teamwork. So being a professional, being a human being, being you as an individual who is unique who has certain unique abilities, experiences, backgrounds, skills, knowledge and so on. So each of you need to recognize what you can contribute to an organization, what you can become both as a human being and as a professional. So do not look at this course as a skills course these are far too important to be recognized merely as skills because what we are going to tell you is that these will help you to shape your visions for your future, your aspirations, your ideas, your strategies in the workplace, your strategies for you as an individual to advance your career goals. So these will ultimately determine how we live our lives, how we can contribute to the groups and organizations we are a part of. So Professor Seti in the morning explained that we in this team are also learning how to do this. We are doing it for the first time in this particular mode. Since we are learning we hope to keep this a bit flexible. So we would like to also learn from you about what is your idea of workplace communication and other skills that we are going to impart to you. We would also like to learn from you what is it that you expect from this course. So before we go ahead and give you an introduction to the topics that we are going to cover in the workplace communication module and explain about the assignments, activities and so on I would like to get your views on this. So I am going to give you a minute to think about why you have enrolled for this college to corporate course. So even before we come to workplace communication and think about what it means, I would like you to reflect on why you have enrolled for this college to corporate course. What do you hope to gain from it? So please take a minute to think about it and then I will come to some of you and we will get a sense of what are your motivations in showing so much enthusiasm and in such large numbers to enroll for this course. So please take a minute. I hope you have had the chance to reflect on your own motivations and the reasons why you have chosen to register for this blended MOOCs course on college to corporate and maybe you have also had a chance to talk with your friends and partners. So I am going to come to some of you and get your views and hopefully we will use these in modifying and revising the program both in when we are offering it right now and in future courses. So can we go to 1-0-2-1? Itanagar? I am the current coordinator. Okay, okay the coordinator. Okay. So welcome. How many of you are there? Yeah, I am already there. Okay, that is very good. So can one of you tell me why you have chosen to enroll for this course? What is your motivation? To improve your communication skills. To improve your communication skills. Okay. So how to interact and you are going to be passing out very soon. So how to get a job, how to interact, improve your communication skills. Anything else? Can you pass the mic to someone else? Yeah, please go ahead. Okay. It goes around the soft skills and communication skills to improve your skills. So as we come today, the important thing is to have those skills to survive in today's and not that changing world. You need to more be able to improve your skills. Okay. Thank you very much. So you say that soft skills and communication skills are very important in today's workspaces. That is the reason why you have enrolled for this course. So I hope, thank you for joining us from a very remote part of India and we hope you make the most of this course. Thank you. Can we go to 1094? Okay. Ludmata College of Science and Technology, welcome. Who is the coordinator here? Myself. I am the coordinator. Sir, my name is Krishna Prashant. Krishna Prashant. Thank you very much for coordinating this. As Professor Seti said in the morning, you play a very important role. As the course progresses, there will be a lot of activities, assignments that you need to coordinate. So we appreciate the support provided by all the coordinators. So I would like to pose this question to your participants. Why have you chosen to enroll for this course? What is your main motivation? Hello, sir. Yes. Myself Anjini. Mainly four courses. The first one is soft skills. So I wanted to improve my soft skills, like how to communicate with others, how to address an audience with confidence, how to attend an interview, then regarding face and all, how to communicate clearly with a peer group. And also I hope that all this will be improved by completing this course. Okay. So thank you very much. So you want to improve your soft skills and then you want to improve the communication with your peer group. So are you already doing something to improve these skills? Yes, sir. I am trying. You are trying. How are you trying? Sir, actually what I say that first we have attended one pre-course assignment regarding reading and all. Okay. Within that also our communication has been changed, that is, even our chat has been changed. We have started talking about certain books, we have started sharing about certain things, whether that's a good book or not, like that. So we are changing actually. That's great to know that in such a short time, with just the first introduction and the readings that you are already beginning to change in terms of exchanging more information and communicating and chatting and so on. And this is what contributes to mutual learning because communication is not just conversations, communication is about how we learn from each other. How we communicate something that we want to say to others, how those people absorb it and then how they respond. So we are very glad that you are already beginning to share. Does somebody else want to have a go? Hello, sir. Hello. I just joined this course because we are all engineering students and I think once in a life we have to work in the industry and this would be very helpful for us. Okay. In what way do you think it will be helpful? Regarding the communication, I think in industry the communications are quite different. Not in a formal, I think it's in a formal manner and not a casual. So I think this is very helpful for us. Thank you. That's a very important point you are making because we are very clear that this is not simply about acquiring English language skills. This is about communication in whatever language you wish to use in the workplace when you move from college to corporate. So you very rightly recognize that when you move to a career, the kind of communication you will have to be very different from what we do in informal circumstances, whether at home or with your friends or even in other formal settings like the classroom. So there are very specific kinds of things that we need to learn how to do these things and you will be at an advantage if you learn some of these formal mechanisms of communication that you will encounter in the workplace. So we hope you will maximize the opportunities from this course and we wish you all the best for your future. Thank you. Thank you. Can we move to 1028? How many of you attending this course today? 90. More than 90. Thank you. So you are not able to speak, is it? Some problem with communication. So maybe we will move on. So good to see such a large number, Tathya Sahib Kore, I visited your college many years ago and we were doing some very interesting research in Varna Nagar. I am very happy to see the students from Tathya Sahib Kore again, hope to visit you sometime in the future again but you have excellent infrastructure and an excellent campus. So I hope you also optimize the learning from this course and you are able to have great careers once you graduate from here. Thank you for joining this course. I am sorry we are having communication problems. So we have heard some of the reasons and motivations that students have given for joining this course and I think there will be many more such reasons and justifications and motivations and each of you will have some unique motivations as well and of course there will be a lot of common justifications for joining this course. Now beyond these motivations what comes out from some of these conversations is that there are specific requirements that some students have depending on what is your own background, what kind of skills you already have, what kind of strengths you already have and what you think you need to acquire before you make a successful transition from college to corporate. But in order to translate that motivation into successful learning you also need to be clear about what exactly soft skills is, what exactly communication is, what exactly workplace communication is. So I am going to be coordinating this module on workplace communication. So there is going to be a bit of an overlap between the soft skills course and the workplace communication course but we are also going to be addressing something very specific. So do you have an idea of what workplace communication is? Because all of you are still students you will be moving to workplaces very soon some of you may go on to do your masters or PhD before you go on to your careers. So what is your idea of workplace communication? So I would like to give you two minutes to think about it maybe discuss with your colleagues and partners who are sitting next to you. So I would like you to think about two things what is your idea of workplace communication and number two what is it that you want to learn as part of workplace communication that is what kind of skills you wish to acquire as part of workplace communication. So please take two minutes to write down responses to this. So I hope you had a chance to both reflect on what you understand by workplace communication as well as getting to know what workplace communication means to your partners and colleagues sitting with you in your rooms. So can we go to one of the colleges and get to know your views on what workplace communication is or what you expect to learn in this workplace communications course. Yes Sehagat College of Engineering, hi good to see an enthusiastic group here. Hi sir. Hi. My name is Kiran Patma Seh, I'm a coordinator for this program and these are my students they have been waiting for you since morning to interact with you. They have a lot more to share with you. So I would like to hand over the mic to my students. So Kiran thank you very much for having a very enthusiastic bunch of students. Good afternoon sir. I'm Alisha. As we are learning workplace communication so in workplace communication we are so I think it is about the getting along with the people. So we are as in a college stage we are after we are going to the professional level. So in that we are we need to go along with our juniors, colleagues and our seniors also. So in this we are expecting to learn that how to get along with the people, how to deal with the people and as well as the some interpersonal skills. Okay. Alisha, thank you very much for that observation. So are you saying that you are not able to get along with people right now? Actually I'm getting along with my friends but when we are dealing with professional life because we don't have an experience what will be there what is going to happen with us. So we are so we think to learn that. Yeah. So that's an absolutely important point because what you are saying is right now you are getting along with people as friends and people who have who are at the same level and similar learning objectives but soon you will be getting into professional life. People at different levels, skills, having different roles in the organization. So how to get along the kind of interpersonal skills that you will require, how to deal with people when you are doing different jobs. Those are the expectations that you have with reference to workplace communication. Yeah. Thank you. Is there somebody else from the same college? My name is Shiv Ganesh. So I think that workplace, I think sir that workplace communication is the transmitting the information between your colleagues or in the group or in organizations. It may be from the sources like mails or by sending them messages. I think this course may help us to develop our interpersonal skills in the corporate level or how we can communicate or speak with the colleagues or professional workers. Yes. Yeah. So thank you. So transmitting information, especially official information between colleagues, that's an important set of skills that we are going to learn in this course. Do you have any idea about what kind of transmission of information takes place? I think so that if a project is assigned to a manager or an engineer, he should try to explain it to their workers that how it should be worked or how it should be carried out. So it's more important that workers should know exactly what is the project and how we have to perform it. So it may increase the efficiency of the work and the project will be brought out in good manner. Absolutely. Thank you so much. We hope you all have a great time learning from this course and we will get back to you in the course of this semester, next couple of months, we will get back to you again. Thank you. Can we go to someone else? Vila Institute Durga, welcome. So we seem to have more women here than men. That's a good sign in engineering college. Can one of the coordinators speak please? I am Swapna Sarkar, assistant coordinator. So Swapna, how many students are there here? 200 sir. 200, oh that's fantastic. That's fantastic. All of them are in the same room? In this room, 60 students. No sir, in this room, 60 students. One is NCLM and the rest of the students. Okay, that's fantastic to know that there are so many students who have registered for this. All of them are third year students. Which year are they from? Seventh and fifth. Seventh and fifth. Okay. Yeah, one of the students who have registered for this, they have registered for this. And the third year students, which year are they from? Seventh and fifth. Seventh and fifth. Okay. Yeah, one of the students, please respond. What do you understand by workplace communication? Now we are in our college life and we are in our third year. So after our college life, we will be going, we will entering the corporate world. So there the atmosphere of the corporate world is entirely different from what we are, means living in our college life. So workplace, in workplace communication, we have to communicate with our colleagues or with our seniors. So in this, I will be expecting that we learn how to communicate in a professional way. And like, if we have assigned some task, like a teamwork task, so how to do better in that teamwork or something, like group task, etc. So how to communicate in a professional way, that's what you want to do. Can I, please let me know your name? Shivani Bhatia. Shivani Bhatia. Thank you for that. Thank you, sir. Comment. Yeah. So there are different kinds of corporate jobs and each of them have a different idea of what is professional. So depending in some organizations, it's okay to have casual communication and some you need to be highly professional. So it's very important to understand what is the expectation of different organizations so that you can communicate effectively. So I would like you to focus on the second question that I had. That is, what is your expectation? What kind of topics that you want us to cover in this workplace communication skills course? Sir, until now, we have only gained knowledge regarding students' life. Like, we know how to complete assignments or fulfill the deadlines. But we don't have any knowledge about what will happen when we get into something that is like the world of jobs and works in corporate is completely alien to us currently. So I would be really, I would be expecting that we would know how to adjust in that alien environment as well as do well in that section. So that is all that I'd be expecting. Thank you. Actually, the corporate life is not as different from the student life that you expect because you will still have deadlines. You will still have to complete assignments and time. So don't expect that you'll be running away from assignments and deadlines once you join the corporate life. It's not going to be easy. So but yes, you're right. There are a different set of expectations and as a professional, how do you interact with your colleagues? That's something. So it is alien in some ways, but it's also the same in some ways. Thank you very much for participating. San Francis Borively. I am the coordinator of the course. My name is Paul Fernandez and we have about 20 students attending this course. And we want to thank you for choosing the topic soft skills and workplace communication. And I believe the soft skills will help our students to crack their interview at the first level and the workplace communication will help them to climb the ladder once they reach the corporate world. And now I would like to give to the students to share their experience and what they expect from this course. When we know that communication is a key aspect for any institution to rise or fall. So we we are eager to learn about the various other factors or external factors like seating arrangement of in the in the business place like a cuboidal structure, how they affect communication in professional world. So you already seem to be a little bit of aware of how we sit in the corporate offices. So yeah, how the spatial pattern, how we sit, how we are organized, how the seating arrangements are organized, they do affect how we work. And maybe your long term aim is to get into that corner office. You know what a corner office is? The boss. The boss. Yes. Okay. So yeah, so this this brings a new dimension to the workplace communication because it is not simply about oral and written communication, it is there are a lot of factors that affected including body language, where we sit, what kind of mechanisms or technologies we use to communicate whether it is face to face or through email or social media through paper and so on. So there are a lot of dimensions which we hope to cover. Anyone else at the back wants to tell us what he or she expects from this course. My name is Akshita Bhatt. I expect that we will improve our presentation skills and the way we communicate with the people. So we will have a better confidence in facing the world, corporate world. And. Okay. So that's all. Okay. Akshita, you already seem to have a lot of confidence. Thank you, sir. Okay. Yeah. So that's what, so it's not that students are not confident. It's how you use that confidence in the workplace. That's what, so some of us lack in confidence for various reasons. Some of us have that inner confidence in us. Some of us are nervous internally, but we are able to project a very confident face to the outside world. So what we are trying to do here is to channelize, help you channelize that inner and outer confidence into effective communication. And we hope that you will benefit from this course. And please do get back to us through email and discussion forums if you have any further suggestions on what you want us to include in these courses. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Just one more college maybe we can go to. Yeah. RBS Agra. Welcome. You seem to be a very large group. Hello. Hello. Hi. The way, you know, I like the enthusiasm of you people waving to me as well as though I am Shahrukh Khan. Namaskar, sir. Myself P. K. Singh. P. K. Singh. From RBS Engineering Technical Campus Agra, the city of Taj Mahal. Yes, of course. First of all, I would like to appreciate sir, your initiative to groom various students throughout the country. My students, would you like to communicate with you? Yeah. So I would like to give them a chance. Yeah. Before we go to them, so Dr. P. K. Singh, you are the coordinator. Yes, sir. Yes. So you mentioned that? P. K. Singh. P. K. Singh. Okay. You said you are in the city of Taj Mahal. Yes, sir. So can you tell us how you can bring some romance into workplace communication? My student can tell you better. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Please give it to one of your students. The students, you seem to have a very unromantic professor. Yes, sir. Okay. I am Harshita. Harshita. Yes. Sir, I was wanting to answer what you were asking to the students. Yeah. Please, please answer me. Sir, from this, I am expecting to invite myself. As in the previous session, sir said, we have to invite ourselves here. We are already there, but after this, we are answering to the professional work and we want to discover some new communication skills and all for that. So we are here for that. Okay. Yes. You know, that's what we are looking for in our students. When you said we are already fab, you know, that shows the confidence that you have. We believe that everybody is fab. Okay. But how can we make it fab plus? That's what we are trying to do. Okay. So I greatly appreciate your answer that you want to invent yourself. And that's what I tried to say at the beginning as well, that it's not just about giving a uniform set of skills so that all of you become like automations or robots and behave exactly in the same way in the workplace. Each of you is unique. So how do you optimize that uniqueness? How do you bring that uniqueness to the workplace while also ensuring that you fit into the goals and objectives of the larger team in which you are working? So for that, you need to constantly invent yourself, reinvent yourself. So how do you reinvent yourself? Hopefully by the end of this course, you will be able to tell us that. Thank you very much for that answer. How many students are here in RBS Agra? There are 266 students registered. Okay. How many are here in the room? Everyone? Almost every student is available. Okay. Okay. We hope the others will join also. Thanks. So great to see such a large number. Student would like to ask. Yes. Yes, please. My name is Kamranayamath. I'm a final assistant of mechanical engineering. My question is, how we can get sustainable growth with study? Study, growth of physical and mental with study. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that question. Sustainability can mean many things. So I'm not sure which context you're asking this question in, but because of the nature of this course, I'm assuming that you're asking about maintaining a sustainable growth for yourself as an individual. Is that right? Yes. Precisely. That's what we are aiming for because with your individual skills, ability and knowledge, you can only get so far when you join the corporate sector, when you get into a job. There's only a certain distance that you can travel. But what we are hoping and this is why I mentioned at the beginning that this is not just about skills. It is about recognizing your own individual capability. It is about respecting the dignity of other people. So when we look upon work in the sense of dignity, we are thinking about how we can interact with each other as human beings in a sustainable way, which means that we want to go far ahead in terms of achieving our objectives, not just in terms of climbing the ladders. So recognizing your own individual abilities, your motivations, where you wish to be, what kind of a human you want to be, what kind of a professional you want to be. So what we are trying to do is to place you at the beginning of this journey, give you certain tips, make sure that you know the path so that you can follow it. So the kind of things that we are going to talk about in this course will give you some specific skills, but we are also hoping that this will just be the beginning of a self-learning journey where each of you will chalk out your own path. You will be able to draw the route to your success yourself. That's what we are trying to do here. So we will not be here to hold your hand forever. So you will have to do this for yourself. And sustainability means that you don't necessarily depend on others to take you ahead in this journey. So that's a very interesting question, Kamran. And that is exactly what we are trying to do in this course. But if I can just spend a minute on the other meanings of sustainability. So in the beginning, I mentioned that we are not just talking about corporate success, we're talking about what kind of organizations we want to work in. So in today's world, it's very important that we also pay attention to other issues of sustainability with reference to the environment and ecology, what kind of development we want and so on. So hopefully, these courses will also give you the values necessary so that you can channel the workplaces in a more sustainable way, whether in terms of energy or environment or sanitation or how you treat each other as human beings. Thank you very much for that question. No, thank you. So we've had a very interesting and diverse set of responses about what workplace communication means to each of you. But also what you expect to learn from this workplace communication module. I'm sure the 25,000 of you will have many more thousands of different kinds of responses and maybe you can share it with us through the discussion forum. So we've already shared this course outline with you, the outline of topics on the schedule. There's a slight change that is reflected here. But we will be making a few more changes. We were just discussing about it this morning. So please look for an updated schedule over the next couple of days. What I plan to do in the next few minutes is to briefly introduce you to workplace communications. So you already have a certain idea of what workplace communication is. You already have a certain idea of what is your expectation? What do you hope to learn? And what do you hope to gain from this course? So we released the introductory module last week. And we hope you've already started doing the assignments and activities that we have recommended for you. That you've also started reading the material that we have prescribed for you. Next week, we are going to release video and related material on presentation skills. Of course presentation skills is part of soft skills as well. But here in workplace communication, we are going to focus on something very specific. That is, when you join an organization, you will be either asked to make presentations or asked to prepare presentations. A key aspect here in today's workplace is that we make presentations which contain not only text material, but also images, graphs, pictures, data in the form of tables. So most of us are not formally trained in the use of these while presenting. So there are certain strategies for effectively making presentations when we create and use graphs, images, data, and so on. So Professor Ambarish Kumar, who is a faculty in the School of Biosciences here, is going to tell you about these. And an interesting set of learning material and assignments is going to be given to you for making these presentations. Because in today's world, we are not just communicating using text either orally or in written form. We use a lot of images, we use a lot of pictures. So images convey something in a better way, in a more efficient way, which text cannot sometimes. So it is very important that and today we are also living in a world where a lot of data is used. This is the world of big data, this is the world of data analytics and so on. So it is extremely important irrespective of which kind of jobs you take up that you are also proficient in presenting data, images, pictures, and graphs in very effective ways. One of the things about corporate life and this is sometimes a boring part of corporate life is that you have to conduct and participate in a very large number of meetings. But meetings are something that is uniquely human and this is something that you have to recognize. So if you look at other species of living beings, not many of them have meetings, like human beings do. So why do human beings have so many meetings and why are meetings important? Because meetings are ultimately about the fact that we are social beings, that we like to come together, discuss, and take decisions. So in corporate life you will be expected to attend a lot of meetings. So it is important that we learn about etiquette, how to participate in meetings, when to speak up, when not to speak up, how to interrupt, how not to interrupt, how to make points effectively in meetings, how to make points without seeming to be very aggressive. So there are a lot of aspects which not only help us better contribute to meetings, but also improve the overall efficiency and outcome of meetings. So Dr. Leena Ja, whom you met in the morning, who is a communications consultant with us, is going to be teaching you, giving you some tips on this. And along with this, there is as some of you have pointed out, a lot of official communication in the workplace. So these are both oral and written. So there are specific kinds of communication that we need to learn because any mistakes in these kinds of official communication will send out wrong signals. They may also send out wrong signals about your own ability. So these could be official letters, briefings that you prepare for partners, or for clients, or for government officials, minutes of meetings, notes that you put up to your seniors and so on. So there are specific formats and templates that different organizations use. Some of the software that we use also provide templates for these, but these are dependent on which organization, which sector you work on, whether it is advertising, or finance, or banking, or manufacturing. They also depend on the kind of language that is used, whether you are using electronic media or paper communication. And what is the level of casualness that you are allowed to use in this communication in your own organization? So official communication is one of the most important aspects of workplace communication. And again, Dr. Lina Jha will be talking about this, and giving you a number of activities and assignments, both group and individual for this particular module. If you watch the introductory video, you will know that we are stressing on something that is very unique and specific to modern workplaces. So the modern workplaces are global workplaces. That is, they are global because you may be working for a company or a firm which has a global presence around the world. You may be working for a multinational company. You may be working for a company which was started in some other country, has a branch in India. But it is also global because there is communication that is happening face to face through travel or through technology with clients, customers, partners, fellow employees from all parts of the world, from many different countries in the world. It can be global because we are using knowledge which is global. We are using technology which is global. We are talking about work itself which is global in nature because it is taking place in so many different parts of the world. At the same time, we are living in a world where gradually some of the older inequalities, prejudices are beginning to come down. So the modern workplace will have more women. It will have more people from different castes, communities, religious groups, regions, people from many different educational backgrounds. So this is seen as the strength of the modern workplace because it provides equal opportunities to everybody. But the modern workplace not only gives equal opportunities to everybody, they also try to capitalize on the unique experiences of everybody. So men and women, people from different ethnic backgrounds, minority backgrounds, religious backgrounds, regions will come with their own experiences. So a lot of research in psychology and economics show that this diversity contributes to better ideas, more creativity to solve the problems in the workplace. And therefore, diversity in the workplace is something that is formally encouraged. But this brings with it its own unique problems because not all of us have grown up trained to deal with this diversity. Some of us unconsciously may have biases, prejudices to others depending on gender and class and caste and region and so on. There are also specific kinds of language that we have to use because we are working in a global workplace. There are specific terms, kinds of the specific terms that we need to learn how to use. So we are going to learn about how this global and cultural awareness can be used to modify our behavior, whether verbal, non-verbal human gestures in the workplace so that we all can work effectively without creating conflicts. This also brings me to a very important issue of workplace ethics because a workplace like every other space in society also has politics. The workplace has different ideas of what is good and bad, what is the ideal thing to do, what is expected, what is acceptable. So it is very important that we maintain integrity. So some of you responded earlier that you wish to interact as professionals. You want to learn professional communication. To be professional also means to maintain integrity. Integrity is not just honesty but a range of issues that we have to learn when we are dealing with different kinds of people and when you are contributing to common goals. So maintaining integrity and how to conduct ourselves as professionals is something that I am going to talk about and Professor Sir Rajesh Zele from IIT Bombay is going to give you some tips on this. So Professor Zele comes with a lot of experience from industry over 20 years and he also has experience in academia. So he is going to say some very interesting and exciting things about professional conduct and workplace ethics. A key aspect which is also required by law is that certain guidelines relating to sexual harassment and workplace harassment be followed by every organization in India and around the world. So there are institution specific guidelines and there are national guidelines given by the Supreme Court of India. So most of us are good human beings. We do not harass others but some people do. But some people may unconsciously or unintentionally involve in certain kinds of behavior which will be regarded as sexual harassment. So it is very important that we be aware of these guidelines of these norms of what constitutes sexual harassment, what is not so that we can then behave appropriately in the workplace. This is very important because as I said the modern workplace is very diverse. Increasing numbers of women are in the workplace. It is very important that they do not feel harassed so that they can contribute as equals to the workplace. The last two topics cover nonverbal communication and email communication. So some of you have been talking about body language, attitude, behavior and so on. So this area has expanded exponentially. There are a huge number of videos that you can get on YouTube I am sure if you search for these. So apart from using language to communicate, we also use a lot of gestures, hand gestures, facial expressions and so on. Now not only do we have to learn how to use expressions appropriately but we have to learn how to use these expressions in a global world. So there are certain kinds of nonverbal human gestures which we may use which is intelligible which we can understand within India. But if somebody comes from another country he or she may not be able to understand this. So in a globalized workplace what kind of human gestures to use so that our communication becomes effective. This is something we are going to learn. So Dr. Meghishree Dalvi who is also a communication consultant is going to talk more about this. And finally in the modern workplace where technology is used extensively in communication we use email but we also use a lot of social media both formally and informally Twitter and WhatsApp and a whole range of other applications. So some of these may divert us from our work functions but some of these are also useful. So there is a lot of informal and formal communication that takes place through these. So we are going to learn that is Professor Varsha Apte whose in charge of the computer center in IIT Bombay is going to help us maximize the use of technology in communication what kind of etiquette is to be followed. At the same time she is also going to alert us to some of the dangers of inappropriate use of social media email communication which can create a lot of problems. You need to be aware that these topics that we are going to cover are not simply about acquiring certain skills. I have mentioned to you earlier that workplace communication involves maintaining one's own dignity in the workplace while respecting the dignity of others. So your own honor is important respecting other people is also important. So there is there are a very large number of examples you keep reading about them in newspapers and hearing about them on TV all the time where in very large companies people did not follow some of these basic etiquette whether it is gender and diversity global awareness use of social media and so on. Because of this people have had to leave organizations they have been sacked they didn't they felt they didn't fit in and so on. So while it is important to respect your own individuality we need to respect the individuality of others also. In order to ensure this organizations have come up with a number of guidelines and just a quick browse through internet or on YouTube will give you a lot of workshops and guidelines on these topics and you are very welcome to go through these. But beyond just learning how to communicate in the workplace learning to work together as human beings is what we are trying to stress here and that is why it is so very important that you both respect yourself and respect others when it comes to workplace communication and I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Now these topics just to reiterate are given in a particular sequence here but there is going to be a slight change in the sequencing there is also going to be a slight change in the dates. So the coordinators as well as the participants are requested to note that earlier we had decided to release all the modules on Thursdays but they are going to be released on Tuesdays from next week. We will send you a formal communication about this but each module will be released on Tuesdays and you will have one week to complete them. Very quickly I want to touch upon some operational issues relating to this course similar to what Professor Seti had told you in the previous module on soft skills. So we are for every topic that we have given you there are going to be one, two or three videos which you need to watch. Related to each video lecture there will be activities that are prescribed. Some of these activities are individual activities, some of these are group activities you may be asked to form groups of three or four or maybe the entire college as a group. So please take responsibility in forming these groups and completing these group activities. Sometimes coordinators may have to step in and play a role in ensuring that groups are formed. Even though you may not be given marks or assigned grades for these activities, it is extremely important that you carry out these activities because these are the kind of skills that we acquire through practice. So Professor Seti was earlier talking about the importance of practice. So we cannot stress this enough that these are not topics that you can learn only by listening to lectures or by reading. It is only through practice that we can learn more about this. So please ensure that you complete these activities and do them as many times as possible, as many times as you want to do them. In addition we will be giving you some assignments. So some of these assignments may not be mandatory, some of them may be mandatory. So we will let you know which ones are mandatory. So it is important that you complete these assignments and submit them to us. We will tell you how to submit them, submit them in time. Reading again Professor Seti gave you specific tips about how to enhance your reading activities over the next one month. So a range of material is going to be made available to you to read about each of the topics. Again these are not topics on which we have formally learned earlier as part of our respective programs. So you may not be able to understand and get the gist of what is being explained in these readings. So number one please make an effort to read them as seriously as possible. Number two please contact your respective coordinators if you cannot understand any of these and number three please get back to us through the discussion forum if you cannot understand something or if you want something to be explained to you. For each of the modules we are going to be giving you some additional links to other videos that are available via internet. So some of these are from outside of India but many of these are going to be from within India also. So please ensure that you watch these videos and learn from them and finally for each module we will be giving you quizzes. So it is extremely important that you complete these quizzes because only then you will be given your certificates. While doing all of these from point one to point five as professor Seti stressed and emphasized in the morning we expect you to follow an honor code that is we are not going to be doing any policing there is no surveillance there is no camera there is nobody to check with you and ask with you ask you whether you have completed these but you have volunteered for this course and some of you have told us why you have chosen to register for this course because you expect to learn. So we expect that you will respect yourself and complete all these activities that you will not copy the quiz answers from somebody else because in that case you are not respecting other people. So each and every one of you please respect yourselves and ensure that you complete all these tasks as seriously as possible. I hope all of you promise this to yourselves and to your neighbors whoever is sitting next to you. I just want to spend a couple of minutes on the assignment that I have already given to you for the first introductory lecture. So all of you must have seen the video by now along with the video we have given you some links to other videos we have given you links to external reading on the internet and then I have given you a set of assignments. I would like you to do all three assignments as seriously as possible if you cannot understand any of these please speak to your coordinators or get back to us through the discussion forum. So I am going to explain these assignment to you the activities that we have prescribed for you. One because you are still students you have you are not yet in the workplace you may not quite understand what is meant by workplace communication skills. So I would like each of you to talk to your family members talk to relatives friends neighbors who are already working ask them questions what skills did they acquire after joining the organization and what kind of workplace skills were most difficult to acquire. If you can know this you are already better prepared in terms of acquiring workplace communication skills. The second activity that I would like you to do is to talk to the person in charge of placement in your college or university please ask him or her which kind of workplace communication skills are most sought by the companies that come from for recruitment. Ask them which kind of communication skills are lacking in a majority of the students. Check for yourself what are your strengths what are your weaknesses and see what you need to improve. Finally after watching the introductory video and the PPT that is attached to that go to the topics that we have given you create two columns next to these topics. Number one find out what is your skill level on each of these topics give yourself a grade excellent good or needs improvement create one more column on the right side and note down if you have written needs improvement for any of these topics what steps are you going to take to enhance your skills what are you going to do to enhance your skills on any of these modules. Now if you can prepare this chart you will again be much better prepared in terms of learning and benefiting from all of these modules because you need to take personal interest in trying to understand what is it that you are good at what is it that needs improvement for you. You can then decide how much time to allot in terms of improving your skills for specific kinds of modules. Do I have your promise on all of these? Anurag group of institutions so do your students have any questions for us. My name is Venkatesh Vellu I am mechanical third year. So like what all will we learn after the course like after the ending of this course. So like we do not know any work place communication skills like we are not doing any job. So like how can we you know you told that we cannot see and we cannot study and learn we can see and learn more. So how will you make sure that we will learn. Okay so that is you know very important and useful question to ask because you will have access to certain kinds of learning during this course but you will not get a chance to practice because you are not working right now. So what we are going to do is to design certain activities for you which you can practice on your own. Okay which you can practice on your own with your own friends but we can also try to set up interactions in workplaces in some cities where you can actually go and get an experience. So I would suggest that your coordinator can address this question your coordinator can get people who are working in organization in your own cities to come and speak to you about this but maybe some some of you can also go to workplaces in your own organizations and spend some time find out how they communicate use your skills in communicating with them and see if they actually work or there are problems in using those communication skills that you have acquired in this in this course. Okay but we will see what we can do from our end. Thank you sir. Thank you and we go to another college D.Y. Patil in Pune. Hello. I am the course coordinator Vaishali Biradhar from D.Y. Patil participants ask you the questions regarding the workplace. So my name is Rajeshwari and sir I am an third year engineering student. So I wanted to ask that during we interact with people like it's informal formal so respecting respecting yourself and others how do we do it in like in regular manner? Okay that's a very interesting question. Okay so this is something that we think that we all grow up knowing how to respect others as human beings but sometimes society teaches us the opposite also so how to overcome that that's extremely important because in a workplace whether you like each other or not you have to work with each other okay and it becomes easier if you respect each other. So how do you gain respect for the other? First and most basic thing is to put yourself in the shoes of other people okay try and see things from other people's perspectives. So you have particular perspective you have some views you have some opinions and there is a disagreement with what other people say whether it could be about how to achieve a goal what kind of strategies to follow. So best thing is to put yourself in the shoes of others and see and try and understand things from their perspective so there are a number of psychological techniques and activities which help us to see things from other people's perspectives but beyond that in this course what we are going to do is to focus on how to respect other people firstly in terms of how they contribute to the objectives of an organization secondly how to respect them in terms of their own individuality that everybody has a unique individuality they also have a unique cultural context they are male or female or third gender maybe they belong to different religions language groups regions with different educational backgrounds and so on but each of them has something to contribute to the organization. So recognizing that they have something to contribute they have certain unique skills but also that each of them needs to be respected for what they are once we understand this it becomes easy to respect other people but the first point that you mentioned is also extremely important please remember to respect yourself also okay don't give up too easily don't think that you are inferior the very fact that you've come up to this place in this institution shows the kind of ability that you have and the fact that you've registered for this course shows that you want to enhance your own self-esteem and self-respect because communication soft skills these are about enhancing our respect for ourselves our self-esteem okay so the moment that you recognize that you have something to contribute and that I need to be respected I need to be given a chance I need to be given an opportunity to showcase my talents my skills then you develop respect for yourself okay so in an organization it's important that you fight for your own self-esteem and self-respect so that you can grow as an individual but do the same for others that's an important part of what modern workplaces are about okay yeah so thank you very much yes thank you so much we'll be looking forward to be meeting you again thank you we look forward to having you as well this is Sujatha madam from DIY Patil Pimpri Pune sir I really appreciate the answer you gave to my students understanding others you have to be in their shoes so this is something that will really make them think you can get students and sir I would also like to congratulate you and thank you for the lovely coordination and communication you are having with the students it was really great talking to you sir we look forward to you henceforth yes thank you Sujatha madam for coordinating a lovely batch of students thank you yes sir so we would like to wind up now because we've just gone beyond the deadline given to us but I'm sure a lot of you will have questions and clarifications and you can share that with us via the discussion forum but please don't go away just yet just hold on for a couple of minutes because Dr. Kalpana Kannan whose the manager for this course would like to give you some instructions so we just now got the figure that it's around 25,000 students so nowhere in the world people are doing such big activity where at one go we can reach out to 25,000 students so I'm really happy about it and thanks for participating in large numbers and we are doing our best in IIT Bombay to cater to your needs and we have excellent professors here who will help you and guide you and we have an excellent backend team who's working day and night to make this happen so it is not so you can imagine how much work would have gone into this to and I have my colleague Mahendra Parmar so there are a whole lot of people who are working behind the scene so we have a studio team we have a workshop team we have a content team we have a teaching assistant yeah teaching assistant so there's a whole lot of people who are working behind this so I just want you to know that we are a big team here and that's why we are able to deliver this program to you so there are certain things which I want everybody to know that I know that you all have registered on a website which is the College to Cooperate website but you have to also register on IIT Bombay X using the same email ID so unless you do that you won't be able to see the online component that is the MOOC platform which we are using for the courses so please register on IIT Bombay X platform using the same email ID that you have used to register on the College to Cooperate and we are going to open the registration till September 12th so that is a hard deadline so we don't want anybody to say later on that we didn't know about this so please ask your friends or other people to register before September 12th so September 12th is the last day for registration and now we might be rescheduling as Professor Seti said we are still working out on how to make the content available to you on the platform so there could be some rearrangement of the schedule so we will update it on the platform so the schedule please check the schedule so there are there will be weekly release so the weekly release initially we thought we will do it on Thursdays but now because people are saying that if you are meeting on Saturday then it will be better if we release it on Tuesday so it could be that we will release the next set of content on September 12th instead of September 14th so please check your IT Bombay X website and then you will be able to know what are the changes so most probably from now on it will be every Tuesday we will release the content and there will be deadline for all the quizzes weekly quizzes so it is you will get usually you will get at least three days sometimes it could be more so the each week there will be quiz deadlines so please stick to the quiz deadlines and yeah so if you have any queries please post them on discussion forum so for the first time if you are using the platform you may have you may find a little difficult but I suggest everybody should go through the demo IT Bombay X demo course so that will give you guidelines like how to use the platform so please register on the demo course IT Bombay X demo course go through that course it will hardly take one hour or two hours of your time so please go through that demo course so that you you have an idea how to use the platform because the MOOC platform is quite different from what you have been using so it will be it will be beneficial if you register for the demo course and take that course and discussion forum is available to you so if you have any queries please post them on discussion forum we have set of teaching assistants who will answer your queries on the discussion forum so there is also an announcement for the course coordinators so we request you to take a snapshot of your classroom and mail it to eoutreach at it.itb.ac.in so this is a request from Prasafatak because he wants to send it to the ministry and to tell a lot of people that how how we are able to reach out to so many people so please I request all of you all the course coordinators to take a snapshot of your classroom and send it to eoutreach at it. Classroom with the students setting up. Yeah with the students and attendance I think already a mail has gone from the course team like how for each online session you should take the attendance of your students and yeah so if you cannot upload it on the platform you can send it so you can send it offline so it was really nice I think we have started with a very good note and I really congratulate and appreciate the efforts taken by all the remote center coordinators as well as the course coordinators I'm really happy to see that so many people have registered and the program has just begun and we will be interacting with you often and through the platform as well as the face-to-face so the next face-to-face interaction will be on 23rd September please note the date so it's on Saturday and it will be a full day thing so from 9.30 to 5.30 with a break with a lunch break so morning will be short skills and afternoon will be workplace communication so thanks a lot and so we look forward to working with you and for next eight weeks thank you