 I mean I read through these questions I think all of us received and what I decided as I broke it down into like roughly four of categories and so I'll write them down I think I want I'm thinking the way we want to do it is not to make it too forward so I think people should raise their hands and speak up and make comments so the main thing that I got out of reading this was I think that driving access if you will is policy right so you know one way to think about what this group should do is to consider what are the kind of policy level you know decisions or statements or recommendations that we may want to make regarding various okay so just based on these questions and probably you know they are fairly comprehensive I saw there were five different types of topics and I'm going to write them down here and if you feel you know there are other topics that I over looked at it can add but so the first one I saw was about policies regarding assessments and certifications I think we I think the first question basically you know ask should we require that some percent of the you know credits are done through whatever so broadly we can ask the question what is our recommendations regarding policies about certifications and assessments with respect to online so everything you're talking about obviously is with respect to online education so one axis one dimension seem to be certifications in assessments the other one you know which is really what technology should be used and here there are questions like recommendations standards is do you how prescriptive you know should should the government be should specifically suggest you know university colleges should use certain things or subscribe to certain standards or whatever is related to technology and you know type of platforms that we use the third topic I saw was related to open source that quite a few comments on the questionnaire you know what is our position do we want to insist that everything you know that is used for online education by the entire community should be in open source on you know specific things should not be affected by then there is the question about your content rights related to contents and technologies and then when I say content I mean things like lecture content labs and technologies I mean you know platforms that allow you to create you know lectures or you know this technology thanks you think of them as tools as the content is a thing that you create using the tools and the last topic I saw was how much do we want to push NME ICT projects and you know outputs so you know some of the things that we heard today for example you know that was funded by NME ICT so they're developing a bunch of tools no solutions how much do we want to have policy statements regarding pushing them meaning making them available recommending and things like that so I mean I sort of out of these 14 questions I was able to come up with these broad five topics and I was thinking that you know at the end of the day if we as a group come up with a set of policy you know statements that we believe were important to be made on each of these topics that would probably be useful I mean naturally they're subject to further discussion and debate but that would be the you know output of this particular group for tomorrow so does this mean is everyone comfortable with this approach in the first place or am I missing something while you're looking at it for general okay that's fine I mean I think over speaks at least the first time you know if you can introduce yourself say your name and where you're from so later on so this okay I think if I'm no one object to it I assume everybody's comfortable with it you think collaborations and joint programs right collaborations and joint and policy related to that can you elaborate what you're thinking other we should have the joint programs that the good universities of future universities one that is a university that is was not doing good okay must be having the joint amdeic of the the universities which are really doing good okay but this is specifically the context of technology the collaboration says one particular respect which you know okay so uh now I feel nervous with both other groups that are better okay so anyway so I mean I you know leading these questions these are the topics you know that mean general being you know whatever else is not mentioned so what would be good is if people who feel specifically that you know based on these questions or whatever else you're thinking that you have an opinion on any one of these topics I think you should you should say because otherwise you know I'll capture whatever is written here in my own thoughts but rather than filling the board myself I'd like to invite other people to you know yes and please introduce yourself my name is Mahesh from the National Scale Development Corporation I lead the innovation piece but I also work with all our training partners second scale councils on the stakeholders and the system including state government on the specific assessment and certification piece NSDC is one of the agencies which is both you know under making large scale development activities and what has been very uh there's a lot of research in the best practices that have been looked at in the assessment and certification space uh we've looked at the Swiss model the Philippine model the Canadian model and so on and so forth but we've essentially adopted the international model Swiss model and now the difference there is today a training partner at least in the vocational scale space is the person who is assessing the training partner is providing the training also doing the assessment and also certifying for example you'll get a certificate from the same person who is actually the training partner so in these ecosystems what you've developed is we have taken away capacity which is the training partner the model we have actually inserted sector scale councils which are industry-led bodies so the mismatch between the output of the formal education system and what the industry was employable is kind of crunched but the assessment is done through a third party agency so there are assessment agencies which are in panel so we take the sector scale councils and in panel training partners are wanted assessment agencies that's the first differentiation second thing is presentation in the sense compared to the regular or conventional way of assessing today let me talk for one second because you know in my school development what you are speaking about is the general approach to assessment and certification with respect to the topic here we probably want to focus on you know the use of ICD or technology but you know what you're saying may still be right I'm just coming to that which is now the second thing is putting the learner at the center of it now if I put the learner the learner could be somebody from the automotive sector would be from the textile sector would be from rubber plantation what would be there so as a sector now each of them has a different profile in the training some people would require machinery based assessment system somebody could do it online somebody could do it differently so the assessment agency that you picked out I have the ability to go across for example I can build a for ID I can just try something somebody on a Java this thing but for a deep plantation worker it's different for somebody doing body farming it's for productivity measures so what we've done is all the assessment agencies which come in they actually have tablet-based things they also have web-based so one thing that they all have is they will be able to sync up to that central system so whatever is captured of the learner data is basically moved all the way up there and now we are testing the same thing out with say mobile phones in terms of can a person go through assessments over a force of two months and then will that mean that they are actually formally assessed so I think these are some of the so I mean I think if I were to you know sort of tell something out of what you said which may be what I think would be relevant to the topic at hand it would be something like making use of ICT and you know continuous assessments through and then the you know then the gathering of the data over time as sort of key aspect of any assessment is that roughly what you're trying to say because the data is also in different formats in different this thing so that we have to create a larger policy the data has to be standardized standardized to begin with the architecture and so on and so forth so whatever it is on it like it's not so much about you know whereas the comment here for instance was about saying that you know we recommend that some percent of learning that is done through online you're not talking about you're simply saying in the context of assessment regardless of how the education was important that the assessment be done using you know ICT and then the data be kept and you know standardized sorry so once again you know I mean I understand what I'm trying to separate out here there may be it is a policy issue no no policy issues related to assessment and certification that are generic and are valid I don't know you know if we start talking about them we might never finish I'm wondering if we want to work on while you're thinking about you know related to technology oriented education or leveraging you know what I mean we want to go as broad as technology within technology management that is one thing the second thought that comes is that the establishment of new forms of certifications whatever that we will call it for the customized education system whatever a customized education system is the student is the master of what he wants to choose and he chooses a basket of courses from the available courses which will not be fitting into the traditional courses that we have at this point of time okay you do five courses of electrical five courses of mechanical three courses of biology and four courses of mathematics and he does this customized he wants a customized curriculum customized curriculum so the certification and the stamping of that certification probably has to be thought of in a different way than the regular certification in these so it's actually opens up a question right I mean anyone can speak to anything um are we envisioning the evolution of all of this towards where customized curriculum for students I mean right now you know people follow a certain curriculum and syllabus according to the college of university that they have that they are with and that's why what you're talking about is much more open yes clearly you know eventually these kind of technology enabled solutions will facilitate that are we are we trying to encourage that and therefore prepare for assessing I'm not sure maybe last power not probably if you have an opinion on this I have one suggestion to add if you have power on the student class see in my judgment ultimately we moved to a customized okay five years ten years fifteen years ahead now okay but in between this period we can think of only a certification course wise or certification and group wise okay whatever that we can do and then move towards the system of your customized recognition at the end of what you're talking about assessment and certification we are focusing on all day learning yeah so what he's saying is that in online learning interviews with the possibility of customized curriculum and what is our approach to assessment yes sir my name is I just have two quick points to make okay one is on the you know there is some unifying common academic denominator that this is common across various elements in the by across all universities whatever type they are so as a policy decision you see we need to identify such unifying academic curriculum and align that with the NMPIC the outputs that have delivered on those common and make sure that that is followed I mean it might not I mean it should not be taken as an interference in an autonomy of the university but certainly there are some common what's an example of this let's for example take a course on thermodynamics okay when the experiment that they are going to do for July when we're going to partner that now suppose such type of mechanisms I mean there is a deliverable output already then it's better to make sure that every university uses that as a mandate and then the way in which the facilitator the faculty is going to use is left to the university but then the content must be secured so that the output of but I would say I would argue say that see one of the advantages of you know these kind of online lectures and so on is that in fact that can be a diversity in the you know as long as the subject is covered and the various topics in the subject are covered that can be a large diversity in in the way you know in the lecture actual lecture content and so forth right so I'm not expecting the blended books model for instance to produce one you know you know type of lecture content that everybody will use and that seems to limit its power in fact if anything you want to create something like a marketplace of you know lecture content and users where a particular even at the level of college a particular professor or lecturer can collect lectures from different sources at their own yeah I agree I am not sure but what I'm trying to say is we have a different structured you know type of universities of one type so let's say we begin to experiment this with I don't want to use the wrong word but those that need such types which is easy to identify qualify them who they potentially what what I would say this could be a good yes probably no faculty you know so many engineering colleges a good substitute for a bad faculty so one thing I can see is that you know RME ICT or ICT I don't know who actually has a recommended set for example that can be used by people who it's a model curriculum or a model set I'm generally less it's directly above I would think the better so why not let it evolve on the basis of me and second second point of a policy perspective is the role of the private institutions in this initiative itself right now NPTEL phase one in case you started I am a personal beneficiary I spoke to the VA and said there are some good faculty outside the orbit of ICT and we should leverage on the expertise of the faculty and we see now a lot of these NME ICT vision projects the role of private institutions is also enormous so we need a policy that also encourages the involvement of private institutions and secondly to also concentrate on rural geographies again when NME ICT started the first policy note was the bandwidth will be given to institutions in metros so I said if an initiative of this type has to happen it should be the other way you have to start from rural because that's where the access is different in metros in which you have a good number of faculty access are available so a rural crisis must be addressed so it's a policy we need to you know make sure that there is encouragement from private institutions and also that we don't leave out the rural geography from the picture make sure that there is some you know target that we also ensure that the access part is at risk and thirdly branding of NPTEL NME ICT to increase substantial we've been hearing you know go say we've been hearing it but NPTEL as a brand we need to be able to push it I think in current scenario the use of technology higher education isn't right so use of this online resources and technology should be at the elective manner means like in regular curriculum courses regular courses and other one is elective courses so what we can do initially these courses should be put in that category elective one why why is that so that if anybody any university or any student wants to have that knowledge and that platform you can use that no why not why what's wrong with putting them in the course initially so in most of the university's faculty these are administrators are elected to these technologies no if they are elected then they won't use it right but why have anything in a policy that says they should be for elective when not for core I don't see the reason I want to say that most of the time if they are elective then initially they can have okay okay like to phase off and they can have that so I would like to talk about the applicability of overall material NPT and etc see the state you know it's and all the state in terms of law uniform curriculum right then second is every four years we are changing the curriculum say for example we give the NPTEL and post development etc everything but we don't have the similar type of the curriculum what IIT software and moreover therefore what we decided what is my suggestion is a customer may be allowed at the state university particularly for this NPTEL whatever we tell you or maybe status maybe state universities may be allowed to be involved in the content development and moreover if you see that if you take any two universities and everywhere they know uniform or curriculum and second is once you are giving the customization power or maybe customization university level and certification and assessment will be given to the university itself need not to go for thought part because as we are conducting the examinations for the all these completed colleges and students colleges whatever norms we are there we can pass on to the music authority probably they can execute that need not to go for thought party evaluation thought party assessments and that is the one and second point is whatever NPTEL at all you cannot use that for example say if any student gets a typically if he can take he should enjoy the state you know he always looks for the curriculum so he is preparing for the examinations and NPTEL sometimes somehow the curriculum or maybe we are not matching the exact requirement of the university so therefore in sports or maybe we have to give the recommendations stating that customer will be allowed or maybe at the university level all the power will be given to the university for the execution assessment etc whatever generally you could see the success in the state universities yeah and second important point is what is the PhDs and empties that is the best for you can I can I ask you just so that everybody else can we come back to the third statement so that some other I don't know whether it's really under the policy to look at my name is Dr. C.S. Ellora I went with NMICB this when they said that the policy should be for you know thinking of the electing subjects first I disagree I gave the contra opinion because it is the four courses or the compulsory courses which comprise of which many of the masses electives are taken by a few people for example I have management students for example the first year courses which I got was all four courses so everybody looked at so perhaps if you have to in a sort of pregnancy you know today so it should be it should be for the compulsory in four courses and then electives are taken by 10 percent 20 percent 7 percent depending on the specialization so I just wanted to give you a contra opinion but I wonder whether this is the subject in this group for to be discussed I mean it is a it is certainly about policy yeah I have to say it on two areas one an assessment and certification important thing in assessment is to look at the question that has been raised here is it do you need to give a certain kind of percentage to be allowed to be armed credit through online learning through assessment of online learning I think I think this is this is very important particularly regulatory agencies are putting restrictions the ICT today talks about blended learning and puts at 15 percent I think that's that's what something that we need to look at and see that okay this is at this moment not that they are for long but at this moment we look at that kind of and allowing that kind of an online learning provision you want to yeah to start with otherwise you know otherwise to be an anarchic situation to look at so to start with number two is that on the assessment part I think it is important for any ICT project to understand others who are developing online programs and books and other things to look at the open badges infrastructure framework I think it's important that assessment is also made in open and this the certification that people learn are available online for others to verify and check that I think that is something that should be looked at and on an assessment but I have more to say on the rights related to content and technology and especially I work from the common to learning I'm going to ask you to wait because I I'm a professor from Thapa University regarding assessment and certification I would like to say that we are having different universities different type of our colleges and doing various courses and various elective courses and to come with the common that is the papers or assessment technique it's not possible okay so what I think that we should use make use of ICT techniques okay like we should encourage NPTEL courses and we should have these that is the assessment that is based upon these particular courses and it should be open to all these students whosoever is studying anywhere okay to to be examined under these assessment exams and the certification for those particular that is things should be done by MAJRT or any of the IITs for that particular course I think if we cultivate this particular pathway okay so every student will be applying for more and more that is our courses certifications and that it is and in this particular way that is one even the student who is studying in a rural area or some say local grade college can enhance his skill by that is coming to that particular level this is similar I mean I think somewhat denied by one person which is I think one of the benefits of the power of technology is in fact you know students may be able to be assessed against things that are not specific to where they study yeah in other words the process of learning and the process of assessment can be somewhat decoupled but there needs to be a viable way for that to be recognized so that the students can actually get credit for it I don't know I mean I frankly I don't really know it's a good or easy or hard or good or bad but it's an interesting topic to discuss but I am my name is Professor B.S. Pavla I'm from NITP I'm Chandigarh on assessment and certification we need to do assessment and certification but it's not like we offer the program and leave it we don't certify it I'll suggest that it should be a technology based testing only because you can do for a whole lot of students you can do it at one go the only fear I have is when you want to connect to the rural areas when you want to get the test there will be no power no I don't second second is because universities have some variation in the curriculum yeah the coverage should be broad based right from my ideas or whosoever is doing it but the universities may be allowed to select from the question bank depending on their curriculum they can they can be they can select the question and put it to their students there so let me in assessment and certification my viewpoint is already the products of enemy is it is available so it need to be certified by a third party it's my solution or a virtual university or some better so that certification need to be taken as a credit for other universities which are already available it was for example that they are any x y universities which are there these credit points need to be taken care when they're avoiding a delay right this is similar to what he was saying so I think I got two I guess sort of points out of it that's worth discussing one is yeah so one is whether we want to go to a situation where we allow assessments to be sufficiently decoupled the certifying university you know as some means of recognizing there was a you know one comment and the second one is goes back to the comment that was made in the document that we received which is do we want some you know number some percentage of the credits to be done through online courses is it a good thing to have a number and if so what is the number so the two questions that I feel like you know we need to discuss a bit more I think the assessment for certification is at the heart of online training and globally you know people are still struggling what is the best way I go and therefore in this group perhaps you know a recommendation of sorts that they should be a standing committee under the which looks at these issues you know UGC for instance has come out with some guidance and I was talking to vice chancellor of PTU who says that we allow 20 percent of our courses to be obtained through online methods and we are going ahead with that you know those kind of decisions if taken hastily I think can be quite you know rather than helping online learning and quality they can be detrimental I think on a continuing basis number one number two let us be very clear what we are talking about you know the focus here is mainstreaming technology uses improve quality and expensive student choice right improve quality is primarily how we can use technology to improve the quality of foundation courses or core courses because they are the core where basic concepts are made and particularly when we do not have quality faculty or no faculty available then you know making those core courses available of reasonably high quality becomes essential so that people have strong foundations right so so there is I think how much of that can be used in a blended board or online board is something that has to be seen when you go now so you know electives is about expanding institutions I think beyond a few institutions very few of our universities offer a bouquet of electives and I think it is by aggregating demand across institutions you know that we can perhaps you know offer more electives for instance ISER, Tremendrum, ISER, Pune and one other ISER they are offering courses at the postgraduate in quantum computing and there are 50 students across these three ISERS in each institution they are only 10 50 students so it is suboptimal but there it is not online courses it is rather than face-to-face they use video mediated code you know offering and there is an understanding across institutions and I think for electives you know similar kind of institutions coming together and creating an aggregate of the student demand for particular courses for electives so that we can have more choices in electives would be a way forward or online courses how do we deal with giving certificate or giving you know assess NPTEL courses which students may have there at their own time or MOOCs courses is something which has to be really thought through very carefully because you know assessment would mean that after students claim that they have had gone through a particular online course either MOOCs or NPTEL courses you are basically assessing them you are taking an examination and then giving them credits against that so how much should we do it and how far you know I think they are not very clear on that and so I think I think maybe I think I want to actually go away from this topic but I think I would summarize saying that there are a bunch of you know issues that have to be you know that have to be discussed and decisions have to be taken for instance which kind of courses go and what's the you know what's the percentage of courses we expect to be done this way assessment methods that we want to have broader open assessments that people can leverage and use so that you know and I think what other things that I come what I'll suggest is in the report I simply say I think our thinking is that these are all issues that need to be identified and discussed so we propose you know that I have a standing committee continues the evaluates and makes appropriate quality policy decisions and reviews them periodically but rather than come up with a particular recommendation I think that's probably Procedure is here you know I think you will like to reflect on this very sorry for the introduction and let's take a one week on this after this we are supposed to put a hotel residence for 7 o'clock at conference dinner so buses are available sir anyone can available car facility can you know what are the residents what are the residents hotel residents all of them are how far and much you have to have a car facility how far is it I charge you three and a half kilometers it's half an hour distance other buses are there what time it will be 6 o'clock it is time for the bus 6 o'clock I think I want to just in the interest of time particularly this is very important professor that non-uniform curriculum very important non-uniform curriculum for the universities that we have I mean we are getting all in the year but our students are not following they are only looking only for the what the curriculum what I'm actually relying on the repertoire to taking a lot later to summarize so don't worry otherwise it'll take too much time but let's move on to some of the other topic because it's you know six five so five sixteen what time are we supposed to close that we have only like one hour and you only come to one company so another thing that I culled out of these discussions is that do we want you know MSRD to have policies or recommendations regarding what technology should be used or in any way I mean not specific technology whatever we want to say about it or standards for technology and platforms and so on or do we want to simply you know let it evolve you know through the process of market right now I don't know any opinions on this yeah I have a my name is M.D. Chandigarh and I used to be very a corporate as a director for it I know and we are studying the syllabus of different courses like one of the challenges we see is that we have a mentioned specific standards and in some ways it's like saying that you know you don't teach driving but you teach model so the problem is that if the graduate is embedded in the syllabus then the teacher and the student do not have the choice of you know which tool to use and kind of I want to say one of the advantages of open source is that when as a teacher I'm teaching a particular skill I can also share the software along with that and in places like Kerala where the teachers are using open source software to teach children they are finding that the ability to share the software is also helping the kids learn when they go back to the room and there's a kind of consistency that rules that they are doing so I might this is that you know in our argument part with the culture syllabus institution saying that the syllabus should specify points to lots and not be your problems I mean so I mean I have to you know just to you know question that what is you know it doesn't mean that everybody has to all the universities and colleges have to fill out that what if a particular college decides that they want to teach that particular skill why why is that a problem so I'm saying it doesn't end at the end of the day right when this person when the student gets certified and assessed they may be lacking in something if the university has limits itself to one type of platform or technology so I don't know there is a reason that you're saying that so I would say you know what you're saying is that the education system must teach principles and not a problem right so and another thing would be that you know it should teach word processing and not a specific one okay so this is I'm trying to think this is about I guess but which product the university or the institution chooses is you know that's up to their choice yeah so I get to this kind of content right specify concepts and topics right not products no another danger of specifying a particular product is that because product is out here the syllabus doesn't change so you might the syllabus might be specifying a product right so I'm actually not that familiar with this process right I'm thinking you know the university would realize that their students are no longer learning the right thing is that not the case this could even you know even if you don't specify it could happen right that they teach a particular product see you don't have to specify the syllabus yes but you can't actually control exactly what the teacher teaches in the classroom they may use a particular product to bring the concepts so I don't know how far the challenge is that you know if it's hard for it in the syllabus then neither the teacher nor the student no that makes sense I think if you see in the State University I mean actual policies syllabus should be framed by the State University it cannot be given to the NMI so technology is required because the government is insisting to all the students but he was he was making a broad statement yes about as the syllabus can still be set by the State University yes but he was making a broad statement that the syllabus no matter how it is said should not have specific products because that ultimately limits the you know that's what I have one one line actually what happens all the government is insisting for the audience should have the NAC accreditation or maybe NBA sorry NAC accreditation so accreditation is concerned every university should have the NAC accreditation NAC NAC accreditation or NBA now the NBA is moving a bit Washington DC so the moment we are talking about Washington DC and NBA always you should have the technology enabled education okay technology standards are always required and particularly if you see what are the practical problems we are facing you're recommending the technology and etc policies etc for implementing the state you know they don't have the funding funding for example say you're asking to no I'm not sure where they're going with this that's what I'm just therefore we need the technologies standards for the achieving the accreditation there's a difference between standards in terms of the kind of functionalities or whatever the technology or product is capable of versus having a specific named product that's what I think yeah that's what for example say web-based learning or e-content e-delivery etc for implementing for the college they need a some at least some funding is required if it's a particularly government colleges they don't have specific funding for the implementing this type of technologies therefore what is my request is maybe a recommendation whenever NME ICT recommending the technology and policies they can all recommend the government for the funding for implementing of that I don't know if that comes where would I put it I don't like that unless you want to respond yeah no no I think the point that gives me yeah is very very good that the focus should be on concepts that makes sense there is a trade off here and the trade off is that you know industry wants the graduate should be useful on from day one and unless they are well versed in a particular product which industry is using you know they feel that they know the concept so they're not useful to them so how do we create a trade off between them right I thought what you were saying is there's a difference between allowing the institution of the university to teach specific products because that's what the industry wants versus coding it in syllabus as a requirement I'm not not coding it in syllabus left thing open but as you know university which wants to make sure its students are employable will teach the things that the industry wants is that naive you think that but I think then industry feels that the graduates are not employed right so the university will protect orientation in a specific way I don't mean that if the university doesn't teach you know the particular product those those students won't be applied but so the university will be smart enough to teach it even though it isn't precisely yeah it won't be coded in the syllabus as that product but when it comes to teaching that subject they would go ahead and teach that because they don't so is that a naive view is what I'm saying okay I think he has been wanting to say that that's a very point my name is Girish I'm not a small startup in Pune but my in my past life as a director of ICT for state job in Victoria Department of Education I'm just that's a very interesting topic because employability and skill development unfortunately relates to some of the products we use and what we find in India is people wishing there'd be ease and then going to a CDAC course to get a skill in a particular technology I think he has been what's that you mean sorry what's an example uh so say you do a CDAC in course in Java technologies okay or say in Godland or say in order to deal with these other cycles so so you go and do this specific course to get a good skill for the industry shouldn't be from a policy perspective kind of make some review or provide guidelines on what the common skill requirements of the industry is and make sure that the university change over time wouldn't it sorry that see the what the industry needs as a common benchmark would evolve over time anyway actually that's fine but that shouldn't that curriculum be evolving from a policy perspective as well because we we are still like I did my masters and I did the same data management system subject which was five years ago right it was exactly it's a combination of you know the things right but the market has moved on with their products and I find myself totally unemployable with the skills and knowledge that I have so shouldn't throw a policy perspective we should get closer to see my my my thinking my thinking is if we try to do that right in other words if we try to regulate too much then we'll spend wait wait let me let me we'll spend a lot of effort by people who are not actually the players in the game neither the students nor the teachers none of the employers a bunch of people who write policy we constantly writing policies and change over time instead what I'm thinking is it's in the best interests of the institution to teach the thing that industry needs right now and if they don't do so well they'll be out of different companies have different companies like Microsoft The division of Microsoft, which is looking for people of the A kind, and the division of Microsoft is a very different kind of people. Which is to say that there will be certain institutions that will cater to people required by this sector of industry. There will be institutions that will say, we don't want to serve that industry, we want to serve the Southern industry. Each institution has to decide for themselves and for itself as to which is that sector in the industry that it wants to cater to. But as an example, I mean, a large number of our engineering colleges should cater to, or could cater to, immediate beings of the industry. But at the same time, at the same time, there should be many institutions that should be looking way beyond that. They should be producing the leaders of tomorrow, not of yesterday. That is the philosophy that the RITs are following. I think it's a very philosophy of this question. Is the university supposed to engage and set, like for example, students will try to retain for the rest of their life, or is it supposed to teach? I think, at my opinion, university can teach whatever they want. I mean, there is no sure. I think the more they teach, the more the students know. But there are certain basics we expect them to teach, otherwise the students wouldn't be allowed in the subject. But there's nothing that prevents the university from having a Java course, or a Nautical course, or whatever. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. We are just not requiring in the basic syllabus that they teach a specific problem. Sorry, sir. I think he had… I just want to tell you that we are talking about use of technology and higher education. I think if you keep on debating about… You are like… You just assume an interest in it, and you will not go anywhere. No, I think the high level point was made, I think that… So, if it's the same topic, let's move on. I think we have said enough about it. I think on the technology point, actually, we didn't miss that. What is that we are talking about? We are looking at what technology should be used… So, there are two. Here's how I separate. Even though you may be teaching… In the context of this discussion, that's content. Yeah, that's content. The topic here was about content. We said that there should be no specific recommendation. But there is still a question about technology that is used for online learning. Do we want to have any standards? I think it's quite premature to have anything more than standards, because there aren't enough products out there to really make any recommendation anyway. But do we want to have anything in the policy about what technology is used and how it's used? There are standards. How to? There are standards available on learning technologies. That's one thing that we look at. The second thing that we look at, when the courses are getting developed, any institution that develops courses should adopt standard industry practices, like metadata standards. If you have developed a course, you should follow certain metadata standards. What is an example of a standard yet? Dublin Core is a metadata standard that's used for specifying metadata, which is why we used it. No, in the context of this, what is that? Yeah, for developing courses, this should be related to courses that are being developed in Indian institutions. What is an example of that? That's just an example, like a course on anime, city course, on e-parts or anything that is developed on NPTEL. How that course is structured? So, learning technology standards are missing. So, we must have appropriate learning technology standards, which is adopted worldwide. Courses are delivered through strong standards. Strong standards. Learning technology standards. Strong standards. And of course metadata standards. There are standards available. The courses need to follow. We may not specify the standards, but we have to say that any courses, institutions that are developing, engineering institutions or universities that are developing should follow established industry standards for learning designings, discovery of the courses, etc. What's the anxiety from the things are? I think there are three questions to be answered. I think one is a very controversial question. I think many of you will raise it. Goman is there. And I would ask this question. Is it a ruling or is it a policies taken by government that anything which is developed by government funds, using government funds, has to be an open source? Or can it be something else also? This is one question that I need to answer. This is a perception everywhere, wherever meeting whichever we go, government funded policies or government funded activities, it is assumed that whatever will be developed has to be open source. Is it a policy directive by government or not? This is a question that I need to answer. This is one thing. So that will open up. One of the questions about this open source versus what you may call as business. What you may call as business. Now if you see the industry or if you see the real world that they hold and if you see the percentage of use of whatever software, whatever application, whatever we do, then the use of open source software still in this time's world is less than 20 percent. The world actually uses the other powers of the world. Therefore this question will come of whatever is developed by government funded agencies. What type of standards they have to stick to? I give a classic example. CDAC and MCIT spent two rows of rupees and thousands of man-hours developing an equivalent of office software. Office software. Others have spent a damn few years on that. Now it is six years, seven years. I think in that is the time frame. Except a few government officers, nobody uses that. So this is a very philosophical and very policy decision. Is it just getting limited to the open source or can it be something else also? So that answer comes then I will have something more to say. Can I respond to this? Can I respond to this? I think though explicitly there will not be any government modification but whatever is government funded will be in open source. But I think by default that was an assumption. Everywhere you go this is an assumption. This is an assumption and I think as the developments in other nations are I think they have issued, they have laws at least in America that whatever research is done in the public funds is to be shared. I think the U.S. has that. So I think there has to be a better articulation of what would be an appropriate stand of the government on this matter. I don't know what it should be. So they had a sign on that. And large. It is not about education. Let's just talk about intellectual property. DST does always maintain that only intellectual property in a hundred-pound education institution whether it is private or public or public. If the project is funded by DST that intellectual property shall belong to the institution. DST does not wish to own. DIT, on the other hand, maintained that. Not anymore. So DIT maintained that all intellectual property is so developed under the project funded by DIT would be the property of DST except that in the last few months they have changed the institution. And now such intellectual property belongs to the institution that has developed this even if the project is funded by DST. So what I was going to say, the problem with this is this has come up everywhere which is at least in the US. On the one hand universities are trying to maintain rights to the things they develop because then they can current it and they can commercialize it. And many of the things that they develop is done through NSF funding and other types of funding. So on the one hand there is an interest in encouraging universities to be a bit more entrepreneurial. On the other hand there is a feeling that taxpayers have already paid for their development and do they have to... I'm not sure that this is the place with respect to policies on online education where we should have that kind of a decision because as I think about the Jainson it's much broader than online education. Because in the next slide you have put rights. That's why I put it. I think it is an issue already. What I'm saying is the reason I put it is because one of the points in the note that was sent to us had this. The question was education technology that is developed under the funding of NME ICT and other government organizations. Should they be an open source? Which is a different question from should they be whatever but they should be... The ownership is not for them and it's for... I think these are good questions but my only question is isn't the superseded by a broader level... I think in this context I would like to make a distinction between intellectual property assets in general and what are being developed under NME ICT. What possibly can happen is that by default they should be in open source but if some developer feels that there is an opportunity of commercializing it they should put together a proposal within a certain time period and commercialize it because even if it is commercialized then I think more people have... we will use it but to basically allow it to patent it and not allow it to be used by others would mean that that innovation of that word gets locked. I'm actually a very different distinction. Maybe this is too fine but one of them is there's a difference between it being in the public domain which means that the particular organization that developed it cannot commercialize it so everybody should be able to use it and you can also have things like it maybe given the free license for certain type of usage non-commercial usage. These are all standard intellectual property type of choices but that's not the same as open source. Open source actually is a little bit more specific in the sense that it opens the source completely as opposed to the end product and allows you to innovate on top of that. There's a huge difference between requiring that something be in public domain but the source is not necessarily open. Versus requiring that it be open source those are not the same thing and I don't think we should confuse that. That's why I put it as two different ones one is technology and the other is open source. They're not the same and I think I want to make sure I don't confuse that. What is in the larger public domain? I'll give you an example of some of the technologies developed by the government for Indian land and non-commercial. There are a lot of technologies the government is trying to remove the amount of money on developing these technologies but you know how many people are using India as an economic development. So I think the government's funding would be the best leverage in terms of larger public interest in those technologies that are under an open source license which allows for commercial access. This is a general debate about whether that is the right way or in fact allowing people to have proprietary software that they can own I mean it's not immediately obvious to me especially coming from Microsoft. That it is in the larger public interest to make these proposals. I mean that is one position I wouldn't say therefore it needs to be open source or something it needs to be shareware or freedom it's the property rights all of them. There are two different issues. One is whether the property that is developed under government funding should be shareware or freeware which generally seems like a good idea frankly because it's developed but even that I think I'm not sure it's unique to this particular problem. I just have one thing I think I can't get the line of the schedule but I think the issue is we're not talking about outcomes at all. I've been in Microsoft I think we see that because there are so many things DSG has developed so many things language based and other things where is it made? Is it out in the market or not? Is it available for public? What's the outcome of those things? On the other hand there are public-private partnerships which have essentially thrown open a whole bunch of things maybe at a cost but it actually has the potential to actually take it out in there and it has an incentive to go and multiply itself into a certain level of outcomes. As far as trauma not much of a policy person if there was something that was looking at technology and usage in this thing I don't think the government should say this technology is better than that technology or... I'll give you a complete example I think it's not even bothered too much about what is written there The point I think he's making is very important since by default it goes that everything that is developed with public funding should be open source but in the larger public interest it may not be the best way of going forward. I think in some areas there are commercial incentives associated with larger use of that intellectual property there may be benefits in that and there may be so then there are interests which will ensure that they can use by more people I think that's what I'm saying rights related to content and technology under government funding making this shareware or freeware that seems fairly... Inclusion coverage, reach and other things that that technology cannot be that I get government funding to target a certain audience which otherwise could be targeted through a commercial this thing and I No, no, wait, wait Again, I'm very much one of them is saying that if I get some government funding and I develop some technology then I'm obligated to give it free to other people in the community to use that seems like a very innocuous sort of statement that's all I'm saying the other is that we require the institutions only to use technology that is open source or that is a public domain and that seems like a rather serious restriction and I'm not sure we want to make that So that's the thing whichever is the position that is taken in the combination of a hybrid position the position has to reflect itself in that reach that it can get because the end of the day the government is going to fund either it's a grant or it's a soft loan or whatever subsidized loan whatever the best thing is that money is actually given for you to actually get that reach which is not happening otherwise you're not getting the commercial capital to build something I think that's the position of inclusion with people rural or disability or tier 2, tier 3 colleges or courses which are not touched upon in sectors say plastics, ceramics or other things I think what I'm saying is the policy should be a little more deeper in terms of the usage of the technology and the outcomes that come out of it rather than what technology how it goes in because we have all of that but it just hasn't taken off so that's the issue I think of the future there is a particular context there are good types of development there are not the content related to that the faculty develops a grant the condition is it has to completely subsidized loan once it comes on the subsidized loan the faculty uses the copyright the copyright of that comes comes on to the subsidized loan the faculty has done that work he got that money and cash the other type of activities is the technology and the platform development I do two specific things one you mentioned the AV technology the other can be let us say the FOSS lab equivalent of MATLAB now that is completely developed now if I say the market MATLAB is a business now if someone says they don't develop FOSS lab by government technology will it again become an open source technology or FOSS lab will become a commercially available product these questions will come up if IIT Bombay today develops FOSS lab it belongs to IIT Bombay or does it belong to anybody that is the question that we have something on this a lot of confusion a lot of confusion happening on IPR copyright of the open source actually these are because of I think trading media on these issues IPR is much broader in that sense but look at the two things I will talk about what you are being talked about using open source for doing certain tasks whether the government should mandate or not this is one question the department of IIT has done some recommendations on this particular to EGOP look at the same thing look at technology developed with government funding should it be available in open source or not this is what we should look at because important thing is that if you develop a technology using what is happening elsewhere in this country in some of the projects that government is giving money to develop certain projects certain technologies and nobody knows about that that's one reason because you have not developed a community of practice around the technology to take forward and then technology dies nobody knows about these things provided interest it might work for some time but it may not work for a longer time in certain projects so need to clarify those issues important thing I want to emphasize in the context of any VICT and content generation it's completely different and another issue of operate comes in any person who develops content retains copyright by virtue of developing that content even if you have developed it for government of India you have to because government of India has created money the right remains with government of India but you are the moral copyright folder of that moral right remains with you so you can do anything on that material but essentially that's law says in this country essentially you have the moral copyright you can do anything with that content but the rights of then comes the issue of copyright licensing issues and therefore open licensing issues come into this issue and open licensing especially the community of open licensing are very important I think we need to look at content created with the public funding should be available in open licensing let me suggest as a summary once again I would be very uncomfortable that this small group like this makes policy decisions but I think we have identified three topics and I would like to just highlight the three topics about which policies have to be made not make the policy itself one of them is content that is developed using government funding the questions are is that content freely available say lecture content freely available to everyone in the country or government funded universities or is it at the discussion of the person who developed content to give it when how they want it I think there is some decision that has to be statement that has to be made about it I don't think we need to actually decide what it is but it needs to be announced second is let's say similarly technology that is developed using government funding there are two questions there one is should that technology once again be freely available so that this person cannot commercialize it all should they be allowed to commercialize it all some variation there are and the second question is should that technology be required to be open source that means this question has been answered this has been answered by DST and then answered by DET what's the answer okay so we don't have to what about the open source so there is no policy that needs to be open source okay so in terms of currently there is no policy that says wait sir I just want to make sure we understand there is a clear difference between you know how do I say non-commercial meaning that it's given license free although it's free license to anybody versus that it opens up meaning that you are giving the source the second question is there any policy that you know we leave it there but the third question is now in terms of usage of technology technology that is used in the context of can I say the supported online education programs can they be proprietary technology or do they have to be open source something will identify the three separate questions I would suggest you know this seems to be decided your day question let's open the discussion after having struggled with this question we have tried to list DIT it's the wrong policy and DIT has finally conceded that they should have developed an artificial education program so what does that do I think the distinction has to be made certain what products with commercial possibilities and products that are related to educational content and intellectual property in the context of DST cannot be looked at products that are developed in education business worldwide the public policy is getting into you know about the U.S. policies and nuclear policies now worldwide publicly funded education research technology materials should be available in open licenses so that generally everyone can make use of that see open source doesn't say you can have commercial life you can provide training and arm money you can provide services so there is a lot of confusion about at a leadership level about these legal issues it is important that public funded money when the public is funding certain things should be made available to the public to make broader use of that technology that content and that I am going to summarize by saying this topic was raised and there were considerably diversity opinions we are not going to converge on that so let's move on there was one question with respect to pushing I think I read it out of one other question there is a bunch of technologies that we even learned about today that was development and do we want to make any policy statements about the government actively pushing those technologies for further usage is that being done today or do we want to say anything about it or not they have to incentivize commercialization of what is already there that if you just take whatever if you take even agriculture for example all the machinery that is required to solve problems to small farmers is there in Pusa if you look at linguistics in other areas where machine translation CDAC and other people have done it what doesn't happen is because they want to put it on open source nobody wants to commercialize it nobody wants to monetize it now open it up throw it out for public private partnerships and put in SLAs which are leading the outcomes of the reach and I think that is when the government is giving away grant or subsidized loan to a commercial entity or an academic entity which is going to profit from it at some point at least ensure that you are getting something back for the public in terms of the law which is not exactly money so let me read the specific comment that made me write is it a good idea to come up with policy measures or incentives to increase the use of enemy as you did virtual labs and spoken tutorials or should these projects try to improve their work so as to increase their acceptance when you ask a question it sounds like that after they should improve their work second party is more important but is there anything we want I think what you are saying is incentive for commercialization commercialization it doesn't matter if it's open source philosophy or if it's closed source then we can do the job better it's simply whoever comes in I think can come and do the job better the government should just allow it to commercialize if you make the materials the content developed in NPTEL in CCBYSA anyone can commercialize and sell if somebody else is commercializing and selling the product and if you are not able to reach to that place there is nothing wrong so once you make something like CCBYSA it automatically makes commercialization possibility of your product just like you cannot distort a market where somebody comes in and invest money to build something and you get something free from the government and you say in the larger interest to boot I need everything for free I don't think that's the case that is a little bit of the I think it will kill the things see the things that are not specific to education technology or content there is an endless debate about public property public investment and things like that I don't think it makes sense there is nothing specific to education technology that is not true of other technologies even for that amount of DST I don't really think we need to be spending a lot of time on that level the only question that was asked was NMEICT has invested a fair amount in developing certain technologies I want to push it out I think the answer I got was it's a good idea to incentivize to get them out but not make policies that say people should necessarily use them they are not good products we shouldn't be using them but we should also realize that the small interest of product was saying it's a problem of scale Jane was right that every institution was trying to nurture leaders of the model so there are some institutions and that's why I reiterate there are some institutions which very badly need these outputs and today we are at a stage to identify some NMEICT outputs which have met those standards and some unifying courseware that is broadly across the spectrum of all type of institutions let's say as a pilot we want to experiment this with tier 2, tier 3 institutions there are definitely a portfolio and definitely some tangible outputs from the mission project and I don't find any reason to say you better use this because it's in the larger interest because it's a problem of scale and students I repeatedly say this is a good substitute for a bad faculty or for a no faculty and definitely this incentive as it will not be a monetary incentive it could be an academic incentive action you use this and definitely there are a bigger set of stakeholders I think there is a different issue I think see when does this question become relevant it becomes relevant when somebody needs something and technology is not available except through the NMEICT it's very specialized now at that point it makes every sense for that to be evangelized and people who use it but I'm not sure I think that is available there is no reason why this small university would not be able to use it I don't quite see the logic it is available but what is the push we use it today even the courses are available now why is that then nobody is using it I understand when you say push so I think the gentleman said incentivizing people to use it because they can be taking the larger scale but when you say push what do you really mean now I'm just putting it in the most diplomatic way but you can say you can mandate it saying that there are some it's not a big challenge to identify common denominator techniques certain set of courses are certain major disciplines and we know that there are some institutions which desperately need this let's say this is the course and this is the material that needs to be followed and why is all this the 10,000 teacher training program I mean they are the facilitators to roll out the NME ICT output there is a difference between evangelizing something right and mandate it they are not the same but we can embed it carefully into the curriculum as so how are we prescribing textbooks it makes sense to say NME ICT should actively evangelize and promote the products that are developed under its funding so that you know many institutions use it that makes a lot of sense but that doesn't use the word mandate let's say this syllabus is a mandate of the university that the affiliated colleges has to follow but writing the syllabus is not responsible no I'm not saying you have to write these syllabus it's not the responsibility of the maturity of that category it is the small responsibility and the propaganda of the university senate precisely I'm not I'm not altering the DNA of the university the syllabus can be done that's why I'm saying there are a set of courses that serve as an academic or academic are you telling me that in every university for a certain set course they are all unique in their own way no there is a difference between leveraging what is available as a common pool and we mandate it to do so they are not the same the word mandate that I don't want to use because that suggests that we are sort of forcing people to do something but you know evangelizing it actively pushing it out, making it visible promoting it, all those things all those words make sense policy directive is almost a mandate it's got to be policy it can create a supportive ecosystem that encourages the use of it okay so we are almost out of time are there any other topics we know this is a general category so there is so there is an issue that I would like to bring up the common policies so common have many policies different policies for different sets of institutions okay and I think that is perhaps not the right thing in respect of this is a definition and I guess the use of move and all that the use of moves and I think all in the basket actually the government has different policies government funded universities state universities essentially funded universities so far institutions of national importance will train that must be invested the government has mandated that distance education channel not be undertaken by any class it has which class why is that the problem there was because of see there are good there are bad public universities and bad private universities because of certain bad private universities the 2010 regulations as you rightly pointed out has put a stop I am saying that there are bad state what is that there are bad there are bad public universities there are bad public universities there are some I say I mean I said both public and private. I mean it makes sense. I do not see why the government is trying to follow this pattern. And this is what I raised before. In universities were created for a particular purpose. They were created for specific subject oriented, discipline oriented things. Suddenly at some places it become a general university and then distance equation started. And that history behind this university was stopped. But there is a history in last year justification. But that history is there justification. The government had a question in mind. Okay. Can you not accept it? No, no, I think we have to find just one. Whatever the policy or technology is. It cannot just be because it comes in the last topic on assessment and certifications. It cannot be that cover the entire value chain of activities that make up education. For example, I can speak of skill development. For example the way we look at innovations or funding innovations is we start from the learner at the source. What is the problem? The learner aspirations, awareness, counseling, period counseling and then adoption, sitting through the course, not dropping out. Learning methodologies which are in the classroom or blended, flipped, whatever it is. Outcomes are measured through an assessment. So whatever the technology is should kind of encompass all these different elements which make education that should not just come at either the learning level or it should not just come at the assessment level or at the certification level. It should be a fairly integrated process if somebody is taking it up. No, I am just confused with you. You can wish that. But how can you dictate it by policy? No, you cannot dictate it. I am just saying. See, if the policy, the larger guideline that is going to be issued is, okay, here is something that you can take up. Okay, this LME, ICT, this is the whole thing. Now there are, today there are two elements to it. Make it six elements that make up that whole thing. So you are actually creating a full hub or a center of excellence for that thing where you can act as a fully-fledged hub which can move up to different fields. So it just doesn't look at training, doing one course in computer science. And then what is the point of this? No, I am saying, see, as a thrust or as an initiative or as an activity or as a kind of thing to find out, LME, ICT taking this broad view makes sense. But maybe the policy statement would be that LME, ICT, would in fact invest in developing all aspects of the learning process and not limited to one or the other. Let it be coherent and comprehensive in the sense. Don't develop content for some other subject. And build a learning module for something and do a delivery platform for an audience which doesn't use either of these if I look at the project. I just don't see what you want. I don't understand how to translate it into meaningful policies. The only thing to think of is if you set up an IIT, there is a policy that it has to have these ingredients. If you set up an IIT, these are going to be the ingredients. And here is a phase rollout on the first year, second year, third year, and fifth year. Similarly, for LME, ICT, there should be a life-cycle analysis of where this project is going in terms of this thing, where it is starting. Rather than saying you just developed this for two years and it's over, now it's okay. I understand, I understand. But I think we shouldn't spend too much more time. I think there is a confusion between LME, ICT, ICT and what it does versus MHRT policies that we are trying to identify. The two are not the same. Just so that we don't keep on going back and forth. I think what you said is very correct. LME, ICT is a vision for a certain period of time. And at the end of this mission, this mission goes. It creates something, doesn't create something. Whatever happens, happens, and everything. Tomorrow if you see the one-year scenario, there will be, for private players, who will be coming into this field of online education with private players. You may create a similar infrastructure. And let me be reliant. They have a complete infrastructure. They are some of them. And they will also get content created. And they will do all the activities with the NMIS. It is doing important things. So it is not the sole body actually. So therefore the policy perspective that we are talking about has to reflect that reality also. That there will be private players who also come into this field. But as a nation, we are interested in the education given to our public. And therefore every policy has to take care of that particular requirement. Also with NMIS, it will only be one project. One of the number of private players that will be coming into this field. Another five years will be zero. I want to wind down simply because of time. And I'm tired. I only wanted to add Professor Chinchah's observation. Yes, NMIS, it is for a limited video time. But nevertheless, even though after NMIS and NMIS, they say that they have to keep the mission objectives. That is, making the free e-commerce reach in any way, in many ways, without charging money to all the higher education students. So that without charging and making it available free is the mission objective based on which this five years are going to end. So in that mentality of private with private that place coming and sort of the charging students for you know achieving the same type of the contents and all that. Perhaps we will be defeating that purpose to live with NMIS. What I was telling you was that our objective, the NMIS is objective, providing any kind of education for those who are sourced in private. Tomorrow there will be private players who provide the same thing but cost based. So it will be again the same playing field of private universities also coming from the field. And there will be policy. No, import of high observation are the policies. When NMIS is in existence and within NMIS, it would have to be in the policy after NMIS 66. So there is no other comments I think. Thank you very much for everyone. I have no idea how I'm going to summarize this.