 Let me thank all of you for participating in the why NPTEL contest. This contest, the background of this contest was it's been five years since we started the idea of NPTEL local chapters. And it was in May 2015 that the first local chapter, first few local chapters were officially on boarded to NPTEL and we have seen a tremendous growth in terms of how this format of local chapter based participation is happening. And over the years, we have been compared with, okay, though, I mean, okay, NPTEL is a government of India project aimed at reaching out to the last mile learner in India. This is one project which was aimed at with this initiative. And it was in 2014 that we adopted the massive open online course format that is that was becoming pretty popular at that point of time. And what we have tried to do was, okay, we have tried to identify what will be like a good MOOC format for Indian learners. And since then, we have been compared with a lot of what do you say, international MOOC providers, Coursera, edX, Udacity, even the popular marketplace MOOC of Udemy, which runs in a completely different model altogether. So each of these programs or platforms have their own initial, I mean, fundamental ideology that actually runs how the courses are brought in and how it is being offered to students. And NPTEL, more or less, is a MOOC platform, but the one big differentiator, if you look at it as we have tried to customize it to the Indian academic institutions and also generally to Indian learners so that they will get the benefit, not just of learning, but also of certification. So we have been learning from what each of you have been experiencing and also learning from other platforms as well. So we thought it might be a good idea to listen from our own learners who have been taking courses from other platforms and what they see as possibilities of improvements for NPTEL while comparing with these international platforms. So initially, we thought of just taking the four platforms, well-known platforms of Coursera, Udacity, edX and FutureLearn, but we have seen that there are also other MOOC platforms which are more than a lack, have a learner base of more than a lack. And we have considered some of those as well when you have provided your presentations. So in today's session, we have these many participants. If you actually look at, you can see that a lot of you have taken courses from Coursera, few from edX, there is representation from Udemy and MongoDB courses as well. MongoDB is the MongoDB University. But in general, and if you look at the, and this is a competition that was specifically run for local chapters across the country. So we have a good representation from both faculty and student from these local chapters. We had asked the single point of contacts or SPOCs of each local chapter to do an internal screening and then select the best participants from their own local chapters, which can, which will lead to what you say, a much more intense discussion and much more clarity and articulation of points. So these kinds of ideas can be discussed across multiple fora, one of which is this webinar. If you see, so this is a webinar, so we will be having two such webinars. The first webinar we have around 18 participants are expected in this webinar. And we have few of the SPOCs also joining in for this. So thank you everyone. So if you see your name, yes, so thank you for all. And I can see that we have a total of 25 others, 25 participants in this webinar. So without much delay, let me go to the key questions that we wanted to discuss with each of you. So I have prepared an outline level of three major focus questions that have come out from all your presentations. I mean, this was one point that each one of you had mentioned in your why NPTEL presentation. So these are those points. Okay, so basically the video length or the video presentation technique and a little bit about the peer interactions and discussion forums across platforms. And also most of you have talked a lot about the certification value among Indian institutions as well as employers that you see as a prime differentiator between multiple platforms. So I would like to open up the discussion for each one of you. We will take it question, sub question by sub question. Okay, so which means we will start off with what we call as the first one. How do you currently learn from NPTEL videos? This is something that we would want to know. First of all, I would like to say that what MAM said was correct, like length of the video should be reduced to somewhat extent, because I am myself a NEPTEL learner. And what I do is sometimes when I have less time, I just put it on the 2x mode and then quickly complete my video. So that video should be shortened a bit. And the second thing I want to say in the NEPTEL's good point, like the accent of the teachers here in NEPTEL as compared to those MOOC websites like Kurshara, the accent of teachers here is more of Indian like accent. So it is a bit easy to understand from as compared to them because they have something American accent, which Indians have to find some difficulty to understand. And third thing which I want to say is that while presenting the videos, the teachers should somewhat be like should interactively, involve with students somewhat like they can cover the whole podium and make some gestures so that student can develop constant interest in what they are speaking. Like I have found in some other MOOC websites like Kurshara, the teachers there are like the camera is at a distance from the podium. And the teachers walk through the whole stage and they constantly interact and make some gestures and it is a bit interesting while learning. It does not bore the student. And the next thing is that like when we are watching videos, the teachers teach us with the help of the PowerPoint presentations. And after that we get the transcripts and the PPT presentations. But I think this alone is not enough. They should also give some notes also so that student can develop a better understanding and a comprehensive understanding about the subject. And it would be benefit also for the students. So does Kurshara courses give you notes or other kind of things? Is that how Kurshara courses run? Not all the courses but it will be a definitely good point if Neptune follows this in order to leave Kurshara behind. Because some courses are there in them. They provide extra notes probably they give another link for the notes. But it can be a good point of Neptune over the course that if this thing is followed. Okay, so one question that I have for I mean whenever learners tell this is, I mean you are in higher ed. So isn't it I mean implicitly assume that you will be taking your own notes rather than listening I mean just waiting for the instructor's notes on it. Instructor's notes is what is there in the slide that is what he summarizes. So what is the difference between what is the difference that a student considers between an instructor's lecture and instructor's note? Okay so I mean like if we see instructor notes I mean when they provide the presentation instructor sometimes what he did what he does is like he takes an empty power point slide and he tries to explain some derivations over that slide. But when we get that power point for our downloading it is not available on that slide. Okay, are you able to understand what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, so more or less what you see that derivation explanation is coming in the transcript also right. So the transcript plus power point presentation is actually a good note in itself right? It can be a good note but to have a systematic approach means students sometimes have to wander across different websites. Maybe they can maybe Neptune can provide some links to some good websites which have some good notes over it but it can it will be a more systematic approach if we give some notes also meaning like for example there are some courses in which there are some source codes and some applications of some libraries and etc etc. So what I've seen in other websites like they give first of all a short note in the transcript we have some extra extraneous things also some noisy things also but in notes we have to the point concise notes of that particular topics and we can go through them quickly and just revise them quickly whereas in transcripts and presentation presentation is too much short and transcripts are too much lengthy. So I think the notes is the exact concise way of representing. So first of all I would like to tell you that sir I always make my own notes when I see the video because it helps me at the last moment to revise because it is not possible before the exam before the certification exam to go through the all the video lectures again. So what I do when I see the video I prepare my short notes with them. So throughout the video I make notes and at the last I just revise them. So this this makes me score good in an individual exam. So I think it is my strategy to answer. I don't think that student need notes because sir actually handwritten notes or our own notes is very much I think is much sufficient than NPTEL's notes because when we sir the problem is that when NPTEL this provides this PDF. So what happens are many of the students they do not prepare their own notes and they just go through the PDF. But what happens in this process the very sense of learning dies. Sir I do not see any difference in the video length because I am a student so I can devote much time but there are many learners who are professionals. So I don't think they have this much time to watch this longer video. So we can also short make short videos like of 20 minutes 30 minutes 30 minutes because in edX or in course era they make very short videos like 5 minute videos 10 minute videos. So I think NPTEL can also do this thing but do not make 5 or 10 minutes video because there is not much content in 5 or 10 minute video but we can also you know around 20 to 25 30 minutes is enough I think sir in few courses of the NPTEL we have to later we will work on the teaching methodology like yes the my friends also raise this question of the sir one way transmission of knowledge that teacher is sitting and just delivering the lecture. So sir it is not the thing that teacher is sitting or is moving but as per say that sir the teacher can also share their own experiences. I am talking about the not of the that normative teaching but kind of empirical teaching like like many of the teachers what they do they just read out from the PDFs. So I think sir it is it not work in the in the century so I think they can share their own experiences. So sir I like to add some more points with Sikha what she said she said about the monotonous length of the video everything I would like to add one more thing along with this that is interactive quizzes in between the video during the video itself I am talking about course that is the course I have done in the MOOC. So I am telling like during the ongoing course in between you can have some quizzes in between so that it will be interesting for the students. So are you talking of in video quizzes or quizzes just immediately following the video? No in video in video in video okay in video yes in between quizzes can be added pop up window welcome and you can answer if you don't know you can skip the video and skip the quiz and you can go ahead you can continue the video you can complete the video that's a process. So what yeah what happens when these quizzes are shown so let's say you skip out the quiz what is the benefit of then adding the quiz in between the video? Main thing is I'm talking about course rock duration of course rock all the viewers are very less hardly some 10 minutes 15 minutes that's all and we will have like we are sitting along with them. Teachers are not autonomous and we have some kind of attachment with them because we feel like we are speaking with them so that is that is already there and they are raising the question in between for a second it is flashing it is going so you feel like what is there that excitement that will be created there okay okay and you would be you as a learner will feel like okay what was asked let me look at it that feeling comes yes definitely so that excitement will be created and that will be that will create more interest for the students that is what I felt yeah yeah so what do you do when these kind of questions are asked do you go back to the video and check what the answer is to answer it or do you just wait for the correct answer to be shown in the video itself according to course rock if you don't know the answer you can go back and you can see or you can skip the quiz and you can go ahead with the video okay and so does it contribute to learning so I understand the fact yes of course like teacher asking question in between and you don't know to answer what you will react the same way but this is not a real world virtual world so we can we have a lot of time we can go back we can see and we can come back and answer if you don't know we can skip and go like in school classes how teachers ask question and how students will ask answer the same same pattern but in the form of yes yeah yeah got it and do you want these quizzes to be graded or ungraded ungraded okay it creates interest that's all okay great great yeah and if it is needed that's fine only because then students will have more they have all the students they have to go through the video compulsory otherwise we can go to go through the transcript and we can write the answer and we can get the certificate okay and is there something else so any additional points that you want to add to what all your other colleagues have already said one more thing I want to add Sarah that is programming I'm I never seen any programming kind of thing in NPTEL and somebody before me also mentioned like all the equations will be derived and finally we get in the transcript that one thing that is about derivation the like ways for programming yeah this course how they are offering is they themselves giving the software like split screen split screen in the sense they are showing in once one half of the one half of the page they are doing and one half they are allowing us to do so it will be like we can we can do along with them like a master sitting along with us and doing split screen option is there so we can complete the courses we can learn new programming languages and I felt it was very good which which programming language was taught like this any this python this Jupiter like this one rule they were they given Sarah yeah so yeah I mean so they actually gave a interface within the video within the video or how was this happening not within the video Sarah end your screen is divided into two halves one side master will be doing okay not exactly the real master virtual everything master will be doing and this half of the page they given to us the same what the software what they are using the same half they given same page divided into two so in one of the half they will be doing along with them they also can do the same program we can run we can execute and we can see what is output okay okay so rather than a video of the execution you are actually you are actually working along with the teacher yes that's what that's what actually I completed a MongoDB course from MongoDB university sir where that experience was very nice sir because they provided a sandbox where we execute our coding we gave rights to access their database and thereby executed our query and thereby we submitted the assignment to sir that is very nice usually in our in our assignment now one question will be there and for that query from that options we have to click our answer right sir so not like that in that MongoDB course they provided a sandbox and we have rights to access their database and the executed query and that they provided our assignment sir that is very nice one sir compared to that in NPTEL they provide a good variety of contents in content wise it is very elaborately deal compared to the course era and in NPTEL we have also the option of downloading the transcripts and studying in off-line mode also it is very useful for the students from rural areas okay compared with course era so course era does not have a transcript download we have a transcript download but not like NPTEL sir like detailed explanation is not present over there compared to course era comparing with course era sorry okay okay and yeah yeah yeah go ahead and download downloadable videos also is preferable in NPTEL whereas course era lacks that we cannot download the video offline mode and you can access it okay got it so it is that so what you're talking of is in the NPTEL dot ac dot insight right that's where you download all these videos and transcripts whereas course era does not have a mechanism like that but course era videos aren't they downloadable from while you are online we can use in cloud platform but it is not like you can access this contents after like what i'm saying like us you can download it through course era but it is only through cloud online okay yeah yeah but okay my question is generally NPTEL dot ac dot in is also online so what are you talking of when you say that it is available offline is there other ways through which you get the NPTEL videos like we can download it and you can learn later that's what i'm saying okay whenever we want students can access it okay but isn't downloading from cloud also the same functionality as in you download and keep it and you access it at a later point of time so what is the significant difference between NPTEL's download and course era's download course era it doesn't have like every detailed content but in NPTEL module wise there is a lot of steps present i feel like that so my question was i mean i've done a lot of courses from edx and course era the main thing which i wanted to discuss some courses are self-paced in edx and course era they provide some self-paced course so that if a student is willing to get a certificate at any time they can they don't have to wait for the semester or they don't have to wait they don't have to wait for their enrollment they can just enroll the course they can register themselves they can pay the fees and they can pursue the course at their own speed and the second thing which i wanted to ask was for some older courses like i did a course in compiler design in NPTEL in computer science for the new courses the video lectures are available in full ht 1080p but for some older courses like compiler design and all which were pre-recorded and when online teaching was started so the quality of the video is not that good as compared to the new video which are coming okay okay so yeah so there are certain courses so i'll answer this question towards the end of it regarding the self-paced courses but i do take up uh do understand your uh the second grievance that compared to the newer videos even within NPTEL platforms certain courses have older videos so it may be good idea to reshoot that entire content in hd and present it right that's what you are mentioning right yes yes okay and in general what is your strategy of learning from videos uh in general uh be it any platform what kind of strategies do you up uh at all sir like uh whenever doing my great preparation for the very uh main thing of learning from the videos is that you can take notes you can pause the videos and you can learn at your own speed like if i'm not able to understand some concept i can rewatch the videos i can even change the speed of watching the videos to 2x and 3x depending on my learning speed i can make some notes according to the videos you know i can download the transcripts to better to get a better picture of what the professor is saying and all okay uh so uh so by this uh what do you say by this particular uh angle then it means for you the video length does not matter that much right i mean if you are so i mean in general there is a uh conception that the length of videos are uh pretty long in NPTEL so how i mean since you have you have been doing gate preparations uh okay one comment that we typically hear from gate uh into candidates is that NPTEL having such a uh long videos helps us in understanding the concept more whereas the other one with shorter videos you're not able to understand the concept very clearly so do you echo some kind of uh feelings similar to this okay so i'll try to answer this question with an example so i did the two courses the first one was a database management system it was from iIT kharagpur and the second one was discrete mathematics it was from it roper i believe both are lengthy courses but uh you know i i mean the discrete mathematics needs more uh focus of your brain to get that understanding but i would i agree i will agree with this point that some videos are lengthy and like in dbms they were explaining some concepts which were not required for gate means that was for general knowledge and the videos are very lengthy but in db but in discrete mathematics they explained it very lucidly and very concisely so only relevant things were given to us in a very short uh in a very short span of video so i found that thing very fascinating uh and in fact that was new video which was being recorded here i think which this thing lacks in older videos which was recorded previously okay and so when you compare it with so do you use uh uh course error edX videos for your competitive examination preparation uh so strictly i don't use course error edX for my competitive examination i only use nptl but for learning some different things and learning some new courses i go for course error edX so i mean yeah so what what are the new things so i mean can you give an example of what these new things are uh yes so recently i did a course called uman prophecies and umans and prophecies it was from harvard x so i believe the the catalog in nptl is shorter than that of edX and all so like if some student want to go for soft skill courses or uh management courses or some other courses you cannot find each and every course in nptl so edX have more catalog of courses so you know students which uh for that for if they want to upgrade themselves for some new courses which is not present in nptl what i would be telling when i compare with this uh this uh note stating habit of any student like i could compare it with course error and other things what they have no they have online screen sharing for notes so you can just copy the text whichever you feel is important or very very much necessary like you can take it up and copy and paste that option could be added up in nptl sir that is one suggestion because notes taking is available in parallel with the course itself along with the transcript it is available in courses at course error and all those stuff and uh length yeah certainly the length of the video does matter uh because uh for students because nptl not only faculty students also have the habit even starting from first year they do take up the course when it happens to be so long uh it has a monotonous feel if it is being uh short durations it would uh be better and uh as uh Prasad sir said uh this things like uh you can give annotations kind of things questions quiz kind of thing whatever you had completed for the short duration and uh you can just refresh on that or brush up on that asking some small small questions and you can move on with it and uh one more point which i would like to tell us that uh practical uh exposure kind of thing like lab kind of courses when you have something like internet of things course in the uh what is that in the curriculum like you can add up some practical assignments with the assignments questions other than problematic and theoretical uh you can just ask them to install some app and note down their uh what is their signal strength for the wireless services which they have and they can post up their answers that kind of thing if it is being incorporated it will be better that is uh my suggestion sir when i have taken i've taken courses both in nptl as well as uh course and uh on comparing these two things i feel these things just uh will do yeah will give a better uh color to nptls the points are well taken uh so yes uh the uh annotations screen grab of the annotations uh from the video to online notes etc that is some that is a technological thing that we will be looking into but again as you know we are trying to give the accessibility to even the remote areas so we want to ensure that accessibility exists before moving on into a larger technical uh uh changes at our end so hopefully yes we are we are looking at a couple of features that we would want uh in our system uh thank you for your inputs uh now i will move ahead to rithik uh rithik you have uh raise your hand again are you available now so uh my experience was that uh rather being learning lonely uh we were my friends and i were learning in a group so that uh we can get the things uh very precisely or we could at the time if we are not in gaining that concept we were we would discuss at the time at the instance of time and uh we were possible to get that thing very quickly uh also uh as that uh moheny sir said that we should prepare notes and uh which should be there that uh his idea was that's called in video quiz so at a particular time there there is a quiz uh at a particular time so uh we can get the questions correctly and we could uh get those things very quickly so that's a very good idea that's called in video quiz uh and taking down the notes uh that's uh is a very good thing uh because we have a writing practice and that thing will uh stuck in mind okay so rithika when you compare the standard so you said you uh collaborate with your friends or colleagues while learning uh is there some strategy like okay you watch one video uh i watch this video together we'll share or is it that both of you watch the same video at the same time no we both watch the same video at the same time and uh is it that you pause at points where you feel that there is difficulty or how do you manage that i mean how is that particular learning happening uh as we encounter a problem or we don't get the concept we just pause the video uh me and my colleague just discuss that thing and get the things clear out okay and uh during this uh collaborative session do you take notes both of you take notes or is it just no yes we take notes handwritten notes as it's a good practice you know so it's a good practice that we used to uh take down the notes and just look over it and it gets stuck in the mind in general in uh uh massive open online uh courses so in uh if you look at a regular face-to-face learning you learn a lot from your peers okay uh it may be your friends it may be through combined study or it may be through uh various other mechanisms that are available but uh a general observation by different participants uh about discussion forums is we need to have more active or enthusiastic discussion forum uh in NPTEL courses uh compared to let's say edX course or a Coursera course uh so here are certain questions that we wanted answer to so this is more about peer interactions and discussion forums we wanted to understand uh typically how peer interactions happen in other courses and what do you see in NPTEL courses compared to the other courses and what are the things that we can learn from other platforms so that our peer interactions uh improve significantly and also about this idea of peer evaluations of peer grading this came in around uh in around seven to eight of the short presentations that you meet uh some of you have uh mentioned so around seven of uh eight of you have mentioned about peer evaluation of peer grading so we had Shenbagavadi would talk I mean uh I think one participant talk about uh the peer evaluation happening so I think Shri Patmini so uh we just want to understand uh uh the idea that you have about peer interactions either in discussion forum or uh in uh in general through the assessment questions so uh we have uh the hand raises so I'll give preference to people who have not spoken till now first so we have Parkavi uh raising the hand for the second question so Parkavi can you hear us oh yes sir yeah so Parkavi yeah why don't uh you go ahead and uh talk about the discussion forum and uh the peer interaction that you have uh come in both NPTEL and the other platforms yes sir uh in course sir I have taken course before taking up in the NPTEL long back I have taken because after that they started offering for like we have to pay the money for taking the course so after that I didn't take in the course era so that time discussion forum was very active and uh peer evaluation also like we have to evaluate another five peers we have to evaluate and similarly they have to evaluate ours and self self self evaluation also available there uh in course era uh but that's lacking in the NPTEL uh I felt because uh for everything we have some intellect sir so uh whatever the peer evaluation I have taken and whatever the scores I got for my assignments like I felt they are correct I gave good uh suggestion because I have taken for a teaching learning process related courses so uh the comments what they have passed past uh oh my assignments really they are worth enough so I have considered like sometimes very bad comments also they give like this is like not making sense that kind of comment also I have received so it will help us in uh growing a growing up our knowledge and attitude we have to take up whatever the good and bad comments the peers they give I have got both uh some of them appreciated some of them like they are given whatever they felt so it will help us sir I feel peer evaluation should be there we always should not say that uh like people will not give uh good marks even in the laboratories also in uh like offline courses what we conduct in labs or in the classes peer evaluation if we can introduce like we uh that's the way how we have to cultivate the intellect among the students community I feel that should be there okay and what about discussion forum so I mean the discussion forum is open even in uh yes they are equivalently they are good and now recently we have taken on digital transformation one course I have taken for MNPTR that is like under Techube in that uh like how much we are involved in discussion forum that also they have considered for evaluation so in that uh like that they can introduce for other uh other other courses also like where students also involved in that no because under Techube when they have provided first via MNPTR courses for digital transformation that time they told that okay digital how much how good you are involved in digital uh discussion forum that also we'll consider so initially we felt like uh possibly we found out okay which area we are really interested in like that we started getting involved but it was interesting okay and uh so uh I mean uh for that matter all the I mean it is the same exactly the same Swaya MNPTR platform that you see even for that course also right so this is a Techube course that you have undertaken right yes so uh okay that's only for teachers that's only for teachers so they are considered a discussion forum also like is it that teachers discuss more than students or is it something like that it's like reasonably they have responded sir because we get updates in our mails no like they are I didn't expect that much they'll take it serious and discuss but they have really uh they have some of them have agreed the point what we have told about peer evaluation collaborative teamwork all those things so it's good sir so it has to be it has to come uh discussion forum also has to be evaluated like people should uh like uh get involved in discussing with others and what is the benefit what is the benefit key benefit that you saw in those discussion forums like we will get the motivator to occur okay even if somebody says good point like okay your point is correct also we will accept it if somebody says okay this is not uh not a good point why it is uh that reason also will come to know sir will be the open mind mindedness will improve in us so if it is open for the students also like whatever the courses available for our engineering students really they'll nowadays know like if you say you have to do this means like no no we'll not do like that kind of mentality it is raising that's why people go in wrong way and also we have to cultivate that okay and so this is what what you said is a actually a Swayam uh non NPTEL uh course right what you said the digital transformation course uh what about the courses in uh so you said you took a course in uh course in 2015 so was it also such an active discussion forum that was happening yes yeah yeah whenever we have doubt we used to discuss there but presently uh how is it I don't know but that time in discussion forum sometimes we get doubt we used to discuss there after the quiz and all we used to discuss there so what what what is different in NPTEL courses so NPTEL courses also open up the discussion forum it is like both are similar sir both are similar I didn't find anything different there apart from the Techube course what I have taken I didn't find any difference so this Techube course was taken by I believe Dr. Sameer right yeah sir like I don't remember the name exactly okay no problem no problem so uh what all things happened in that Techube course was it uh what all I mean how did they sustain so much I mean so around how many participants would have been there around two thousand three thousand participants many sir yeah in thousands in thousands so how did they manage such a discussion how how did that happen they asked us to open a thread and you posed a query they told and I used to post the query and whenever people respond to that I used to get the updates in my mail so it's very good like even if you forget to watch in the discussion forum it comes it pop up in your inbox in your mail so we'll come to know oh this is a different way like this also people will think like that where I started okay so uh I mean so was it okay was it an instruction which was given in through videos or was it yes yes sir they are given we have to involve in uh discussion forums like that they have given okay and uh so what what all what all things are there I mean uh okay so just uh involved in discussion or was it more elaborated how did they uh how did they ask you to discuss that's the instruction given uh you know you involve for the course so many instruction they'll give you know sir like that in that instruction seat I have seen they are given like that okay okay yeah thanks for giving for that sir I'm Eldin Jeeva from New Prince Sribavani College of Engineering and Technology sir I have done some courses in NPTL as well as uh course there also but always I feel NPTL has the best active forums sir because since I am in mathematics department I always find maximum my firm found some mistakes in NPTL assignment questions because of simple lot of symbols are there in mathematics so I I always find some mistakes are there so whenever I write questions in forums they immediately between one or two days it's a maximum within a day itself they send a mail and rectify the mistakes but in course around it will take nearly a month so I in course I have taken one courses like analytic so in the last assignment there is one mistake in the mistakes in the assignment question so a lot of other teams also writes a question like there is a mistake there is a mistake so even eight months even there is eight months ago but no one answer no no inspectors are answer the particular questions also so I always feel NPTL has the best active forums compared to Kozera so in in the Kozera their students only answer the questions okay they only discuss it but in NPTL even inspectors immediately response our questions whenever they say they immediately response our question so I feel NPTL has the best active forums okay and so have you taken up let's say something like a peer evaluation yes sir I always feel ingenuity in the peer evaluation because there in Kozera I have taken a course like statistics or probability so in that peer evaluation I found five questions so totally three questions monthly I answered correctly but finally I got hundred out of hundred months so that is I always feel that is a ingenuity in that so after that I won't attend that peer graded courses oh okay okay yes I always feel that is no ethical also okay so only three questions only correct so but I got the hundred out of hundred I don't know how but so ingenuity in that so after that I never attend that peer graded assignment and all peer graded course even I also won't take after that okay okay so it's even some students on other please other students or other faculty or other please only evaluate our papers is it so they just close their eyes or just put full muscles and all so I always it's not worth it so I got some new points here I want to add one point is our mentors are there okay in NPTEL local chapter we are having some mentors if we give mentors chance to discuss in the discussed form it will be helpful for the students as well as the candidates who have applied for that so mentors can play a major role here and moreover students who are asking the questions are participating in the discussion form okay we can give some bonus points okay okay uh this bonus points what it will do is it will encourage the students to participate more in this okay so uh have you seen such a strategy adopted in Coursera courses uh because Parkevi madam was talking of how a particular course a non NPTEL swam course uh use discussion forums uh effectively so like that have you seen any other courses where the discussion forum participation was used for grading or other kind of activities uh actually in Coursera I have come across the discussion forum but as LDA ma'am has told uh Eldin ma'am has told no sir because when the question is given it is taking some long time it's taking the long period of time to answer that particular query okay but in our NPTEL we are having the other social media like Facebook also we are having right sir okay in the same manner if you have the study groups also it will be helpful in this discussion forum sir absolutely good good yeah thanks yeah study groups mentors and also bonus points I want to add sir question two way sir active discussion forum sir the student engagement is a big issue in all these platforms I found that it is an issue in Coursera IEDEX as well as in NPTEL sir what we can do uh with NPTEL courses like how to uh engage student engagement so sir sir we can use this model of discussion forum moderator which we have used in in our the offering of the uh designing learner centric MOOC uh sir this previous previous section uh session so sir uh we have worked together for this discussion forum uh moderator model so I think uh you you know much about it yeah so uh yeah I know it so see the okay uh so in general to all participants uh the others do not know this course and it is not right that I speak about it so why don't you tell your experience in the uh the uh in the course that you had taken uh couple of uh semesters back and what happened afterwards so can you elaborate a little bit about because it is also a model that we are trying out in NPTEL so why don't you talk about it rather than me talking about it uh yes sir to everyone uh discussion forum moderators model it it is a model in which what happens that the the talker of the previous session they are offered uh offered a kind of position like the discussion forum moderator they have to moderate the discussion uh and they have to answer the queries of the uh the uh student or the learners who are enrolled in the present semester so basically those who are the discussion for a discussion forum moderators moderators they are they are the they are the learners of the previous offering uh who has stopped the exam so they uh I they have engaged like this way so in this way uh the student engagement uh is faster so I think sir we can extend this model to to each and every uh course offered by NPTEL so in this way we can solve this problem of a student uh student engagement uh the another issues are peer evaluation so sir I do not found peer evaluation good for the for the learners because sir they are not actually uh like correct because sir I've also done a course on Coursera and they use this uh peer evaluation method so sir this is uh helpful for the teacher to reduce his or her efforts but I think it uh do not uh good uh good for for me sir I also feel like uh peer grader assignments are uh not uh fair like uh if you want uh even if some people if they don't have the knowledge about the subject also they put high marks low marks like that it happens for me also it happened okay this is in Coursera courses yeah go ahead in Coursera yes and I also feel like uh uh in peer grader the assignments one more thing is the submission uh process if two or more peers summit only we can then only we can all the summit and uh they the correction procedure is also very delayed like it takes time so that the course completion time also it uh delays for us okay getting certifications okay and uh you were talking of uh discussion forums also earlier right you had some point regarding peer interactions yeah so what was that point that you wanted to highlight at that point of time regarding discussion NPTEL has a better NPTEL has a better discussion forum compared with Coursera uh because they reach out in NPTEL they reach out uh within one or two days whereas Coursera it lags that only students also post in discussion forums but mentors are they lagging in discussing okay so I feel NPTEL is better compared with Coursera discussion forum NPTEL discussion forum uh more active as compared to other MOOCs courses uh worldwide I put my questions and at discussion forum and I received the rapid responses even NPTEL discussion forum motivated us to participate actively so it is also learning process some students teachers asking what is the way of asking then our learned professors are responding and now I come on peer evolution so what I uh experienced when I uh marked low grade to others I received a suggestion that it is a learning process you should not do so so I have decided I uh I should give more marks so I have started this thing and I have also received more grades this is this is in this is in a Coursera course or I mean which platform have you uh done Coursera Coursera in Coursera peer peer evolution I I have experienced such type of things when I marked the low grade so I have received a message to you you should do not you should not do so you should uh uh peer uh properly so then after that I have decided decided I should give more marks as a peer okay so then uh I also received more marks yeah yeah okay yeah and submission and and submission uh through mobile is not possible uh it is not uh it is not uh uh mobile friendly submission process it requires uh desktop okay yeah this is what the NPTEL yeah NPTEL courses right no Coursera in in Coursera submission of uh review is a difficult okay through mobile it requires desktop so it delay our delay our submission process okay okay sir so thank you very much Amitabh Amit both sir uh let me now hand pick uh learners because there are been lot of people who have been silently uh listening to uh most of the discussion now before I move to that final phase uh let me ask each one of you individually so yeah Arunthathi Nirmal uh she has raised her hand yeah so uh Arunthathi yes please you can uh you can uh speak now yes sir so I just wanted to add that like many others said that there is a small chance of ingenuity in the graded assignments but even though uh we get to learn a lot from uh by reading it is uh on Coursera a course that I attended it was compulsory that we had to uh grade at least five assignments so we tend to read a lot more and uh our perspective on the topic uh gets more broader so it was really helpful for me to uh also we understand what other peers understand from the course the perspective differs a lot okay okay yeah thanks thanks Arunthathi is there anything else that you would want to let's say highlight where uh regarding this peer evaluation or discussions in general uh in NPTEL forum because uh see from the webinar that we are seeing we are seeing a positive belief that NPTEL forums are being well responded and NPTEL forums are more active whereas if you look at the uh submissions that have been come from uh different participants there is a general observation that NPTEL forums are not as active as other course other course platforms or discussion forums so what is your observation on this is it is it varying uh is it uh is it very varying or contrasting or was it similar sir in terms of uh discussion forums uh I agree with others that NPTEL has a good platform but uh like written work assignments and uh you read a lot more in discussions forums that are short discussions not explain the nature once more so uh okay reading one person's uh perspective in uh which is a lot more longer you get to understand what they're trying to convey easily these discussion forums I feel lack that because they are too short and you don't clearly understand what they're trying to say good evening everyone uh I'm more of a silent listener but uh I agree with all the points that have stated uh before um the discussion forum for of NPTEL is far better than course era I've taken a course in course era where I learned python and I've done a course in NPTEL where I learned ethical hacking uh during the course there was a lot of problem with the uh since it was a practical uh it was more of a practical based uh course there was a lot of problem with the uh practical the uh the person who was handling the practical was uh there was a lot of problem with the way he was speaking and the quality of the video and uh the moment I reported I mean after one or two days we got the reply that they're going to change they're going to do better and um the professor himself added another video for that and the live sessions as well so I think the discussion forums are really really helpful whereas I posted a doubt in course era and around one month ago and after that I got a reply so uh I completely agree with all the previous speakers who have uh spoken before me okay yeah thanks uh thanks Aditi and yeah one important thing even though you're a silent listener do understand that we liked your presentation so we would want you to contribute in the uh I mean in future if we run such webinars active participation is something that we also expect in a webinar because we have only such a small crowd okay actually uh I just want to add one thing uh with my experience uh in this uh COVID-19 AKTU Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University has asked you for students whose classes during this COVID-19 they asked to upload our video for unit three four and five and we start when we start uploading the video the student request is that please make it in Hindi sir so we start uploading the video in Hindi and you don't believe that when I I was uploading video in English its reachability around 100 to 100 when I start video in Hindi then it is reachability about a thousand or more than thousand in a day so it is very beneficial to students as we know that in India Hindi is our native language so we think that our video is in Hindi language also so NPTL take initiative that it's transcript in Hindi but I think it is more beneficial said that it is a Hindi language also the speech the speech should be in a Hindi language so if I compare with the Coursera then it's okay one main advantage with NPTL is that the quizzes the answers of quizzes are not available on internet if NPTL found these answer on internet and then they they easily track it and and remove that answers but in Coursera you see that these answers are on GitHub and Priscilla's from a very long past I think it is from last two or three years ago the same question and same answer and one of my colleague has did I think 27 Coursera courses in just 20 days how is it possible is it possible that the answers the quizzes are already available on Quizlet on or on GitHub but it is very tough to give answers for NPTL but there is one more thing that whenever NPTL share its assignments there are some some misconceptions that some answers were wrong and later on NPTL did did what he just correct the so I just want to share that please don't stop it please stop it doing this and please do correct the answer before presenting the student and make the video in Hindi so that it's reachability to students also more more disciplines also yeah yeah so yeah Abdeshji the thing with languages is again it's not just one belt that we are focusing on we are focusing on students across multiple regions across the country so doing in Hindi yes a major belt gets covered in fact we had one course which was delivered in Hindi this time signals and system in Hindi from it Delhi the feedback that we we have seen is I mean the takers were there but we haven't seen any major changes per se in the behavior of learners in the assignments or the other aspects of it maybe the viewership of the video would have increased but we haven't seen a significant difference in the way learners took up this course and the way the learners answered assignments so which is slightly I mean I mean we will try out these kind of experiments continuously it's not that we are not immune to new ideas or we will stop an idea if we don't see too much so we will definitely experiment but regarding assignments yes so there are mixed opinions but again see at the end of the day we are using the honor code that means we believe that learners are not looking at each other's answers or not sharing answers with each other not just through internet fora but also through whatsapp or other kind of mechanism so we hope that so that's what I wanted to understand in terms of discussion so the focus question that I wanted to discuss so I completely agree to the points and I accept it as constructive suggestions here our discussion is confined to the discussion forum and the peer learnings peer reviewed assignments can stop so here I would like to tell you one thing sir our discussion forum remains very active but that is unilateral active means the questions we used to put participants used to post large in number but hardly we used to get appropriate response I would say I mean response of like wait for the next turn just keep on solving this is not going to help us out in getting the clarification regarding the questions right and yes that is as you said our discussion forums remain more or less silent from the other side some effort should be taken so that it would remain also active from the teaching assistant side or the instructor side but one thing I would like to highlight a very beautiful feature of NPTEL here the live sessions with the instructors I think very rarely we used to get it in other forum but the live sessions of our instructors are professor for my ideas it's a very awesome one I think they used to clarify a lot many doubts even if there is some mistakes in the question they used to so humbly put it before the participants like these are the mistakes these questions have to be removed and this is the new things are going to be added this course is re-evaluated I mean this is a very beautiful sessions we used to have whenever the instructor come to live sessions that is first thing second thing one distinct feature I would like to highlight here I had also presented that things in my presentation also in the other platform predominantly I have gone for Coursera I would like to tell you the discussion forum they used to clout together similar type of questions with a common link that's a very beautiful feature I find because whenever I used to get the discussion from the course Coursera suppose I have a particular question regarding a particular assignment once I type that things a particular link will appear and that link if I'll click it all set of discussions all set of questioning pertaining to that doubts pertaining to that project assignments will be there only I needed to wonder about here and there to find out where I will be getting the correct answer and that feature is a very excellent one I find in the Coursera which I think the NPTEL forum would like to introduce into that that's a very good idea sir and regarding that particular one thing like peer reviewed assignments I'm little bit skeptic here because my I would like to put my doubts here I don't know who are the peers are going to review my assignments first of all second I don't know suppose Coursera platform is concerned I don't know who are the peers going to evaluate my assignments and what are their understanding levels and if you're really going to implement into NPTEL we have to seriously look into that like how to classify the learner's level so that the peer assignments can be given to them for the evaluations so these are the points I would like to highlight sir I would like to just comment on your that forum question so I think that the mentor concept that is mentor concept provides a proper guidance to students which is not present in other course providers also mentor concept encourage students and it gives the idea and the excitement of just to express something and as far as concern with the peer grading NPTEL is a good with that it just gives assignments and one thing I like about that the NPTEL gives only one attempt to attempt the assignments and to submit it and I would like to tell something that I have also completed a course in Coursera so what what is there that I would what I'm not like about Coursera is that the when the assignments are there I don't know how many can I say but the assignments there are three attempts first of all there are three attempts to attempt the quizzes and then it's when we didn't get passed in three attempts it says that you should try again after some time or that is some eight to ten hours later so what I heard that the in Coursera students just change their time students just skip that time or change that time to just keep that time to reattempt the quiz and they get just passed so this is the thing I didn't like about Coursera or I don't know that course providers might do the same but this is not in the NPTEL so it's good for the NPTEL and as far as grading that's very good but there are there are glitches in NPTEL so that might be improved okay yeah thanks thanks Ritik thanks for your input according to me the NPTEL has the NPTEL assignment have the time flexibility is very good by than other courses currently I'm pursuing a course on the CCS icons locked on to nob songs there is quiz I mean there is some content after they have the content there is quiz and there are eight number of the attempts it is very ridiculous and but there is one point is if that it does not show the answer of the quiz by resolving the quiz and also they change their questions this is my point of view okay okay pranati yeah thank you thank you for your view and I see that Suraj has something to say share yeah you can close your video so Suraj you wanted to add something to the general discussion that is happening yes sir I would like to add something as already mentioned by earlier speakers regarding other platforms I will not name those platforms but same thing happens it would be like I will scratch your back you will scratch my so during peer graded assignment what happens on that platforms they are just putting comment on your assignment that I have already reviewed your assignment now it's your time and I have given five out of five or some kind of grades now it's your turn to review my assignment this is how it's going on and as Mohini sir and other speaker even Audes Gupta Ji has also mentioned there is no what we can say there is no credibility as such and even as Audes Ji has mentioned some one of his colleague or friend has done 27 course same thing has been happening because the MOOC providers have made it free access all across India and they have put some life up to 30th of June they can access the number of courses what they want so they have been just consuming the content and the four week course has been completed within one day or two days of time so even we are not sure the certifications has been done during this period will be valid will be accepted by industry in future or not again same thing again the the whole purpose of the same privilege will not be successful but in case of NPTEL since they are not releasing quiz answers and other thing so I find it very useful though there would be honor code and other thing but again it is subject to the individual how they do followed and how they do not yeah okay yeah thank you yeah I agree yes peer peer reviews have its own fair share of critiques and yes I agree maybe lot of lot of different things can happen in a peer graded assignment yeah thank you Suresh for sharing your views so what we are now moving to is that final aspect of the major points that you have highlighted one is the discussion about the certification or the credibility and validity of the certificate so I'll just pose that question the value of certificate both among Indian institutions we know that yes there are mechanisms like credit transfer that bring in this one and also among employers what is the validity that you see about the NPTEL certificates so I'll start with the hand raised yeah so Patmini ma'am has already said that NPTEL exams because of that proctored exam it is a genuine exam and I mean basically learners go about through unethical practices to generate certificate let me open up the floor so I think I'll first go with so I had said that I'll come back to some learners specifically so first I'll I'll take Shikha I think Shikha had asked me to Shikha are you there you wanted yes yeah you wanted to say something about the certification yeah please go ahead yes sir okay yes sir sir I would like to put light on three main points which I have experienced while learning from NEPTEL first of all NEPTEL is some some way way more good than other websites in providing certificates in terms of credibility like they conduct genuine exams at the exam centers whereas in other websites we get assignments based on our assignments and then based on our assignments we get scores and we complete that course but in NEPTEL genuine examinations take place at the exam centers and the next point is some things that NEPTEL can improve like the main reason while children are moving towards courses from NEPTEL is that the courses which are offered on Coursera are from the universities from the foreign universities which are ranked which are ranked above the universities and colleges of India so they prefer like if they will do a course from a higher ranked university then they will it will get them more benefits and credit credibility means they can learn far much better so if NEPTEL can collaborate and invite some faculties from other foreign universities that would be a good point for NEPTEL and the next thing is that for soft skills I would recommend NEPTEL to motivate students and to put focus on mainly project based project based evaluations for the soft skills based project because I have done some courses from edX also where they for where for some courses they did evaluation based on our projects they had some platforms for our project evaluations and so when I when I see on LinkedIn several people putting on their certificates but there the recruiters mainly put on the comments there like these certificates are just not enough for proving your skills you need to show some show off your skills through some projects also so for improving credibility these projects are a good factor like ethical hacking like courses like ethical hacking web development project and projects can be a good way to evaluate other than assignments and examinations at exam center because then also we can just mug up all the things and just in the examination center we can get a scoring mark and we can get just passing marks also we can pass the course so these are the things what I was trying to put in my point for is like there could be some mechanism that the certificates could be integrated with the professional with the professional employers that that can be given weightage while we are sitting for interviews or even in academics like if for some reason some student is not able to attend a lecture then if we if or if he or she had done a certification in that particular lecture then some weightage could be given to the TA TA marks and allocation according to it okay okay yeah so this is what we call as credit transfer and there are modalities that it has to be worked out by individual universities so that is where it is stuck but yeah we are also working with universities in understanding how regular college going students can benefit from the NPTEL certificate what do you say in their regular academic curriculum so I see a lot more yeah thanks thanks Akash let me let me read out certain comments that are coming in the chat forum because of paucity of time I may not be able to open up the discussion forum for a lot more students a lot more of these discussions but yeah please put in your points in the chat so that we can actually look at so Vignesh is saying that attempt we can attend assignments any number of times actually this freedom is not good in teaching learning process in Coursera because you come to know the answer and you are yeah it is being supported by Eldin so Dr. Ravish has responded thanks to all members of NPTEL for fulfilling dreams of Indian learners hope per day will come when a student will receive undergraduate and postgraduate certifications or degree from reputed institutions and universities through NPTEL platform thank you sir so Padmini ma'am has couple of points value of certificates can be given more importance by government like giving exemption for written exam by going to next level like if it if it is your net exam set exam they get exemptions for interview candidate who have got elite or gold can be exempted from writing the exams basically gold and other things come happen after the exam so I'm not sure how much of this would be applicable but yeah we can think of something like this but yeah one thing that everybody has to understand is each NPTEL course is unique each offering even though it may be the same course a rerun is also a unique instance so that is why this is not considered as a degree rather it is a certification exam so really sorry that I could not take up more of your inputs at this point because we have started this at five and it is almost now we are reaching seven o'clock which is like the hard cut off for the webinar that is why I'm not able to reach out to each and everyone please please put in your comments in the chat window so that I can look at it look at it and also so Dhania you can take a note of the chat transcripts that are coming and we can actually we can actually put that in the maybe while we are doing the webinar part of it in through in the video main video sir actually I am studying in AKTU and my college is giving credit transfer as per the course duration like for four week course the credit points are less for eight weeks and 12 weeks course the credit points are more so these credit points are adding up and these are valuable for getting an honors degree in BTEC so that's why that's the solo motive of doing NPTEL courses initially but then when I started learning from NPTEL courses I really liked the course content but I I do not prefer going for the videos rather I preferred reading from the slides and the content material because you know I have to manage with the course curriculum also so these things were there so and also the videos were too lengthy so I found it a bit boring and monotonous so I preferred notes and prepared for the exam from the PDF files as well so the content in the PDF files was just enough to get you know get maximum marks so I earned one gold certificate also without without even watching a single video on the course means I just reviewed as study material and prepared from the study material only and given the exam and passed with good faith so that was and there's one thing also I wanted to add means when I attended the course on course era there was there was this concept that the screen was divided into two sections see the one section was there when the where the video was playing and the other section was given to us to you know side by side practice what is being taught there so which course was this which course was this in course era it was designing it was something related to designing the graphic designing okay if you can remember the course name can you share it with us either I think I it's not course let me add it's not course it's guided project he was talking about okay okay okay here started with new project called guided project concept they have acquired rhyme company yes and take the projects available okay okay yes go ahead dad go ahead section so this thing I liked about them and those one of my friends told me that they were using online interpreters side by side so that they could practice the code on hand with the video also so these things I liked about course era and the other thing is that the availability of the course so with course era you can almost take up any course whenever you are free and when whenever you want to start up but with nptl you have to wait for the certain time frame to and but that's the part of curriculum you see that they are conducting exams and so this cannot be changed but yeah that's that's the one point I would like and the other thing I observed was some the course can I take names of the courses yeah yeah yeah go ahead go ahead so there was one course on nptl enhancing soft skill and personality so all the answers to the assignment were available on youtube so many of my friends who were preparing with me and they just copied it and I got to know about this very late so much means I thought that of a mean I was preparing from the content provided and I was answering from there but they just copied one day ago or two day ago means one hour or two hour early end they are just getting good marks so this thing I like to highlight it here so please look into that thing the answers were being provided on youtube yeah and so do you so you said that you are planning for doing honors I mean btech honors do you have any of your let's say your friends or seniors who have completed btech honors using this using nptl courses or others from where you got inspired or you got some q tips you know I think this is a great transfer was being implemented in akdu from my semester only means when I entered the first year earlier it was like getting 75 percent more than 75 percent in every semester was enough to get a honors degree but from my from the year which I entered akdu then this was some kind of restriction that you have to certain you have to get certain credit points for getting an honors degree okay yeah so have you have you asked your so do you have juniors no actually I am in second year so yeah my my friends are there they are taking up nptl courses okay so they allow you to start courses right from first year for btech honors right that's what you think okay these points also give a lot of boost to us here at nptl seeing that there are scope for improvement and we are also we are also taking there are certain courses where we have taken the right direction so we will continue with these kind of experimentation so that it can come up widely in across all our courses in the upcoming semester we have 400 plus courses that are there and one important thing that I have to highlight is this idea of local chapters that is very much unique to nptl nptl has this idea of working along with Indian University so this is something that we highlight at every presentation so we may not have what do you say superior production values like what edX or other or a Coursera gives we may not do self-paced courses we may not do that much of focus on superior production value simply because this MOOC platform is with a primary aim of addressing the quality of learning in general Indian education so we are we are what we are doing right now is we are trying so nptl is the national coordinator of engineering courses primarily but what we have doing in the spaces we are also including courses from other areas like arts management so this semester we have courses in law also coming to nptl a portal so we have two courses in law law which is coming from I think national law university Bangalore we will have a confirmation if you look at our tentative course list you will see that so yeah there are a lot of things that we are also doing at the back end we are trying to develop an analytics team we are trying to come up with new initiatives like what you see right now why nptl what nptl so we have done a spokathon and those kind of things we are also trying to bring in ideas of learner centricity in nptl courses there are courses called designing learner centric MOOCs or designing learner centric content in stem disciplines e-learning content in stem disciplines that we are offering through nptl so one thing that you have to understand is an nptl is actually a platform primarily to empower learners so none of our initiatives are with a mindset of a for profit okay we are a completely not for profit organization it is a project by government of India so we are we are also not what you say permanent employees as say so we work in this field so that we have a passion towards all the people working in nptl has a passion towards how people are learning how can we improve the quality of Indian education so that is the single most driving force if you look at what nptl is doing of course we have tied up with aicta in offering fdp certificates for our courses and also we are trying to reach out to industry partners for fee waivers and other kind of support through their CSR initiatives so what you see right now are some of the I mean if you look at the nptl project it is a vast ocean and what you see as certification courses is just one small part of it we do a lot of different things we try to bring up a lot of new content and all your ideas it is going back to our team it is going back to the group and we will be thinking deliberating over the idea that you have been saying and we'll try to come up with very very focused initiatives it may take a certain time because we also have to identify which all courses so it has to be piloted though these kind of experiments are happening across small courses so we will do most of this most of the suggestions that you have given so I hope this was a productive session for all