NPTEL - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is a Government of India sponsored collaborative educational programme. By developing curriculum-based video and web courses the programme aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. It is being jointly carried out by 7 IITs

Indian Institutes of Technology

The Indian Institutes of Technology are a group of autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education. The IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as “institutions of national importance”, and lays down their powers, duties,...

and IISc Bangalore, and is funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India

Government of India

The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...

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As of December 2009, over 250 courses were available online. The course videos are available in streaming mode, and may also be downloaded for viewing offline. The video files are also viewable via the IIT Channel in Youtube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

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Seven IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have worked together to develop web and video based material for basic undergraduate science and engineering courses in order to enhance the reach and quality of technical education in India.

Participating Institutions

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (coordinating Institute)
Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

History of the Programme

The idea of having a Technology enhanced learning initiative involving IITs and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) was first proposed by IIT Madras in the year 1999 , immediately following a Workshop on Technology Enhanced Learning (WoTEL) conducted in Chennai in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA.

Cost of the initiative: The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India approved funding of 20.47 crores (204.7 million) of Indian Rupees for Phase I for three years from June 2003 till June 2006, which was eventually extended till June 30, 2007.

Following that, significant infrastructure for the production of video-based teaching material by the institutes was set up. In the first phase of the NPTEL project (June 2003-June 2007), 110 video courses and 129 web-based courses were developed by the faculty members of these institutions.

Future Plans of the Project

Phase II: The next phase of the programme is now ongoing. It is currently funded through 2011. Over 1000 web and video courses will be created.

There are several enhancements being included for Phase II:

All IITs and IISc will participate as partners. In addition NIT and other premier University faculty will have the opportunity to join for open content creation as associates.
Private industries will be called on to provide value-added case studies and experiential learning.
There is increased emphasis on having a modular structure for the courses
Question banks and case studies will be included as part of the courses where applicable
The course materials will be developed to contain greater relevance to professional examination and industrial practices
Course specific NPTEL wiki's for increased interaction and user-content generation

Engineering Disciplines for NPTEL Courses

In Phase I, five branches of engineering (Civil, Electrical, Electronics and Communication, Computer Science and Engineering, and Mechanical) were addressed in the first phase. Each Institute identified the courses in which it would like to participate as video (V) or Web (W) based content contributor. The core courses common to all these disciplines including basic science and engineering were addressed by a core courses group.

As of December 2009, web and video courses in the following disciplines are available.

Branch	Web	Video
Basic Course (Sem I and II)	16	13
Civil Engg	25	17
Computer Science & Engg	22	18
Electrical Engg	16	23
Electronics & Communication Engg	20	22
Mechanical Engg	27	20
Ocean Engg	0	2
Biotechnology	0	2
Mining	0	1
Total	126	118

Distribution Channels for the Courses

The web and video courses are distributed via the following channels:

The Official NPTEL Website has all the courses available for free viewing and download.

Youtube has an IIT channel, from which all the courses (approximately 40 hours of lectures per course) are available.

DVDs of individual courses (3 DVDs per course) is available from the NPTEL website. These can be obtained from the btechguru

Btechguru

Btechguru is an online educational portal , based in India, a part of Bodhbridge educational services Incubated in IIT Madras. It promotes educational resources online area of engineering, soft-skills and Entrepreneurship to students...

website.

Additionally, academic and learning institutions can also obtain the entire set of all courses by contacting NPTEL.

Television Channel: The courses have also been made available from July 2006 with video lectures being broadcast through the Eklavya channel provided by Gyan Darshan (DoorDarshan Television, a Govt of India enterprise).

Based on the Official Website, The Official Partners for NPTEL are Youtube, Classle and VideoPulp.

External links