A Case Study of a First-Of-Its-Kind Remote Course Among Premier Institutions in India
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A Case Study of a First-of-Its-Kind Remote Course among Premier Institutions in India Smruti R. Sarangi Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology New Delhi, India 110016 Email: [email protected] Abstract—This paper describes one of the first experiences in the early years, and some faculty from existing IITs of an e-learning based remote course taught between two volunteered to teach in these new universities. premier institutes in India namely IIT Delhi and IIT Ropar. Initially, the teaching was regular contact-based teaching By using state of the art infrastructure, and by adopting an approach that advocates continuous monitoring of the quality that entailed an instructor to physically travel from Delhi of the learning experience, it was possible for the instructor to to Ropar. The distance from Delhi to Ropar is 287 kms by seamlessly conduct remote courses over a span of two years. road, and it takes more than 5 hours to reach there by car. The performance of students in the remote course was similar Hence, most of the time instructors preferred to go to the to that of students who had a conventional education. Lastly, nearest city, Chandigarh, from which Ropar is a one and this paper reports subjective feedback of students that indicate that the degree of learning is very heavily influenced by the half hour drive. The classes were held mostly on weekends. nature of the network, jitter in the audio-video streams, and As a part of a novel experiment, the authorities of both the the timely availability of study material. institutes decided to have remote classes that were primarily taught through a high speed video link. Students could I. INTRODUCTION interact with the teacher over video, and both the sides had This paper describes the results of one of the ear- high fidelity audio-visual equipment. The instructor on his liest experiments in distance education using novel e- side used a tablet PC to teach. One of the earliest courses technologies in India. Efforts such as NPTEL [6], and the to be taught in this mode was the undergraduate computer PGDIIT [3] programme mostly focused on disseminating architecture course, CSL211. It was taught across both the videos of lectures, and using local facilitators for clearing institutions, and the course content, and the exams were doubts. In comparison, this paper describes the experience similar in nature. The performance of students across both of teaching a full second year undergraduate course in the institutions was found to be roughly similar, and we computer architecture across two different institutions (IIT can thus arrive at a preliminary conclusion that students Delhi and IIT Ropar) for a period of two years. To the who are taught remotely using novel technologies, are not best of our knowledge this is the first effort to document particularly disadvantaged. a successful e-learning based course across two prestigious Note that culturally, classes in premier institutions in tier-I institutions in India. India have never been taught remotely. Remote teaching Let us give a brief background. IITs (Indian Institute of was mainly used for extension and outreach programs of Technology) are premier technological universities in India. premier universities, or was used for very small modules. They run both undergraduate and postgraduate programs To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to that are highly selective. Originally, there were five IITs in chronicle such an effort. We believe that the methodology, five different Indian cities – Kharagpur, Madras, Bombay, and conclusions drawn from this paper, are relevant to other Kanpur, and Delhi. Note that each IIT is academically and developing countries also. In specific, a lot of universities administratively independent of other IITs. However, they that want to setup a remote course might find some of the have a common exam to select students. This is known methods described in this paper very useful. Secondly, we as the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). In 2005, the also would like to emphasize that e-learning has its share of government decided to increase the number of IITs to 15, pros and cons. It can prove to be extremely effective as we and by an act of parliament, the new IITs were allowed have learnt from our experience; however, if not managed to confer degrees in 2011. One such IIT was IIT Ropar properly it can fail to provide effective results. Hence, (Rupnagar) in the northern Indian state of Punjab. It was it is necessary to design a distance education program set up in 2008, and the first batch of undergraduate students very carefully, and continuously monitor it, and change its passed out in 2012. direction if necessary. To bootstrap these new institutions, existing IITs were assigned the role of mentoring the new IITs. In specific, IIT II. DISTANCE EDUCATION IN INDIA Delhi was assigned the role of mentoring IIT Ropar. These Let us quickly provide an overview the state of higher new institutes gradually started hiring world class faculty, education in India. India has 20 central universities, and and as of 2013 have mostly become fully functioning 217 provincial universities other than the premier institutes, institutions. Nevertheless, there was a paucity of faculty which mainly comprise of 15 IITs, and 30 NITs (National Institutes of Technology). As of 2013, India produces student pool as IIT Delhi. Both the institutes have a around 1.5 million engineers, of which around 10,000 common admission test known as IIT-JEE. The computer engineers graduate from premier institutions, or in Indian science department of IIT Delhi gets students with higher terminology – institutes of national importance. We can ranks, typically in the range of 1-300. In comparison, the clearly see that there is a vast disparity between the number students in IIT Ropar, typically have ranks between 1500- of institutes that can attract world class faculty, and are thus 2500 in computer science, and the students in electrical termed premier institutes, and the number of institutes in engineering have ranks between 2900-3700. Given the fact the rest of the country. Hence, there is an ample demand that roughly 500,000 students take the JEE exam, and most for remote education and e-learning especially for highly of the students are very bright and well prepared, we believe specialized post graduate courses. that both the institutions have students with roughly similar Since the sixties, correspondence courses have been very intellectual abilities. Since there are no references that popular in India. It was common to pursue a Master’s objectively quantify the aptitude of students vis-a-vis their degree with a university that is geographically far off. In JEE rank, we rely on subjective experience of instructors, this mode of education, students used to get study materials and disregard any biases towards the quality of students in by post, and they used to mail their assignments, and even both the institutions. ask queries by post. This method of education still exists. The main challenge for the instructors in remote courses However, it is quickly being phased out by e-learning based across IIT Delhi and IIT Ropar was to ensure that there is a remote education. Some of the important initiatives that consistent quality of lecture delivery at both the locations, have been taken in this regard are the NIIT Netvarsity and students do not perceive an adverse experience. Let us (established 1996), and Indira Gandhi National Open Uni- review some general observations with regards to e-learning versity Virtual Campus Initiative (established 1999). These in literature. universities offer remote classes based on recorded lectures, and online course materials. III. GENERAL TENETS OF E-LEARNING BASED In the late nineties, faculty from the IITs also joined DISTANCE EDUCATION this initiative and started to release videos of their lectures. Romiszowski [11] summarizes the main reasons for the One of the most successful programs is the NPTEL [6] failure of e-learning based projects. The most important program that has 1260 courses (Phase I and II), and all aspect is the technical proficiency of the adopters of e- of these courses are available free of cost. Most of these learning. This includes the students, the instructor, and the courses are also available on youtube. This started the era facility managers. It is possible to have a very adverse expe- of diversifying Indian education, and it became suddenly rience if there are problems with the video links, or internet possible for students in remote areas to access courses connectivity. Even small disruptions in the video quality taught by outstanding faculty in IITs. It is noteworthy, that tend to have a big effect on the learning experience, and MIT Open courseware [1] was never very popular in India. can distract students. Once students lose their concentration This primarily stems from cultural differences. There is a in a remote class, it becomes hard for them to regain it back. difference between the pedagogic style of American and The second important factor is getting appropriate bu- Indian instructors. Secondly, students find it difficult to reaucratic approval and support from the university admin- understand American accents. However, students did not istration. We need to note that novel teaching methods using have these difficulties with NPTEL lectures. e-learning are still not very popular, and it is often difficult The role of NPTEL and similar programs such as the to convince administrators about the need and efficacy of PGDIIT [3] program run by IIT Kharagpur, or ELNET [3] such mechanisms. have been praised in prior literature [12], [13], [8], [10]. As Romiszowski notes, there is typically an inevitable All the authors have rightly observed that remote education rise and fall of e-learning based schemes (e.g., ETV based increases the span and outreach of quality education.