COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ROORKEE (COER) (Governed by Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust) 7th KM on Roorkee – Haridwar Road Vardhman Puram Roorkee (Uttarakhand) August 22, 2020 Minutes of the meeting of the BOG of College of Engineering Roorkee (COER) held on 21st August 2020 at 12.00 Noon in online mode due to prevailing COVID pandemic. Following attended the meeting: 1. Er. JC Jain, Chairman, Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust Chairman 2. Mrs. Sunita Jain, Vice Chairperson, Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust Member 3. Dr. Subhash Jain, Secretary, Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust Member 4. Mr. Shriyance Jain, Managing Director, Member Texplas Group of Industries, Trustee, Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust 5. Mrs. Charu Jain, Trustee, Seth Roshan Lal Jain Trust Member 6. Professor SP Gupta, Director General, COER Member Secretary 7. Professor D. Ghosh, Head, E & CE Department, IIT Roorkee Member 8. Professor RP Saini, Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, IIT Roorkee Member 9. Dr. BM Singh, Director, COER Member 10. Dr. Pankaj Chaudhari, Associate Dean (Academics) Special Invitee 11. Dr. Siddharth Jain, Dean Research Special Invitee Nominations of two Members by the State Government are yet to be received. Dr. Anita Rawat, Member of the BoG and Registrar, Uttarakhand Technical University could not attend the meeting. Hon. Chairman welcomed all the members and thanked them for their gracious presence in the meeting of the BoG. He said COER looks forward to guidance from the Honourable members of this apex body. The suggestions made in the BoG are valuable and all steps are taken to implement them. For example, in the last BOG it was suggested that we increase intake in B.Tech. (CSE). The same has been implemented. The COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges. The financial management, conducting teaching in virtual mode and maintaining safety standards in the campus are some of them. He sought guidance in these matters. The New Education Policy 2020 has been announced. How will it impact higher education and how should we act proactively to be ready for future. This issue may be discussed. He then asked the Member Secretary to proceed with the Agenda. Page 1 of 72 The Member Secretary made a power point presentation covering all items of the agenda as summarized below: GENERAL: It was informed that the BoG of COER has been constituted as per AICTE guidelines and has 14 members. Two members are to be nominated by State Government. The names of such Hon‟ble members have not been received so far from the State Government, though requests are regularly sent to Deputy Secretary, Technical Education, Uttarakhand Secretariat, Dehradun. Out of 14 members, two members, namely Maj. Gen. Dr. OP Soni, DG. COER-SM and Mr. Dhaeshwar Kumar, Asstt. Professor have resigned from COER. There replacement will be made in due course of time. ITEM 1: To Confirm the Minutes of the last meeting of BoG held on September 28, 2019. Minutes were circulated. No comments were received on the Minutes from Hon. Members. The minutes were confirmed. Following observations were made in the last meeting: Hon‟ble member appreciated efforts made at COER and COER-SM to achieve excellence in teaching and research. Listed below are the suggestions made by Hon‟ble members and action taken on them: (i) Professor RP Saini suggested that in view of significant role of renewable energy in present times, special courses may be developed in this area. This may also enhance admission of students. Possibility of renaming the B.Tech course on „Plastic and Polymer Engineering‟ which is attracting low admissions as „Chemical Engineering‟ which more broad based may be explored. He appreciated the research achievements of the faculty members and suggested that they should be further intensified. Action taken: The above suggestions are in the process consideration for implementation. (ii) Mr. Shriyance Jain opined that there should be a provision for expert from industry to be involved in curriculum delivery, to some extent. This is likely to improve industry readiness of graduating students. There is a need to update the course curriculum as well. Action taken: The above suggestion has been implemented. Page 2 of 72 (iii) Mrs. Charu Jain laid emphasis on internship of students to be treated as an opportunity for in-depth understanding of industrial practices and should be handled by the Institute more professionally. She also suggested that incentives should be given to faculty members and staff for special achievements. Action taken: The above suggestion has been implemented. (iv) Professor D. Ghosh suggested that intake in courses such as Computer Science & Engineering be increased to meet the increasing need of human resource in this area. He also suggested that COER should take advantage of training opportunity offered by IITs through Faculty Development courses under Electronics & Information Communication Technology (E&ICT) Academy. Action taken: The above suggestions have been implemented. (v) Professor OP Soni suggested that Supply Chain Management be added as a specialization in MBA. Besides, a PG Diploma course on Industrial Safety Management may be started. Action taken: The above suggestions are in the process consideration for implementation. (vi) Dr. B.M. Singh suggested starting of Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology to enhance student‟s technical, ethical, social, collaborative working, and team building skills. There should be project implementation in Laboratory classes by the each student. He suggested that every student must include innovations in his/her projects during implementation. He also suggested that placement preparation classes must be organized just after the 6th semester examinations and participation of students be made mandatory. He further opined that students should be motivated to participate in technical exhibitions and hackathons. Action taken: The above suggestions have been implemented (vii) Mr. Dhanesh Kumar suggested that there should be a 6 month slot in B.Tech curriculum for industrial internship of students. With such internships the students will have a fair chance of placement in the industry of his/her internship. Dr. Anita Rawat opined that any proposal, such as this one, which requires approval of the University, should be sent to the University. Action taken: The above suggestion has already been mandated by the AICTE. Page 3 of 72 ITEM 2: To report activities at COER since the last meeting of the BoG held on September 28, 2019 2.1 An International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applications (COER- ICAIA-2019) was held at COER on Nov. 20-21, 2020– A brief report COER organized an International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applications (COER-IEEE--ICAIA-2019) jointly with Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere in association with IEEE UP Section on Nov, 20-21, 2019 at Roorkee. The focus of the conference was on research and development in the area of Artificial Intelligence. The International Conference saw the participation of experts from different countries. About ten speakers from Universities of India and abroad and Industries addressed the delegates during the plenary and technical sessions of the conference and covered the diversified research applications of Artificial Intelligence in various fields of Engineering and Technology. This included the talks of Professor Gopal Gupta from University of Texas at Dallas who discussed on “Artificial Intelligence: The Road Forward”; Professor Kalyanmoy Deb and Professor Erik Goodman from Michigen State University, on “Evolutionary computation and Machine Learning reinforce each other”. Prof Nishchal Verma from IIT Kanpur delivered his talk on “Deep learning and its role in Artificial Intelligence”. Dr Harilal from ONGC delivered his talk on “AI in Petroleum Exploration”. Other renowned dignitaries and experts in the fields of Artificial Intelligence; Professor Manoj Tripathi, Professor Sudip Roy, Professor Jeevanand Seshadrinath and Professor Debidas Kundu, from IIT Roorkee also discussed different aspects of ArtificialIntelligence. Page 4 of 72 The conference provided a platform which discussed around forty five papers in different technical sessions. The conference received papers from IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi, Ecole De Technologie Superieure, Quebec, Canada, Pant Nagar University, ONGC, Gautam Buddha University and other institutes. A tutorial session on “Automating Common Sense Reasoning” by Professor Gopal Gupta had been planned one day before the commencement of the conference on 19 Nov 2019. The conference presented a big opportunity to share global experience in the field of Artificial Intelligence and drawn recommendations in the area of Artificial Intelligence. House Recommendation: The house recognized the increasing importance of Machine Learning and Deep Learning and opined that an introductory course in this area be taught at an early stage in all engineering courses. In view of above the house recommended to “Introducing a full time compulsory course on Machine Learning and Deep Learning in the curriculum of first year of all courses”. Page 5 of 72 2.2 Visit of two Professors from Russia VISIT OF PROFESSORS IAKOV ILLCHENKO AND NIKOLAI KURCHENKO IN OCTOBER 2019 It was a historic occasion for COER to have entered in to a Memorandum of Understanding with a major Russian University Kuban State Agrarian University (KubSAU), Krasnodar, Russia on May 27, 2019. This cooperation was put into a useful interactive