National Programme on Technology Enhanced
Learning
(NPTEL Phases II and III)
Project duration: July 2007 to June 2012
Proposal
Under the National Mission on Education Through ICT
By
Professor M. S. Ananth
Chairman, Programme Implementation Committee, NPTEL Project Phase I
Director, IIT Madras, Chennai
and
Professor K. Mangala Sunder
National Web Courses Coordinator, NPTEL Project Phase I
Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, Chennai
Proposal Document submitted to
The Joint Secretary, Distance Learning
Department of Higher Education
Ministry of Human Resource Development
Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi
The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) Phases II and III
Project duration: July 2007 to June 2012
Executive Project Summary
July 2007 – June 2012
Project Period:
Budget:
Rs 96.0 crores
Partner Institutions:
Seven IITs and IISc Bangalore
Number of faculty likely to participate:
600 or more.
Beneficiaries: All engineering and physical sciences undergraduates/postgraduates in the
country; all teachers /faculties in science and engineering Universities in India.
Project goal:
To build on the engineering and core science courses launched previously in NPTEL Phase I by
the Ministry for
Human Resource Development, Government of India on September 03, 2006
and create online course contents and interactions between faculty members in science and
engineering using the best academics in India.
Project Deliverables:
1. Conversion of NPTEL phase I video courses in streaming video lecture format and
setting up eight distributed national video servers for delivering lectures on demand in
each of the eight partner institutions (PI).
2. Creation of additional 600 web and video courses in all major branches of engineering,
physical sciences at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and
management
courses at the postgraduate level.
3. Integration of College curricula in engineering education with NPTEL contents through a
large number of course specific workshops and interaction with Colleges in India for
improving TEL infrastructure.
4. Creation of discussion forum for each course created under the NPTEL using a grid of
computer servers and setting up FAQ’s for each course.
5. Indexing of all video and web courses and setting up powerful search engines to enable
content and keyword search on all topics in science and engineering developed under
NPTEL.
2
6. Setting up internal infrastructure in each IIT for implementing virtual online certification
programmes in science and engineering.
Budget Proposed:
Creation of 600 web and video courses in 15 disciplines and
Rs 44 crores
enabling streaming format for all video courses developed:
Rs. 7 lakhs per course and Rs. 2 crores for preparation of streaming
media content for courses from Phase I
Storage of raw video files size between 300 TB to 500 TB
Rs. 5.0 crores
Servers for 24/7 access throughout the country with large Rs. 5.0 crores
bandwidth.
Infrastructure up-gradation for eight participating Institutions
Rs. 12 crores
Travel, coordinator Honoraria and the conduct of 300 workshops in Rs. 24.0 crores
four years for approximately 50 participants in each workshop
(duration 2-3 days) Rs. 4 lakhs per workshop
Web support services to enable effective usage and creation
Rs. 6.0 crores
of digital supplementary indexes (like Wiki)
Total budget for five years for all seven IITs and IISc Bangalore
3
Rs. 96.0 crores
1. Introduction:
The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) was initiated by the
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore in
1999 through a joint workshop organized by IIT Madras with participation from four other IITs,
four Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), industry and Government officials and Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. The workshop proposed four major initiatives on digital
library, core curricula or core courses development on the web, joint Ph. D. programmes using
distance education and a virtual University. The core curriculum development was later
approved under the NPTEL programme and funded by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development in 2003 for a total budget of 20.5 crores of Indian rupees for the creation of 120
web based course supplements, 115 video courses and encapsulation/conversion of existing
110 video courses. Each web course developed comprises of supplementary learning materials
for 40 hours and video courses contain approximately 40 one-hour lectures per course. The
(115) new video courses were prepared in a broadcast format and are currently telecast through
the Eklavya channel made available by the MHRD exclusively for this purpose.
The project
has ensured a near complete coverage of all core courses of undergraduate
curriculum in five major engineering branches, namely, Civil, Computer Science, Electrical,
Electronics and Communication and Mechanical engineering. These were supplemented by the
core science and management programme, languages and other basic courses such as
electronics, numerical methods etc. which are mandatory for all engineering students. The
model AICTE curricula in engineering adapted by major affiliating Universities such as Anna
University, Visweswaraiah Technical University and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University
were used to design the course content.
With more than 80 percent of content designed and developed for dissemination through the
Web, the Programme was formally launched by the Honourable Minister for Human Resource
Development, Shri Arjun Singh, on September 3rd, 2006 in IIT Madras. The contents are
currently made available free to everyone in India and abroad through the website
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http://nptel.iitm.ac.in maintained by IIT Madras. More than 140,000 students/teachers /working
professionals from across 140 countries registered with the site earlier for free access and the
site has recorded more than 2 million hits in the last two years since launch. The site is being
updated continuously to ensure that the first phase of the programme delivers all the contents
by June 2007. The video lectures are currently being broadcast through the Eklavya channel
and approximately 50 engineering institutions in the country have set up their own receivers with
a dish antenna to receive the signal in their own campuses.
2. Programme Implementation so far:

In order to ensure that the courses were made available on the Internet in a form most
suitable for the users, the following activities were carried out by all the eight Partner
Institutions (PI):

Identifying a group of faculty members from all IITs / IISc as TEL Coordinators at the
national level, responsible for the overall management of content development process
in each branch of engineering.

Identifying one or two faculty members in each PI in each discipline as the discipline
coordinators to steer the content development programme.

Identifying core subjects / topics in each discipline and distributing the development of
content between PIs with minimal duplication between contents developed across the
institutions and disciplines.

Evolving common minimum requirements for a web / video course and ensuring that all
courses under this programme adhere to them.

Identifying suitable Subject Matter Experts (SME) for each course and interacting with
them regularly to ensure smooth and satisfactory progress in content development.
5

Conducting workshops for user faculty from representative colleges in each region for
collecting feedback during intermediate stages of content development and applying
mid-course correction required.

Creating suitable IT support infrastructure in the form of studios /web content
development labs (web studios) and software, ensuring the training of project staff in
software skills who would assist the faculty in content creation in electronic form and
updating the faculty on technology developments in the area of e-learning / distance
education from time to time.

Reviewing contents developed under this programme to ensure error-free and quality
learning modules suitable for students and teachers at large.

Updating the release of these materials periodically and ensuring constant usage by
faculty and students for whom they were intended.

Creating a suitable distribution package for institutions which do not have dedicated high
bandwidth internet connectivity, for example, in the form of CDROMs/DVDs for the web
courses.

Two committees were constituted to coordinate the activities of the national project: the
National Programme Committee (NPC) and the Project Implementation Committee
(PIC). The former was concerned with policy matters and funds allocation to PIs while
the latter was concerned with all the technical issues associated with the development
and implementation process. The NPC includes representatives from AICTE, Ministry of
Information and Communication Technology, University Grants Commission, Technical
Teachers Training Institute, Indira Gandhi National Open University and representatives
from IITs and is chaired by the Joint Secretary for Technical Education in the HRD
Ministry. The PIC consists of TEL coordinators from all PIs and representatives from
three User Institutions and was chaired by Professor M. S. Ananth, Director IIT Madras.
6
Converting the video courses developed in Phase I to MPEG4:
In NPTEL Phase I, 110 courses with approximately 4800 one hour lectures were developed.
Apart from the well known and popular Open Courseware (OCW) Initiative by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA , which has provided access to about 800 video
hours, there are no open resources with so many lecture-hours of video courses. In contrast to
OCW which showcases available MIT educational resources under open resources, NPTEL is a
curriculum development exercise in electronic form with the specific objective of improving the
quality of engineering education in India through distance mode. The contents can of course be
used freely by anyone anywhere in the world with a similar academic programme. The video
courses are therefore of high resolution and are large in storage space. In addition, a large
majority of 110 courses from the earlier recording of lectures in the Educational Technology
Cells of IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi for the past several years have also been
converted to the digital form. Thus in Phase I the total number of video courses is far more than
the number of web courses as it was felt in the year 2003 that TV medium was still the most
accessible medium to students and teachers outside of IITs and IISc. The Internet bandwidth for
network connectivity using broadband in most colleges was about 512 Kbps then which is
abysmally low. A large number of these institutions are slowly enhancing their network
bandwidth to about 2 Mbps at present which is still less than that needed for incorporating
developments in web technology and assuring effective delivery of visual and audio content
worldwide in class rooms. Video courses are made available in a form that can be accessed ”on
demand”, the advantages being:
User requirements for different courses differ with place and time.
The display of video lecture segments relevant to the class needs to coincide with class
scheduling in colleges.
Colleges can set up a local area network in their libraries or computer centres and stream the
video lectures on demand for students.
7
More than 40 percent of NPTEL website access is by working professionals who are interested
in updating their knowledge in specific areas related to their work. They would be benefited by
the availability of video lectures either through video streaming on demand or in the form of
DVDROM.
It is therefore important to convert all the video lectures in MPEG4 format with a streaming
speed of 512 Kbps to ensure easy and wide access to all NPTEL courses through the Internet..
The Video On Demand (VOD) facility must be accessed through a distributed and networked
system of computers housed at various locations with dedicated connectivity. For colleges it is
proposed to make the contents available in the streaming format in the form of a hard disk
which can be installed in local servers in the respective colleges. The video courses to be
developed in Phase II must factor this additional expense in the budget for Phase II.
The programme on Eklavya TV channel needs to be continued with the addition of a CAS
system for effective delivery. This will enable those without sufficient internet bandwidth to
access the video contents.
So far more than 1100 lecture hours have been converted into MPEG4 format and uploaded in
YouTube Channel which hosts free academic sites from several North American Universities.
The video channel has been integrated with the official NPTEL website. Many of these videos
are also being published as DVDROMs for students and teachers to obtain them for their
personal use. The charges levied will cover only DVD and shipment and copying costs. It is
expected that the process of making all courses available as DVDs will be completed by July
2008. Taking into account both comments of Planning Commission, the IT Ministry and Finance
Ministry, there will be a charge for private institutions and industries which want to use the
NPTEL as an in-house digital repositories. The contents will however, continue to remain
available through the internet as part of the open and free access.
3. Proposed Activities for NPTEL Phase II (Summary):
8
The following activities are proposed to be carried out in NPTEL Phase II starting from April 1,
2007 for a period of three years.
Converting the video courses developed in Phase I to MPEG4 format and setting up
streaming of video courses through a distributed and networked website management. (All IITs
and IISc Bangalore will host the streaming content for the video courses). The DVDROM
distribution of the courses to users may be taken up at a much later stage when a large number
of video courses are complete.
Assisting in the effective use of all the courseware developed in phase I through constant
interactions with user institutions and registered users. Feedback forms and web forums /
discussion boards will be created for each course.
Creating DVDROM versions of video courses for distribution to colleges and individuals for a
fee to ensure widest possible reach of the NPTEL content. The fee cannot and should not be
handled by any bookseller in my opinion but IITs must find their own way of distributing.
Creating 500 new courses in a number of disciplines not covered in Phase I and widening
the intellectual, open access resource base of the IITs to ensure the role as global players in the
knowledge dissemination process. The course base will cover at least 10 disciplines for which
an undergraduate degree programme is offered by the IITs and which are accredited by the
AICTE as well in Institutions in India.
Creating 100 additional courses on elective subjects in the five disciplines covered under
phase I (Civil, Computer Science, Electrical, Electronics and Communication, Mechanical) to
ensure that content repository in these five disciplines is complete.
Encouraging faculty to design question banks, add more case studies and illustrations
and update course contents.
9
Setting up physical infrastructure in each IIT, creating a permanent team in each IIT for
ensuring quality of content as per internet standards. The storage requirement for video files
(raw is about 75-100 terabytes for a total of about 600 terabytes. The raw files are of broadcast
quality and enable us to prepare files for the Internet in different bandwidths to cater to the
variations in broadband connectivity worldwide. It is important to make the video files accessible
in different formats in order to ensure wide reach and availability. Hence the storage
requirement is a must.
Providing a range of web enabled services to the courses developed under NPTEL with
associate partners such as the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management
Kerala (IIITMK) and enabling development of IT tools for online dissemination of contents.
Conducting 240 course specific workshops for all courses developed in NPTEL Phase I with
teachers throughout the country and using the feedback for building courses of Phase II.
Research in online education, open resources and open standards for design of
educational processes through the Internet are very important in the immediate future. It is
desirable to create a team of at least one full time faculty member who is a specialist in
instructional course design and cognitive learning, two full time technical managers who are IT
specialists and office staff in each IIT. However separate additional funding will be required.
4. Details of the Proposal:
4. 1 Designing Feedback and Interactions among Content Developers and Users for
Effective Implementation of NPTEL Courseware:
The development of web and video supplementary materials in 239 new courses and 110
existing video courses in NPTEL Phase I jointly by PIs in India is a unique nation-wide exercise,
it is important to ensure that course contents are effectively used by the target group of
teachers, students and working professionals This has to be done in several ways
simultaneously and each of those processes must be implemented for a long period of time as
10
there is no clearly defined or unique process for effective utilization by users at a distance from
the traditional class room. Some of those methods are described here. However, prior to
implementation of various strategies for effective usage, information dissemination must happen
and the requirement of the target audience must be understood.
The following steps have already been taken:
All the user institutions (more than 1500 at present) have to be informed about the objectives of
the NPTEL programme, the target audience it is meant for, and the ease of use of contents by
various teachers. With this objective, a detailed programme document was made for circulation
to all colleges and University departments. The Indian Society for Technical Education has been
requested to carry feature articles on NPTEL and announce periodically the updates of course
contents that are available.
The website http://nptel.iitm.ac.in was officially launched on September 5, 2006, and it has been
updated with course materials periodically. Visitors to this website have been requested to
register themselves free of charge. The site is being continually updated and during the period
January 2008 to January 2009 1,041,218 visits have been recorded. This is a sign of the
expectations building up among the users and their interest in using the contents developed so
far. More than 70 percent of the users are from India. The users outside of India are mostly from
the United States, United Kingdom, Canada United Arab Emirates and Singapore with the
remaining being distributed globally. The number of registrants to this website has been seeing
a steady increase on a daily basis and the trend is only likely to continue. However, in view of
the number of students currently enrolled in engineering programmes throughout the country
(approximately 1.6 million) and the number of teachers (approximately 20.000) the access rate
of the NPTEL website must be enormously improved over the current numbers through
information dissemination. The numbers will increase at least by an order of magnitude if the
video materials are converted into a streaming format and made available at a bandwidth of 512
kbps across all IIT / IISc websites in a distributed manner. This is possible if each IIT / IISc is
given an adequate Internet bandwidth (50 Mbps) dedicated for this purpose. In addition, a large
11
number of working professionals who are interested in specific courses should be able to get
them in DVDROMs.
It has been a year since the site was registered with Google to provide extended data on users.
The following figures suggest that the site (both the web and the video courses) is used quite
well by students and teachers worldwide. The data on video through exposure to a limited
number of the video courses and on all web courses for a short period indicate that the access
rate has also enormously improved in the last few months. In the Appendix the comments by
the viewers of the video channel are enclosed.
NPTELHRD - youTube.com Channel Summary
Channel
http://www.youtube.com/iit
Channel created on
November 27, 2007
Videos uploaded
3563
Number of courses
95
Number of Channel views
503338 (0n March 1, 2009)
Number of Video views
6,968,578 (upto Feb 15, 2009)
Number of subscribers
12364 (on March 1, 2009)
LIST OF VIDEO COURSES
Subject
Biotech
Civil
12
S.No
Course Name
Videos
1
BioChemistry I
28
2
Enzyme Science and Engineering
28
3
Environmental Air Pollution
39
4
Fluid Mechanics
40
5
Pre-stressed Concrete Structures
40
Computer
Science
Core
13
6
Water and Waste Water Engineering
40
7
Water Resources Engineering
28
8
Structural Analysis II
40
9
Surveying
40
10
Strength of Materials
40
11
Introduction to Transportation Engineering
41
12
Engineering Geology
40
13
Civil Engineering - Building materials and Construction
41
14
Mechanics of solids
39
15
Soil Mechanics
57
16
Computer Graphics
43
17
Discrete Structures
40
18
Computer Graphics
35
19
Introduction to Problem Solving and Programming
24
20
System Analysis and Design
40
21
Artificial Intelligence(Prof.P.Dasgupta)
28
22
Computer Networks
40
23
Computer Organization
33
24
Internet Technology
40
25
Design and Analysis of Algorithms
34
26
Database Design
43
27
Principles of Programming Languages
40
28
Data Structures And Algorithms
36
29
Computer Architecture
38
30
Software Engineering
39
31
Artificial Intelligence
40
32
Data Communication
41
33
Basic Electronics and Lab
40
34
Engineering Chemistry I
10
35
Mathematics I
32
36
Numerical Analysis and Computer Programming
38
Concept of Management and Evolution of Management
37
thought
40
38
Engineering Physics II
9
39
Engineering Mechanics
31
40
Quantum Physics
11
41
Classical Physics
2
42
Physics I - Oscillations & Waves
44
43
VLSI Circuits
55
44
Digital Circuits and Systems
40
45
High Speed Devices and Circuits
41
46
Solid State Devices
42
47
Transmission Lines and EM Waves
42
48
Wireless Communication
39
49
Digital Signal Processing
43
Electronics
50
MEMS and Microsystems
32
and
51
Probability and Random Processes
40
communi-
52
Digital Communication
32
cation
53
Electronics for Analog Signal Processing - I
38
54
Electronics for Analog Signal Processing - II
39
55
Basic Electronics
13
56
Digital Voice & Picture Communication
40
57
Digital Image Processing
40
58
Broadband Networks: Concepts and Technology
28
59
Digital Systems Design
40
60
Adaptive Signal Processing
41
14
61
VLSI Design
40
62
Electromagnetic Fields
42
63
Intelligent Systems and Control
32
Power System Generation, Transmission and Distribution
Electrical
Mechanical
15
64
(Encapsulated from earlier Video)
35
65
Power Systems Operation and Control
35
66
Basic Electrical Technology
39
67
Industrial Drives - Power Electronics
37
68
Embedded Systems
37
69
Circuit Theory
51
70
Networks Signals and Systems
36
71
Industrial Automation and Control
40
72
Networks and Systems
50
73
Power Electronics
43
74
Digital Integrated Circuits
40
75
Power Systems Analysis
40
76
Industrial Instrumentation
40
77
Control Engineering
47
78
Analog ICs
28
79
Illumination Engineering
20
80
Energy Resources & Technology
40
81
Chaos, Fractals & Dynamic Systems
40
82
Advanced Strength of Materials
40
83
Dynamics of Machines
44
84
Finite Element Method
38
85
Kinematics of Machines
39
86
Mechanical Measurements and Metrology
50
87
Refrigeration and Air Conditioning
46
Ocean
88
Project and Production Management
41
89
Introduction to Finite Element Method
33
90
Robotics
40
91
Design of Machine Elements I
40
92
Principles of Mechanical Measurements
26
93
Manufacturing Processes II
41
94
Heat and Mass Transfer
35
95
Performance of Marine Vehicles at Sea
40
NPTEL Website Analytics Summary
Channel url
http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
Analytics tracking Period
January 25, 2008 – January 24, 2009
Number of Web courses
126
Number of Video Courses
95
Overview
Number of Visits
1,041,218
Average number of Visits per day
2845
Page views
7,549,020
Average number of page views per visit
7.25
Average Time on site
6.05 minutes
16
Top 10 web courses
Top 10 video courses
17
Traffic sources
18
The data clearly indicate that the NPTEL project and the contents are being received very well
and that a majority of its users (about 85 percent) are residents in our country.
Designing a message (bulletin) board or a course workspace specific for a given course is a
logical next step. This space must be continuously updated with information relating to the
course contents, other sites which offer similar materials, advances happening in the area and
industry requirements as seen by industrial experts. In addition to providing an extended
knowledge workspace as above, the board must permit threaded discussions by the users
through questions and answers. Moderators for the board need to be appointed from the
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research scholar pool and from among the bright M.Tech students attending programmes in
each PI under the SME for that course. The SMEs will be encouraged to take an active part in
the discussion related to their content from time to time, but given the responsibilities of faculty
in PIs to do teaching, research, student guidance and consultancy all at the same time it is
necessary that one or two Ph.D. scholars and those M. Tech students who aspire to become
faculty are nominated as moderators for each course space. They will be encouraged to
organize queries and discussions into a repository of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with
appropriate answers. Providing a direct, interactive response to user queries is the first and
foremost exercise in encouraging the use of NPTEL contents. The whole process for each
branch can also be moderated by a separate group of faculty members from among the retired
faculty from IITs/IISc/Universities whose experience in teaching and learning environments of
user institutions can be a valuable supplement.
Different levels of teacher training workshops will be conducted for each course. Each PI will be
encouraged to identify 3-5 principal user (nodal) institutions in their region and will offer
intensive training to their faculty in all the NPTEL contents, who may be trained in the use,
adaptation of the contents to their teaching requirements and also make new modules for their
own environment. The technology for doing this needs to be made available to them for a short
period at least until the nodal institutions themselves set up the necessary infrastructure. The
institutions will be encouraged to host the contents in their own mirror sites and will be
encouraged to offer training to faculty from institutions in the vicinity. The process will have to be
carried out for all the courses developed in Phase I within the first year of Phase II and must
begin for courses being developed in Phase II in the last year of Phase II.
SMEs (Faculty) from PIs will be requested to design detailed online and face-to-face feedback
from users of specific courses, which might include inputs and expectations of the users
(differentiated as teachers, students or professionals) and request the users to identify the
specific strengths/weaknesses of every course. The parameters that may be considered are
from among the following primarily.
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
Content level

Content presentation styles

Content clarity

Difficulty level for users (categorized as above)

Adaptability of the course to the environment of the users

Adequacy of question banks

Adequacy of case studies

Relevance of contents to University examinations

Relevance of content toward career placement

Relevance of content towards professional entrance examinations for higher studies
such as GATE, Advanced GRE, etc.

Relevance of contents towards industrial practices in the area

Suggestions for improvement
In video courses, in addition to the above, the quality of the video, the suitability of the video as
substitute for expert teaching that may not be available in the user institution etc. must also be
assessed. The feedback must be done for all the three years of phase II with different samples
for each year and the data collected must be analyzed in a cumulative fashion.
One of the most important parameters for effective utilization of coursework of any kind is the
design of questions and examinations which are relevant from the user’s perspective. In the
present instance, the relevance of NPTEL content to University examinations must be
addressed, even though from the outset, it must be recognized that NPTEL contents are not
examination centric. They are in principle, designed for technology enhanced learning and for
providing uniform and standard modules for science and engineering curriculum in India.
However, use of the contents of NPTEL by students and teachers in university affiliated
institutions is unlikely to have a major impact unless the process includes well-designed
question templates and a sufficient number of question banks for each course. In fact, such
questions can be used as models for University examinations over a period of time as the
Universities revise and update curricula. The course contents must be used as a major source
of learning/preparation for the GATE examination, to begin with. In addition, question templates
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must be made available, with solution manuals wherever possible to benefit college teachers for
their internal use in improving the quality of their students.
4. 3 Creating additional courseware in the five disciplines from Phase I:
The five branches of engineering for which contents were developed in phase I are among the
branches that attract the largest number of students. In these areas, a majority of colleges also
have difficulty finding suitable number of well qualified faculty and the attempt in Phase I was to
provide assistance in the form of modularized and accurate supplements through web and
video. However it is equally important to develop many more courses in these disciplines and
pay attention to the increasing demand for highly specialized courseware in many sub-areas of
these branches in which M. Tech. programs are offered. An estimate of this over several
specialized branches in each discipline for M. Tech curricula led to the necessity of developing
at least twenty more courses in each branch covering many electives. There are several
benefits when this is accomplished in Phase II.
A majority of teachers in engineering institutions who are not well trained in highly specialized
elective courses will have the opportunity to improve themselves by using these supplements.
The Indian industry for manufacturing and infrastructure development requires skilled engineers
and technologists in several specialized areas and will stand to benefit considerably from
courseware in elective subjects.
Core competence of faculty in special areas is a rarity and the specialists in all areas are not
present in all IITs and IISc. Therefore, development of courseware in special areas will permit
students from institutions of higher learning to be benefited by the expertise available from other
institutions.
Many leading industries have experienced individuals whose expertise in a chosen field can be
made available to the student and teacher through content development process for advanced
courses in which they can contribute through case studies and special skills relevant to their
22
employees. This will enable postgraduate engineering students to acquire skills relevant to the
industry they may choose to work with after their degree program.
The other important factor is the inability of IITs to increase the student intake into their B. Tech
and M. Tech programmes drastically over a short period of time despite the increasing demand
for more employable engineers than are available at present. Development of a complete set of
supplements for all B. Tech and M. Tech programmes in these branches currently offered by
IITs and IISc, in the form of web and video supplements is a much awaited solution for IITs to
offer online degree programmes using technology through the Internet. Supplementing these
courses with direct, synchronous video lectures, allowing interactions with the teacher on and
off-line through e-mail and conducting examinations also online are the necessary steps in the
creation of a virtual IIT with a student enrollment substantially higher than that permitted by the
current infrastructure and faculty strength of each IIT.
A total of 100 courses is proposed for the above with approximately 20 (10 web and 10 video)
courses in each of the five branches (Civil Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering,
Electrical
Engineering,
Electronics
and
Communication
Engineering
and
Mechanical
Engineering).
4.4 Creating additional courseware in other disciplines:
In the current phase, it is proposed to create web supplements and video courses in the
following disciplines in addition to the course contents already proposed. The objective is to
provide a comprehensive suite of coursework in all major branches of science and engineering
by the end of Phase II. The Table below contains the branches and the number of courses in
video and web format which will be prepared in Phase II.
S. No.
1
23
Branch
Aerospace Engineering
No. of Web
No. of Video
Courses
Courses
15
15
2
Chemical engineering
30
30
3
Chemistry and Biochemistry
35
35
4
Mathematics
30
30
5
Physics
30
30
6
Materials and Metallurgical Engineering
30
30
30
30
Management,
7
Social
Design
Sciences
and
8
Biotechnology
15
15
9
Ocean Engineering
10
10
10
Textile Technology
15
15
11
Nanotechnology
10
10
250
250
Total
* Some more departments may be included depending upon the willingness of the faculty to
develop courses.
The existing organizational structure of discipline coordinators and Principal Discipline
Coordinators will be extended to ensure that there is overall coordination in each of the above
subjects. The detailed list of courses will be prepared after the committees are constituted in
each of these branches. It is proposed that the faculty expertise available outside of IITs/ IISc be
utilized in both the formation of these monitoring committees and in seeking SMEs for content
development.
The course contents to be developed in these areas will have the following as the main guiding
principles:
E-Learning material in the form of web supplements are being created so that it can be
expanded and updated continuously. Initially it consists of one or more of the following:
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
Localization of examples

Elaboration of key concepts and theorems to facilitate clearer understanding

Case studies to provide more comprehensive design experience than that offered by
simple numerical examples

Examples that require the use of different categories of engineering knowledge under
different sets of assumptions.

Question banks to assist instructors to design good tests and examinations

Additional reading material for underperforming students, especially those with
difficulties with English

Simulation of concepts through graphical interfaces standardized within a course using
open source tools and plugins

Animations of concepts using two and three dimensional tools in engineering and
science and in an output form that does not require commercial or proprietary software
tools

Additional reading material for over-achievers

Historical information and anecdotes related to specific topics

Creation of the e-learning material in those formats which ensure that the content
creation and course management platforms are decoupled.

Simple course management packages that provide features like e-mail queries by
students, bulletin boards and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are being incorporated.

Every module to be prepared preferably by a team of faculty.

The material to be suitably organized to create CDs/DVDs to meet the needs of students
of different universities.

The same material can be suitably restructured for printing if needed.
For video lectures:
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
The course consists of around 40 video lectures.

Each video lecture is of one hour duration.

To enhance the longevity of the video lectures, it was suggested that they should not be
too specific to syllabi but should be confined to core concepts. Its content were
suggested to be distinct from text book and web support material.

The video lectures should fully utilize the facilities of the video medium and might contain
interviews with professionals from industry as appropriate.

The lectures should motivate the student by emphasizing why he/she is studying a topic
in a subject and should be related to industrial practice as appropriate.

Creation of video lecture units need not be tied necessarily with the scheduling of regular
courses in the Institution.
The video lectures need to be supplemented with lecture notes and text materials along with
animations and all presentation slides used in the video for incorporating them as web
supplemented video lectures. In addition, problems, quizzes and assignments need to be
included so as to make the learning a complete experience.
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Budget:
Content Development:
Streaming video content preparation from Phase I video Rs. 2 crores
lectures (approximately 8,000 lecture hours at a unit cost of
Rs. 2500 per lecture and includes a real-time encoder and
a server for each PI)
Web and video courses 600 (Unit cost Rs. 7 lakhs per
Rs. 42 crores
course)
Infrastructure up-gradation
Infrastructure up-gradation of the video studios / AMC +
Rs. 12.0 crores
Spare parts, Additional software (Rs. 1.5 crore per institute
for a period of five years)
Storage of raw video files for sizes between 800 TB and Rs. 5.0 crores
1000 TB (2.5 crores) for the Coordinating Institute and 100
TB each for all other participating Institutes (2.5 crores)
Streaming video servers in each PI as mirrors to provide Rs. 5.0 crores
adequate intranet/VPN bandwidth to users on demand
(approximately Rs. 0.65 crores per Institute for all five
years)
Workshops, Honoraria, Travel
Workshops (300 workshops) (Unit cost Rs. 4 lakhs per Rs. 12 crores
workshop with 40-50 participants)
Coordinator Honoraria (7.5 percent of total courseware Rs. 3 crores
production costs)
Travel (Rs.1 crore per Institute plus 0.5 crore additional to Rs. 9.0 crores
the Coordinating Institute) + NPTEL Office (0.50)
Other Services
Web services to enable effective usage of NPTEL Contents
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6.0 crores
Hiring of retired faculty and professionals for query
management for all NPTEL courses (800 of them including
Phase I)
Total for Phase 2 (three years for all eight PIs)
Rs. 96.0 crores
Break-up of the Budget in terms of Unit Costs:
Web / Video
Courses
Unit Cost for one Course: Rs. 7 lakhs
Project Assistant salary
(1/3 Assistant for four years) Rs. 2.0 lakhs
+ 25 percent HRA (IIT norms)
Honoraria to faculty for producing content Rs.
for 40 lectures or more
2.50 lakhs (Rs. 2.0
lakhs was
sanctioned in 2003 for NPTEL Phase I)
Consumables and Contingencies for the Rs. 1.0 lakhs
Web Studio for four years
Upgradation of web Studio hardware and
Rs. 1.0 lakhs
software for four years
Infrastructure upgradation:
Purchase of newer state-of-the-art cameras and digital video mixer, audio, and cables for a new
studio = Rs. 100 lakhs (Rs 65 lakhs was sanctioned in Phase I and the rest was taken from
the video course allocation as was discussed in the meeting in March 26, 2003)
Salary for three to four technical editors, camera crew and onsite recording crew for three years
(Rs. 1 lakh per person for 12 man years) + 25 percent HRA = Rs. 15 lakhs
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Purchase of video editing stations, video storage (approximately 13 GB is required for raw
storage of one lecture and 0.25 gb required for MPEG 4 file of a lecture) for 25 video courses
per Institute ---15 TB storage + 25 percent for RAID architecture = Rs. 25 lakhs
Power / UPS and Air conditioning = Rs. 5 lakhs for three years.
Contingency and consumales –video tapes and video master hard disks for recording and
transmissions = Rs. 5 lakhs
Storage solution for each IIT and retrieval for video encoding—requires storage to be
integrated with the video encoding server through fibre channel and through a RAID
architecture. The minimum projected cost is Rs. 1- 1.25 lakhs for 1 TB storage (after RAID 5)
on SATA /SCSI systems. Each Institute will need a server with the capability for large storage
for video and interactive contents.
Total cost for eight servers with 32 – 64 nodes and sufficient storage + RAM = Rs. 500 lakhs
Workshops:
Unit cost: Rs. 4.0 lakhs.
Number of participants: between 30 and 50 per workshop.
Number of Days: 2-3
Travel expenses: Rs. 2.5 lakhs.
Boarding and lodging charges: Rs. 0.8 lakhs
Stationeries and contingencies: Rs. 0..4 lakhs
Faculty honoraria Rs. 5000 for 4 - 6 faculty members: 0.3 lakhs
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Proposed Timeline of activities for NPTEL Phase II
Activity
1
Deadline
Streaming media conversion (of all video courses developed March, 2009
in Phase I to MPEG4 format )
2.
Up-gradation of Studio and online videoconferencing facility in March, 2009
all PIs
3.
Setting up Discipline Coordinator Committee and formulation September 2009
of syllabi for all new courses (web and video) – a parallel
activity across 15 disciplines
4.
Course Development team:
Identification of faculty teams for all 500 courses (a parallel
activity along with activity 3)
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September 2009
5.
6.
Development of content in three phases:
Phase I (25 percent completion)
March, 2010
Phase II (50 percent completion)
October, 2010
Phase III (100 percent completion) and feedback obtained
June, 2011
Updating all websites hosting NPTEL contents with streaming Continuously from
media, web contents
September 2006
(ongoing activity)
7.
Workshops in each PI: Completion of ten workshops by each December 2009
PI and training of teachers using phase I content both web
and video (total: 80 workshops)
8.
Completion of ten workshops by each PI
December 2010
9.
Completion of all remaining workshops
March, 2012
10.
Setting up Web portals for course support and appointment of
June 2009
faculty and student team for management of each discipline
through online support and building up FAQs for Phase I
11.
Web portals for online support for NPTEL Phase II courses
December, 2009 and
continuous monitoring
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