Kohima, January 9 (MExN): A Memorandum of Understanding between NU, Kohima and the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala, was signed at Raj Bhawan, Kohima on January 9, in the presence of the Governor of Nagaland and Chief Rector of NU, the Vice-Chancellor, the Principal Secretary and Director, Department of Information Technology, Government of Nagaland and Geoffrey Yaden, Editor, Nagaland Post, among other officials. The MoU was signed by Thejao Vihienuo, Registrar, NU, on behalf of NU, and Prof. K.R. Srivathsan, Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala, on behalf of IIITM, Kerala.
“The broad objective of the MoU is that the parties will closely and jointly work to develop, innovate, establish and commission various systems, processes and conduct capacity building exercises related to effective deployment and practice of Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching (TELT) methods in the School of Engineering Technology and other campuses of NU,” Secretary to the Governor Abhishek Singh, IAS said in a release. This is to be done with the objective of improving the quality of education offered in NU very substantially.
The scope of the understanding is that both the parties will work jointly to establish the Education Grid Systems and Processes across NU and the colleges under its privilege, link NU Education Grid with the national ERNET and other Broadband network and services of relevance to Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching systems and processes. Efforts shall also be made to extend this benefit to other educational institutions in Nagaland.
A suite of servers and applications to host relevant web and video NPTEL content and other open/subscribed content are established in the colleges. Appropriate LAN and WiFi network is established so that teachers and students using desktops and notebooks will be able to carry out the Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching (TELT) in the college.
IIITM-K will be a guide to help the different systems and processes integration. School of Engineering Technology, NU may be the first in the country ready to NPTEL syllabus and content in all such courses where NPTEL is ready. This will help all the NE region engineering colleges to benefit from the experience.
IIITM-K will groom necessary systems persons and information/content/collaboration managers to ensure the smooth operation of the different systems and services. NU will be linked to IIT Guwahati through the ERNET PoP or on Broadband leased connectivity.
Education Grid TELT related educational services model proposed to be established for the School of Engineering Technology, NU. The Educational Grid will include an NPTEL Web-content mirror will be hosted in the NU; selected video courses will be preloaded into the VoD server in the college. The note and the norms laid by Chairman NPTEL, Prof. Ananth, will be followed in these matters, NU will nominate subject experts to establish a Course Wiki for each active course, for each course, NU will establish a Course Wiki in its server. The Course Wiki will have the pointers and description of sequences of learning module with spelt out instructional objectives and a schedule of learning activities (exercises, illustrations, short quiz, lab work, etc.), those course with NPTEL video content will assist NU in conducting such courses using ‘Tutored Video Instruction’ model and the class of students, teachers, instructors and subject experts will use a Moodle LMS to conduct the class interactions, discussions and online objective tests.
The young teachers of NU will be oriented and trained on the NPTEL content in the courses they are assigned with help of IIT Guwahati. Orientation programmes for teachers in IIT Guwahati will also be conducted. A full course teacher’s certification programme for NU teachers may also be conducted. In this, IIT Guwahati may combine teachers from other NE region engineering colleges also. IIITM-K will show how such certification programme may be managed as part-time continuing education for the teachers in the engineering colleges.
The NE region may be brought under a regional Education Grid Alliance to take advantage of the NPTEL developments. This will result in enhancing the quality of education in the NE region very substantially in which IIT Guwahati shall have a central role to play.
