VIkramjit Singh- Magazine-Digital Initiatives of GOI in HE.pdf

This document shares major digital initiatives of Government of INDIA in the field of Education like SWAYAM, Vidwan, National Digital Library etc.

1. Digital Initiatives of Governement of India in Higher Education
Dr. Vikramjit Singh, Asst. Prof., SXCE, Patna

Higher Education in India has become an area of discussion of the current time.
So many reforms like CBCS, Integrated Courses, Online Exams, Combined
Entrance test etc. are being implemented to improve the quality higher
education of the country. The aim to raise the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in
the higher education from 24.5 (2015-16) to 30 by 2020, and the quest to
enhance the quality of education would require a large scale initiatives so as
to provide quality opportunities to the learners of todays. However, physical
expansion of such facilities is fraught with both infrastructural and human resource
limitations. Fortunately, in the days of fast expanding IT facilities, the technology can be leveraged to
address these twin concerns of enhancing access and quality.

Digital inititives in education in a mission mode has the key to succes in providing quality higher education
in India. In terms of it affordability, its ability to overcome the shortage of quality faculty it seems that it
can enhance the enrolment in higher education system. Keeping this in view and to democratise the
opportunities of quality education, the Government has launched the National Mission on Education
through ICT (NMEICT) to translate the power of IT into expanded learning opportunities. Over a period of
time, NMEICT has made significant gains by developing IT interventions that have potential to change the
higher education scenario.

Digital revolution is bringing in sweeping changes in the Higher Education landscape. Every institute is
taking various initiatives in promoting digital education. MHRD has taken up novel initiatives like
SWAYAM (India’s own MOOCs), Swayam Prabha, National Digital Library (containing more than 6.5
million books), and National Academic Depository. We can better understand all these initiatives as
follows.

i. Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM):( https://swayam.gov.in/)
SWAYAM is an indigenous (Made in India) IT Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Platform for
providing best quality education that can be accessed by anyone, anytime and anywhere using the IT
system. It contains video tutorials, E-content, self-assessment exercises as well as it provides discusssion
opportunities to the learners.
Apart from this, NMEICT has funded the National Program on Technology Enabled Learning (NPTEL),
which is a group of 7 IITs and IISc. NPTEL (http://nptel.ac.in) is a joint initiative of IITs and IISc funded
by this Mission and provides e-learning through online Web and Video based courses in engineering,
science and humanities streams and provides free online courseware.

ii. SWAYAM Prabha: the 32 Educational DTH Channels: (https://swayamprabha.gov.in/)
The SWAYAM PRABHA is a project for telecasting high quality educational programmes through 32
DTH channels on 24X7 basis. Every day, there are new content of at least (4) hours, which are repeated 6
times a day, allowing the student to choose the time of his convenience. It contains live and recorded
programs on both school and higher education. The programmes are being offered by institutions like
NCERT, NIOS, IGNOU , UGC etc.

iii. National Digital Library (NDL): (https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/)
A Project titled “Development of National Digital Library of India, Towards Building a National Asset”
has been implemented by IIT, Kharagpur under NMEICT by MHRD.National Digital Library in India aims
to collect, preserve and disseminate entire intellectual output of our country and provide online access from
school level to post graduate level, including technical education. There are more than 72 lakh digital books
available through the NDL.More than 15 lakh students have registered themselves in the NDL. The NDL is
available through a mobile app too.
9
iv. National Academic Depository :( https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/)01
National Academic Depository (NAD) is an initiative of Ministry of Human Resources Development,
Govt. of India (MHRD) to facilitate digital issuance, storage, access and verification of Academic Awards
issued by Academic Institutions.

2. v. e-Shodh Sindhu:( https://www.inflibnet.ac.in/ess/)
More than 15,000 international electronic journals and e-books are made available to all the higher
educational institutions through the e-Shodh Sindhu initiative. This allows access to the best education
resources in the world using digital mode. The INFLIBNET, Gandhinagar, Gujarat is implementing the
Scheme.

vi. Virtual Labs:( http://vlab.co.in/)
Physical distances and the lack of resources make us unable to perform experiments, especially when they
involve sophisticated instruments. With the present day internet and computer technologies the above
limitations can no more hamper students and researchers in enhancing their skills and knowledge. Over 205
virtual labs in 9 Engineering & Science disciplines, comprising about 1515 experiments are operational and
currently being accessed by more than 6 lakh students.

vii. e-Yantra:(www.e-yantra.org)
An MHRD initiative under NMEICT Programme, named “e-Yantra” is implemented to incorporate
Robotics into engineering education with the objective of engaging students through exciting hands-on
application of mathematics, computer science, and engineering principles. Presently, e-Yantra has been
implemented in more than100 colleges.

viii. Campus Connectivity:
Establishment of 1 GBPS Connectivity to universities and 20 512 Kbps broadband connectivity to colleges
has been provisioned under NMEICT. A total of 600 Universities have been connected through 1 Gbps
Optical Fibre; 22026 Colleges have so far been connected with 10 Mbps bandwidth. Already all the IITs,
IIMs, and NITs have established WiFi campuses. The process of laying the optical fibre and provision of
the WiFi in Central Universities is currently underway.

ix. E-Kalpa (http://www.dsource.in/)
Another MHRD/ NMEICT initiative named “e-Kalpa” creating Digital-Learning Environment for Design
in India has successfully demonstrated the achievement in the design and craft sector. The content of e-
Kalpa website named “D'source” includes 160 Courses on Design Learning in different domains, more than
400 Resources in the form of fine examples of Design and crafts, 110 Case studies of Design Projects
undertaken by professionals and design students, 50 Video lectures and presentations by subjects experts
and 600 examples of a visual Gallery that has documented works of the rich tradition of art and design seen
across different regions of India.

x. e-Vidwan:( https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/)
The ‘Information and Library Network’ (INFLIBNET) Centre took the initiative called “Vidwan: Expert
Database and National Researcher’s Network” with the financial support from NMEICT. The objectives of
VIDWAN is to collect academic and research profiles of scientists, faculty and research scientists working
in leading academic and R&D organizations in India and abroad. The database can be used for selection of
panels of experts for various committees and taskforces established by the Ministries / Govt. establishments
for monitoring and evaluation purposes.
2017
The technology of online education and all the digital initiatives have the possibility to revolutionize higher
education scenario in the near future. Other than the aforesaid initiatives MHRD has also started initiatives
like “Cashless Campus”, "Smart Campus", "Clean Campus" ," Innovative Drives" ," Unnat Bharat
Abhiyaan" , " Talk to a Teacher ", " e-Acharya & Vidya Mitra ", " The Free and Open Source Software for
Education (FOSSEE)", " Central cloud Infrastructure (Baadal)" and "Digital Financial Literacy of
community by students". These all initiatives are bound to reflect in quality higher education in the coming
future. These all resources and repositories are bound to facilitate for the needs and demands of ever
increasing mass of youth students and researchers in higher education.

Compiled from the Source:
 https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/9208605_Brochure-(National-Convention-on-Digital-
Initiatives- for-Higher-Education).pdf
 http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/HRM%20letter%20to%20VCs.pdf