Classroom on wheels, and other smart DL practices!

Kamadhenu
Heard about a university at your doors literally? Perhaps not! BAOU has this facility where this classroom on wheels reaches select districts in Gujarat, teaches, conducts exam, evaluates and also disseminates certificates before it goes to some other place. The experiment is being implemented in Uttarakhand Open University, and would be replicated in Zimbabwe and Nigeria soon. The key feature of the air-conditioned mobile classroom is that there are 16 work stations connected in a LAN environment using thin client technology. It is internet enabled that has knowledge portals with all course material that is downloadable. It is self-sufficient in power generation. Students can make presentations using Power Point projection, white-board, printer, scanner and such facilities.

ADVANCED classroom on wheels: The BAOU initiative is primarily to boost computer literacy.

Kamdhenu’s Pilot Project MS-Office (7 days)

Kamdhenu arrives in a tribal or minority dominated area, at 15-day advance notice

• Monday: Registrations are invited from interested individuals by paying a nominal fee (say Rs 150) and by evening, after initial screening, identity cards are mailed as an attachment to Kamdhenu for distribution to all registered students who are divided in batches with different time slots. 

• Tuesday to Friday: Students are taught, instructed and given assignments

• Friday Evening: Exam is conducted for all simultaneously using a password protected file which is given 5 minutes prior to the exam through an SMS. The answers are uploaded and evaluated at the centre and at BAOU. Combining the two; the best of the marks are given to the candidates.

• Saturday: A provisional mark-sheet and certificate is prepared at university headquarters stating the candidate undertook the training and his/her proficiency skills in the domain. Later during the day certificates are distributed in presence of prominent people in the region

Jyotirgamaya

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar University has initiated ‘Jyotirgamaya’ the punch line of which is “Eklavya ke marg par sva-adhyayan se pragnyayan ke uday prati”. Ten certificate courses that usually do not require a practical training are being offered. Since all the study material is uploaded on BAOU portal, anyone (even if is not a BAOU student), who has studied the course (along with other learning material) and claims to have understood the concepts, can register for exam, pass and get a certificate.

Eklavya’s Story

Eklavya, belonging to a lower caste, had an ardent desire to learn the art of archery from Dronacharya, the guru of Pandavas and Kauravas, but due to his caste, was denied this opportunity. The guru realized that Eklavya was superior to his favourite disciple Arjun as he noticed Eklavya idolizing him learning and practicing archery on his own. He thus  planned to remove Eklavya from competition by asking Ekalavya’s right thumb as his fees. In order to keep his promise without any dissent Eklavya cut off his thumb and placed at the feet of Dronacharya.

Owing to his self-learning and dedication Eklavya was able to excel and prove his mettle. What was however lacking was the absence of a system to accredit his skill-sets. With ‘Jyotirgamaya’, BAOU aims to accredit such knowledge skills that are useful, or backed with experience and/or has an innovation potential after getting it assessed by a panel of five experts chosen by the University. BAOU can also be benefited by starting a possible course if the idea has much potential.
 

LEARNING PRACTICAL skills is catching the imagination of anyone in any profession residing in remote area even through distance learning mode.

Reaching the unreached

Market segmentation and subsequently designing and delivering customized products for each of these segments is something one learns in a marketing class usually while pursuing an MBA. YCMOU is doing it remarkably well and has identified several segments of the society which are skilled and giving their services but are unable to progress because of lack of formal education and training.

The university has developed courses tailor-made for each of these groups to help them progress in life. For example, BA (Road Transportation) for Truck, Auto and Taxi drivers,  BA (Consumer Services) in association with BPCL for LPG Cylinder/Newspaper delivery boys, BA (Textile) in association with Textile Association (India) for powerloom workers; BA and MA (Public Services) for Housemaids , Barbers and Cobblers; and other programmes for the unreached groups like Mumbai Dabbawalas (attempts at using Notebook computers for training), Commercial Sex Workers, Fishermen and hotel waiter boys in Mumbai, Cancer patients in collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai etc.

The open university has also collaborated with various bodies in the Government sector, for example Maharashtra Police (~13,000 students), Indian Army (~ 800), ITBP (~975) for different programmes. The university is also unique to house a full-fledged Krishi Vigyan Kendra under the aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research in its 150 acre campus. Training imparted here in modern agricultural practices has provided employment opportunities to several rural youth. Demonstration units, Mango plantation, Nursery, & Poultry are some of the activities carried out.
 

ICT ADVANTAGE Distance is no barrier to learn as students make use of the best resources anywhere in the world

Leveraging Domain Expertise

IMT-CDL ensures industry interaction leveraging the video-conferencing (VC) technology provided by Adobe in two distinct ways: one, any faculty from anywhere in the world can deliver a lecture rather than just the Indian faculty and secondly IMT-CDL conducts live seminars on each paper hiring auditoriums like IIC/PHD Chambers of Commerce which can accommodate 400-500 students at a time. Five industry experts and five best professors host each seminar. These seminars are simultaneously web-cast to ensure participation of all students.

IMT-CDL has also developed a huge question data bank to enable asynchronous online examination in a fair manner along with the offline option. The student is also able to see the correct answer for each question as well as the solution enabling fairness and transparency. Additionally, Harvard Case studies which are considered the best all over the world are now being offered to students along with the option of online discussion and solutions. The online library of IMT-CDL boasts of the best research journals and books online.

Maintaining the gender balance

In view of Bihar having the lowest level of literacy amongst women, the NoU offers 25% rebate in admission fee to women candidates of all categories. This has led to a gender balance in the university with almost equal number of females as men. The university offers courses in such Indian languages that are gradually losing their identity such as Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi. NoU is also known for its courses in paramedical domain. It is one of the few universities that offers courses in Intermediate (10+2) Arts, Science and Commerce in a distance learning mode.