UGC Guidelines to Pursue Online Courses

Since 2016, the Indian government has been trying to promote the usage of online education systems and UGC online courses. In 2018, UGC notified the regulations for online courses, as a part of the reform in the field of Higher Education. These UGC guidelines for online courses will be helpful for those students who are planning to pursue programmes in online mode.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) is a government body set up by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India under the UGC Act 1956. UGC prepares and notifies guidelines for the ethical operation of universities and their programmes in India. Not only that, it also monitors and fixes the norms for the educational institutes which are engaged in imparting higher education in the country. Furthermore, UGC looks after the funding and appraisal related to these institutions.

The UGC Guidelines for Online Courses

The University Grants Commission (UGC) is the controller of all the norms regarding the higher education system and provides guidelines for the new academic year. Every year, UGC issues notifications for higher educational institutions (HEIs) willing to offer programmes under online mode to submit the entitlement of their programme.

According to the UGC guildelines for online courses, HEIs can offer Certificate, Diploma and Degree Programmes in full-fledged online mode in only those disciplines in which it has already been offering the same or similar programmes or courses in regular mode or in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode and from which at least one batch has been passed out and approved by the statutory councils, as applicable.

• Online programmes that require Practical and Laboratory Courses as a curricular requirement shall not be permitted.
• The examinations shall be conducted in proctored mode and in conformity with any norms for such examinations stipulated by the Commission.

The UGC regulations for online courses also state that the online learning shall have the following four quadrants ‘approach’,:

• Quadrant-I: e-Tutorial - Video and Audio Contents, animation, simulations, virtual labs.
• Quadrant-II: e-Content - Portable Document Format or e-Books or Illustration, video demonstrations, documents and interactive simulations, wherever required.
• Quadrant-III: Web Resources - Related Links, Open Content on Internet, Case Studies, Historical development of the subject, Articles.
• Quadrant-IV: Self-Assessment – MCQ, Problems, Quizzes, Assignments and solutions, Discussion forum topics and setting up the FAQ, Clarifications on general misconceptions.

Eligibility Criteria for Offering Online Courses

• Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) must have been in existence for at five years
• HEIs must be accredited by NAAC with minimum score of 3.26 on 4-point scale
• HEIs should be in the Top-100 in overall category in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for at least two years during the previous three years.

UGC Guidelines for Online Courses - Processes

• The University Grants Commission (UGC) gave “in-principle approval” to the country’s nearly 1,000 universities to offer online up to 40 per cent of any of the courses.

• In addition, 200 odd ones out of them were also given “in-principle approval” to conduct the entire degree course online only.

• These recommendations have come through several committees. A committee led by the vice-chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, Nageswar Rao, has advised making it mandatory to suggest ways to an expansion of online education.

• The panel also suggested that the present provision for only 20 per cent of a course, which is allowed to be taught online, should be raised up to 40 per cent in order to consider the “national interest” due to the emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak.

• It was suggested that there should be three categories of a few universities that would be allowed to offer courses entirely online. The categories of such universities are proved eligible when the following points are considered:

1. Universities who have been awarded scores of 3.01 or more by the NAAC.

2. Universities that have made it to the top 100 in all categories of the National Institutional Ranking Framework, at least once for two years.

3. It is a government-run open university.

• It is said that about 200 universities have currently satisfied one or all of the three criteria. However, UGC has not given a formal nod and has not made any of the necessary amendments to the regulations on online courses until now.

• If it does then surely these universities will be capable of offering several online courses from the upcoming academic session that is yet to come. Courses related to nursing, law, pharmacy, engineering, dentistry, medicine, and architecture have been kept aside from the bounds of online courses.

• UGC has also stressed that an in-principle approval is intended to opt but there are chances to make changes to it in further proposals.

• The UGC has decided to initiate the “One India One Search Engine” program, which would allow the students to access content like text, images, and videos on a single online platform. UGC has assured that the universities will have their individual call on this too.

• The Kuhad committee is another committee that has also given recommendations for the UGC guidelines for online courses.

• It has been recommended that to make it possible for exams to be conducted in a more short and updated format for the final semester of this academic year.

• It has been also suggested that exams that have been based on multiple-choice questions and the “open-book examinations” where the students may consult books and assessments based on assignments should be encouraged.

• It has been suggested to leave it to the institutions whether they would like to conduct their examinations online. The committee wants the universities to maintain a distance that is more social.

• The universities are suggested to accord 50 per cent weightage of marks from the internal and continuous evaluation while the remaining 50% marks will be awarded on a performance basis to the student for the previous semester examinations that have been conducted.

Explore more: UGC Approved Online Degree Courses – List of Institutes, Eligibility, Fees And Duration

To facilitate the proper conduct of courses in online mode, the UGC gave the UGC (Online Courses or Programs) Regulations, 2018, which laid down the minimum standards for the instructions related to the grant of Degree, Certificate or Diploma in online mode. It is supposed to be delivered through advanced technology to interact using the internet.

Online courses that are not allowed to be offered in online mode, include nursing, law, pharmacy, engineering, dentistry, medicine, and architecture. Apart from these course, M.Phil and Ph.D. programmes in all disciplines are also prohibited to be offered through Open and Distance learning and Online mode.