National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) founded by Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) have started registration for more than 500 online certificate courses on Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (Swayam) platform as part of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These courses are available free of cost to students and working professionals though there is an examination fee for in-person tests to receive the qualifying certificate. Students can access these courses at swayam.gov.in.
Click here to find more about Swayam MOOCs
Some of the Swayam courses offered by IIT Madras are programming, data structures and algorithms using Python, basic electrical circuits, engineering thermodynamics, health research fundamentals and constitutional studies. People aged between 13 to 86 years can opt for the online courses.
Prof Andrew Thangaraj, Coordinator, SWAYAM-NPTEL-IIT Madras, said, “In order to streamline the efforts of learners and to guide them to obtain expertise in an area, NPTEL has initiated the idea of ‘Domain Certification'. A domain comprises a set of core and elective NPTEL courses. Those who complete a domain (specified core courses + elective courses) with an average score of 60 will get a domain certificate from NPTEL. There are no additional charges/ fees involved in obtaining domain certification. There are 44 domains across 12 disciplines available now and more are in the pipeline”.
NPTEL will also coordinate with industry professionals to give more exposure to the students. It shares educational videos, weekly online assignments and conducts in-person exams for the subscribers.
The UGC has earlier requested the universities and colleges to popularize the Swayam courses among students and faculty through universities' website and various social media handles.
