10 HRD-UGC Initiatives For Online Learning

The University Grants Commission or UGC, national higher education regulator, has last week released a list of initiatives of the MHRD, UGC and its Inter University Centres (IUCs) - Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) and Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), using which the academic community can utilise their time as the country is in a lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak. The initiatives include SWAYAM, MOOCs etc.

"As we jointly combat COVID 19 by taking preventive and precautionary measures, maintaining social distancing and staying in the confines of our homes/hostels, we can utilise this time productively by engaging in On-line learning," the commission said in a statement. 

These resources, which are in the form of digital platforms, can be accessed by the teachers, students and researchers in Universities and Colleges for broadening their horizon of learning. 

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Following is the list of some of the initiatives along with their access links: 

1. SWAYAM online courses: 

ttps://storage.googleapis.com/uniquecourses/online.html  provides access to  best teaching learning resources which were earlier delivered on the SWAYAM Platform may be now viewed by any learner free of cost without any registration. Students/learners who registered on SWAYAM (swayam.gov.in) in the January 2020 semester can continue their learning as usual.

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2. UG/PG MOOCs: 

http://ugcmoocs.inflibnet.ac.in/ugcmoocs/moocs_courses.php hosts learning material  of the SWAYAM UG and PG (Non-Technology) archived courses. 

3. e-PG Pathshala:

epgp.inflibnet.ac.in hosts high quality, curriculum-based, interactive e-content containing  23,000 modules ( e-text and video) in 70 Post Graduate disciplines of social sciences, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural & mathematical sciences.

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4. e-Content courseware in UG subjects: 

e-content courseware in 87 Undergraduate courses with about 24,110 e-content modules is available  on the CEC website at http://cec.nic.in/.

5. SWAYAMPRABHA: 

https://www.swayamprabha.gov.in/  is a group of 32 DTH channels  providing high quality educational curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture etc  to all teachers, students and citizens across the country interested in lifelong learning. These channels are free to air and can also be accessed through your cable operator. The telecasted videos/lectures are also as archived videos on the Swayamprabha portal.

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6. CEC-UGC YouTube channel: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/cecedusat provides access to unlimited educational curriculum based lectures absolutely free. 

7. National Digital Library: 

https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/ is a digital repository of a vast amount of academic content in different formats and provides interface support for leading Indian languages for all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular form of access devices and differently-abled learners.

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8. Shodhganga: 

https://shodhganaa.inflibnet.ac.in is a digital repository platform of 2,60,000 Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertations for research students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access. 

9. e-Shodh Sindhu 

https://ess.inflibnet.ac.in/ provides current as well as archival access to more than 15,000 core and peer-reviewed journals and a number of bibliographic, citation and factual databases in different disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member institutions including centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and colleges that are covered under I2(B) and 2(f) Sections of the UGC Act. 

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10. Vidwan: 

https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/ is a database of experts which provides information about experts to peers, prospective collaborators, funding agencies policy makers and research scholar in the country. 
"It is hoped, that these ICT initiatives, which cover a broad range of subjects and courses and have been prepared by experts, will provide an excellent learning experience to all of you. For any queries or clarifications UGC, INFLIBNET and CEC may be contacted at eresource.ugc@gmail.com, eresource.inflibnet@gmail.com and eresource.cec@gmail.com respectively," the UGC said in a statement.

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