INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP FOR REMOTE CENTER

Introduction

IIT Bombay organized a one day interactive workshop for Remote Center Coordinators at VMCC Auditorium, Victor Menezes Building, IIT Bombay on 29th November 2014.

Dr. Jitender Kumar, being the Remote Center Coordinator of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon got the privilege to participate in this National level workshop. 232 Remote Center Coordinators from various parts of the country attended this workshop. The entire program was divided into three sessions.

First Session (10:00 -11:30 P.M.)

Prof. Deepak Pathak started the First Session with his inauguration speech. He briefed the RC Coordinators about the history of T10KT program and shared the concerned IIT Bombay is facing in conducting these workshop. He primarily focused on the following 05 concerns:

1. Attendance in the workshop

2. Administration at the Remote Center

3. Responsibility of RC Coordinator & Workshop Coordinator

4. Proper Utilization of funds

5. A-View (Technology Infrastructure)

He told that now onwards strict action will be taken against Remote Centers who are misleading about attendance and they will be immediately debarred. Coming in and out is not allowed during any session. Workshop coordinator should be available all the time during workshop and quality of Teaching Assistant should be maintained. He also highlighted that at many centers many Principal / Directors are RC Coordinator, he requested these RC Coordinators to immediately change the remote center coordinator. He emphasized that during workshop attendance of TA/ Staff will also be marked. He also suggested that receipt of getting the guidelines form IIT-B / IIT-K should be sent back by both RC Coordinator and Workshop Coordinator.

Prof. Deepak Pathak also announced that workshops from summer 2015 onwards will be on self financing grounds. To augment the infrastructure at all remote centers and to conduct NMEICT workshops Rs. 5,00,000/- will be given to all remote centers to procure hardware equipments for NMEICT Workshops. The equipments can be Server (for Moodle), Cameras (02 HD), Good Quality Audio Mixer, A-View Machine (02 Machines, Min i5 Processor with 16 GB RAM), Good quality Projector etc. Guidelines regarding these equipments will be shared by IIT-B shortly. He also warned the audience that these equipments should not be removed from the NMEICT Class room for any local purpose. He suggested all the RC Coordinators to note down their points so that they can be discussed in the last session.

Session- II (11:45 – 01.30 P.M.)

The session was inaugurated by Prof. P. K. Biswas and Prof. S. K. Varshney of IIT Kharagpur and they also shared their concerns with the participants. The second session was on Technology Issues and was later addressed by Mr. Sajjan Dixit (Project Manager – IIT Bombay) and Mr. Subrata Nayak (Project Manager –IIT Kharagpur). They suggested all RC Coordinators to download the guidelines for classroom and hand it over to A-View Coordinator. They discussed about the daily checklist and Star Rating Criteria’s. They advised all the participants to check the internet speed at http://14.139.97.82/speedtest before logging in the A-View Software. They told that in star rating One star is for Feedback, One star is for Testing, Two stars are for audio video and One star is for funds settlement. Detailed report of 05 star is available on the website.

Session- III (2:30 – 5.15 P.M.)

The last session started by Prof. Kannan and discussed about “Notebook”, it is laptop like device and is an extension of Aakash tablet project. It has Dual Core Processor, 1GB RAM, 08 GB HDD, 02 USB Port, 01 HDMI Port and has a working space of 3.25 GB. He informed the participants that 100 such Notebooks will be given to various remote centers. The remote centers however have to show their seriousness by uploading information about usage of Aakash by them, The information includes use of Linux in your organization, What you will do with these notebooks and based upon the information submitted by the Remote Center these tablets will be given. These notebooks are WiFi enabled and has screen 10” screen but without touch facility. Since this is a pilot project only 100 such Notebooks will be given to few Remote Centers.

Prof. Deepak Pathak also shared the information about the various costs involved in the workshop. He emphasized on using MOOC in classes and told that from now onwards in all workshops one session will be held on MOOC. He also informed that from summer 2015 itself, SWAYAM will be used instead of MOODLE.

He discussed the self financing model with all the Remote Center Coordinators, Many concerns were raised by the remote center coordinators and were clarified by Prof. Pathak. It was suggested to change the name of these workshops as UGC doesn’t recognize workshop for the appraisal and from now onwards all these workshops will be called short term courses. A forum for RC Coordinators will also be started by IIT Bombay for sharing information and clearing doubts if they have any. This forum will closely be monitored by IIT Bombay.

Dr. Jitender Kumar raised the issue for empowering the RC Coordinators and to design a mechanism for feedback which Prof. Deepak Pathak immediately accepted and from the “Control System Workshop” itself the same will be implemented. The RC Coordinator will be sharing the feedback of all the participants and of Workshop Coordinator with IIT Bombay/ IIT Kharagpur.

Conclusion:

The experience of attending this workshop was very fruitful & informative. Some of the outcomes of this workshop are:

1. IIT Bombay & IIT Kharagpur are concerned about the fake attendance and malpractices used by various remote centers.

2. From Summer 2015 onwards all workshops will be on Self Financing Model, IIT Bombay will inform about the cost of every workshop and all the remote centers will have to charge that amount only. That cost will be uniform throughout the country. 3. IIT Bombay will pay only for Workshop Coordinator’s training and neither will pay anything to Remote Centers nor will ask for any money.

4. Rs. 5,00,000/- will be given to all remote centers and they have to create excellent facility for NMEICT workshops and that infrastructure cannot be moved outside for any other purpose.

5. 100 Note Books will be given to the deserving Remote Centers

6. Upmost seriousness is expected in all NMEICT workshops from now onwards and the name of the workshop will be changed to short term course.

7. Strict action, up to the extent of lodging a FIR will be taken against institutes found in manipulating the attendance or Financial documents.

8. 02 Solar Charger for Aakash Tablets were collected from the Aakash Center.