User:Ramnarasimhan/NPTEL

250px|thumb|NPTEL

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) is a Government of India sponsored collaborative educational programme. By developing curriculum-based video and web courses the programme aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. It is being jointly carried out by 7 IITs and IISc Bangalore, and is funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India.

As of December 2009, over 250 courses were available online. The course videos are available in streaming mode, and may also be downloaded for viewing offline. The video files are also viewable via the IIT Channel in Youtube.

Seven IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have worked together to develop web and video based material for basic undergraduate science and engineering courses in order to enhance the reach and quality of technical education in India.

Participating Institutions

 * Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (coordinating Institute)
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
 * Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee

History of the Programme
The idea of having a Technology enhanced learning initiative involving IITs and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) was first proposed by IIT Madras in the year 1999, immediately following a Workshop on Technology Enhanced Learning (WoTEL) conducted in Chennai in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA.

Cost of the initiative: The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India approved funding of 20.47 crores (204.7 million) of Indian Rupees for Phase I for three years from June 2003 till June 2006, which was eventually extended till June 30,2007.

Following that, significant infrastructure for the production of video-based teaching material by the institutes was set up. In the first phase of the NPTEL project (June 2003-June 2007), 110 video courses and 129 web-based courses were developed by the faculty members of these institutions.

Future Plans of the Project
Phase II: The next phase of the programme is now ongoing. It is currently funded through 2011. Over 1000 web and video courses will be created.

There are several enhancements being included for Phase II:


 * All IITs and IISc will participate as partners. In addition NIT and other premier University faculty will have the opportunity to join for open content creation as associates.
 * Private industries will be called on to provide value-added case studies and experiential learning.
 * There is increased emphasis on having a modular structure for the courses
 * Question banks and case studies will be included as part of the courses where applicable
 * The course materials will be developed to contain greater relevance to professional examination and industrial practices
 * Course specific NPTEL wiki's for increased interaction and user-content generation

Engineering Disciplines for NPTEL Courses
In Phase I, five branches of engineering (Civil, Electrical, Electronics and Communication, Computer Science and Engineering, and Mechanical) were addressed in the first phase. Each Institute identified the courses in which it would like to participate as video (V) or Web (W) based content contributor. The core courses common to all these disciplines including basic science and engineering were addressed by a core courses group.

As of December 2009, web and video courses in the following disciplines are available.

Distribution Channels for the Courses
The web and video courses are distributed via the following channels:

The Official NPTEL Website has all the courses available for free viewing and download.

Youtube has an IIT channel, from which all the courses (approximately 40 hours of lectures per course) are available.

DVDs of individual courses (3 DVDs per course) is available from the NPTEL website.

Additionally, academic and learning institutions can also obtain the entire set of all courses by contacting NPTEL.

Television Channel: The courses have also been made available from July 2006 with video lectures being broadcast through the Eklavya channel provided by Gyan Darshan (DoorDarshan Television, a Govt of India enterprise).