Establishment of an elearning Portal for Agricultural Education

Establishment of an e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education (e-Krishi. Shiksha) http: //ecourses. iasri. res. in/ Activity of the Education Division of ICAR Dr. R C Goyal Emeritus Scientist Monday, November 9, 2020 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – 110012

Background Ø Under Learning and Capacity Building program of NAIP, several interactive & multimedia UG level e-Course contents in different disciplines of agriculture have been developed at SAUs and other organisations Ø The online contents has been implemented from the respective organisation’s servers Ø For remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents are made available offline on (CDs / DVDs)

Present Requirements Ø Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of e-Courses developed under NAIP Ø For coordination and execution of the above, responsibility has been entrusted to IASRI, New Delhi Ø Accordingly, the following programme is being executed

e-learning Portal For Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of the e-learning courseware, Ø A Centralised e-learning Portal on Agricultural Education that provides 24/7 services to all the Faculty, Teachers, Students and other learners is being designed and developed Ø The portal has been hosted on the server of IASRI

Specific Objectives 1. Designing, development and maintenance of software to establish Centralised e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education 2. Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of e-learning courseware contents developed under Learning & Capacity Building program of NAIP 3. Establishment of an alternate e-learning strategy for remote area institutions/ faculty/ students

Design of e-learning Portal Ø Ø The Portal is developed using 3 -tier web technology in. Net framework environment The Portal has the following 7 options: 1. Online e-Learning for UG 2. Off-line e-Learning: Free Downloads - UG Courseware 3. e-learning for Farmers 4. e-Course Content Data Management 5. Automation of Contents Refinement Process 6. System Administration 7. Reports

Online e-Learning for UG Free Access as Guest User of all disciplines has been made available to the users community Ø B. Sc (Agriculture) Ø B. Sc (Horticulture) Ø B. Sc (Home Science) Ø BFSc (Fisheries) Ø BVSc ( Veterinary & A. H. ) Ø B. Tech. ( Dairy Technology) Ø B. Tech. ( Agri. Engineering)

Access to Online e-Learning of UG Courseware Ø Accessible to all Faculty teachers, students and any one interested in the field of agricultural sciences Ø For the first time, new user will have to register by submitting his/her brief identity details Ø The email-Id is used for authentication of the Registered users Ø Portal usage records has been maintained in the system

Off-line e-Learning Free Downloads – UG Courseware Ø Under NAIP programmes for remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents were made available offline on (CDs / DVDs) Ø In present portal, e-learning courseware contents are made available as Free Downloadable component Ø The downloaded file content folder could be independently executed from desk top and used for teaching/learning exactly in the same manner as the existing CDs/DVDs contents can be used for offline elearning Ø This will eliminate the process of physical supply of ecourses on (CDs / DVDs) by post/courier services

e-learning for Farmers Ø Linkage of Farmers/Women level short e-training material under different disciplines may be made available Ø Some of the SAUs under extension programmes have already created farmers level e-contents for short term training programmes on agriculture, horticulture, fisheries etc. Ø Attempt will be made to collect, compile and made available through this portal

e-Course Content Data Management Ø The Data Management sub-module option is being designed to provide access to the Content Creation Team for refinement and updation of the e-courses Ø The Activity involved in coordinating for refinement and updation of the e-courseware by the universities/ institutes identified for the same are as follows: Liaison with Nodal Officers of universities/ institutes identified to coordinate for refinement and updation v Linkage/access to the Nodal Officers, Expert Review Team and Content Creators of each university/institute for uploading the e-courseware to Central Server after refinement and updating v

Automation of Contents Refinement Process Ø For refinement and updating of e-courses by concerned team members, a process will be designed, developed and established for periodical online monitoring Ø The process may be established in consultation with concerned Nodal Officer & Discipline Experts The operational flow of periodic monitoring process may be as follows: Ø Online submission of refined e-courses by PI of the content creators team of the e-courses Ø Reporting remarks by the Nodal Officers of the concerned discipline Ø Review remarks by the concerned Review Experts Team Ø Feedback of User’s community

System Administration Ø Generation of User. Id and Passwords for Faculty and Reporting/Reviewing team involved in content creation/updation of different courses Ø Adding/deleting/modifying accounts information Ø Resetting passwords, etc Ø Briefly the following options may be made available Ø ü ü Creation of new users with different access rights Resetting user passwords Lock /unlock user accounts Defining levels for process of refinement and updating Monitor special services etc.

Reports useful to the user’s as well as administrators /managers has been designed and made available on the portal. This includes: Ø Ø Ø Ø e-courses available under different and/or selected discipline(s) Degree-wise Courses Downloads User’s registered for offline e-Courses downloads University wise courses download status System utilization statistics at different point of times Most popular courses among users Utilization Trend over the years etc Content creators / evaluators /review team etc.

Refinement Updation Maintenance and Sustenance of e-learning courseware contents

Activities for Refinement Major activities to be undertaken at the concerned SAUs/organization level Ø Identification of concerned discipline Expert Faculty Group Ø Outlining of course expectations, concerns and challenges by Expert Faculty Group Ø Determination of the gap in course contents Ø Knowledge and skills requirement Ø Fixing of proposed contents for refinement Ø Adoption of online refinement process

Activities for Updation: For updation, major activities to be undertaken at the concerned SAUs/ organization level would be the following: Ø Ø Identification of the e-course content creator team (original content creators and additions and/or deletion, if any) for content revision, updation and uploading Fixing of some time frame for updation and uploading Updating of the e-course contents as per suggestions emerged from the refinement group Uploading of the revised e-course contents to the Centralised e-learning Portal

Activities for Maintenance and Sustenance: Ø Software Maintenance Ø For sustenance, popularization and effective utilization of the system, awareness meetings/ sensitization workshops will be organized by the Education Division of ICAR in collaboration with the SAUs and Institutes identified to coordinate

SAUs to coordinate with Education Division of ICAR: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. For e-Courses on B. Sc. (Agriculture) : Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar For e-courses on B. V. Sc. & A. H. : Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai For e-Courses on B. F. Sc. : Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar; College of Fisheries, Mangalore For e-Courses on B. Tech Agri. Engg. : Anand Agricultural University, Anand For e-Courses on B. Sc Home Science : Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University, Saifabad, Hyderabad; College of Home Science. For e-Courses on B. Tech. (Dairy Technology): National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal For e-Courses on B. Sc. (Hort. ) : Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Solan

An Overview of e-learning portal

Some Reports……

Monday, November 9, 2020 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – 110012