The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), a joint initiative of IITs and IISc, has launched new courses on electric vehicles and renewable energy, design for IoT, business and sustainable development, for July 2021 semester through the Swayam platform.
The enrolments for July – Dec 2021 semester have already commenced. The last date to enrol for the first set of NPTEL courses is August 2. The courses are taught by the faculty from IITs and IISc. Learners can enrol for NPTEL courses through swayam.gov.in/NPTEL.
Vignesh Muthuvijayan, NPTEL coordinator at IIT Madras, said, “Students and faculty from these institutions take up NPTEL courses to upgrade their knowledge and skills. Some of the popular courses on NPTEL platform include data science for engineers, courses on programming in Python, C, C++, introduction to machine learning, soft skills, project planning and control, among others.”
NPTEL offers certification courses through the MOOCs format. Learners need to watch videos online, submit assignments on a weekly/monthly basis and can register for an optional proctored final exam. There is a nominal fee charged towards the in-person proctored exam for the certification. Students can request for transfer of credits once they clear the NPTEL certification exam if it is approved by the educational institute they are affiliated with.
NPTEL has received more than 1.4 crore enrolments to date., claims IIT-Madras. NPTEL videos have received more than one billion views so far and NPTEL channels on YouTube have more than 3.1 million subscribers.
In order to streamline the efforts of learners and to guide them to obtain expertise in an area, NPTEL has initiated the concept of ‘Domain Certification.’ A domain comprises a set of core and elective NPTEL courses. There are no additional charges/fees involved in obtaining domain certification. There are 51 domains across 12 disciplines available now and 85 learners have completed domain certification from NPTEL to date.
Harshwardhan Patil, a 15-year-old student from Savitribai Phule High School, Nanded, Maharashtra, is one of the youngest NPTEL learners and has completed five certification courses through NPTEL, namely Effective Writing, Soft Skills Development, Stress Management, Biochemistry, and English Language for Competitive Exams.