IIT Bombay to Commence its First MOOCs in July 2014

Giving spark to its collaboration set up last year with EdX, a massive open online course (MOOC) platform, the Indian Institute Technology - Bombay (IIT-B) has launched recently its first three MOOCs -- Introduction to Computer Programming (part one), Introduction to Thermodynamics, and Introduction to Computer Programming (part two). While the sessions for the first two courses will commence in July 2014, the third course will start in September 2014.

As informed by a professor of Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay, the quality and content of online courses will be the same as that being offered offline within the campus. The only difference is that the MOOCs will allow students to learn at anytime, from anywhere and yet at an appropriate speed. For MOOCs, students can revisit study material as and when required as well as can skip familiar topics.

Anyone can pursue the online courses that will be delivered through sessions grouped into several themes or topics. Each session will be made up of two to four 15-20 minute 'episodes', and each episode will comprise a video recorded in lecture of about 8-10 minutes, followed by some problems /quizzes to practice.

Some additional reading material/ references will also be available with MOOCs. Students can use them for greater clarity, if required. Apart from this, some regular interactive sessions through discussion forums, video conferencing and other such tools for online education have also been planned to enrich MOOCs.

Students can avail an honour code certificate or audit free of cost for the initial offerings. They can also get a verified certificate of achievement at the end of the course, in lieu of a charge of about Rs 1,500.