Wednesday, September 09, 2015 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – Establishment of an e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education (e-KrishiShiksha) Activity of the Education Division of ICAR Dr. R C Goyal Emeritus Scientist

Background  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  The online contents has been implemented from the respective organisation’s servers  For remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents are made available offline on (CDs / DVDs)

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

e-learning Portal For Refinement, Updation, Maintenance and Sustenance of the e-learning courseware,  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  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  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  B.Sc (Agriculture)  B.Sc (Horticulture)  B.Sc (Home Science)  BFSc (Fisheries)  BVSc ( Veterinary & A.H.)  B.Tech. ( Dairy Technology)  B.Tech. ( Agri. Engineering)

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

Off-line e-Learning Free Downloads – UG Courseware  Under NAIP programmes for remote area institutions/ faculty/ students, the e-learning contents were made available offline on (CDs / DVDs)  In present portal, e-learning courseware contents are made available as Free Downloadable component  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 e- learning  This will eliminate the process of physical supply of e-courses on (CDs / DVDs) by post/courier services

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

e-Course Content Data Management  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  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  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

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

System Administration  Generation of UserId and Passwords for Faculty and Reporting/Reviewing team involved in content creation/updation of different courses  Adding/deleting/modifying accounts information  Resetting passwords, etc  Briefly the following options may be made available  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 Reports useful to the user’s as well as administrators /managers has been designed and made available on the portal. This includes:  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  Identification of concerned discipline Expert Faculty Group  Outlining of course expectations, concerns and challenges by Expert Faculty Group  Determination of the gap in course contents  Knowledge and skills requirement  Fixing of proposed contents for refinement  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:  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:  Software Maintenance  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.For e-Courses on B.Sc.(Agriculture) : Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar 2.For e-courses on B.V.Sc. & A.H. : Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai 3.For e-Courses on B.F.Sc. : Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar; College of Fisheries, Mangalore 4.For e-Courses on B.Tech Agri. Engg. : Anand Agricultural University, Anand 5.For e-Courses on B.Sc Home Science : Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Saifabad, Hyderabad; College of Home Science. 6.For e-Courses on B.Tech. (Dairy Technology): National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal 7.For e-Courses on B.Sc. (Hort.) : Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Solan

An Overview of e-learning portal

Some Reports……

Wednesday, September 09, 2015 Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi –