Establishment of an e-learning Portal for Agricultural Education (e-KrishiShiksha)

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

2. 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)

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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: • Online e-Learning for UG • Off-line e-Learning: Free Downloads - UG Courseware • e-learning for Farmers • e-Course Content Data Management • Automation of Contents Refinement Process • System Administration • Reports

7. 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)

8. 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 email-Id is used for authentication of the Registered users • Portal usage records has been maintained in the system

9. Off-line e-Learning Free Downloads – UGCourseware • 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. Refinement Updation Maintenance and Sustenance of e-learning courseware contents

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. SAUs to coordinate with Education Division of ICAR: • 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

20. An Overview of e-learning portal

30. Some Reports……

34. Thanks Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute Library Avenue, Pusa, New Delhi – 110012