NETWORK-ENABLED OPEN EDUCATION (NEO-Ed)

1. NETWORK-ENABLED OPEN EDUCATION (NEO-Ed) Dr. Vijay Kumar Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Advisor, National Knowledge Commission, India

2. THE OBJECTIVE • To build excellence in the educational system to meet the knowledge challenges of the 21st century and increase India’s competitive advantage in fields of knowledge. This consists of • WIDENING ACCESS • PROVIDING QUALITY

3. THE CHALLENGE • Scaling the excellence of institutions like IITs, IIMs, IIIT, etc. • Current approaches • Building new institutions (additional IITs, etc.) • Improving existing institutions (NPTEL, TEQIP) • Extending distance education to a limited extent (IGNOU, Eklavya, EDUSAT) • These are insufficient for the quantum leap in scale and quality of educational opportunity that the NKC seeks to achieve.

4. A SOLUTION • Increasing capabilities of high bandwidth networks and open educational resources offer unprecedented opportunities to • Serve the knowledge needs of diverse communities • Amplify interaction among students and teachers • Introduce innovative and interactive educational experiences • The Internet is changing the face of education. India can use it to make optimal use of global educational resources.

5. PRESENT SCENARIO • E-learning/Open/Distance Education are considered inferior to traditional methods. • Existing initiatives are lacking in • Interactivity • Hands-on experience • Quality content • Alignment with university system • Addressing the needs of teacher training

6. Current Network Status • Very few institutions connected reliably • Limited b/w ( KPBS to low mbps) • Upgrade efforts underway • EDUSAT offers alternative • Access to e-resources (journals, publishing) limited • Virtual classrooms limited; Virtual labs unavailable • Collaborations and Sharing constrained

7. CURRENT INITIATIVES • NPTEL • IGNOU • Kerala e-Grid • TIFAC - Mission REACH • EDUSAT (ISRO) • TEQIP*

8. IMPACT OF INITIATIVES • The impact of initiatives is stymied due to • Dearth of quality resources (content) • Lack of infrastructure for delivery • Lack of appropriate organisational alignments between public institutions/agencies engaged in e-learning and distance education. • General Impediments • Unclear Regulatory framework • A few Good Ones • Impoverished pedagogical practices ( inflexibility, lack of liberal education; Rote focus…) • Lack of coordination is a source of poor performance and visibility.

9. A NEW PARADIGM • E-learning and distance education are not alternatives or supplements to conventional methods. • Network-based delivery needs to become the central modality for delivering quality education. • A blended process – intelligent combinations of physical and virtual elements. • Distributed Repositories, Domain-specific Grids and Portals, Interaction facilities, Robust connectivity – key components of NEO-Ed. • Open Educational Resources- Content, Applications and Infrastructure can be productively leveraged

10. NKC: Targets of Opportunity • For education (higher education in particular), the NKC’s efforts to be directed toward building capacity at 3 levels • Access (low threshold for entry into the enabling infrastructure for advanced applications and quality educational resources) • Application/Practice: Content, tools and best practices in strategic areas. • Process (Sustainability) – organizational, and policy enablers to realize synergies and to move projects to practice and services. • Overall aim to develop ecology for sustainable transformation of education and research in India.

11. Scaling Excellence in Education and Research • Extensive Access to Quality Educational Resources • For faculty development • Direct education (formal and non-formal) • Meet hr (knowledge worker) needs in all sectors • Quality Educational and Research Interactions • Global Participation in Research and Education • Sharing • Benchmarking

12. Implementing Opportunity • Grids and Portals • Domains; Sectors; Communities • Research • Education • Knowledge Sectors • Community Interactions • Labs and Simulators • Order-of-magnitude higher number of educationally meaningful laboratory experiments through the Internet based on hardware dispersed around the world • Open Educational Resources • OCW: large pool of shared and open content for diverse needs • Mednet: network and content for health education • GELC

13. ADVANTAGES OF NEO-Ed • Proximity: Content-Learner, Teacher-Student, Research-Teaching (e.g. i-labs) • Adaptability: Common infrastructure to deliver quality digital content in different sectors. • Flexibility: Learners structure the reality of their educational experience. • Interactivity: Virtual learning environments facilitate peer interaction, which is invaluable. • Quality: Global alliances and initiatives can be leveraged for quality content and benchmarking purposes. • Sustainability: Continuous supply of skilled workforce with contemporary competencies and abreast of technological change.

14. INFRASTRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS • High bandwidth connections; national backbone; connectivity with global networks. • User applications; service-oriented architecture; delivery systems; digital libraries; publication; localisation and contextualisation. • Relevant, quality content; distributed repositories; standards; global alliances (OCW); • Support for adoption; pedagogy • Policy framework ( quality; regulation)

15. INFRASTRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS • Physical: high bandwidth connections; national backbone; connectivity with global networks. • Delivery: user applications; service-oriented architecture; localisation and contextualisation. • Pedagogical: relevant, quality content; distributed repositories; standards; global alliances (OCW).

16. NETWORK-ENABLED OPEN EDUCATION (NEO-Ed) D/Space Medical Repository Science Repository Engineering Content & Labs Educational Content Repositories … End User Communities Domain Grids and Portals Tools/ Applications EDUCATION SOFTWARE EDUSAT/LAN/WAN/Wireless/INTERNET2 Communication Service Interfaces

17. SUSTAINABILITY • Technical • Resilient content: takes advantage of tech. changes • Open standards-based architecture • Robust networks • Financial • Taxation on content used by private institutions • Commercial model for value-added services • Government funding, especially in initial stages • Organizational

18. EMERGING TRENDS • Industry already involved – already involved in developing standards-based architecture for e-governance. Indicate interest in NEO-Ed. • MoU between Ministry of IT and Internet2 – framework for advanced networking capability with ubiquitous broadband availability. • Global Open Educational Resources (OER) movement is gathering momentum. • OCW Consortium - Viability of NPTEL, TEQIP joining being explored.

19. CONCLUSION • Network-Enabled Open Education is central to the Knowledge Commission’s goals of delivering access and quality in education. • It is a critical component of the infrastructure of any knowledge economy, and must therefore be pursued vigorously as a strategy for building excellence in the education system and increasing India’s competitive advantage in fields of knowledge.

20. THANK YOU