Virtual classrooms: UPTU to start trial run soon

In a meeting held on Wednesday,the UPTU decided to expedite work on the proposed classrooms for engineering students.

“It was decided to send letters to all affiliated institutions,over 600,asking them if they are willing to set up the virtual classroom,” said UPTU Vice-Chancellor Prof Kripa Shanker.

Institutions will have to send their consent within a week. “Lectures will be delivered at the virtual classroom hub in the Noida campus and beamed to institutions through 12 nodal centres,” Shanker said.

Some of the colleges that will be made nodal centres are: Harcourt Butler Technological Institute,Kanpur; Institute of Engineering and Technology,Lucknow; Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology,Sultanpur; Bundelkhand Institute if Engineering and Technology,Jhansi; MMM College,Gorakhpur; JSS Academy of Technical Education,Noida; GLA Institute of Technology and Management,Mathura; and Galgotias College of Management and Technology,Greater Noida.

For the trial run,the university will engage teachers from only IITs to deliver the lectures. It has already spoken to senior faculty members of various IITs,including those at Kanpur,Kharagpur,Bombay and Delhi.

In the virtual classroom,students sitting in their colleges will be able to interact live with experts delivering lectures far away in the virtual classroom hub.

“This will help the university provide good quality lectures to more and more students with a smaller number of teachers,” Prof Shanker said.

The project is funded by the Union Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. Each virtual classroom will cost Rs 1.60 lakh and the Centre will bear 75 per cent of the cost,while the institutes will pay the remaining 25 per cent.

“Besides live lectures,students will be provided with study material through websites and compact discs,” the vice-chancellor said.

A group has been formed to implement the project and it will decide on the technical specifications of virtual classrooms. It comprises engineering experts from IIT-Roorkee,IIT-Kanpur,HBTI,Kanpur,and Institute of Engineering and Technology,Lucknow.