Students likely to get credits for online courses

Bid to salvage academic year hit by COVID

College students in the State will soon be able to transfer credits earned through massive open online courses (MOOCs).

In a bid to salvage the academic year that is likely to face disruptions in view of the COVID-19 scenario, the government has advised universities to earmark academic credits for online learning courses.

According to Usha Titus, Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, universities will be required to make greater use of online platforms to circumvent the existing crisis.

“The department has asked them to allocate credits for elective courses that can be pursued by students through online learning platforms such as SWAYAM or Coursera. For this, the universities should vet the content of the courses and create a menu of courses from which the students can opt for their electives,” she said.

The move comes against the backdrop of a University Grants Commission (UGC) letter calling for steps to permit credit mobility and to encourage the use of the SWAYAM platform that offers 82 undergraduate and 42 postgraduate MOOCs. While the UGC regulations enable the universities to reserve up to 20% of credits in the UG and PG curricula for MOOCs, a few universities have mooted a greater allocation.

Prior to the introduction of credit mobility from such courses, the Board of Students will be required to identify the online courses that can be aligned with the existing curriculum. With many platforms charging fee for the courses, the onus will be on the statutory panels to identify those that do not incur expenses for the students. Besides, such facilities can provide an opportunity to introduce a blended model of pedagogy that comprises elements of both online and offline education, sources say.

Dr. Titus expressed the optimism that the universities will focus on developing their own MOOC programmes. The Centre has mooted permitting universities ranked among the top 100 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) to commence online courses.

At present, four universities — Kerala University, Mahatama Gandhi University, Calicut University, and the Cochin University of Science and Technology -- fit the bill in the State.