If they want it on their fingertips, they will have it that way. And this is exactly the pledge that India’s largest university seems to have taken this year. Delhi University has decided to launch an e-learning portal to help its students study their preferred courses via Internet.
An initiative by DU’s Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL), the portal would have study materials of as many as 12 courses, and students would be able to supplement their classroom lectures making learning an “easy and fun-filled” experience.
“This would definitely be a progressive step by the academia, but I am wondering if this would affect the attendance of students in colleges. What is the point of attending a class when one can supplement the lectures on the Internet, and submit assignments online?” asks Siddartha Raimedhi of St. Stephen’s College.
But Samriddhi Tanti, a third year student of Miranda College, gives it a strong nod of approval. “One usually doesn’t get any research material about DU courses on the Web. This portal would help simplify a student’s search and be a perfect reference material for studying at home during study leave,” she says.
Besides, e-learning, e- quizzes and e-lectures, this portal would also have animated laboratories where students would be able to carry out their experiments and analyse the results with the guidance of a pre-recorded voice. “I personally have no issues with the methodology, but I wonder about the quality of the lectures. But I think savvy learning modules would improve the student-teacher relationship in the long run. One of the drawbacks is that there would be no space for interaction in e-learning modules, and I don’t know how students would clarify their doubts,” opines Prof. Tapan Basu of Hindu College.
The online portal would be initially accessible only to DU students and be partly available to outsiders after some time.