In a first-of-its-kind initiative in India, IIT Bombay announced the launch of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Some of the regular courses will be available to lakhs of students across the nation, and to others globally, free of cost. Quality education, imparted to students on the campus by expert and experienced faculty of IIT Bombay, will now be accessible to all learners.
“We are entering into a partnership with edX, a not-for-profit company set up by MIT and Harvard. We will join xConsortium of top global universities. An MoU with edX will be signed by Prof Devang Khakhar, director of IIT Bombay, in New Delhi on June 25, 2013,” said an official from IITB.
Throwing light on the developments, the official added that using information and communication technologies, IIT Bombay has developed and deployed training programmes, engaging thousands of participants at a time, through national mission projects sponsored by the MHRD. The programmes have been thoroughly tested before their implementation, and have been prepared by the IIT professors, students and researchers.
“Our research programme in education technology aims at evolving cutting edge technologies and appropriate pedagogy, to improve the quality of education, and to achieve scale. Collaboration with edX, and with partner universities, will help us understand and solve issues in scaling up quality education using technology,” said a statement released by IITB, adding that the enhancements to the open source edX platform will now add to key areas of their research focus. This will enable technology to be deployed in other areas of education such as vocational training, school education, and faculty empowerment.