Inititatives (3)

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INITITATIVE IN INDIA

The open educational resources are best used in evolving learning
societies and the learning organizations. Ministry of Human Resource Development and
the National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT) is not only providing
necessary ambition in e-contents creation, but also engages in infrastructure
development for the educators and learners in all segments of the society. A list of 13
major Open Educational Resources initiatives in India is prepared here as follows-

• NPTEL
• e-Gyankosh
• Karnataka-Open Educational Resources
• National Institute of Open Schooling
• NCERT e-Textbook
• e-PG Pathshala
• Learning Object Repository (CEC)
• National Science Digital Library
• National Repository for Open Educational Resources
• Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animation
Repository)
• Virtual Learning Environment at DU-VLE
• e-Yantra: teaching robotics in engineering education
• Virtual Labs
These major Open Educational Resources Initiative in India are
discussed as follow-

4.1 NPTEL (http://www.nptel.ac.in/)

NPTEL is an acronym for “National Programme on Technology
Enhanced Learning”. It is an initiative of the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT
Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) and Indian
Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc), for creating video and web course contents in
engineering and science. It is a project originated from many deliberations between
IITs, Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
during the years 1999-2003. Since 2009, NPTEL is funded by the National Mission on
Education through Information and Technology (NMEICT) of Ministry of Human
Resource Development. In this certification effort, the entire portal
(onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in) is powered by Google as part of their continuing partnership
with NPTEL. NASSCOM is a partner in the program.

Figure 4.1: Home page of NPTEL Open Educational Resource

The mission of NPTEL is to improve the quality of engineering
education in the country by providing free online courseware in the Seven Indian
Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. They joined
together and have produced contents for online courses. NPTEL follows the model
curriculum of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for producing
contents of the courses.

This online course is open to everyone. There are 900+ web and
video courses across 23 disciplines available for download and viewing on the NPTEL
web site distributed under the CC-BY-SA licence. The Open Online courses were
initiated so that students anywhere at any time can directly learn from faculty in top
colleges. While enrollment and learning is free, students can also obtain a certificate
from the IITs, based on successful completion of an exam, for which there is a nominal
examination fee. The course duration will be for about 10 to 11 weeks.

NPTEL courses are available in many web portals such as Btechguru
(www.btechguru.com), My Open Courses (www.myopencourses.com), VideoPulp.In
(http://videopulp.in), Classel: Learning is social (www.classle.net), and DesiCrew.In
(www.desicrew.in). These courses are accessible through mobile devices such as tablet
PCs, iPad, iPhone, etc.To see the Courses of NPTEL follows the link:
http://www.nptel.ac.in/course.php.

4.1.1 Course Categories are

Agriculture and Architecture, Biological Sciences & Bioengineering,
Civil & Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical,
Electronics and Communications EngineeringHumanities, Business and Social
Sciences, Management Studies, Mathematics and Basic Sciences, Mechanical,
Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Multidisciplinary courses.

4.2 e-PG Pathshala (http://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/)

e-PGpathsala is a one portal under which High quality, curriculum-
based, interactive content in different subjects across all disciplines of social sciences,
arts, fine arts &humanities, natural & mathematical sciences, linguistics and languages
is being developed. National Mission on Education through Information and
Communication and Technology (NMEICT) is an ambitious project undertaken by the
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. It has
envisaged content and connectivity as the twin pedals for initiating and accelerating
ICT-enabled Higher Education. MOOC guidelines prepared under (NME- ICT). An
MHRD, under its National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT), has
assigned work to the UGC for development of e-content in 77 subjects at postgraduate
level. It can be accessed as Open Educational Resource where no teacher support/hand-
holding for students is available. e-PGpathsala hosts the content for PG students which
can be used for offering courses through MOOCs (SWAYAM). Every paper in a
subject can potentially be offered as a course by converting as per the guideline.

Figure 4.2: Home page of e-PG Pathshala Open Educational Resource

4.2.1 Subject Category

i. Arts, Humanities & Languages
Architecture , Chinese ,Comparative literature , Study of Religions ,

English , Hindi, History , Home Science , Japanese ,M Planning , Performing
Arts(Dance/Drama/Theatre) ,Philosophy, Russian Studies, Sanskrit (Acharya in
Vyakrana), Sanskrit (M.A), Spanish, Urdu ,Visual Arts.

ii. Engineering & Technology
Analytical Chemistry/Instrumentation, Communication studies,

Computational Science, Computational Social Science, Computer Science, Electronic
Science, Human Resource Management, Information Technology, Management,
Material Science, Risk / Disaster Management.

iii. Life Science
Biochemistry,Biotechnology,Botany, Food and Nutrition, Food

Technology, Microbiology.

iv. Medical & Health Sciences
Bioinformatics , Biophysics ,Museology and conservation,

Pharmaceutical Science, Physical Education, Sports and Health Education , Social
Medicine and Community Health, Zoology.

iv. Physical& Basic Sciences
Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology,

Jyotish- ganit, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics.Social Sciences

4.3 National Science Digital Library (https://nsdl.oercommons.org/)

The National Science Digital Library provides high quality online
educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines—both formal and
informal, institutional and individual, in local, state, national, and international
educational settings. The National Science Digital Library collection contains structured
descriptive information (metadata) about web-based educational resources held on other
sites by their providers. These providers have contributed this metadata to National
Science Digital Library for organized search and open access to educational resources
via this website and its services. A project created by ISKME. Content on this site is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
License.

Figure 4.3: Home page of National Science Digital Library

National Science Digital Library (NSDL) aims at providing
comprehensive Science and Technology information to students of science, engineering
and technology in the country.

4.3.1. Subjects are:

Agriculture (62), Anthropology (21), Biochemistry (67), Biology (7),
Botany (50), Chemistry (39), Ecology & Environmental Sciences(18), Geology (6),
Horticulture (10), Industrial Chemistry (2), Library Science (23), Mathematics (10)
Microbiology (59),Physics (9), NISCAIR Popular Science Books(16) Pharmacy (66), ,
Polymer Science (10), Space Research (1), Statistics (34), Zoology (69).

4.4 National Institute of Open Schooling (http://www.nos.org/):

The National Institute of Open Schooling, formerly National Open
School is the board of education under the Union Government of India. The pilot

project of CBSE on Open School was amalgamated with National Open Schooling. It
was established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government
of India in 1989 to provide education to remote areas under the motive to increase
literacy and aimed forward for flexible learning. Here children can study without
coming to school. The National Institute of Open Schooling is a national board that
administers examinations for Secondary and Senior Secondary examinations of open
schools similar to the CBSE and the CISCE to increase literacy and provide education
to rural areas. It also offers vocational courses after the high school.

Figure 4.4: Home Page of National Institute of Open Schooling
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) provides

opportunities to interested learners by making available the following
Courses/Programmes of Study through open and distance learning (ODL) mode.
National Institute of Open Schooling operates through a network of five Departments,
Regional Centre and Accredited Institutions (Study Centre) in India and abroad. It has a
current enrolment of about 2.71 million students at Secondary, Senior Secondary &
Vocational levels which make it the largest open schooling system in the world.

The Study Material is made available in English, Hindi and Urdu
mediums. National Institute of Open Schooling offers 28 subjects in eight mediums
(Hindi, English, Urdu, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, Malayalam and Odia) for Secondary
Examinations and 28 subjects in Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali and Odia mediums for
Senior Secondary Examinations. Besides these, NIOS has provision of offering
Vocational subjects in combination with Academic subjects at secondary stage and 20
vocational subjects in combination with Academic subjects at Senior Secondary level.

4.4.1 Syllabuses of Secondary Courses are:

Hindi (201), English (202), Sanskrit (209), Arabic (235),
Mathematics (211), Science and Technology (212), Social science (213), Economics
(214), Business Studies (215), Home Science (216), Psychology (222), Indian Culture
and Heritage (223), Accountancy (224), Painting (225), Data Entry Operations (229)

Group A: Secondary Course offers a choice of languages i.e English,
Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Nepali, Assamese, Marathi,
Sanskrit, Malayalam, Odia, Arabic, Persian and Tamil.

Group B: Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Science,
Economics, Business Studies, Home Science, Data Entry Operations, Psychology,
Indian Culture and Heritage, Accountancy,Painting and Data Entry Operations.

4.5 Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC)
(http://cec.nic.in/Pages/Home.aspx):

The Consortium for Educational Communication popularly known
as CEC is one of the Inter University Centres set up by the University Grants
Commission of India. It has been established with the goal of addressing the needs of
Higher Education through the use of powerful medium of Television along with the
appropriate use of emerging Information Communication Technology (ICT). UGC

started the Countrywide Classroom Programmes in the year 1984. For production of
such programmes Media Centres were set up at 6 Universities. Subsequently CEC
emerged in 1993 as a nodal agency to coordinate, guide & facilitate such Educational
production at the National level. Today 21 Media Centres are working towards
achieving this goal under the umbrella of CEC. These programmes are free of cost.

Video lectures for Undergraduate students in all subjects. Each
lecture is of 30 minutes duration. More than 600 programmes are broadcasted per
month. To see the video of Consortium for Educational communication follows the
link: (http://cec.nic.in/Media%20Tape%20Library/Pages/MediaTapeLib.aspx).

The Media Library houses all the Masters Tapes of the educational
video programmes, e-Contents and LOR’s produced on various subjects and is a
storehouse of a wealth of knowledge. It has been established with the goal of addressing
the needs of Higher Education through the use of powerful medium of Television along
with the appropriate use of emerging Information Communication Technology (ICT).

Figure 4.5: Home page of Consortium for Educational Communication

Video Programmes for Undergraduate Courses.CEC Edu Sat
Network is an education channel with live transmission of video lectures for four hours
daily delivered by the subject experts. First hour covers Art, Culture and Literature,
Second hour covers Social Sciences, third hour is dedicated for Management and
related Professional courses while fourth hour is for Natural and applied Sciences. The
live lectures are telecast on Vyas Channel same can also be viewed from YouTube at
www.youtube.com/user/cecedusat.

In CEC Edu Sat Network total of 12000 hours of content in 24,000
Educational video programmes. Subjects including Art/Culture/Literature/ Language,
Social Science, Management & other Professional Courses, Natural & Applied Sciences
/ Engineering / Medical Sciences.

4.6 Karnataka Open Educational Resources:
(http://www.karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Main_Page):

The Karnataka Open Educational Resources wiki is a repository of
resources to support practicing teachers in terms of their professional development as
well as classroom processes. The wiki is built by a community of educators who will be
engaged in the creation, review, and publishing of digital curricular resources on a
continuous basis. This resource repository is embedded in the Subject Teacher Forum
that has been built across high school teachers of Karnataka. Karnataka Open
Educational Resources (KOER) is a project that aims to provide relevant and contextual
educational resources to all teachers and learners in Karnataka Education which would
cover all subjects in the state syllabus from classes 1 through 12. (K1 - K12). Content is
available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Figure 4.6: Home page of Karnataka Open Educational Resources

4.6.1 Two objectives of the Karnataka Open Educational Resources:
i. Availability of good quality curricular resources
ii. Collaborative resource creation by a community of educators as a

method of Teacher Professional Development. For Courses follow the Link:
(http://www.karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Karnataka_Open_Educatio
nal_Resources:About.)

4.6.2 Courses are:Turtle Art, Geogebra, Introductory ICT course for student teachers

4.6.3 Subject Portals are: Art, English, Hindi, ICT Literacy, Mathematics, Science,
Social Science

4.6.4 Resources are: Geogebra applets, Laboratory, Photographs, Project ideas,
Question papers, Simulations and website interactives, Solved problems, Textbooks,
Videos.

4.6.5 Laboratories are: Mathematics, Science, Social Science, English, Hindi

4.6.6 Photographs are: Mathematics, Science, Social Science, English, Hindi

4.6.7 Question Papers are: Mathematics, Science, Social Science, English, Hindi

4.6.8.Text_Books are: Mathematics, Science, Social Science, English, Hindi

4.7 e-Gyankosh :(http://www.ignou.ac.in/):

A National Digital Repository to store, index, preserve, distribute and
share the digital learning resources developed by the Open and Distance Learning
Institutions in the country. Items in e-Gyankosh are protected by copyright, with all
rights reserved by IGNOU, unless otherwise indicated. To access the items in repository
registration is required. Registration is free.

Figure 4.7: Home page of e-Gyankosh Open Educational Resources

One stop window catering to the learning needs of IGNOU learner
community. Explore the links to access all learning resources available online.
Education Broadcast is a webcasting facility linking us to educational channels as
Gyandharshan, Gyanvani and EDUSAT. Virtual Class provides links to all the online
programmes of the University.

Sakshat links us to the One Stop Education Portal of Ministry of
Human Resource Dehttp://www.egyankosh.ac.in/velopment. To see the youtube video
of Gyankosh follows the link:
https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=egyankoshIGNOU&view=subscriptions.

4.7.1 Courses are:

1stSemester to 6th Semester all Subject as an some examples are
English, Agriculture, Chemistry, Management, Hindi, Literature, Computer Science,
Philosophy, Sociology, Telgu etc.

4.8 NCERT Online-Textbooks (http://www.ncert.nic.in/index.html):

The National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCERT) is an autonomous organization set up in 1961 by the Government of India to
assist and advise the Central and State Governments on policies and programmes for
qualitative improvement in school education. The NCERT also interacts and works in
collaboration with the international organizations, visiting foreign delegations and
offers various training facilities to educational personnel from developing countries.

Figure 4.8: Home Page of National Council of Educational Research and Training

The major objectives of NCERT and its constituent units are to:
undertake, promote and coordinate research in areas related to school education; prepare

and publish model textbooks, supplementary material, newsletters, journals and
develops educational kits, multimedia digital materials, etc. organize pre-service and in-
service training of teachers; develop and disseminate innovative educational techniques
and practices; collaborate and network with state educational departments, universities,
NGOs and other educational institutions; act as a clearing house for ideas and
information in matters related to school education; and act as a nodal agency for
achieving the goals of Universalization of Elementary Education. In addition to
research, development, training, extension, publication and dissemination activities,
NCERT is an implementation agency for bilateral cultural exchange programmes with
other countries in the field of school education.To see the e-book for class 1 to 12
follows the link: http://ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.html.

4.8.1 Online Textbooks Section:

This online service offers easy access to the NCERT textbooks. The
service covers textbooks of all subjects published by NCERT for classes I to XII in
Hindi, English and Urdu. The Entire book or individual chapters can be downloaded
provided the terms of use as mentioned in the Copyright Notice are adhered to.

4.9 National Repository for Open Educational Resources
(http://nroer.gov.in/55ab34ff81fccb4f1d806025/):

National Repository for Open Educational Resources is a
collaborative platform, which brings together everyone interested in school and teacher
education. Initiated by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of
Human Resource Development, Government of India and managed by the Central
Institute of Educational Technology, National Council of Educational Research and
Training, the Repository runs on the MetaStudio platform, an initiative of the
Gnowledge Labs, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education and total eBooks are 142.

National Repository of Open Educational Resources offers resources for all school
subjects and grades in multiple languages. The resources are available in the form of
concept maps, videos, audio clips, talking books, multimedia, learning objects,
photographs, diagrams, charts, articles, wikipages and textbooks. To see the e-courses
follows the link: http://nroer.gov.in/explore/courses. To see the e-Book follows the
link: http://nroer.gov.in/home/e-book/.

Figure 4.9: National Repository for Open Educational Resources
The Repository organizes its collections into an ever growing

semantic map of concepts. The concept map itself is a learning resource for teachers,
providing an opportunity for critically assessing the curriculum and aiding the
construction of their own unique learning themes for their classrooms. The digital
resources – documents, audio-visuals, interactive objects, and images are mapped to the
concepts. This enables access to a library from which teachers can choose appropriate
resources.

Each resource is tagged to related concepts making it accessible.
Each resource can be downloaded. Each resource can be commented upon. Each
resource is released for free use.

4.9.1 Objectives of the Project are:

i. To enhance the quality of teaching-learning
ii. To facilitate teachers to create and share contextualized teaching
learning resources
iii. To celebrate innovations in resource creation.

4.9.2 Partners are:

Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT),
State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), Pune , State Council of Educational
Research and Training (SCERT), Bihar , SCERT Uttar Pradesh , State Council of
Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Manipur , State Council of Educational
Research and Training (SCERT), Chandigarh , SIERT Rajsthan, Udaipur , State
Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), Hyderabad , Gujarat Institute of
Educational Technology (GIET), Gujarat, State Institute of Educational Technology
(SIET), Kerala, Department of State Educational Research and Training ,The Teacher
App , Azim Premji University, IT for CHANGE , Amaze Infotainment Pvt. Ltd.,
Directorate of Adult Education (DAE) ,Vidya Online , Gandhi Smriti and Darshan
Samiti , National Council of Educational Research and Training , Vigyan Prasar ,
Centre for Cultural Resources and Training , Central Institute of Educational
Technology.

4.10 Open Source Courseware Animation Repository (OSCAR)
(http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/oscarHome.do):

Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations Repository)
provides a repository of web-based interactive animations and simulations that refer to
as learning objects (LOs). These learning objects span topics in science and engineering
at the college level, and maths and science at the school level. Students and teachers can
view, run and download these learning objects. The main goal of Project OSCAR (Open
Source Courseware Animations Repository) is to build a large repository of web-based,
interactive animations and simulations, referred to as learning objects (LOs), for
teaching and learning concepts in science and technology. These could be useful not
only for a classroom environment but also for enabling independent learning and
distance education. The current goal is to develop LOs for topics in various subjects at
the Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.

Figure 4.10: Home Page of Project OSCAR
Project OSCAR was conceptualized by Prof Sridhar Iyer, at IIT
Bombay. He is the Principal Investigator and Prof Sahana Murthy is the Co-Project
Investigator of this project. C. Vijaylakshmi is the overall coordinator of this project.
Project OSCAR evolved out of the xNET Project. xNet served as a pilot study with

focus on creating animations for concepts/protocols in computer networking.To
downloadthe courses follow the Link: http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/download.do.

All files are 9813, Documents are 256, Interactives are 92, Audios
are 1458, Images are 2204 and Videos are 5574.

All the material developed in project OSCAR are Open Source
Courseware. The Learning Objects are released under the Creative Commons -
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic(CC BY-NC-SA 2.5)India license.

4.10.1 Course Category of Animation UG/PG

Biochemistry Biology Bioscience and Engineering

Chemical Engineering Chemistry Civil Engineering Computer Science Earth

Science Electrical Engineering Electronics Environmental Science

Mechanical Engineering Metallurgical Engineering

4.10.2 Course Category of School

Biology, Chemistry, Fun with Science, Maths

4.11. Virtual Learning environment at DU (http://vle.du.ac.in/):

Virtual Learning Environment is an online environment of e-
resources caters to several disciplines taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) under the ongoing NME-ICT
project. It is an initiative of Institute of Life-Long Learning, University of Delhi.
Conceived in 2012, VLE today boasts state of art material that addresses emerging
needs of a diverse student body, not only of Delhi University but other universities as
well. Drawing from several successful Moodle models, the multi-media interactive
contents loaded on VLE are categorized discipline-wise.

Figure 4.11: Virtual Learning Environment Open Educational Resource

The lessons are developed by highly qualified faculty members
across the universities and are continually edited and reviewed, primarily by discipline-
expert Fellows employed to edit, oversee and coordinate the content. The content goes
through several levels of rigorous peer reviewing and academic vetting to ensure quality
and standardization. VLE also contains multimedia repository in form of audio, video
and short films to expose students to new technologies in pedagogy. It is content under
a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License.To see
the Courses of Virtual Learning environment follow the Link:
(http://vle.du.ac.in/course/index.php).

4.11.1 Course categories are:

e-Quizzes 2, Commerce Humanities and Social Sciences 2 ,
History (NME-ICT) 1 , Sciences, Interviews and Podcast 3 , Open Resource 1 ,
Disclaimer 1 , Feedback 1 , POLITICAL SCIENCE THREE YEAR , Zoology (NME-

ICT) 3 , Microbiology (NME-ICT) 1, Commerce NME-ICT 4 , Botany (NME-ICT) 6 ,
Economics (NME-ICT) 5 , Math (NME-ICT) 9 , UGP 3

4.11.2 Online Resources are:

Botany, Computer Science, Commerce, Chemistry, Economics,
English, Geography,History, Hindi, Home Science, Management Studies, Mathematics,
Political Science, Physics, Zoology,

e-Quizzes 2 ,Commerce ,Humanities and Social Sciences 2 ,
History (NME-ICT) 1 , Sciences Interviews and Podcast 3 , Open Resource 1 ,
Disclaimer 1 , Feedback 1 , POLITICAL SCIENCE THREE YEAR , Zoology (NME-
ICT) 3 , Microbiology (NME-ICT) 1 , Commerce NME-ICT 4 , Botany (NME-ICT) 6 ,
Economics (NME-ICT) 5 , Math (NME-ICT) 9 , UGP 3.

4.12Virtual Labs (http://vlabs.iitb.ac.in/vlab/):

Virtual Labs will provide to the students the result of an experiment
by one of the following methods (or possibly a combination). Web-based and video-
based courses address the issue of teaching to some extent. Web enabled experiments
can be designed for remote operation and viewing so as to enthuse the curiosity and
innovation into students. This would help in learning basic and advanced concepts
through remote experimentation. Today most equipment has a computer interface for
control and data storage. It is possible to design good experiments around some of this
equipment which would enhance the learning of a student.

Internet-based experimentation further permits use of resources –
knowledge, software, and data available on the web, apart from encouraging skillful
experiments being simultaneously performed at points separated in space (and possibly,
time).

Figure 4.12: Home page of Virtual Lab

4.12.1 Objectives of the Virtual Labs are:
i. To provide remote-access to Labs in various disciplines of

Science and Engineering. These Virtual Labs would cater to students at the
undergraduate level, post graduate level as well as to research scholars.

ii. To enthuse students to conduct experiments by the arousing their
curiosity. This would help them in learning basic and advanced concepts through
remote experimentation.

iii. To provide a complete Learning Management System around the
Virtual Labs where the students can avail the various tools for learning, including
additional web-resources, video-lectures, animated demonstrations and self-evaluation.

4.12.2 Disciplines and Domains are:

i. Electronics & Communications: Utilization of science and mathematics applied to
practical problems in the field of communications

ii. Computer Science & Engineering:The study of automating algorithmic processes
that scale
iii. Electrical Engineering: Deals with the study and application of electricity,
electronics, and electromagnetism.
iv. Mechanical Engineering: The study of design, analysis, manufacturing and
maintenance of mechanical systems
v. Chemical Engineering: The study to produce, transforms, transport, and properly
use chemicals, materials and energy
vi. Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering: The study of technological
application that uses biological systems to process for specific use
vii. Civil Engineering: The study of design, construction, and maintenance of the
physical and naturally built environment
viii. Physical Sciences: The study of systematic enterprise that builds and organizes
knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe
ix. Chemical Sciences: The study of natural sciences dealing with the composition of
substances and their properties and reactions

4.13 e-YANTRA (http://e-yantra.org/) / (_http://e-yantra.org/index):

Project e-Yantra is an initiative to spread education in embedded systems
and Robotics by IIT Bombay sponsored by Ministry of Human Resource Development
through the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT). This project was
conceptualized by Prof. Kavi Arya and Prof. Krithi Ramamritham of the Department of
Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay.

The objective is to provide hands-on learning to engineering students
who have limited access to labs and mentors. The goal is to create the next generation
of (Embedded systems) engineers in India with a practical outlook to take on
challenging problems and provide solutions. Sponsored by MHRD under the National
Mission on Education through ICT program.

Figure 4.13: Home Page of e-Yantra Open Educational Resources

E-Yantra Lab Setup Initiative (eLSI) is a college level program
under which colleges are encouraged to setup robotics labs. eYRC is a competition that
is open to students studying engineering in one of the engineering/poly-technic/science
colleges in India. It provides Video and Online Lab to the student.Training students
through hands-on projects is imperative in producing successful innovators and
entrepreneurs. Creating the infrastructure with labs and trained teachers provides the
competitive advantage to colleges in attracting talented students. e-Yantra facilitates the
infrastructure creation by sharing its experience and expertise. It increased enthusiasm
amongst students. It gives bettertrained and motivated faculty performance at Robotics
competitions such as the e-Yantra Robotics Competition (eYRC).