Granting Free Immediate Access to Internet to all LTIT students

Dear Prof Damahe

The following news report ( today’s Hindusthan Times ) will interest you

That reminded me of my visit to the Institute last week to discuss projects with 7^th semester students – when some 30 students and 4  /  5 faculty members joined

After help from Agnihotri and Shivanand , only a handful of students could get access to internet – and that too , after struggling for 10 / 15 minutes !

I understand that access to internet in LTIT is regulated thru a strict Password-Control – and to some 18 persons at a time

And the students are NOT privy to this password

I checked out with both of my grand-daughters who are at different Universities in York ( UK ) re their availability of internet ( to students ) in their respective campuses

I found that ALL students have FREE / IMMEDIATE access , without any restrictions , while on the College premises

If we want LTIT to become a World-Class institute , we need to provide them with similar access

I would request you to examine how this can be done

Nowadays , it is fairly easy to block certain types of web sites from being displayed on the network

In my office , that is exactly what we have done

In case you need any help in this regard , I can depute my hardware engineer Kailas to LTIT to help out

Unless you have some other considerations in mind , of which , I am unaware ,I would strongly recommend that you circulate my email to other members of Managing Council , inviting their views , so that , we do not need to wait till the next MC meeting to take a decision

Regards

H c parekh

 Thousands of miles away from Boston, Radhika Ghosal has learnt about circuits and electronics from  professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ghosal, 16, a Class 11 student, signed up for a free, four-month programme offered by MIT online.

She is one of many Indians thronging Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), a distance learning initiative that allows students from across the world to access online video tutorials from the best colleges. Indians are the second largest registrants (after Americans) on two of the biggest platforms – Coursera and EdX, where universities have made lectures available for free.

On EdX, 13% of learners are Indian and 28% from the US. On Coursera it’s 8.8%, compared to 27.7% from the US. “The teachers are amazing and you can learn what you really want,” said Ghosal, who has registered for another computer science course.

While an early version was created in 2008, MOOCs are being called the future of education by experts and analysts, owing to fewer seats in colleges, high tuition costs and more young people seeking higher education.

Students sign up to add to their resumes, or simply to learn something new. Certificates of completion from the participating university are offered in some cases.

“MOOCs offer Indian students the chance to learn from the best professors in the US and Europe,” said Raj Chakrabarti, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), via email. “Given the limited capacity of seats at top US and Indian universities, these features enhance the competitive edge of Indian students in the global job market, and can also improve their chances of admission to top US and European colleges and graduate schools.” More than 1,00,000 Indians have signed up for courses offered by CMU.

However, to be sustainable, MOOCs need to be accepted as mainstream. “The high enrolments of Indians seems to be more due to the novelty of accessing high quality international education in India,” said Amit Garga, a senior principal at the consultancy firm Parthenon group, who has worked with education providers on online strategies. “The primary desire for tertiary education in India and other emerging markets is to secure employment. Unless local universities and employers start giving credit to MOOCs as valid alternatives to classroom based education, MOOCs are unlikely to sustain themselves among Indian students.”