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SWAYAM PRABHADTH project for educational excellence

Ministry of Human Resource DevelopmentDepartment of Higher Education

Government of India

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Context

The opportunity of demographic dividend for India mandates availability of educated and well­trained manpower. Although more than 3 Crore youth are pursuing higher education, the standards of education are not uniform, bringing to forth the issue of quality access to knowledge. The youth in the backward pockets of India need a fair deal in accessing high quality knowledge to confidently enter the job market. Expanding physical access by starting premier institutions across the Country though is an option, its impact is limited by high cost and time factors. With its wide and inexpensive reach, technology provides an opportunity to resolve the issues of quality access. The Direct­to­Home (DTH) technology is one such instrument.

Direct­to­Home through GSAT 15

Direct­to­home television (DTHTV) is a method of receiving television by means of signals transmitted from direct­broadcast satellites. Signals are transmitted using Ku band and are completely digital with high picture and stereo sound quality. The advantage of the free­to­air DTH channels is that they would have universal coverage in the Country at no cost to the end users.

The GSAT­15, India’s latest Communication Satellite is a high power satellite has provided a total of 24 communication transponders in Ku­band as well as a GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) payload. Launched on 11th November 2015 by ISRO, the GASAT will be operational for 12 years.

Ministry of HRD requested ISRO for allotting 2 Ku band transponders for telecasting high quality educational content to the whole country. ISRO, vide their letter dated 16th June 2016 have allotted the transponders for the use of MHRD.

SWAYAM PRABHA

The SWAYAM PRABHA has been conceived as the project for using the (2) GSAT­15 transponders to run (32) DTH channels that would telecast high quality educational programmes on 24X7 basis. Every day, there will be new content of at least (4) hours which would be repeated 6 times a day, allowing the student to choose the time of his convenience.

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Subjects covered under SWAYAM PRABHA

The DTH Channels shall cover the following: a) Curriculum based course contents covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture etc. in higher education domain (all courses would be certification­ready in their detailed offering).

b) School education (9­12 levels) modules; for teacher training as well as teaching and learning aids to children of India to help them understand the subjects better and also help them in better preparedness for competitive examinations for admissions to professional degree programmes.

c) Curricula and courses that can meet the needs of life­long learners of Indian citizens in India and abroad.

Channels and their allocation

Channel number Channel content Coordinator

1. Building sciences (Civil, engineering and allied branches)

NPTEL 2. Computer science and engineering and computer

training/ programmingIIT Kgpr

3. Electrical sciences and engineering IIT Bombay 4. Electronics and communication engineering NPTEL 5. Mechanical sciences and engineering NPTEL 6. Physics, applied physics and engineering physics for

PG NPTEL

7. Chemistry, metallurgy, chemical sciences and engineering

NPTEL 8. Mathematics and applied /engineering mathematics,

computational sciencesNPTEL

9. Interdisciplinary areas (Biotech/nanotech/geosciences etc)

IIT Delhi10. QEEE for improving engineering standards IIT M11. UGC 1: Languages UGC12. UGC 2: Foreign languages IFLU13. UGC 3: Arts & Humanities UGC14. UGC 4: Sciences UGC15. UGC 5: Management and Communication Jamia16. UGC 6: Law and legal studies UGC17. UGC 7: Philosophy/religion/social issues UGC18. CEC : Vyas 1 (Non­engineering degree courses) CEC19. CEC: Vyas 2 (Non­engineering degree courses) CEC20. CEC: Vyas 3 (Non­engineering degree courses) CEC21. School education for 9th and 10th standard NCERT22. Physics for 11th and 12th standard (IIT­PAL) CBSE

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23. Chemistry for 11th and 12th (IIT­PAL) CBSE24. Mathematics for 11th and 12th(IIT­PAL) CBSE25. Biology for 11th and 12th(IIT­PAL) CBSE26. Open Univ: State Open Univs (out of college students) IGNOU27. Open Univ: Agriculture (vocational) & allied sciences IGNOU28. Open Univ: Liberal arts & Humanities IGNOU29. Open Univ: Culture IGNOU30. Open School: Secondary school syllabus NIOS31. Open School: Senior Secondary syllabus NIOS32. Open School: Teacher Education NIOS

Operationalising SWAYAM PRABHA

a) The Programme Approval Board (PAB) of NME­ICT headed by the Secretary (HE) has approved the proposal for operationalising these transponders using the satellite up­linking station at the Bhaskaracharya Space Application Centre of Gujarat (BISAG).

b) The Department of Space has allocated two transponders in GSAT­15 satellite for launching 32 Educational DTH channels. The subscribers of Free DTH service of Doordarshan can view these Educational channels using the same Set Top Box and TV. No additional investment is required.

c) M/s Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo­Informatics (BISAG) would be responsible for setting up the necessary infrastructure and running it. An amount of Rs.68.40 crores has been allocated for a period of three years.

d) MHRD has nominated six National Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Coordinators for the development and implementation of MOOCs. Their video lessons would be converted into appropriate format and transferred to BISAG for transmission on the DTH channels. This will provide about 15,000 hours of Educational transmission. Arrangements have been made for transmission of (20)‘live classrooms’ from the Teaching Ends (TE) set up at Indian Institutes of Technology located at Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Kanpur and Guwahati.

e) Organisational structure for operationalising the channels by providing high quality content (@ 4 hours of fresh content every day) is proposed to be set up as per the structure given below.

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE & ROLES

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The project will be implemented by the Department of Higher Education, MHRD as an NME­ICT project. The Ministry have 4­tier structure: I. Operations and Monitoring Group (OMG): Headed by Director IIT

Gandhinagar, this committee is consisting of experts in the field of DTH and would be responsible for the overall management and operations of the project. OMG will meet once a quarter to review the quality of the content on the channels based on the feedback from the stakeholders/end­users, and would give further directions to the other agencies involved.

II. Technical Committee: This will supervise the up­linking arrangements from The Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications Gujarat (BISAG). BISAG will be responsible for the up­linking of the channels and maintenance of all equipment that is procured and installed by ECIL. BISAG will maintain a dedicated facility for this purpose with required equipment to run this on a 24X7 basis.

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Technical Committee

(6) National Coordinators: NPTEL, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT, NIOS

(32) Channel Coordinators for managing the channels

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for content creation and delivery

III. National Coordinators: There shall be a National Coordinator for each of the educational level, who shall be overall incharge for producing quality content for the channels. For this purpose, the National Coordinators designated for the MOOCs programme will be designated as National Coordinators for this project too. They would appoint the Channel Coordinators from among the Professors working under their jurisdiction on an honorary basis. The

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responsibility to ensure that content being aired is of the standards prescribed under the project lies with the National Coordinator.

S. No

National Coordinators Sectors

1 University Grants Commission (UGC)

Non Technology Post Graduation Degree Programme

2 NPTEL (Different IITs) Technical / Engineering UG & PG degree programme.

3 Consortium for Educational Communication

Non Technology Under Graduation degree programme.

4 IGNOU Diploma and Certificates5 NCERT NCERT (classes 9th to 12th )6 NIOS Open Education (classes 9th to 12th )

The NC is also responsible for translation of content into regional languages. Efforts shall be made to transcribe videos to enable translation of all text and then dub the voice; in as many Indian languages as possible. For this purpose, the services of Bharatvani, CIIL & other institutions can be used.

IV. Channel Coordinators: For each Channel, there shall be a Channel Coordinator (CC) designated as such by the NC. The CC shall be a reputed Professor in the subject(s) being handled in the Channel, and shall have administrative experience to lead a team of expert teachers. The CC shall be responsible for the following:

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a) Maintaining a dedicated ‘teaching­end’ or satellite enabled studio for preparing the content. This will be designated as the Head Quarters of the channel. b) Finalising the telecast programme for the next 30 days, duly dividing it date and topic wise; and notifying same by publishing on the SWAYAM PRABHA web portal.c) Finalizing the pedagogy for the lessons on the channel.d) Allocation of topics to expert teachers and getting the video content prepared, reviewed and approved by committees. e) To keep ready 120 hours of fresh video content ready for telecast at any point of time. f) To ensure that the video content is of the highest standards; and is recorded in HD, as per a schedule and stored in MPEG2 format. The content shall be shared with BISAG in time for processing and up­linking as per the schedule. g) To receive funds for content preparation, release the same to the subject matter experts (SMEs) and render accounts/utilisation certificate to the NC.

V. Subject Matter Experts: The Channel Coordinator shall identify as many Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as needed keeping in view the requirements. SMEs transact the teaching­learning process on the DTH. The SMEs shall not only be expert teachers with experience and reputation, but shall have excellent communication abilities and screen presence. The Channel Coordinator allocates topics to the SME and would fix the date for telecast. The selected SME has to record his lecture at least 15 days prior to the date for transmission. On intimation of the topic and the date for the telecast, The SMEs shall take the following steps:

Prepare lesson plan for the topic assigned to them, along with the exhibits, models, slides, multi­media required for teaching the concepts scientifically.

The lesson plan and pedagogy shall be examined by a Subject Committee and approved along with suitable modifications.

Based on the approved lesson plan, the SME shall prepare for the lesson and finalise the schedule for recording of the lesson.

SME should provide relevant images, storyboard, animations, graphics etc., before recording.

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Teacher in camera may appear only upto 25% of the time; and for the rest of the time, the timeline may carry teacher’s voice on which graphics, animation, text etc.

The performance before the Camera would require clear speech without the Teleprompter.

The video content shall be designed in a way that holds the attention of the viewers. It should contain Animation, Simulations, video demonstrations, Virtual Labs etc apart from the video of the lecture.

Processes to be followed for creating content

A. Preparations for content creationAlready a lot of video content has been prepared as a part of the MOOCs project. All such content can be used for transmission provided it confirms to the specifications for the SWAYAM PRABHA project. Where suitable material is not available, it should be created afresh. For creating fresh content, the following pre­planning steps are critical and must be taken care of: a) Identify the purpose of the topic and the target audience.b) Create a timelines with detailed tasks to be accomplished.c) Determining the optimum time frame for the course, and

conceptualizing a course design (such as open, structured, or non­linear) and release format.

d) Specify broad learning outcomes.e) There shall be doubt clearing sessions at the end of each lecture

where questions can be taken using telephone from the students; or FAQs can be answered based on the questions received on the e­mail.

B. Allocation of the recording resources:The CC is responsible for projecting to the NC the studio requirements for recording the lessons or for live lecture. The NC would mobilize the existing resources or would procure the same and place the same under the control of the CC. The CC would thereafter be responsible for allocating the studio time for recording the lecture or for live transmission.

C. Recording the content:

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a) The Cameras and the Recorder used, shall follow at least the following standards: Three 1/3" type; Full HD CMOS sensors; PAL color, CCIR­B standards; HDTV 1080/50; Gross Pixels > 2 Million; camera to have a resolution of 750 TVL or better; Proxy Video: MPEG­2 AVC/H.264, 3.5 Mbps MP4; Aspect Ratio 16:9; Audio: AAC 2ch, 16bit, 48kHz, HD/Standard Definition DV Recording.

b) Editing processes & Standards. Video recording format: Full HD 1920x1080 pixels. Videos aspect ratio: 16:9 (widescreen). Module Delivery: 1920p following MPEG­2 AVC Compression. Audio Channel 1 to have Mixed Audio Track. Font size: Heading: 24­30; Sub­heading: 22­26; Body: 20­24; Full screen Video Frame. All graphs and diagrams must have clear font. Video frame to maintain 6­8% headroom; Video quality and Audio levels should be constantly monitored while recording.

c) The expert/teacher should speak extempore and avoid reading from written material or a Teleprompter.

d) The SME should provide two video files, one in raw format and other in compressed format.

e) Voice modulation be taken care of and the voice should remain same throughout the video as in a classroom situation. Two voices in the same video for lecture and slides may be avoided. However, video clips or audio clips from eminent experts can be used.

D. Quality assurance Quality of the content is the key element of DTH, and therefore shall be monitored throughout the design, development and delivery cycle of the DTH. It shall be the responsibility of the Channel Coordinator to produce content of the highest quality; and this shall be assured through the following steps: Subject Committees shall be set up by the CC to evaluate the

lesson plans, the associated pedagogy, and the proposed content. The SCs would check the accuracy, quality, and would check the content for plagiarism and source of information.

Review Committee: After production/recording of the lecture, a Review Committee will examine whether the content is in accordance with the overall quality parameters defined.

Protection of IPRs: The SMEs will have to obtain copyright clearance for any readings, images, and video clips used as core and supplementary reading in case of licensed material if used.

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Scheduling and Transmission

Each Channel Coordinator (CC) shall be responsible for publishing the schedule for the next 30 days on 15th of each month in the following format:

Date From time

To time Duration Topic Name of the SME

Level of teaching

This schedule should be displayed on a Portal that would be created for this purpose by the NC. It shall be the responsibility of the CC to ensure that the content feed shall reach the BISAG at least 15 days prior to the scheduled telecast. The technical team at the BISAG shall check the quality of the content and would approve the same for transmission.

Activity schedule and Time lines It is proposed to launch the transmission of these channels on 15th August 2016. For this purpose, the following activities shall be completed as per the time schedules given:

Activity Start date

End date

Person responsible

Obtaining statutory clearances 22nd June

15th July

ECIL/BISAG

Appointment of National Coordinators (NCs) 21st June

21st June

MHRD

Allocation of Channels 21st June

21st June

MHRD

Appointment of Channel Coordinators(CCs) 22nd June

30th June

NCs

Orientation prog of the Channel Coordinators

4th July

4th July

MHRD

Appointment of Subject Committees 5th July

10th July

CCs

Identification of Subject matter experts(SMEs)

5th July 10th July

CCs

Orientation of the SMEs and the Subject committees

11th July

15th July

CCs

Finalization of the 1st month schedule, allocation of studios

11th July

15th July

CCs

Preparation of material/review/finalization for 1st month transmission

15th July

31st July

SMEs and SCs

Transfer of the first month material to BISAG

31st July

5th August

All SMEs and CCs

Test transmission by BISAG 5th August

10th August

BISAG

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Launch 15th August 2016

Finalization of the 2nd month schedule, identification of SMEs & allocation of studios

16th Aug

16th Aug

CCs

Preparation of material/review/finalization for 2nd month transmission

17th Aug

31st Aug

SMEs and SCs

Transfer of the 2nd month (16th Sept to 15th Oct) material to BISAG

31st Aug

5th Sept All SMEs and CCs

Costs for production

Much of the content for the SWAYAM PRABHA would be repurposed from the content already developed for the MOOCs programme. There would be no additional cost payable for production of such content.

However, there would be content that has to be created exclusively for this project which is not already produced for the MOOCs. Any content so produced for this project shall be subsequently converted into MOOCs and hosted on the SWAYAM platform in the manner prescribed. Where content has been created exclusively for this project, the following costs would be met from the project (all costs for one hour of actual transmission):

1. Payment of honorarium to the SME @ Rs. 2,500 per hour. 2. Production/post production costs: The following costs of production for one hour of content recording (based on the costs bring incurred in IIT Bombay) would be allowed:

Number of Persons

Cost Per hour(Rs.)

Project in‐charge 1500Production costs Camera person 1 1000Assistant 1 750Tech support Missing/audio/lights 2 1500Post production Capture 1 1000Edit (4 hours work for one hour video)

14000

Render ( 1 hour work) 1000Storage and content management 1 1250 Total for one hour (on average) 12,0003. Channel management: Apart from this, for management of the Channel, each Channel Coordinator would be provided the following support:

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Item Number Per month (Rs)

Total per annum

( Rs lakh) Honorarium 10000 1.2Administration assistance 2 20000 4.8Finance and office support 1 15000 3.6Office expenses 0.4 Total per channel per year 10

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