HOW ITM WENT ONLINE ?

The software’s, technological requirements and potentials

ITM DEHRADUN SHARES ITS EXPERIENCE

ONLINE CLASSES BY ITM COLLEGE

In view of the Government of India’s directive for a nationwide lockdown on account of Carona Pandemic and Social Distancing the colleges too have been closed, presently up to 3rd May 2020, and the INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT,(ITM DEHRADUN) though also declared classes suspended from day one of the order i.e 16.3.2020, was never distracted, neither dithered and never defied the lockdown, but proceeded on Online Mode of Classes and now after 4 weeks the college has also arranged for Online mode of Examinations.

In the interest of studies and utilizing the time, keeping the students indoors and remaining glued to their devices the honor was fully accorded to the LOCKDOWN advisories and the study too did not hamper.

It may be pertinent to mention here that we have not lost even a single day, nevertheless a single hour/period, ever since the lockdown pandemonium began, in smooth conduct of online classes in virtual mode, in which students are actively attending daily as per the regular real time tables.

HOW WE WENT ONLINE:

The process for online classes started unaware from the beginning of the year 2019 and it took nearly one year to be fully functional and easily familiar with all the students, faculty and the peoples at the back end.

ITM made a contract with a SOFTWARE vendor Edgesis about a year back and the feature that was installed initially, as per our the then needs and subsequently updated, as per our requirements were,

• 1. A separate dashboard, each for Superadmin, Admin, Accounts, Faculty, and students with of facility of providing unique id.
• 2. A fully dedicated server was created.
• 3. A URL was created for the access https://www.itmddn.online/signin/index?redirect=/ 
• 4. A semester wise separate syllabus for all the ongoing courses was uploaded
• 5. A complete list of Professors/teaching domain was provided that included their expertise and concurrent topics allotted for study during the particular semester.
• 6. All the students enrolled in the ITM were registered online, with their names, email ids, phone numbers, courses, current semesters, their fee details, the fee paid, fee balances.
• 7. The semester change is activated every time like 1st goes to 2nd, 3rd goes to 5th and similarly, the second goes to 4th, 4th to 6th.
• 8. Similarly, the new enrollments were also reported and updated to the Edgesis for updating.
• 9. The dashboard also includes details of the time tables
• 10. LMS- Learning Management System that includes, the notices/ lecture notes/ videos/ pdfs/uploaded.
• 11. Dashboard for admin also includes Exams
• 12. Results
• 13. Question answers by various students and their answers by the faculty given online.
• 14. Notices
• 15. Emails
• 16. Reports
• 17. The faculty dashboard includes his her time tables, her number of students/ their daily attendance lecture wise and the provision for uploading lecture notes in pdfs, MSW, videos, u-tube lecture, ppts
• 18. The student’s dashboard included their time tables, the notes/ lecture timings/ lecture notes and a feature for question answers, etc.
• 19. The accounts dashboard included the names of the students with fee paid/ balances etc and a provision for reminders.
• 20. Online Library: All the textbooks prescribed by the University for all the semesters of the running courses have been got scanned through a professional scanner in Delhi, along with some important reference books and uploaded as e-library. All the students, faculty, admin, the super admin can access the e-library from anywhere anytime on the devices of their choice or availability.
• 21. The students can not view faculty Dashboard, the faculty can not view the admin dashboard but the admin and super admin can view dashboard downwards.
• 22. The persons/ students/ faculty issued with unique id and passwords can access the software Edgesis at the https://www.itmddn.online/signin/index?redirect=/  from their devices like smartphones, pcs, laptops, net-enabled smart TVs, etc, anytime including e-library can be consulted.
• 23. The software we are using is an interactive one, and we have been using this from the beginning of the academic year already and that made it possible for the students to immediately start studies at their homes online, teachers to work from home, principal and management to supervise from their respective homes. A no loss situation.
• 24. Not only this, but the student's daily attendance/ lecture wise and faculty attendance is also being monitored and is available on record in digital format, visible to the Admin /super-admin only.
• 25. The students, who by any chance missed the online classes, have the option to study the notes provided and available all-time on the respective faculty notice folders available online.
• 26. A new feature Zoom has also been introduced as a feature on the Edgesis, through which we can straightaway give live lectures live and interact and address the students face to face online for any number from 1 -250studdents at a time and 1-4 hosts at a time contemporarily.
• 27. The daily and weekly/monthly or semester wise attendance can be viewed by the admin and Super admin.
• 28. Percentage progress of lectures completed by various faculty, daily/ weekly, topic wise /course wise/ syllabus wise in all semesters can be daily viewed and supervised by the admin dashboard.
• 29. On the top of it, we have introduced a system of Online examination also, to be time-bound and completed within the allotted time schedule of 45 minutes, with all secrecy and without the use of unfair means, as all students are under webcam surveillance and the exams are scheduled to be held in two to three meetings in a day.
• 30. Online questions have been prepared in MCQ format with true or false and would be available to students on their devices, like smartphones, Smart TVs, PCs, Laptops, etc. at their homes on the slotted dates and time in a given exam schedule circulated.
• 31. For smooth conduct of exams, online the Edgesis has made provision for two fully dedicated servers so that the entire process can go uninterrupted.
• 32. Webcam security for the examinees has also been provided to see if there is any use of unfair means by the examinees.
• 33. There are about 1000 students enrolled and 50 faculty. (with 13 courses, nine from SDSUV and four from HNBGU)
• 34. All the students and faculty have been provided with a unique login id and password to access the dashboards. The admin and super admin can overview the minute to minute progress of the faculty, courses and student's feedback.
• 35. All the students/ faculty have been advised to make use of high-speed internet data through broad bands or mobile data packs.
• 36. The provision for online checking of the answer sheets is again a foolproof method of assessment.
• 37. The mark sheets in the approved format will be prepared instantly by the software for each student.
• 38. There is a provision for the online inquiry by the students, in case the examinee faces any problem during the running of exams.
• 39. Our students have, during the last three weeks of lockdown and studying online classes have become accustomed to this online mode and quite happy and punctual in their attendance too.

The time has come when we should now have the provision of -technology and e-governance like infrastructure.

We are not sure about the length of the lockdowns or occurrences of such non-celestial or celestial events. And our academic activities must go on.

We are with the Government; we support the guidelines of our affiliating university and promise to always abide by it.

In my view of the above the University Guidelines may also include the additional feature, E-Learning so that institutes with all these online infrastructural facilities like e-learning compatibility, compliance and competence shall always remain prepared for any such exigencies or options, whenever, whatever.

By Dr.VINOD KHANNADirector, ITM, Dehradun