UoM to launch online courses in geography, sericulture

The Educational Multi-Media Research Centre (EMMRC) in the University of Mysore (UoM) will soon introduce Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in geography and sericulture.

At its second general meeting chaired by Vice Chancellor  K S Rangappa on Tuesday, UoM Academic Council members approved the introduction of the courses.

EMMRC, under the directions of the Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), an inter-university centre of the University Grants Commission (UGC), had sought to introduce MOOCs under Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) programme. The programme is an initiative of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

For the benefit of students of the varsity and affiliated colleges, ‘Elements of Geomorphology and Physical Geography’ and ‘Climatology and Oceanography’ will be introduced in geography while ‘Mulberry and Silkworm Crop Protection’ will be included in sericulture. The syllabus of the courses has been framed by subject experts and EMMRC, Mysuru has developed the e-content.

The Academic Council also decided to collect a fee from autonomous colleges under the UoM after a few members said that a majority of the colleges were utilising all services from the varsity without paying any fee as per norms. The colleges collect fee from students but fail to pay it to the varsity, they said.

The council decided to offer 100% fee exemption to physically challenged PhD candidates. It declined to approve the carry over system for Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) students. A few students had requested the varsity to allow them to appear for the third year as they would have to waste one year if admissions were denied. Most of the third and fifth semester students have more than four backlog papers and most of the fifth semester candidates have backlog papers in first and second semesters. Hence, the students who have backlog papers in the first year are not eligible to go to third year.

The principal of a government postgraduate (PG) college, who is also a member, urged the VC to appoint government PG college professors for evaluation of answer papers.
UoM Registrar R Rajanna, Director of College Development Council Lingaraj Gandhi and newly appointed members T K Umesh, T Ramakrishna, B Jagadeesh, K T Appajappa and K Somashekar were also present.