NU MBA to have Swayam courses from this year

Nagpur: In a probable first among traditional universities, Nagpur University would be the first to introduce online Swayam courses in its MBA syllabus, which was mandated by apex bodies like University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Though the UGC had set a time frame of two to three years for all universities to make required changes, NU management faculty fought hard in the Academic Council meeting to introduce Swayam courses, as NU officials opposed it initially citing staff crunch. When the faculty members explained to them on how their burden of conducting examinations of two subjects and evaluation would be reduced significantly, the officials readily agreed to it.
The management faculty has decided to restructure entire syllabus and decided to introduce Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) under the Swayam portal. NU has allowed to implement MOOCs in the syllabus on pilot basis. Based on its success, the same would be introduced in other faculties.
Last week, the faculty led by Board of Studies (BoS) chairman Sanjay Kavishwar conducted a workshop for around 80 MBA teachers to apprise them of the changes in curriculum along with the process to conduct exams and evaluation. The workshop was conducted under the guidance of NU Swayam coordinator Rekha Sharma.
“Under MOOCs, it has been made mandatory for students to complete two modules which would be equivalent to two subjects. The students wouldn’t have any deadline for completing them. We’ve granted them liberty to submit their clearance certificate just before their final semester exams so that their marks/credits would be reflected in the final mark sheet. It means they can pursue those modules and clear the exams as per their convenience,” Kavishwar told TOI.
Since the new syllabus requires complete overhaul of the system and introduction of complex procedures, the faculty’s orientation workshop was of slightly longer duration of 40 hours. “It’s a revolutionary change where classroom would take shape of a laboratory. Evaluators would be imparted training to frame questions and help students to find out its solution, which is completely different from current exam system. With this, MBA students can pursue any two subjects of his liking like astrophysics, yoga, Sanskrit among many offered under Swayam,” professor Lalit Khullar, who’s imparting training to the faculty members in MOOCs, told TOI.
The students would get four credit points for completing one module and it’s mandatory for them to have eight such points to get MBA degree. However, both senior faculty member said, “Implementation of new system would be the biggest challenge. We need to first teach MBA teachers on how to disassociate from the old syllabus otherwise it’s very difficult to learn new one. The entire syllabus is outcome-based,” Kavishwar said.