How ISBR is reaching out to students & faculty during lockdown

An unexpected situation of lockdown was created after the outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide. India recognised it in the early stages and stepped forward to take a big decision of closing down the entire system. One such industry, which has caught the pace and moving ahead despite the shutdown, is the Education. The stakeholders of this industry could not stop even a single day. ISBR Business School was well-prepared to face this crisis. The academic team started exploring options a few days before the lockdown.  A well-charted plan was prepared and right from the very first day of lockdown ISBR initiated several teaching-learning engagements. ISBR has recognised several options of digital engagement which includes live classes by faculty, Virtual Guest and CEO talks, online courses from platforms like Swayam, Coursera, etc. Access to several e-resources and online assessments.

A glimpse of the efforts:

Virtual Classes by Faculty

Faculty of ISBR have explored creative ways of being in touch with the students. Regular classes have been going on Zoom and Google classrooms.  The other ways that faculty are also engaging are Google Hangouts, Skype, YouTube, Google Classrooms. Zoom provides 40-minute free meeting sessions and the entire class is able to log in and participate in a virtual classroom session with a board and marker, content display, content share and video recording of classes. Google Classrooms enable recorded classes and provide access to Google Docs and Drive, the possibility for instant collaboration between teachers and students even outside the classroom. Faculty are able to effectively use case studies, Conduct student seminars and do the assessments online.

Virtual Guest Lectures and CEO Talks

To make virtual engagement more interesting and to provide varied perspectives faculty at ISBR have been once a week guest talks and Talk from CEOs. Guest Lectures on Indian Ethos and Business Ethics by Srividya Nagaraju, an International TedX Speaker and IIMB Alumnus and Rajesh Rao, South Regional Head, Youth for Seva, were organised. Mohan Kumar from Wipro, Gaurav Nigam from Infosys, Prof. Surendra from IIM Ahmedabad are invited to deliver Guest Talk.  Samartha Raghava, CEO of Five BARZ, has been invited to deliver the CEO talk.

Online Mentoring

Mentoring sessions are also happening through several tools that are available. Faculty are reaching out to students both individually and as groups to guide them in the learning process.

Online Courses Students and Faculty

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) offering of free Swayam courses to students and faculty has encouraged registration to such courses during this lockdown. Also, ISBR has signed up with Coursera, an online portal offering 200 online courses during this lockdown period.  All faculty and students have registered for more than one course each from both these platforms.

Access to Online Resources

ISBR Knowledge Centre is proactively sharing e-books supporting the virtual classes.  Knowledge Centre is in constant touch with students and faculty and fulfilling the resource requirements. Apart from these, the Knowledge Centre has opened up several online resource portals and access has been shared to all faculty and students.

Online Assessments

ISBR is also working towards a systematic pattern of online assessments and evaluation on an AI platform. ISBR is always proactive in bringing the best of changes which are relevant and forward-looking. ISBR makes every difficult situation an opportunity to learn and innovate. 

Note: This article has been published on the basis of press communication by the college