Fully functional tech task force ensures smooth content delivery at The Alliance University, say experts

Education and healthcare sectors seemed to have not lost anything but gained in this pandemic situation. On the bright side, many educational institutions made a smooth transition to online curriculum making it easy for students to study. Bangalore-based Alliance University is also working towards ensuring a healthy and stress-free lifestyle to its students. In a conversation with Shiksha.com, the Associate Director at Alliance University Pritam Sarkar explains how they moved the curriculum online with new parameters to evaluate the performance of students.

Here is the edited excerpt of the conversation:

Q: How has today’s scenario of lockdown and global pandemic impacted your education system?

A: It has had an impact on global education and Alliance University is not immune to the same. At AU, we have realised that the need of the hour is to ensure the health of students without disturbing their academics. Thus, AU is one of the first few universities to witness the transition of classroom teaching to online teaching methodology.

Q: What are some of the interesting initiatives your institute has taken to make it easy for your students and also contribute to eradication of this pandemic?

A: The transition to virtual classrooms and change in the evaluation parameters of students are the initiatives we have taken to help students stay stress-free and calm. The situation is disturbing and stressful, we do not want the parents and students to overburden themselves. To ensure a healthy mind and life, we also organise group collaborations to let students stay connected with their batchmates.

Q: How is the institute planning to conduct exams, evaluate and declare result online?

A: we have already built and adopted world-leading technologies to help us sail through all of these. The exams and result declaration, will all be done online using various tools available.

Q: How are students responding to new initiatives?

A: Students are happy about the fact even in such a global crisis, their education is not hampered. Also, they are experiencing a new vertical of education. Earlier, students use to find online courses difficult because they were used to traditional brick n mortar classroom teaching methodology. But now they have understood the fact that it was a myth. They are proactively practicing online value-added courses to add value to their profile.

There has always been a challenge of bandwidth and internet connectivity, which is still there with few of the students but we are trying to come up with a platform that uses less internet bandwidth and deliver high-end results.

Q: What impact will it have on students’ interpersonal, team management skills?

A: There will not be much impact because of two to three months of break. We start working on students' leadership and team management skills from day one by encouraging them to participate in classroom discussions, presentations and extracurricular activities. These activities help to boost confidence in students and prepare them for a better tomorrow.

Q: What are the best practices that the college is adopting to ensure seamless online learning?

A: So far, we have been moving as per the planning done prior to lockdown. We have fixed timetables and schedules and till now no class or assignment has skipped. The content is made available to students before the class so they have an idea of what the session is going to be all about. We are also in dry-run phase of conducting the exams online

Also, we have a fully functional tech task force which ensures smooth content delivery

Q: How will today’s situation revolutionise online learning in India and abroad?

A: COVID-19 has served as a catalyst in the present situation. With technology changing so fast and the speed at which we are adapting to changes, we were anyways moving towards making the education system online. This is why online courses are gazing traction in our country. But, with the outbreak of COVID-19, we have all achieved the same now. Mostly all universities and institutes have moved their curriculum online and students have also become familiar with virtual classrooms and their benefits. Soon, the entire education system will be revolutionised and students will be able to enroll themselves to the university in the other corner of the country from their home