NPTEL stands for National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning. It is a project funded by MHRD, initiated in 2003. It is a joint initiative of seven Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISC) for offering courses on engineering and science, initially.
Now, NPTEL has started online course in computer science; electrical, mechanical, and ocean engineering; management; humanities, music etc. It offers free course with nominal fees for certification. Anybody from anywhere can join their course. NPTEL uses the open-source technology for offering courses. The courses are powered by Google’s open-source platform Course Builder that runs on App Engine and Compute Engine. Also, it offers course content mainly in video lectures prepared in a conventional classroom environment, while some may also use slides to share the content. Already, NPTEL is the largest single repository of technical courses in the world in the streaming video format and with text meta data for videos, text transcription and subtitling, and possible conversions to all Indian languages. Initially, its courses were having a minimal interactivity and uneven quality, even then the courses ceased to attract a large number of learners.
Currently, NPTEL is offering more than 1200 courses and is planning to launch 600 more courses on various topics for the period 2016-2020.
