Massive open online courses for agricultural professionals launched

HYDERABAD: Opening unlimited opportunities for the less privileged in India to have an access to quality agricultural education, Massive Open Online Courses ( MOOCs) for agricultural professionals were launched here at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ( ICRISAT) global headquarters.

The MOOCs will be offered through the National Virtual Academy for Indian Agriculture, an online platform built on an open source software "Open edX," to meet the requirements specifically of India's agricultural education system, where available resources are scarce relative to the extremely large audience - in a country where more than 70 per cent of the population is involved in agriculture directly or indirectly, according to a statement by ICRISAT.

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) now enable building of "classrooms without boundaries" in the cloud to provide sharing opportunities of courses and learning approaches among academic institutions in India, in order to reach the masses.

With this platform, one course can have the potential to reach 50,000-150,000 learner participants at one time - particularly those who are less privileged, far from education centres, and with lesser resources, it said.

Yesterday's launch is a regional event of the new global education consortium, One Agriculture - One Science.

This consortium is an international partnership between ICRISAT and top agricultural universities, research organisations and other related agencies from India, Africa and the USA working towards revitalising global agricultural education, capacity building and technology transfer to address the challenges of global food and nutritional security, ICRISAT said.

The initiative in India specifically seeks to contribute to its agricultural education system, bringing systematic changes through strategic coalition of regional, national and international partners.

The MOOCs is a recent development in distance education in the country, which has now been boosted by the consortium through the pooling of international expertise, experience and resources.

Offering free online agricultural courses aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the internet.

MOOCs will have traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, as well as interactive user forums to help build a community for learners (students, professors and teaching assistants) within India, it added.