As for the rationale behind the move, Rao explained that e-learning will benefit corporates in reducing content time for face-to-face communications as part of the training programme, saving time in commuting and number of days apart from logistics costs as well. E-learning will rather increase business competencies apart from enhancing knowledge skills.

"This year, we hope corporates including SMEs to reduce their content time for face-to-face communication by 66% from 33% reduction, at present. Most corporates prefer video conferencing, experiential training apart from e-learning as an important tool to improve best practices," he added.

Lessons for first year students in 10 popular subjects will be uploaded on the website www.du.ac.in. "We've enhanced value to the text by adding pictures, addressing common misconceptions and providing questions," says Professor AK Bakshi, director, Institute of Life Long Learning (ILLL). "The idea is to encourage analytical thinking."

Net Gains

• DU is the first university to supplement classroom teaching with e-learning
  
• Video Snippest flash animation, simulation of experiments and graphs will be part of online syllabi

To make syllabi interesting, apart from text, online content will include live examples (java applets for simulation of experiment), flash animation, video snippets and links to related web pages.

A chapter on storytelling for BA students, for instance, talks about the language and vocabulary used by Salman Rushdie in Haroon and the Sea of Stories. "Besides the text, I've put in pictures of the author with links to his biographies and an interview on YouTube," says Sukrita Kumar, reader in English at Zakir Hussain College, on deputation with ILLL.

Mathematical problems are accompanied by illustrations from everyday life. "The paper on Mathematical Awareness is for non-math students. So we've peppered it with a history of famous mathematicians and the subject's applications in nature and life," says Geeta Venkataraman of St. Stephen's.

Besides being uploaded on the site, the content will also be distributed in the printed format.

The portal, noidausedbooksngoods.com, was launched on the occasion of World Book Day recently The portal has been launched to make books available to the needy students.

Noida and Greater Noida have emerged as educational hubs and have scores of professional institutes. Now Gautam Buddha University too is starting here.

There are scores of students who come to study here and spend huge amounts on their college and hostel fees.

More affected are students who come from not-so-rich families. And these students often spend nights at Old books can be effectively put to use. the library or have to visit far off Darya Ganj in search for second-hand books. This portal would come handy for such students.

The site will provide telephone numbers of passed out students and the status of the books to be given along with its cost.

Address of nearby libraries and book vendors will also be listed on the site. "Books these days have become very costly particularly those of MBA and such professional courses, and not every student can afford them. Many students are solely dependent on libraries," says Dr R. K. Gupta, Reader in Department of Commerce and Business Management at the college.

"Those who pass out often have no use of the books. They usually sell the books to junk dealers at meagre amounts even as the poor students are hunting for books. This portal would work as an interface between the two groups of students, and will benefit both," he says.

"Moreover, new students are otherwise also interested in buying old books from seniors since the used books often have important notes scribbled along the margins. The students also underline the essential matter that can be very beneficial to newcomers," he says.

Case studies, an important ingredient of the curriculum of the post graduate management programme (PGPM) of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), will serve as a new source of income for the institute. Accumulated over four decades of the existence of the institute, these case studies will be put up for sale to other Bschools, corporate and individuals, on the lines of Harvard Business School (HBS) where they are not just another pedagogical tool but also an important source of revenue.

NOW ON SALE

• IIM-A will first put 300 most popular case studies online, with different price tags for different category of customers
  
• Case studies contribute to more than 60% of PGPM curriculum at IIM-A
  
• The institute has collected over 2,500 case studies written either by faculty members or sourced from top global B-schools

"Our curriculum, based on the model of Harvard B-School, banks heavily on case studies. More than 60% of PGPM syllabus constitutes of case studies, on the lines of global B-schools like Harvard, London Business School and University of Texas at Austin, etc,'' said IIM-A faculty Arvind Sahay.

Imparting education surely has come a long way today, from gurukuls to virtual classrooms, where the teacher sits on his PC and teaches students across the globe while tutor and trainee are linked with a common site. Students preparing for competitions, medical or engineering tests in districts of Gurdaspur, Mansa, Abohar, Jind, Kaithal or the far off districts in Himachal, are now availing services of the best of teachers in these virtual classrooms.

D.C. Panday, who runs coaching institute in Chandigarh, says virtual teaching has helped him expand reach. An author of IIT entrance examination preparation books, Panday says he was flooded with e-mails from all over the country, requesting him to enrol students in his institute. "Since there is a limit on the number of students I can accept, the concept of virtual teaching has helped me. I now tell outstation students to opt for a virtual teaching session," he adds.

Harmanpreet Singh, founder and CEO of authorGen Technologies, which has developed a software called WiZiQ to help take virtual classes, says, "The concept has found acceptance in the region. In three months alone, we have witnessed 100 per cent growth in the users. All you need is a PC and a broadband connection, and you can start your teaching session".

The virtual classrooms have transcended the geographical boundaries as these newage gurus accept students from across the country as well as students from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and many other South-East Asian countries. Ask Gaurav Tekriwal, who conducts high-speed Vedic mathematics courses through WiZiQ platform for students in Hong Kong, the US, the UK, besides all metros within the country. "The reach of virtual classrooms is phenomenal. I can now sit anywhere in the world and conduct classes. We do not have a physical institute, teaching-learning is only through the computer," he says.

Its not just regular coaching that has found acceptance in e-learning. People like Kalyan Sarkar conduct motivational classes for clients across the world through a virtual class session. "People around the world are interested in upgrading their knowledge. And virtual classrooms serves a perfect platform," he says.

In fact, the concept has caught up well with the coaching institutes and many of them have launched a separate e-tutoring division. As the economies of scale improve, these e-tutors make a neat profit. For those, who are taking students in the US and the UK for reading, mathematics and science, they can easily make anything between $20-$90 an hour, with a one-on-one teaching session fetching more moolah.

Adds Harmanpreet, "As this is gaining acceptance, we have decided to launch a premium service with a payment module for the sessions and advanced features wherein we will be featuring specialised teachers in each field".

"The service is totally free and we believe that it will be useful to students during the upcoming admission season. Freshers can use it to obtain information on accommodations available near their campus, books available for sale, tutors and about upcoming college events, to list a few," says Peyush Bansal, 24, portal's programme manager and a graduate of McGill University, Canada.

"We are also adding several new features such as a discussion forum, which would help freshers communicate with their alumni to resolve their queries. The objective of the website is to make things convenient for students and to provide them a platform where they can easily contact their seniors or alumni to fulfil their mutual needs at the college, without the need for any intermediaries."

An interesting trend that has emerged from the website is the initiative on the part of students, points out Bansal. He says, "We have advertisements posted from students looking for other students to make a movie or even starting a band with them. There have also been several notices from students advertising freelance services and music lessons. Our team comprises of several students who are working with us to bring the website to the notice of their fellow students in various colleges across India."

The concept of a classifieds' website aiming directly at students is relatively new to India, but is getting a huge feedback as 4,000 students have already advertised on this three-month old portal.

If Vidha Jain, 21, from the University of Manchester is handling its managing operations, Neha Bansal, an all India 10 th rank chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is handling its finance and accounting. Similarly, students from different fields are sharing experiences and the network is growing.

George Joseph, assistant secretary of the university, said, "Although we have started this activity four months back, we are yet to upload all the course material, but it is still in the process." He further added that apart from the course material, the e-content included all the lectures and the solved problems during the academic sessions in the campus. Initiated as a mission towards helping students outside Yale campus, Joseph stressed on the fact that the university at present has no plans for any sort of certification through their online programmes.

Indian students, alumni and faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Maryland (UMD), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Caltech, Purdue and so on are bringing out an online Sanskrit magazine under the banner of Campus Samskritam Network (CSN). Hosted on the www.speaksanskrit.org website, the webzine is called 'Vishvavani' (the voice or the language of the world).

Last week the third issue of Vishvavani was released, featuring a wide range of topics. It had an article on ancient Indian mathematics by Prabha Mandyam, (Ph.D. student at Caltech), another on Swami Vivekananda by Harichandan Mantripragada (Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University) and a travelogue by Dr. Jyotsna Kalavar (associate professor at Penn State University).

The webzine is enriched by a 'subhashitam' (wise saying) and even a Sanskrit crossword puzzle. Sowmya Joisa and Avinash Varna, editors of the magazine, say that even though it is not the first online Sanskrit magazine it is currently the only active one available online.

The group has been inspired by the first online Sanskrit magazine 'Apoorvavani', which is not active any more, and by a monthly print magazine 'Sambhashana sandesha' - both brought out by Samskrita Bharati. In addition to a document format uploaded on the web, the contents of the magazine are also published on a blog to make it easier for readers to comment on and give feedback, according to a statement.

In the past two years, blogging in Sanskrit has emerged as a popular online activity contributing to and providing growing evidence of the popularity of the language. While some like 'kalidasa', maintained by Ajit Krishnan, a software engineer at Microsoft Seattle, cover a wide variety of topics, others like 'learnsanskrit' maintained by Himanshu Pota from Australia, focus on specific topics such as teaching Sanskrit, Sanskrit songs, grammar, words, wise sayings and so on.

The decision, awaiting final approval from the university's academic council, will benefit a number of students studying in other universities, say officials.

``We get several requests from students, especially those pursuing post-graduate studies, to access our library system which is one of the best in the country,'' said a senior official in the V-C's office. ``Till now, these requests were treated on a case-to-case basis. But once the new system comes into effect, it will allow students from other universities to use our libraries without having to go through a lengthy process to get permission.''

Adding to the irony is the fact that not many students seem to know about the answer sheets being put up on the site. Said Arjun Mehra, a class X student, ``I had read that the answer sheets would be put up but didn't know the board had done so. Neither do my friends know about it.'' Teachers seem to be equally clueless. Said Sunita Dang, teaching at Hillwoods Academy, ``I have no knowledge of the answer sheets being made available on the site.''

For those few students who do know about the board's move, the fact that the Maths answer sheet is from last year's syllabus has meant that the paper is of almost no use. Students say this year's syllabus is quite different, with even the marking system having changed.

Said Ashwini Sharma, another student, ``I saw the paper on CBSE's site but it's not really like the paper we will sit for. Chapters now have different weightage and the questions (in the past years paper) are a lot easier than the ones in the CBSE sample paper.'' Sharma is instead concentrating on the sample papers already recommended by her school.

Meanwhile, government schools are complaining that the CBSE seems to have thought about only the public schools by providing the English Communicative answer sheet. Most government schools opt for the English Core paper. Said Om Kapoor, teaching in a government school in east Delhi, ``The English Communicative paper is usually only given by public schools. Even the NCERT does not come out with a textbook on the subject. It only has books for English Core, which is what government schools opt for.''

Teachers point out that with the exams only a week away, CBSE's move is a bit late. CBSE however, doesn't believe so. Said a CBSE senior official, ``The model answer sheet basically provides a blueprint for the student on how to answer the question. It gives pointers on how to present the answer rather than just what to answer.''