Realising its social responsibility and due to its concern about the well-being of its various stakeholders in the present-day unprecedented circumstances due to the spread of Covid-19, The NorthCap University proactively responded by playing its part in mitigating the spread of the virus by taking several measures. The University took immediate steps like disinfecting the campus regularly, promoting hygiene and encouraging social distancing etc. as advised by the Govt. and medical experts. Further, as directed by the Govt., the University decided to suspend all regular classes from 16th March, 2020 onwards.
The University understood the gravity of the situation because of this disruption, and as a progressive institution, was the first to take the initiative of keeping the students academically engaged by offering online classes. The University decided that all teaching-learning would be in virtual settings with immediate effect till 31st March, 2020.
Moving from face-to-face classes in classroom settings to virtual instructions was very challenging for both the faculty and the students as everything had to be managed within a very short time frame. The entire university stepped up and joined hands in utilizing the present trying times to provide a satisfying online learning experience to students. Rigorous training sessions using webinars were conducted for all users to equip them with the expertise of working on one of the well-known professional online platform ‘Microsoft Teams’. Instructions and user manuals were shared with all users through several emails and audio/video messages. The technical & IT teams of the university worked round the clock to create virtual class groups and handle queries.
Right from the first day onwards, the live interactive classes are running online just like they were held on any regular working day according to laid down timetable. The students are being informed about all classes through a virtual calendar that has been created for this purpose. A reminder is also being sent to all students using WhatsApp class groups so that the students do not miss out on the scheduled classes.
The response of this remote learning from students has been phenomenal as the attendance of all classes is around 90%, which is at par with that of regular classes. All software-based labs are being conducted very effectively through virtual instructions. Further on, demonstration videos are being planned for hardware-based labs so that even they are also suitably engaged. Students are submitting time-bound assignments to teachers and receiving feedback.
“As a student, I am enjoying the learning experience and I believe no other option could have been better implemented. Students can openly ask questions and introverts are not introverts anymore. Teachers are using different tools to make the class more interactive”, feels Pranav Jain, a third year Computer Science and Engineering student.
The entire experience is emotionally and intellectually fulfilling for the faculty as they continue on this journey of imparting quality education to the students. There has been no shortage of support for each other both from the students and the staff as we navigate through these challenging times. Dr Kavita Khanna, Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering said "We at NCU don’t just teach technology, we practice it as well, we use it to face the unforeseen challenges that are brought before us from time to time. We have once again proved to be the real digital natives and a proud technologically savvy organization by embracing the change smoothly. In this uncertain situation when organizations struggle to find solutions, we have successfully sailed through.”
This is what Animesh Das, a first year student at The NorthCap University had to say about online learning, “The lecture delivery by faculty, the doubt clearing sessions and assignment submission is smooth, which is where I would like to say that the classroom comes to my home. The classes are also recorded on a daily basis so that we can revisit them in case we miss out on something. The process of online learning during this period of quarantine is helping us maintain our learning curve and hence when the university resumes we won't lag behind in the academic activities of the year.”
According to the experts, the impact of the deadly coronavirus is likely to reverberate across global higher education long after the outbreak is eventually brought under control. At NCU we strongly feel that going online is a very good alternative considering our experience of this smooth glide from face-to-face learning to online-only learning.
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