In 2016, the Indian government introduced the SWAYAM regulation, allowing Indian MOOCs to be an alternative to regular classroom learning in higher education. The policy was designed to facilitate broader access to high-quality learning content and provisioning for credit transfer. However, after the introduction of the regulation, little or no studies have been conducted on the impact of MOOC policy in higher education. This study employs a policy evaluation framework to ascertain the effects of the SWAYAM MOOC policy on its key stakeholders, students, and faculty in higher education based on the data gathered from our survey.Drawing from more than five hundred survey data collected from multiple engineering and science colleges across India, we investigated the experiences of both faculty and students using quantitative and qualitative statistics. The analysis compared stakeholders’ perspectives on MOOCs with traditional classroom learning. Our study revealed that the current version of MOOCs under the SWAYAM policy fails to provide avenues for face-to-face discussion, hands-on skill development or real-life learning experiences, which are crucial in engineering and science education. However, students and faculty agreed that MOOCs provide learning flexibility and enrich knowledge beyond the classroom curriculum. The faculty members also believe that MOOCs negatively impact the professional development of the students. We also found that students understood the importance of classroom learning and were convinced that MOOCs should not substitute classroom courses. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and highlighting feedback for policy stakeholders.

Authors:
Pramath Kant, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Anurag Mehra, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Pramath Kant is a University Doctoral Student at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in India

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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