Learning management system at Islamia College Srinagar
Why is Islamia College a distinct institute during these COVID-19 times?
COVID-19 enforced disruption of global educational activities with closure of institutional campuses has stuck academics in the homes, and the teachers are managing it very well by offering online education to students at their doorsteps. At a time when this pandemic is considered to be a blow to academics worldwide, and has redefined the role of educators with debate brewing on response of educational institutions during post COVID-19 era too, some arguing that the next casualty of the COVID-19 may be the academic calendar, we in Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Srinagar aim to manage our academics in a virtual mode using ICT based teaching learning processes to cope with the unprecedented institutional closure due to this coronavirus pandemic. Almost administrators and academic leaders are in a struggling phase to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving academic situations and to decide when to reopen the higher educational campuses back to class room teaching. Being a faculty at ICSC, I can sense how this ongoing academic crisis has influenced both the administration and the teaching faculty at the beginning of the spring session in the college when admission process was in full swing for the newly introduced honours and integrated courses in the college. Class work is in bloom for some UG and PG semesters when coronavirus pandemic hit this campus too and college was shut for a time known to none. Whatever was planned as per the academic calendar is standstill.
My this piece is a eulogy for an in-house built-up of our ERP (enterprise resource planning) project in our College to manage the institutional education processes in real time by using modern educational software and technology by our tech-savvy and academically entrusted leadership. Sensing that the ICT use in academics has redefined the role of teachers and students during these COVID-19 crises times when Google classes and Zoom classes are the talk of the times, our incumbent leadership initiated a distinct learning management system (LMS) in our college with various means and modes of online teaching-learning and control to cope up with the COVID-19 enforced break to our campus academics. Moreover, sensing that on campus academic activity can’t continue nor is going to start very near, shifting of our college academics to IC-CMS (Islamia College Content Management System) platform can be thought of a relevant antidote to truncated classroom teaching by global pandemic of COVID-19. With this CMS in place, Islamia College Srinagar has assumed a distinct accolade in the whole J&K during COVID-19 times of imparting online education with unique features not even offered by the Google classroom and zoom cloud.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed the progress of worldwide academics at all levels from schools to universities, launch of this in-house facility in our college is a much cherished dream for all of us to offer academics in our own way at ICSC in the times when every higher educational institute of developed and developing world has shifted to online mode to offer non-stop teaching-learning process to its student community.
This in-house teaching platform of our college is full of academic features ranging from using its virtual keyboard to write and post text lectures, upload video lectures, voice lectures, study notes, create assignments, engage in question-answer sessions with the students, generating quiz and managing learning content online, etc. It has enabled all our bonafide students (albeit those connected through computers and smart devices) to be again in a learning mode in a particular classroom in a redefined manner running on e-classes time table from 10: 00 to 4:00 pm following a set e-time table. With this learning platform in place, it has finally paved way for it’s first of its kind and much cherished dream of our worthy principal to run the IC-CMS for academic deliverance to its student community in best possible terms. In fact this is the vision statement for all of us to map the college academics to its fullest success for its stakeholders for which college faculty is depicting full support and cooperation to administration.
During COVID-19 times, this platform has enabled us to conduct online classes on daily basis with proper record of the attendance when everyone is at home to stay safe. However, certain questions come to mind to feel, as is this virtual reality an alternative to give a new lifeline to higher education, perhaps it can be rue for other world parts but perhaps not for us who have been struggling to impart best possible online education at a 2G network, which is a blow to online teaching in this part of the world. Presence of high speed internet would have bestowed a real life to its operations for the benefit of student community and teacher’s satisfaction for a smooth academic delivery. Using this platform is, therefore, full of challenges in lieu of network problems and low internet speed presently clogging our online academic delivery system. Both students and teachers are finding it a great difficulty in connecting online. Despite these challenges and all odds of stressful time when everyone is in some level of psychological distress and anxiety due to much hyped Covid-19 fear, we aim to engage our students and keep them learning and growing taking due care of student needs and facilities to stabilise them at this online teaching platform. However, student interest and coming to learn at this platform is pivotal to its ultimate success. Motivating, encouraging and guiding students towards this platform is too a challenge both for college administration and its teaching faculty. Students must adhere to this system to help and support us in making this virtual reality a success for these times as well as in the times to come.
Despite certain technical snags presently faced with, our leadership and IT experts are trying all means to make it an effective and inclusive model for sustainable teaching in our institution in times to come. However, to manage the technology and to do a good teaching-learning in a totally different medium is a difficult situation to manage and it will vary among the teachers and the students due to differences in capability of using computers and IT tools to teach and learn. Therefore, need to collaborate with online learning and education specialists to make the much aspired digital learning a real success for both the teaching faculty uniformly and the students is pivotal, because online teaching-learning necessarily doesn’t suit only this Covid-19 phase of education but blended learning mode (combination of classroom and online) is the need of the time to engage students and teachers in virtual world too during the unpredictable times unique to this region. It is equally prudent for the regional institutions to make contingency plans in line with the ideas and expectations as what may happen in the coming academic sessions or years besides planning for a return to campus based teaching-learning and research activities. Further for sciences, thinking and utilising virtual lab concepts and facilities is equally important to offer full academics in online mode.
Originally published in Rising Kashmir 24 April, 20
COVID-19 enforced disruption of global educational activities with closure of institutional campuses has stuck academics in the homes, and the teachers are managing it very well by offering online education to students at their doorsteps. At a time when this pandemic is considered to be a blow to academics worldwide, and has redefined the role of educators with debate brewing on response of educational institutions during post COVID-19 era too, some arguing that the next casualty of the COVID-19 may be the academic calendar, we in Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Srinagar aim to manage our academics in a virtual mode using ICT based teaching learning processes to cope with the unprecedented institutional closure due to this coronavirus pandemic. Almost administrators and academic leaders are in a struggling phase to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving academic situations and to decide when to reopen the higher educational campuses back to class room teaching. Being a faculty at ICSC, I can sense how this ongoing academic crisis has influenced both the administration and the teaching faculty at the beginning of the spring session in the college when admission process was in full swing for the newly introduced honours and integrated courses in the college. Class work is in bloom for some UG and PG semesters when coronavirus pandemic hit this campus too and college was shut for a time known to none. Whatever was planned as per the academic calendar is standstill.
My this piece is a eulogy for an in-house built-up of our ERP (enterprise resource planning) project in our College to manage the institutional education processes in real time by using modern educational software and technology by our tech-savvy and academically entrusted leadership. Sensing that the ICT use in academics has redefined the role of teachers and students during these COVID-19 crises times when Google classes and Zoom classes are the talk of the times, our incumbent leadership initiated a distinct learning management system (LMS) in our college with various means and modes of online teaching-learning and control to cope up with the COVID-19 enforced break to our campus academics. Moreover, sensing that on campus academic activity can’t continue nor is going to start very near, shifting of our college academics to IC-CMS (Islamia College Content Management System) platform can be thought of a relevant antidote to truncated classroom teaching by global pandemic of COVID-19. With this CMS in place, Islamia College Srinagar has assumed a distinct accolade in the whole J&K during COVID-19 times of imparting online education with unique features not even offered by the Google classroom and zoom cloud.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has overshadowed the progress of worldwide academics at all levels from schools to universities, launch of this in-house facility in our college is a much cherished dream for all of us to offer academics in our own way at ICSC in the times when every higher educational institute of developed and developing world has shifted to online mode to offer non-stop teaching-learning process to its student community.
This in-house teaching platform of our college is full of academic features ranging from using its virtual keyboard to write and post text lectures, upload video lectures, voice lectures, study notes, create assignments, engage in question-answer sessions with the students, generating quiz and managing learning content online, etc. It has enabled all our bonafide students (albeit those connected through computers and smart devices) to be again in a learning mode in a particular classroom in a redefined manner running on e-classes time table from 10: 00 to 4:00 pm following a set e-time table. With this learning platform in place, it has finally paved way for it’s first of its kind and much cherished dream of our worthy principal to run the IC-CMS for academic deliverance to its student community in best possible terms. In fact this is the vision statement for all of us to map the college academics to its fullest success for its stakeholders for which college faculty is depicting full support and cooperation to administration.
During COVID-19 times, this platform has enabled us to conduct online classes on daily basis with proper record of the attendance when everyone is at home to stay safe. However, certain questions come to mind to feel, as is this virtual reality an alternative to give a new lifeline to higher education, perhaps it can be rue for other world parts but perhaps not for us who have been struggling to impart best possible online education at a 2G network, which is a blow to online teaching in this part of the world. Presence of high speed internet would have bestowed a real life to its operations for the benefit of student community and teacher’s satisfaction for a smooth academic delivery. Using this platform is, therefore, full of challenges in lieu of network problems and low internet speed presently clogging our online academic delivery system. Both students and teachers are finding it a great difficulty in connecting online. Despite these challenges and all odds of stressful time when everyone is in some level of psychological distress and anxiety due to much hyped Covid-19 fear, we aim to engage our students and keep them learning and growing taking due care of student needs and facilities to stabilise them at this online teaching platform. However, student interest and coming to learn at this platform is pivotal to its ultimate success. Motivating, encouraging and guiding students towards this platform is too a challenge both for college administration and its teaching faculty. Students must adhere to this system to help and support us in making this virtual reality a success for these times as well as in the times to come.
Despite certain technical snags presently faced with, our leadership and IT experts are trying all means to make it an effective and inclusive model for sustainable teaching in our institution in times to come. However, to manage the technology and to do a good teaching-learning in a totally different medium is a difficult situation to manage and it will vary among the teachers and the students due to differences in capability of using computers and IT tools to teach and learn. Therefore, need to collaborate with online learning and education specialists to make the much aspired digital learning a real success for both the teaching faculty uniformly and the students is pivotal, because online teaching-learning necessarily doesn’t suit only this Covid-19 phase of education but blended learning mode (combination of classroom and online) is the need of the time to engage students and teachers in virtual world too during the unpredictable times unique to this region. It is equally prudent for the regional institutions to make contingency plans in line with the ideas and expectations as what may happen in the coming academic sessions or years besides planning for a return to campus based teaching-learning and research activities. Further for sciences, thinking and utilising virtual lab concepts and facilities is equally important to offer full academics in online mode.
Originally published in Rising Kashmir 24 April, 20
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