UGC develops 4 new MOOCs; asks universities to encourage students to enrol

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has developed four new Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in buddhist culture and tourism and community engagement and social responsibility on the Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) platform. The new courses will be offered from the January 2023 semester. The commission has asked universities to encourage students to enrol for the new courses.

“I am delighted to inform you that UGC has developed four MOOCS, which are ready to be offered on the SWAYAM Platform (https://swavam.qov.in/) from January 2023 Semester. These include three MOOCs for the revival of lndia as a Global Centre of Buddhist Culture and Tourism,” said Rajnish Jain, UGC secretary in a notice to vice-chancellors of all universities and principals of colleges.

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The three new MOOCs are:

• History of lndian Buddhism
• Abhidhamma (Pali)
• Buddhist Philosophy

Earlier, UGC developed a two-credit MOOC course on community engagement and social responsibility. For the course, the commission has identified seven regional centres for capacity building of faculty as Master Trainers (MTs) for Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) under Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UNA). UGC asked higher educational institutions to implement the course as part of the guidelines on “Fostering social responsibility and community engagement in higher education institutions”.

UGC also provided the details of the start and end dates as well as links of these MOOC courses. “Higher Education lnstitutions (HEls) are requested to get these MOOCs approved and adopted through their statutory bodies as per the University Grants Commission (Credit Framework for Online Learning Courses through Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) Regulations, 2021,” it added.

SWAYAM MOOC courses schedule