Democratizing Education through Technology

A National Knowledge ExchangeMassification with Quality

Some Preliminary ThoughtsUdai SinghSeptember, 2012

An Analogy – The National Stock Exchange

• Democratized the Stock Market in India; Made it more accessible to the common man• Eliminated constraints of Geographic Location & stranglehold of entrenched players;

Distributed by design; No Physical Trading floor• Powerful IT & Communications based Trading platform – Created a level playing field• Multiple Players & Stakeholders – Something for everyone

– Listed companies & Traded instruments– Shareholders– Depositories & Demat accounts– Trading Platform & Trading accounts– Brokers & Online brokerages– Analysts, Consultants, Portfolio Managers, Fund Managers, Investment Bankers– Stock Exchange Management & Administrators– Exchange Regulators– Banks & RBI

• Within reasonable limits, dictated by Market Forces• Above all, pays for itself & therefore more sustainable

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The National Knowledge Exchange• Democratize the Knowledge Eco-system; Create a vibrant, democratic , pan-India Knowledge Marketplace• A shared platform for creating, storing, disseminating, and accessing knowledge • A knowledge services marketplace combining free & paid services; Services meant for anyone or controlled

services for specific groups; Services provided by the Government or Government funded institutions as well as services provided by Private knowledge service providers

• Powerful, scalable, cloud-based computing & application platform• Multiple Players & Stakeholders – Something for everyone

– Students in Schools, Colleges, Universities, Vocational Institutes– Teaching staff across Schools, Colleges, and Universities– Parents especially those of school children– Administrators of Schools, Colleges, Universities, Vocational Institutes– Industry & Employers– Alumni & Life-long learners– Employment Exchanges– Education Regulatory bodies, School Boards, Accreditation Agencies– Independent Consultants, Educators, Subject Matter Experts, Authors– Private Knowledge Services Providers including Infrastructure & Equipment/Technology Providers– Knowledge Exchange Management & Administrators– Central & State Government Education Departments & Agencies– Banks , Funding , and Donor Agencies

• Within reasonable limits, dictated by Market Forces• Ensures maximum impact of Government funds for education & can potentially create self-sustaining sub-

eco-systems3

StudentsTeachersParentsAdministrators

Primary Education

StudentsTeachersParentsAdministrators

Secondary

StudentsTeachersParentsAdministratorsAlumniEmployersEmpl Exchanges

Tertiary

L E A R N E R C O M M U N I T I E S & J O B M A R K E T

N A T I O N A L I N F O R M A T I O N I N F R A S T R U C T U R E

Eco-System of KnowledgeExchanges

(Marketplace)

National Knowledge Delivery Network

RegulationAccreditationEquivalenceCertification

Identity Mgmt

Public Knowledge Services Platform

Private Knowledge Services Platform

Teaching/ Knowledge

Services Providers

NationalKnowledgeNetwork

4

Knowledge Services Platform – An Example

Physical Computing, Network, Storage Platforms

Virtualized Cloud Computing Platform

Generic Content Mgmt Server

Generic Media Server

Generic Web Server

Generic File Server

Generic Database Server

Knowledge Exchange Commerce System

Education Content Management System Identity Management System

Learning Management System

Knowledge Testing & Diagnostic system

Recorded Lectures – Library Management System

Learn Using Recorded Lectures(A Knowledge Service – Could be Free or Paid; Open or for a CUG)

Client for Viewing Recorded Lectures (Students)

Client for Managing Recorded Lectures(Content Developers/Subject Matter Experts)

L1

L2

L3

L4

L5

L6

L7

Note:1. This is an example of just 1 service – “Learning using Recorded Lectures”2. The service in Layer 6 is consumed through the interfaces presented in layer 7 and delivered

by the Custom application platforms in Layer 5. Layers below this provide more generic software & compute platforms

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The National Knowledge Exchange• The Government invests in the core Knowledge Exchange

Infrastructure & Application Platform• The Knowledge Exchange is run by a dedicated professional

organization• The Knowledge Exchange Regulators & Governing Council

define the base standards for creating, storing, and delivering knowledge components

• The Knowledge Exchange defines the Knowledge marketplace & Knowledge trading guidelines & rules; Administers the commerce platform; Gets a share of all revenues

• Knowledge components created through Government funding of NMEICT and other such projects are made part of a core content repository

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The National Knowledge Exchange

• Existing Regulatory bodies would be important stakeholders in the National Knowledge Exchange– School Boards– UGC & AICTE; Equivalent organizations in other Domains– NAAC

• Additionally, some new organizations may be required to ensure:– Curriculum & Credit Equivalence and Portability– National Registry / Registrar for Certifications &

Qualifications– Quality of Service & Consumer Protection

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The National Knowledge Exchange (Contd.)• The Knowledge Exchange maintains an Identity of all members/users;

Institutions & Individuals• Except for users of designated categories of free education services sponsored

by the Government, all members/users need to register with the Knowledge Exchange commerce system

• Private service providers can access the government owned content & infrastructure and configure value-added services based on these

• Additionally, Private service providers can add additional platforms & content to provide unique services based on their own IPR

• All services are routed through the Knowledge Exchange & the Exchange gets a share of revenues on all paid services

• The Government can additionally amend the Copyrights Act to ensure that the Core Content Repository of the Knowledge Exchange has access to a copy of all content created in India (to give an impetus to digitization with appropriate IPR protection & licencing)

• Individual teachers, experts, authors can provide content or services & earn revenues through the Knowledge Exchange 8

The National Knowledge Exchange (Contd.)• The Knowledge Exchange can leverage the National Information Infrastructure

– NII can address the core platform requirements of high availability, geographic load balancing, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning

– This would require the setting up of 4-5 Internet Scale Data Centres at geographically strategic nodal locations in the country

– All Telecom carriers & service providers would be mandated by law to interconnect with the Knowledge Exchange data centres (even if it means that the Government funds the connectivity cost)

• To give an impetus to internet-scale infrastructure, the Knowledge Exchange (funded by the Govt) can consider providing basic Cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service & Platform-as-a-Service to Knowledge Service Providers at subsidized rates

• The National Knowledge Exchange would leverage the existing National Knowledge Network to connect to the Higher Education Institutes across the country– However, the Knowledge Exchange would not propagate the existing system of

distributed deployment of infrastructure & content across Institutes– Rather, it would ensure distributed access but centralization of knowledge components

on the Exchange’s own distributed, high available, centrally managed core infrastructure & delivery platforms

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Committee - ICT in Education 10

Content

Framework for National Knowledge Exchange (NKE)

Technology

Services

National Knowledge

Exchange (NKE)

5

6

7

Pedagogy/ DesignStudent

Teacher

Institute

Employer

Beneficiaries

1

2

3

4

Committee - ICT in Education 11

Scope of work : Demand side

1 Learner Empowering the learner, enabling learning on demand, augmenting capacity (beyond Class room & teacher), creating learning communities beyond traditional institutions, recognition of courses done online, incentivization, …

2 Teacher Ensuring that teachers are on the bandwagon (empowered, capable, convinced, …), performance support for teachers, building teacher community, enabling them to grow & acquire next level qualifications, empowering teachers to create additional content and become contributors, recognition, incentivization, accreditation, …

3 Institute/ Employer

What will cause accelerated adoption by Institute on the demand side, and participation on the supply side, making boundaries porous with other institutes for the benefit of students & teachers, adoption of blended learning by institutes (will create additional capacity, ...), testing & certification, incentivization/recognition/ accreditation of early adopters, …, …

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4 Content Pedagogy, curriculum design (learning content, assessments) , delivery methodology, multilingual issues, content standards & formats, content sourcing, IPR ownership & protection, interoperability, pedagogy for evaluation, …

5 Technology Platforms & technologies (internet, mobile devices, TV/radio, VSAT, tablets & other access devices, …), Service platforms (virtual classroom, LMS, assessment, collaboration, administration, transcripts & certificates), testing & certification, …

6 Services/Service Provider

Tech-based lecture delivery, Tech-based virtual lab execution, recorded lectures on demand, assessment on demand, expert consultation, GD, Facilitating collaboration, framework for provisioning of these services, service provider framework for regulating quality and uptime, SLAs, Quality & impact assessment, …

Committee - ICT in Education

Scope of work : Supply side

Committee - ICT in Education 13

• Policies that require minor modifications to start yielding quick results

• Achieving Quality and Scale• Advocacy/ Marketing/Roll-out strategy

Scope of work : Common Issues

Committee - ICT in Education 14

Thank You