Norms for transfer of online credits to regular courses

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has come out with guidelines that provide a framework for transfer of marks scored in approved online courses to regular classroom courses. The UGC (credit framework for online learning courses through Swayam) Regulation, 2016, which was passed at a recent meeting of the Commission and received the approval of the HRD Ministry, will be notified soon, official sources said.

The guidelines have been framed keeping in mind the HRD Ministry’s massive open online courses (MOOC) platform Swayam (Study Web of Active Learning by Young and Aspiring Minds). Two thousand such courses are expected to be launched for three crore learners under the government’s ambitious Swayam project. Through this project, students from backward rural areas can access teaching facilities of the best institutes, which will offer online courses, thereby raising the overall standard of higher education in the country.

According to the new UGC norms, institutions can, keeping in view their academic requirements, decide upon the courses which they shall permit for credit transfer.  However, an institution can allow only up to 20 per cent of the total seats being offered in a particular programme in a semester through online mode under Swayam. 

“The aim is to widen the access to higher education and bring down its cost by using technological advances,” a senior official said.