A remarkable UGC initiative towards flexible and lifelong learning with Multiple Entry Exit System(MEES) in Higher Education

National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 aims to bring major reforms in the Higher Education System. Multidisciplinary and flexible learning are the key objectives of restructuring the Education System for improved learning outcomes. In accordance with NEP guidelines, students are free to choose their courses and academic pathways in Higher Education, and to support the students’ choice Academic bank of Credit(ABC) and Multiple Entry Exit system are the fundamental recommendations of University Grant Commission(UGC).

Flexible learning paves the way for lifelong learning and to encourage flexible learning in  Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), it is important for the students to choose their academic path leading to the award of certificate, diploma, and degree. There are many circumstances when the learners are required to take a break from their studies, but under present conditions such students are labelled as drop-out students and they get no qualification certificate for the period they were enrolled and studied in HEIs. NEP 2020 offered Multiple Entry Exit System to remove such rigid boundaries of diploma/degree completion years and provided the solution towards reducing the dropout rates with considerable improvement of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) to ensure no-loss to students in the case of exiting in between.

Let’s deep dive into the Multiple Entry/Exit System

NEP welcomes the urgent need of reducing the dropout rates and adding flexibility in Higher Education learning with its Multiple Entry Exit System (MEES). MEES allows the students to be their own degree-maker and motivates them to resume learning from the point they were required to leave in between and helps them to achieve their goals in life.  According to NEP regulations, undergraduate degree should be either of three or four year duration with multiple entry as well as exit points. Depending on the completion years within this period, one will be able to earn a certificate, diploma or degree. The four year graduation will be a preferred option as it makes the learners experience multidisciplinary and holistic education with the subjects of their own choice. Depending on the degree years of graduation, HEIs have customized options for their Master Degree Programs; A two-year Master’s programme will be offered to those students who have completed three year Bachelor’s programme and a one year programme for those who have done four-year undergraduate degree with research; one more integrated five year Bachelor’s/Master’s programme will also be offered with option to exit at third years of Bachelor’s degree and entry to a Master’s programme. Certificate, Diploma or Degree are organized in levels ranging from Level 5 to Level 10 where:

Level 5 is the Undergraduate Certificate level and is for those students, who exit studies after the first year of graduation;

Level 6 is the Undergraduate diploma level and is for those students, who exit studies after two years of graduation;

Level 7 is the Bachelor’s Degree of three years;

Level 8 is the Bachelor’s Degree (Honours/Research) of four years;

Level 9 is the Master’s Degree One/Two years depending on three/four year’s Bachelor’s Degree respectively.

Level 10 is the Doctoral Degree.

Academic Bank of Credits (ABC)

Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) is a resourceful cornerstone of the Multiple Entry Exit system to promote flexibility in curriculum and institute, ensuring mobility of learners across the HEIs of their choice. There is also an option for students to gain the credits by learning quality Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) from UGC approved digital platforms such as Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM). This national-level credit account will facilitate the digital storage of earned credits from different HEIs and the certificate/diploma/degree will be awarded in line with the accumulated credit in a specific duration at the undergraduate and Master’s levels. HEIs will be required to register in the national ABC framework for the successful implementation of Multiple Entry Exit system and for smooth execution of multidisciplinary and flexible learning with impeccable credit count, credit transfer and credit acceptance from students’ account.

The innovative ABC and MEES projects will serve the following purpose:

• Reduce dropout rate and boost GER.
• Withdraw the fixed boundaries of diploma/degree completion period.
• Allow different discipline combinations such as to enable multiple entry exit points.
• Taking students’ choice of courses in consideration for a flexible curriculum approach.
• A support system towards credit recognition, credit accumulation, credit transfers, and credit redemption to encourage flexible and lifelong learning.
  

Although these policies boost vocational opportunities and enhance practical knowledge leading to national and global progress,the actual execution of such endeavors may bring real-life issues with them.

Some ground level challenges to be faced by HEI in the course of MEES implementation include:

• Decision of students’ intake can be a dilemma for the HEIs as there will be multiple entry points available for students in every year.
• Admission management with dynamic number of students will be a difficulty for potential lead conversions.
• In accordance to number of students admitted each year, allotting them the courses of their choice in line with Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) norms will also be not easy to handle.
• Once the students choose their courses, next challenge will be with the course and faculty allotment because with such intake uncertainty teacher pupil ratio will also be disturbed.
• The organization of associated attributes of each course such as curriculum, credits, number of lectures/labs/tutorials will require a lot of time and efforts of administration.
• Governance of vital academic elements such as preparation of time table, attendance record, assignments etc. will also be going to be a herculean task as the previous records of the students leaving in-mid will also be required to be maintained along with running batch.
• The Examination and Evaluation related intricacies incorporating the utilization of human and material resources will be a challenging task for HEIs.
• Being accredited is the need of the hour for HEIs, but the preparatory measures of accreditation will not be easy as it requires the data and reports of several years, and with MEES each year will have uncertainties with it.
• Training and placement activities will also be required to be upgraded such that each student irrespective of certificate, diploma or degree holder can get best out of his education.
• The gist of MEES i.e. academic pathway flexibility will generate a massive data of each student to handle for the HEIs.
• With all the above mentioned complexities, no stone should be left unturned in the practice of Outcome based education and Bloom’s Taxonomy framework, which will also be a cause of concern.
  

iCloudEMS is a market leader in providing unified solutions to cater the assorted needs of HEIs and upgrade their academic level on par with global standards in the world of Information and Communication technology.

How iCloudEMS simplifies the accomplishment of MEES goals in HEIs

iCloudEMS has always assisted HEIs to function in congruence with the visionary norms of the Education System. We always encourage student-centric education in HEIs and provide a digital-driven ecosystem for quick and flawless execution of the requirements. ABC and MEES are revolutionary measures of NEP 2020 to empower skill-based learning. iCloudEMS offers a collaborative cloud-based environment to align the workflow of HEIs ensuring the actualization of such insightful endeavors.

Our following key attributes furnish all the technological requirements for efficient utilization of academic resources, and to bring holistic development of students:

• Integrated managed utilities to support Higher Education ERP for hassle-free management of all pre-admission to post-admission tasks
• Digital-driven course choice and allotment schemes to encourage multidisciplinary and flexible learning.
• Automatic Credit assignment and calculation in accordance with the course chosen by students.
• Personalized Learning management system to enhance students’ engagement and creativity in Outcomes based Education and Bloom’s Taxonomy framework.
• Online Exam Management system to offer digital governance of planning and management of all exam related activities and associated resources.

• Innovative outcomes designing and mapping services to promote student-centric learning in HEIs.
• Smart services to manage and upgrade training and placement services of HEIs taking care to boost career opportunities of each student.
• Student Lifecycle management system to integrate and computerize students’ academic roles and pathways on a common digital platform.
• Cloud-based platform for efficient database management of enormous data and reports of large numbers of students with quick information retrieval options.  
  

In a nutshell, it can be stated that, the strategic execution of these groundbreaking MEES and ABC projects will provide seamless mobility to learners ensuring their zero-year loss with multiple qualification award options at different points. Students will be their own Academic account holders and experience a transparent and flexible academic environment. iCloudEMS has always been a trustful digital support system of HEIs through the structured realization of student-centric education with such insightful projects to bring holistic development of the Education System.

Role of iCloudEMS in Managing in Students’ Life Cycle Management System

No matter whether it’s about school, college or university, the amount of information that is supposed to be handled has always been surplus encompassing the data of students, teachers, parents, examination, administration, results, funds, payment and so on, but, with the advent of ERP software (Enterprise Resource Planning), things have become a lot easier. For all the educational institutions, ERP has become an exclusive solution assisting them to ameliorate their standard. Although ERP is used in many fields but the implementation of ERP in the education sector serves a wide and varied purpose and iCloudEMS with its unified web-based products like LMS, Accreditation Management System, Online Classes & Online Exams, Outcome-based Education System and Students’ Lifecycle Management System, dextrously manages the entire operations of an educational institutions in few clicks.

Taking Students’ Lifecycle Management (SLM) into consideration, we need to understand what exactly it means and what its importance is. SLM is an inclusive data-driven method that manages “Student Success” by covering their entire journey starting from admission to becoming alumni. It is, indeed, one of the most crucial goals of any educational institution that the student who has taken admission, spends the best days of their lives, experiencing a positive transformation and leave the institution with the graduation degree and satisfactory job-offer letter.

 Earlier, before the appearance of web-based technologies, student’s success was very much dependent on a lot of manual work in order to organize marketing & branding activities so that new prospects can be attracted. Other target of that tedious task was to track students’ interests, nurture them through consistent engagement, scholarship programs to help deserving and meritorious students etc. and after all this work, a student’s academic journey actually started. Once the journey begins, retention and progress become the next important goals but knowing and understanding along with maintaining the information of every single student is a herculean task. Moreover, once the students graduate from the institution and start their career, there comes another challenge comes forward i.e. staying connected to the alumni, facilitating a friendly environment for them so that they willingly come forward to mentor the new students who need a role model to follow their footsteps and improve their chances of employ ability and add value and reputation to the institution. So, Student Lifecycle can be represented as a complete circle of an important journey which decides the future of the students.

As discussed above, we can see how it becomes necessary for all the educational institutions to sustain the information of each and every student without making any mistake. 
iCloudEMS through its unique product ‘Student Life Cycle Management’ provide the solution to the challenges faced by Educational Institutes like:

• Improvement in resource management.
• Softcopy based or paperless campus management.
• Errorless and Efficient Administration.
• Automating Payment Process.
• Safe & Secured Student information system management.
• Recording of attendance and maintenance of data.
• Effective Online Classes and Proctored Online Exams.
• Generation of Results along with Grades without any grievances.
• Augmentation in daily productivity.
• Assurance of Quality Education.
• Making campus management cost-effective.
• Providing platform for new opportunities.
  

Role of iCloudEMS in maintaining the Students Lifecycle can be identified as follows:

• Supervised and complete Automated Processes: It is difficult for the Management to handle all the processes at single point and that’s why our product Students Lifecycle management system automates all the systems and helps the management to monitor the institutional work at micro as well as macro level.
• Centralized Power and control over multiple departments: In the educational Institute, there can be multiple departments which can be unmanageable sometimes. With the help of our product, the management can have a centralized control over different departments on a single screen.
• Data driven updates and instant reports: Management of an institution can get the required data on a single click and can keep themselves updated about the institution’s daily activities. Moreover, instant reports can be generated at any time without any error and confusion.
• Data Security: Our product provides high technology security to make sure that the data is well secured & managed.
• Tracking of Student’s Admission: Our product makes tiresome jobs like applications & admission process easy with its reliable online process.
• Fee Collection & Revenue Management: Our managed services assist in fee collection, receipt generation and data maintenance online without any computational errors because a minor mistake can have a major impact on the cash flow.
• With the help of our product, teachers can take digital attendance, track lectures, students’ performance and upload important materials and assignment with burdening themselves with excessive work load.
• Our product Student Lifecycle Management System facilitates an easy communication between students & parents and later on with the alumni who can play an integral role in students’ retention process.

• Students can view their attendance, timetables, academic calendar and results without taking much trouble. iCloudEMS with the help of its LMS, provides a learning platform for the students to attend online classes, take their assessment exams and try to attain the course outcomes for overall development. Moreover, it also keeps the records of placed and unplaced students as per campus recruitment management program.
• iCloudEMS with its product plays an integral role in managing the students’ data strengthening the Alumni Management System by handling all the information related to a student once they graduate. If the institution shows concern to the alumni in their future endeavours, the same attitude will be reflected from them as well. They can willingly become a donor by showing their concern about the institution and guide their juniors to become a valuable asset for the same institution.
  

To conclude, we can say that iCloudEMS with its effective product Students Lifecycle Management System proposes a purpose-built, highly effective, techno-friendly solutions which can be customized as per the needs of the institutions that are relying on the working of ERP for improved admission, students’ retention, academic achievements, career needs and overall satisfaction while completing an important phase of their lifecycle.

iCloudEMS welcomes the new education policy Academic Bank of Credits with its Effective Education Management System

Higher education has always played a key role in enhancing the essence of humanity and encouraging collective wellbeing so that India can get its recognition as the nation which upholds liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice for all. It provides people with an opportunity to reflect on the social, economic, cultural, moral, intellectual and spiritual issues faced at every stage. It contributes to national development through dissemination of specialized knowledge and skill. Being at the apex of the educational pyramid, it has also a key role in producing learned teachers and aspiring students for the education system.

The objectives of Higher Education can be identified as:

Imparting Wisdom & Knowledge: Education is all about training of mind and soul. Any sort of knowledge is a waste if it fails to awaken something in the students. Education is valued only when it kindles the spark of an attitude to achieve great and create history.

Establishing Social Order:Effective education system targets to find its guiding principle to establish the social order. It is only possible when educated people understand and value the existence of democracy, justice, liberty, equality and most importantly our freedom.

Building the right kind of teaching-learning environment: Institutions of HE focus on the creation and sustenance of the right kind of teaching-learning environment by improving the quality of teaching and thus enabling students to acquire global competencies in various fields of study and application to successfully face the challenges in the changing global scenario.

It is very well said that “Instead of learning to memorize facts and figures, students need to learn how to learn and how to solve problems”. Moreover, this has become the need of the hour that students stretch their wings and fly high into the limitless sky encompassing as much knowledge as they can.  In the light of this, a new education policy has been introduced named as Academic Bank of Credit aka ABC which will help students to become academic account holders and they can move between or within degree-granting Higher Educational institutions through a formal system of credit recognition, credit accumulation, credit transfers and credit redemption to promote distributed and flexible teaching and learning environment. This would also allow students who have to drop out of their courses due to unavoidable circumstances to resume their programme at a later time from where they left it, rather than having to start over from the beginning of the course.

This academic flexibility creates a new possibility for innovative and substitutable curricular programs leading to creative blends of different courses in multifarious Disciplines of Education because of which students can attain Degree or Diploma or Post Graduate Diploma or Certificate of Study which offer multiple entry and multiple exit facilities assuring an authentic lifelong learning instead of forced and crammed knowledge.

The essential objectives of Academic Bank of Credits System:

• To promote student centricity with learner-friendly approaches in higher education across the country and promote a more inter-disciplinary approach in higher education.
• To enable students to select the best courses or combination of courses to suit their aptitude and quest for knowledge. 
• To permit students to choose a pace for their studies along with the associated logistics and costs. 
• To allow students to tailor their degrees or make specific modifications or specialisations rather than undergoing the rigid, regularly prescribed degree or courses of a single university or autonomous college. 
• To enable multiple entry-multiple exit for students to complete their degrees as per their time preferences, providing mobility across various disciplines and HEIs for Degree or Diploma or Post Graduate Diploma or Certificate programme or Course work for the Ph.D. programme. 
• To support, procedurally, the teaching-learning activities to happen in a distributed and blended manner through integration across campuses or universities or autonomous colleges with increased mobility.
• To facilitate lifelong learning amongst all, i.e., formal and informal students from both full-time and part-time modes.
• To satisfy the students’ quest for knowledge, freedom to choose and change their academic directions, connect different domains of knowledge and help them acquire the right foundations and building blocks to pursue their life goals. 
  

Role of iCloudEMS in supporting the essential objectives of Academic Bank of Credits System:

• iCloudEMS with its managed services create an easy way to users in managing feedback and updating the records. Students and teachers can view the performance data and accumulated credits in case, students are planning to pursue other courses using those credits. It becomes easier for the system to transfer the credits without any manual error.  Out unified system provides print option for viewing the detail about the record of students. Using this, staff and management section can easily find students details. This system is a paperless system by which workload is reduced.
• Our managed services to ERP system can provide a framework to this new policy of ABC through which learning communities can be developed to inject change into the educational environment. Our system can enable the integration of curriculums through developing connecting points and providing a nervous system for integration, while removing redundancies between disciplines. In the process, they refine our understanding of the nature of knowledge in areas of business, while optimizing use of technology in the campus setting.
• Our product Learning Management System or LMS is a sophisticated could-based software with its effective features and functionality and enables collaborative learning by creating engaging and creative courses, enabling effective learning assessment, easy content customization, conserving time & money and has reduced dependency and increased flexibility in accessing different programs for learners. This presents a plethora of options for the students in the selection of their courses using their accumulated credits.
• Our Education Management System supports a multi-campus structure that enables trusts and educational societies to have centralized database and streamlines operations across different institutions while maintaining their individual autonomy. So, in this new policy of ABC, communication between the institutes while transferring the students can be done without any confusion.
• Our managed services will assist the management to analyse the various aspects of this Academic Bank of Credits by improving the data access and boosting well-informed decision-making through strategic data analysis. 
  

The New Education Policy is bringing few significant changes like Commencement of Schooling at the age of 3 years, Mother Tongue as the medium of instruction, One body for Higher Education i.e. HECI or Higher Education Commission of India instead of UGC, AICTE, NCTE etc. and most importantly Establishment of an e-education unit. To look after

e-Education and pace up the Online learning, a department will be created in the MHRD for schools and higher educational institutions to build digital infrastructure and digital content. It has become mandatory for the institutions to equip themselves with web-based technologies and effective ERP software as online education is ensuring preparedness with alternative modes of learning and reaching the most interior places of the country.  iCloudEMS with its products i.e. Accreditation Management System, OBE & Learning Management, Student Lifecycle, Online Classes & Online Examination System and skilled managed services promises to provide a trustful and efficient aid to this new system of Teaching & Learning methodologies.

How to choose the best Education Management Software for Institutes

Educational institutes have the core objective to achieve the learning goals of students in the best possible way. In today’s world of competition, Institutes face lots of challenges in maintaining their academic standards and performing their day-to-day complex activities.There are many limitations in handling all these operations manually like redundancy of information, missed information or wrong information. To overcome these constraints, strategic planning and robust technology are required that can automate a plethora of all daily operations and streamline the workflow of the institute. Education Management Software (EMS) is the set of various modules that offers better and more efficient allocation and management of academic resources to empower student-centric learning in the institutes. With the help of EMS, institutes have changed their ways to handle administrative and non-administrative functions. Nevertheless, it is important to choose an EMS with the features that meet the requirements of an institute.

Here are some important capabilities to look out while selecting the Education Management Software:

1. Easy storage of data

There is massive amount of data generated for students and staff of the institute. The proper choice of EMS ensures to store the data and reports produced with the help of inbuilt analytic tools and dashboards. The ideal EMS should provide capability to access right information anytime and anywhere.

2. No hardware requirement

It is important to go for cloud-based EMS that can be customized to provide all kind of required information for the institutes. The major benefit of cloud technology is to avoid the need of maintenance and the associated staff that makes it a cost-effective approach.

3. Improvement in teaching-learning practices

To meet the standards of education, improvising the teaching and learning has become the need of the hour. It is important to enhance the creativity in the pedagogy to bridge the learning gaps. An EMS should be innovative enough to support creative content creation and delivery.

4. Handle paper-free non-academic operations

Many non-academic operations such as pre-admission, admission, fee collection etc. demands lot of time and efforts of the staff members. A perfect EMS should support all such activities in paper free mode and give results on a few clicks.

5. Secure and Effective Communication

The transparency of any system can be judged, by observing the secure information flow between the concerned members. The right EMS should provide a single dashboard view of the information for all stakeholders to check and track the progress of activities.

6. Mobile-friendly software

In the era of smart phones, a technology is incomplete if it can’t be accessed via smartphones. So, an EMS should be Mobile App friendly that can enable quick information access and action taken for easy and effective communication.

Conclusion: All Educational Institutes should invest in a user-friendly and comprehensive EMS to perform the required operations, timely and effectively so that the time and academic resources can be utilized in more productive output delivery and the staff can be free from doing the tedious tasks and can make the decisions in the right direction.

How Learning Management System (LMS) has become an Intelligent agent of E-learning through Pandemic

LMS is an acronym for Learning Management System. It is a software application for managing online teaching and learning.The massive hit of Covid-19 has made the students face the challenge of sudden closure of institutes for breaking the chain of virus spread. In such unanticipated situations LMS has proven a boon to education sector as switching to online education and use of digital space were the only options in front of administrators to avoid the undesired interruption of learning. LMS offers innovative content creation and delivery features in a user-friendly approach.

Here are some reasons, how LMS has empowered education system in these times of crisis:

· Non-stop and Interactive Learning: During COVID-19, when lockdown has been the protocol for safety, and traditional classroom learning has been switched to online learning. LMS facilitates interactive learning and also offers repository to save e-notes, assignments, research papers etc. It overcomes the limitation of classroom boundaries and provides 24*7 availability of study material to students for learning that bridges the learning gap more effectively.

· On-the-Go Learning: In the challenging time of Pandemic, smartphones assisted learning has proven a reliable way of learning that can be done anytime and from anywhere. LMS supports smartphone environment that makes the learning more accessible and interactive both for teachers and students.

· Lesson planning and management LMS offers a centralized digital platform to instructors for scheduling their lectures in advance and the same plan will be visible to students and top management that increases the transparency of the syllabus planning and coverage.

· Creativity in Content Creation and Delivery: LMS supports the creation and delivery of study material using various multi-media formats that enhances the creativity in education content and enables the classes to go beyond chalk-and-board through COVID-19 pandemic.

· Easy Tracking and Evaluation of Students’ Progress: LMS provides unified portal to instructors for uploading the assignments and for the students to submit their answers that makes assessment and record maintenance easy for teachers. In the light of lockdown due to COVID-19, it gets possible for the students and parents to regularly track the progress of students without visiting the institute.

iCloudEMS is a cloud-based platform to streamline all the administrative and non-administrative operations in various Colleges and Universities. It supports an innovative Learning Management System (LMS) that can create virtual classroom setting to enhance the creativity in teaching-learning practices. It is an intelligent and collaborative user-friendly interface that aims to furnish the requirements to model OBE in educational institutes and empowers student-centric learning. In nutshell a versatile LMS has proven a blessing in disguise and an Intelligent agent in the path of E-learning through global pandemic.

How Automation has brought revolution in the world of Education

In the present time, every industry is working to make the best of technology to ease their workflow and save the important time of administration in doing mundane and repetitive tasks. Digital transformation has offered the information accessibility anytime and from anywhere for efficient functioning of organization. Digitization paves the way of automation and automation has become an integrated part of our daily lives as well, we can see automation all around us like in our washing machines, dishwasher, refrigerators and may more, in education sector is no longer an exception in being digitized and automated.

Automation is the use of technology to minimize manual efforts in performing time-consuming and recurring assignments resulting in improvement of outcomes. The education model is made up of different stakeholders who are responsible for their associated academic and non-academic functions. Automation makes the best use of academic resources and gets most of the task paperless in the institute.

Here are the main points that make us realize, how automation has impacted the all the level of education sector and leads to the creation of an efficient and innovative world of education.

1. For the administrative staff

There are many non-academic activities at the administrative level which if becomes automated can drastically reduce the workload for the associated staff. Back-office activities include students’ registration, enrolment, fee collection and record, receipt generation etc. Such kind of tasks are labour-intensive, time consuming and paper based, but with the implementation of Artificial intelligence, machine learning and other automation technologies, the tasks at this level can be performed effortless with minimal human intervention which saves time and other important resources.

2. For the Instructors

The core objective of instructor is to teach and train the learners, but with the workload of other supporting daily activities like maintenance of attendance record, assignment grading, lecture scheduling etc. consumes their considerable time and effort. Today in the time of automation, all such tedious tasks can be performed in a few clicks of mouse and encourages the trainer to achieve more productive and meaningful academic outcomes.

3. For the Parents

Parents are important stakeholder of the education sector. Earlier it was a regular practice for the parents to visit the institute to keep check their wards’ performance, for his safety and many more concerns. Automation has benefitted their lives as well, now they are no longer required to visit institute for such regular tasks, digital platforms allow to connect them full-time with the institute and they can keep regular track of their children progress. Some advanced features like SMS alert on the absence of child boosts the security and relaxes the safety concern of the parents.

4. For the Students

In present time learning is no longer bounded to chalk-and-board classroom. With each passing day it is required to be more innovative and interactive. Students are no longer interested in being passive participant, they enjoy creative and interactive meaningful sessions. Automation has made all these things possible for learners. Now with the advancement of technology, students can easily connect with teachers regarding any feedback or query which bridges the learning gap more efficiently and improve the learning outcomes. Automation has enhanced the transparency of system, now students are always aware of their attendance, grades, lecture schedule and other academic activities. They can easily fetch the study content like e-notes, lecture videos, research papers etc by login on their academic platform which adds more value in gaining knowledge and skill.

Conclusion: The list of automation benefits in any sector can go on and on. Automation and digitization have transformed all sphere of life. Many complex and complicated problems can be easily solved today with just a few clicks of mouse. The contribution of automation in education sector is incredible and now it has become an inevitable part of teaching and non-teaching activities. It has positioned the stakeholders to make the best of their time and resources to bring revolutionary changes in the education system– for now and in the future.

Relevance of Outcome Based Education in the Advancement of Educational Quality

High quality education has become the basic need for this generation to survive, says iCloudEMS. Life is running with a frenetic pace and thus, adoption of new technology is the gateway to the bright future. High quality education aims at creating an effective teaching and learning environment that may bring about desired changes in the learners by equipping them with in-depth knowledge, sharpened skills and positive attributes. Educational institutes are implementing the model of Outcome-Based Education with the help of innovative technologies which provide managed services to ERP like iCloudEMS and impart wisdom, skills and values to the students to reach the acme of success.

Outcome – Based Education sets a new standard for learning which emphasises on outcomes or results more than accumulation of credits. The teachers are required to design some action plans or course outcomes for the students which they have to attain while acquiring the knowledge. After taking the exams in the form of tests, assignments, practicals and projects, students get evaluated and their results are mapped with the set course outcomes and in turn with program outcomes. Their results showcase their achievements and accomplishments in a specific course. The induction of India in the Washington Accord in 2014 with the permanent signatory status) is considered as a big step forward for the betterment of the higher education system in India. It means that an Indian graduate degree with NBA accreditation is valid in any one of the other countries who have signed the accord and so for Indian educational institutions, it has become compulsory to follow Outcome Based Education (OBE) model in order to get accredited and approved. 

The Outcome-Based Education model evaluates the growth or progress of the graduate on three important parameters as follows:

• Program Educational Objectives (PEO)
• Program Outcomes (PO)
• Course Outcomes (CO)
  

Program Educational Objectives (PEO) are extensive statements that describe the career and professional achievements which the program is targeting the students to accomplish. Similarly, Program Outcomes (POs) are the statements that describe what students are supposed to know and acquire while doing the graduation. They must reflect upon or meditate on Graduate attributes as described by the accrediting body for the ungraduated programs. Course Outcomes are the parameters on the basis of which students’ performance is evaluated for each course undertaken by them in every semester. 

Features of Outcome – Based Education System

• Student Centric: OBE provides a platform to the learners as per their ability as according to it every learner has varying capacity and grasping power.
  
• Clarity & Focus: Students and teachers work in one direction to achieve the targeted goals by mapping course outcomes and program outcomes.
  
• Creates Opportunities: Students get several chances to achieve the desired results. Their marks are purely measured on the outcomes. 
  
• Complete involvement: This is the compulsory and integral part of OBE as students are required to learn in order to develop understanding of the subjects and acquire the necessary skills. 
  

Traditional Educational System v/s Outcome-Based Education System 

The traditional or conventional education system has always been described as teacher-oriented, repeated curriculum oriented but most of the time the information is shared in only one direction which is teacher to student direction but in today’s scenario, it is not enough as it lacks many other multidimensional connections. This Conventional Education System has so many limitations like:

• This traditional classroom teaching lacks in promoting critical thinking skills and focuses on notes-based learning or memorizing the content. 
• Students become passive learners rather than active learners.
• The syllabus is followed only for the sake of completion and not for the outcomes.
• The students cannot learn innovative things and their knowledge is limited to the experience provided by the teachers. 
  

While on the other hand, Outcome – Based Education system offers so many benefits like:

• The designed modules are creative and flexible.
• They have a more problem-solving approach.
• Students’ interpersonal skills can be improved gradually.
• Students can adjust themselves with new technologies easily.
• OBE is devoted to the spontaneous learning process.
• It enhances and strengthens the decision making and management process of the institute. 
  

Challenges faced by the Institutions in the implementation of OBE:

Outcome-Based Education has made its appearance as a threat to the conventional method of teaching and learning. It targets to enhance the competency and it can grow with the help of educators who possess progressive and flexible mind-set. Institutions are adopting, planning and executing OBE but when it comes to the management of overall activities and data manually, there can be following challenges:

• Data collection & storage along with curriculum management may become a herculean task. 
• Maintenance of assessment cycle to achieve the desired goals is tough as well because it abides by the steps mentioned below: –
  

Step 1: Designing of assessment considering goals, outcomes, criteria, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and other standards like rubrics. 

Step 2: Sharing of outcomes, criteria and standards to keep things transparent. 

Step 3: Providing learning experiences through curriculum & teaching pedagogy.

Step 4: Collecting, Evaluating and Analysing the results of students’ learning.

Step 5: Interpreting the results to find the relevant gaps for the revision of teaching methodologies, curriculum, programs & outcomes. 

• Manual evaluations of the attainment of outcomes often come out to be erroneous which may affect the further processes like revision of the curriculum to fill the gaps, restructuring of COs in order to map with the POs. 
• The outcome mapping by analysing the overall attainment consumes a huge amount of energy and effort. 
  

Relevance of Outcome-Based Education System 

OBE is a crucial part of the education system in the era of globalization. It offers a cluster of skills which are required to deal with rapidly changing technologies. The result of the OBE produces transparent anticipation of the top-level product as students understand their own expectations and teachers also observe students’ understanding level and provide resources based on their analysis. OBE doesn’t suggest any specific teaching technique as educators aren’t bound to follow old conventional teaching methodologies. They can plan numerous activities for the assessment of the students and grade them on the basis of their understanding. Institutes are turning towards effective online examination which can be a reliable platform for authentic result generation which assures live proctoring and all. 

The structure of OBE encompasses creating, managing and aligning sets of competencies to learning resources, assessments & evaluations, analytical rubrics etc. to keep an eye on the performance. By associating with the unified hi-tech education management system, institutions can empower themselves by:

• Developing effective sets of course outcomes and storing them for the implementation.
• Reorienting curricular design by focusing on learning outcomes first rather than scheduling of time-structures.
• Managing high quality of learning resources, shareable contents, assignments, projects and other rubrics to assess the learning outcomes. 
• Assuring authentic examination procedures, errorless and transparent grade generation. 
• Maintaining the direct assessment & indirect assessment system and satisfying the four most important stakeholders i.e. Teachers, Students, Administration & Parents. 
  

To conclude, it can be said that the adoption of OBE by educational institutes is considered to be a great step forward for the achievement of excellence and ensures effective result outcomes so that quality of education can be maintained. 

Schedule a demo with us – http://www.icloudems.com/contact-us/

iCloudEMS Accreditation Management System

An Authentic Assistance to the Educational Institutions for getting Accreditation

In the recent years, Student learning outcomes have been given utmost importance and attention by implementing innovating techniques of assessment which can specify the expected attainment of knowledge, skills and attributes by the students after the completion of their graduation from their respective institutions. These learning objectives and outcomes are becoming the main gauge of higher education’s effectiveness and that’s why accreditation committees expect learning outcomes to be clearly defined, enunciated, evaluated, corroborated and used as a guide for future enhancement.

When any higher educational institute goes through a rigorous process to authenticate that it meets all the benchmarked educational standards then it is known as accreditation. There are integral and reputed accrediting bodies like NAAC, NBA, AICTE, UGC, AIU, DCI, NCTE, BCI, PCI, INC etc. that stage various criteria for the institutes to review their performance and to ensure their credibility to meet expected levels of quality.

Why is Accreditation important?

Accreditation impetuses all the educational institutions to meet the given criteria and maintain their teaching & learning standards so that they can establish a boosting accountability among the public and develop confidence in the aspiring students and their parents to place their trust considering the accreditation received by these institutes. To keep it simple, it can be said that accreditation generates accountability and confirms innovative and effective levels of quality education so that the students and their parents don’t nurture any doubt while taking admission.

Accreditation is important because:

-> It determines if an institute fulfils all the criteria to meet the standards of quality or not.

->It guides students to choose the apt institution for the betterment of their future career.

-> It helps the employers to identify the validity of programs accomplished by the candidates graduated from an institute.

-> It becomes an evidence for the employers of government and non-government companies so that they can hire the graduates determining their eligibility.

-> It helps the students to take various certificate exams for their skills enhancement and further studies.

-> It helps faculty members and staff as well to strengthen their experience portfolio as working in an accredited institute has its own glory and dignity.

-> It helps to set goals for the institutions for self-improvement and to be more futuristic.

The eligibility needs for accreditation vary according to the agencies which set them but they are, indeed, laborious and all inclusive. Common requirements include demonstration of institutional stability, educational programs that meet minimum standards, presence of high-quality faculty members, and integrity in communication efforts with the public and the accrediting commission in question.As accreditation focuses on inputs such as staffing, resources, curricula designing, content creation, evaluation of outcomes etc., it’s quite obvious that universities and colleges face many challenges to achieve the desired results.

These challenges can be:

1. Tedious & Time- consuming Paperwork
2. Collection & Maintenance of Students’ Records
3. Designing & Implementation of Syllabus, Lessons and other study resources
4. Identifying Curriculum gaps and upgrading them at regular intervals.
5. Tracking students’ performance and their results analysis
6. Course Assessment & Students’ Feedback Management
7. Storing Alumni information and maintaining contacts with them
8. Collecting details of university events & activities and their documentation
9. Budgeting & Financial Control

iCloudEMS offers its support by:

1. Simplifying the accreditation process by customizing the needs and requirements of the institutions

2. Automating your tasks by aligning them with reputed Accrediting & Governing bodies

3. Maintaining Outcome Based Education (OBE) system & generate effective results based on analytics

4. Generating authentic and accurate reports for the smooth auditing procedures.

5. Controlling the examination conduction and evaluation process to assure 100% genuine results.

6. Providing transparent portal for students’ feedback on the basis of which Faculty members’ performance can be assessed.

7. Offering Learning Management System (LMS) for proper scheduling of classes and their smooth execution.

8. Streamlining the process of uploading the course materials, videos, notes etc. for the students who can avail this opportunity anytime.

9. We operate on effective planning and regular assessment of students.

10. We manage the Fee payment, receipt generation and storing the data of every single student as even a minor manual error can create a big chaos.

11. We play a key role in bringing all the stakeholder …. students, teachers, administration, management and the parents on one digital platform where everything is clear and result-oriented.

In a nutshell, we can say that iCloudEMS assists you by automating tasks through the accreditation process with configurable workflow that is aligned with reputed accredited bodies and enables you to save your valuable time,efforts and resources. We help Educational Institutes in accomplishing the four major tasks which are required for getting accredited as follows:

1. Self-assessment: An institute should familiarize itself with the committee’s standards for the accreditation and then compare its work with them. If all the documents are authentic and updated, then a review report can be sent along with a formal request for the evaluation.

2. Review of the Documents: The accreditation body reviews the documents and gives its consent if they appear genuine and all correct.

3. Then there is on-site pre-assessment meeting and later on full-assessment as per the decisions taken by Accreditation body. During the entire evaluation process, everything should remain up to date as even a minor mistake can affect the grades given by the committee.

4. Finally, the committee grants accreditation after rigorous and strict inspection and evaluation of the provided data.

Accreditation Management System: Schedule a demo with us: http://www.icloudems.com/contact-us/

Choice based Credit system (CBCS): A Vision to redesign Education System

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken many initiatives from time to time, for the comprehensive development of the Higher Education System. With the introduction of New Education Policy (NEP) by The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of India, CBCS has become the buzzword issued by UGC and followed by Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) that unwraps excellent opportunities to accomplish the learning outcomes of the education.

What is Choice based Credit system (CBCS)?

CBCS is a flexible methodology of learning. In accordance with the regulations of CBCS, students are free to choose their courses from the approved categories, incorporating core, elective or skill-based courses. CBCS pushes the envelope for holistic development of youth by showing them routeways to ability enhancement and skill development by learning the courses of their interest beyond the core subjects.

Need of Choice based Credit system (CBCS)

UGC has always aimed to bring equity, efficiency and academic excellence in the Higher Education System by taking innovative measures in continuous improvement of course curricula, pedagogical practices, examination and evaluation system. Our traditional evaluation system is based on the marks or percentage which obstructs the students’ learning in terms of their choice and mobility, which results in unconfident and under-skilled youth. So, it has become a fundamental necessity to develop a student-centric education strategy and adopt a world-wide followed evaluation system. In light of the present alarming situations, UGC proposed the implementation of CBCS in Universities and devised the practical solutions considering their flexibility and freedom in designing vital academic elements. CBCS will open up the gates of the global mobility and learning of students with best educational practices.

Advantages of Choice based Credit system (CBCS)

∙ CBCS provides a paradigm shift in the Education model from the teacher-centred to learner-centric.

∙ CBCS allows students to embark on the credits, they can put up with in a semester without any compulsion to earn the fix credits

∙ CBCS provides flexibility to students to learn inter-disciplinary, intra-disciplinary and skill-oriented subjects of their own choice and at their own pace

∙ CBCS brings global uniformity in the grading system where students are allowed to earn the combined credits of their chosen courses.

∙ CBCS empowers the worldwide education of students and eases their institutional transfer of credits, if someone chooses to study at different institutions at different times.

How iCloudEMS simplifies the implementation of Choice based Credit system (CBCS) in HEIs?

NEP has emphasised on the holistic development of a child and bridging the gap between academia and industry. So, the accurate implementation of CBCS has become the need of the hour for effective transformation of the Education system.

iCloudEMS assists the institutes in putting their efforts into practice towards methodical execution of CBCS guidelines with its following salient attributes:

• Interactive dashboards for the students to opt their desired core and elective subjects.
• Cloud platform to create and manage units of students to store their data and records in conjunction with their opted courses.
• Intelligent approach towards the effortless course and respective faculty allotment.
• Innovative credits assignment and calculation techniques for different course combinations.
• Computerization of imperative academic operations such as timetable generation, assignment uploading, attendance taking and many more.
• Endorsement of student-centric learning with its unique features to design and map learning outcomes with students’ performance.
  

iCloudEMS takes the utmost care of visionary requirements of HEIs and offers unified solutions to upgrade the institutes on par with global academic standards.

Schedule a demo with us — http://www.icloudems.com/contact-us/

Identifying the Challenges faced by Academics in the Educational Institutions due to Online Classes

With the advent of the online learning system, academics are facing problems and witnessing challenges as it has become compulsory to acquire IT skills for an effective teaching and learning system. Many distinguished researchers have opined that the internet offers a plethora of opportunities and assures flexibility for the learners if they try to explore its aspects and vast management system. In Online learning or education, students remain at home and use their home computers, laptops, mobiles etc. to attend classes. In the recent time of pandemic, online teaching and learning has become trendy as educational institutions aren’t left with any other choice but conduction of effective classes considering all the aspects of Outcome-based education system. Institutes are trying to fill the gaps and minimize the losses of students caused by this unfortunate pandemic but outcomes of online classes are posing some challenges for the learners as well as the educators. 

Challenges faced by the students due to online classes are:

• Adaptability: Students find it tough to get adapted to an online learning environment as they are accustomed to traditional classroom teaching. Due to this sudden change, they didn’t get time to prepare themselves and mould their mind-set accordingly. It becomes very difficult for them to focus in the class and understand the topics being taught 
  
• Technical Issues: Many students are not equipped with a high internet facility that is integral for online classes. Students, who live in interior or backward areas, face difficulties in attending continuous lectures for 5 to 6 hours. In addition to that, it is not necessary that all the students possess IT skills and they can get technical issues by themselves. They have to rely on others for their assistance so that they can attend the classes. Due to serious technical problems, students may face difficulty in downloading subject related information, clear videos, Examination question papers, etc.  
  
• Lack of Computer Knowledge: Acquiring computer knowledge and becoming techno-friendly is the need of the hour. There are many students who can’t work on basic computers with MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint and in case any technical issue arises, they are unable to resolve it. There are so many steps to be learnt before and while attending online classes like timely login, usage of appropriate icons, joining the class, answering in between, writing texts, understanding communication related apps and websites, creating and submitting work, communication with friends and teachers, browsing study materials etc.  
  
• Time Management: Online learning is completely new for everyone and demands intensive work. Students find it difficult to manage their time with online classes as they need a scheduled planner to organize their time in an effective way. Although online classes provide flexible timings, still there are possibilities that few students may face difficulties in adjusting to the time required for online classes. 
  
• Self-Motivation: Accepting the fact that your home has become your space of work is quite difficult for the students because they nurture new hopes and dreams related to university campus. Coming to college, attending classes, meeting friends, interacting with teachers etc. all play an integral role in personality building which is not possible by staying within the four walls of one’s home. 
  
• Lack in Communication: Students’ communication skills weaken during online classes as teachers give assignments based on reading and writing but what about speaking activities. During online classes, only few students interact with teachers and the rest remain silent for various reasons. They feel shy to communicate with their teachers and friends due to the new model of learning. It might happen due to lack of interest, poor technological skills with apps and video calls or unable to express themselves via live chats, emails or text messages.
  
• Need of Feedback: Every student requires feedback for their performance presented during the online learning process so that they can improve themselves. In traditional mode of teaching, teachers give regular feedbacks based on students’ class tests, semester exams, practical exams etc. but in online classes students hardly take efforts to go to their portals and see the suggestions and comments on their assignments and as a result it becomes difficult for them to understand the remarks and improve their performance by implementing the suggestions. 
  

Challenges faced by the teachers due to online classes are:

• Engagement of students: Keeping students engaged and interested in online classes is a big challenge for all the teachers. They tend to get distracted and lose focus mostly because teachers are unable to see each and every student onscreen at one time. Many students keep their videos off which creates a sense of dissatisfaction as teachers can’t know if all the students are understanding the topics or not. 
  
• Communication gap: The more detailed the syllabus, the easier to communicate to the students. Sometimes teachers are not given enough time for the preparation of content for their students. And also there are students who avoid communication with teachers during online learning. Online teaching is like communicating without body language, so students might misunderstand and can result in their poor performance. Sometimes students might ask for an extension for their work or give any excuse for the delay. 
  
• Assessment & Evaluation as assessment of students and their grading play a key role in the education system. In online learning, students are provided with MCQs which is still feasible but not actually effective. Real learning is measured by subjective questions for which teachers have to design questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and direct students to upload their answer sheet in the virtual classroom. But if that teacher teaches different subjects in different programs, it would be an uphill task for them to download all the answer sheets, evaluate them and then upload the marks. 
  
• Gaps in the Course Content created according to Outcome-based education system: Teachers are supposed to deliver the lectures, design activities, conduct assessments which can lead to outstanding results and successful mapping of Course outcomes with Program outcomes but there are few Program outcomes which require industrial exposure, practical knowledge etc. which are difficult to accomplish during online classes. Moreover, students won’t take such activities seriously and will try to finish them by copying from different resources as their focus will shift from self & skills improvement to getting passing marks. 
  

To conclude, we can say that it is high time for all the educational institutes to make an effort towards enhancing the efficacy of fully online and blended learning in order to achieve students’ learning outcomes. Many faculty members are unaware of the fact that online classes can result in effective learning gains in comparison to physical classroom teaching. Hence, they should be given proper training so that they can equip themselves with IT tools for creating innovative teaching activities for smooth functioning of classes. This is the reason, educational institutions are getting inclines towards ERP Software and iCloudEMS has emerged with its automated digitized products to manage the services of College & University ERP which can enhance student learning making class schedule management easier, fast uploading & downloading of assignments, projects etc., proctored online exams conduction etc.