Deepak B Phatak,

Professor, Dept. of Computer Sc. and Engg.
IIT Bombay, India

Born on 2nd April 1948, Dr. Deepak B. Phatak obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from SGSITS Indore in 1969, and his M. Tech. and Ph. D. from IIT Bombay. He has been serving with IIT Bombay since 1971. He headed the CSE department from 1991 to 1994. He was the first Dean of Resources of the Institute from 1995 to 1998. He was the founding head of The Kanwal Rekhi School of IT from 1998 to 2002. He briefly served as head of S. J. Mehta School of Management from 2004 to 2005. He was appointed ‘Subrao M. Nilekani’ Chair Professor in January 2000. His research areas are Databases, Information Systems, IT enabled Education, and IT strategy planning. He has guided 7 Ph. D. scholars, over 170 M. Tech. students, and has authored over 50 publications. He currently serves as a professor in the department of Computer Science and Engineering.

In 1999, he started an IT incubator to foster innovation through start-up companies. He also started the country’s first interactive distance learning program using VSATs in 2000. Using the experience gained in that initiative, he worked for 3 years on a national mission project to train 1000 teachers at one time, in several core engineering subjects, through a series of ISTE workshops conducted using ICT. His efforts succeeded in training over 20,000 teachers from engineering colleges in the country. He is currently executing the scaled up version termed T10KT (Train 10,000 Teachers at a time). 1,00,000 teachers have already been trained, and the aim is to train another 50,000 teachers within a year.

He set up the Affordable Solutions Lab (ASL) at IIT Bombay in 2000, to develop low cost technology solutions. He is regarded as the pioneer of smart card usage for financial transactions in India. Through ASL, he popularized use of thin clients in India. He developed low cost clicker devices for use in class rooms, and Open Source multimedia tools for e-
learning. In March 2012, he was given the responsibility of executing the prestigious Aakash project. 1,00,000 low cost tablet computers were deployed for engineering education under this project. Aakash-2 tablet computers are recognized as the lowest cost educational tablets globally. These mission projects are funded and supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT, MHRD.

Since 2012, he has been working on MOOCs (Maasive Open Online Courses), which have immense potential as an inexpensive mechanism for offering quality education online, to a very large number of learners. He was instrumental in a tie up between IIT Bombay and edX, with the result that IIT Bombay courses are now available to thousands of global learners. He realized that MOOCs will be increasingly adopted in various blended forms, and are likely to lead to positive disruptive changes in the educational systems globally. A blended model suggested by him is being considered for adoption in higher education system. He is currently working on a project to adopt the open source edX platform software for Indian needs, such that the modified platform can be used for education as also for vocational training in the country. This platform is used to offer courses from IITBombayX

Dr. Phatak has helped several institutes and universities to set up educational programs. He spent the academic year 1983-84 in his alma mater at Indore for this purpose. He has served as Chairman of the national board of IT education and research, of All India Council of Technical Education. He has been an Open Source evangelist in India, and has pioneered several initiatives to popularize FOSS usage. In 2003, he took sabbatical leave to tour across the country to learn about the status and problems of engineering education in smaller colleges. He visited over 60 engineering colleges, interacting with students and teachers. He discovered the enormous talent that exists in small places. Realizing that such students and teachers need guidance and mentoring, he started the “Ekalavya project” in IIT Bombay. It helps build collaborating communities across educational institutions in India. He has been an adviser to many organizations on issues related to Information Technology, particularly in financial sector. He has helped PSUs and advised Central and State Government departments on various IT projects. He has served on several boards.

He received the “Excellence in Teaching” award of IIT Bombay in 2009, and the IIT Bombay Industrial Impact Research Award in 2010. He was elected Fellow of the Computer Society of India (CSI) in 1999, and Fellow of the IETE in 2000. He was listed amongst fifty most influential Indians by Business Week in 2009. He was conferred Life Time Achievement Awards by Skoch Foundation in 2003, by Data Quest in 2008, and by ‘Dewang Mehta Business School Awards’ in 2010. He was conferred ‘PadmaShri’ by Govt. of India in April 2013. He was conferred the Life Time Achievement award by IIT Bombay, in August 2014.

Dr. Phatak believes that teaching cannot just be one’s profession. It must be the ‘Dharma’ of a teacher. His dream is to see a resurgent India, catching up with the world, using ICT as the spring board.

Title: Onslaught of MOOCs - an opportunity for constructive disruption.

Currently, MOOCs are flourishing as an alternate avenue for learners, to study subjects of their interests, from well-known professors of premier Institutions. MOOCs hold promise of a paradigm shift in teaching-learning methods established over centuries. They permit self-paced learning. An online discussion-forum provides interaction between learners, and between learners and teacher. It permits the instructor to answer specific questions and to clarify doubts in an asynchronous fashion. It is now possible for thousands of students to learn a subject from renowned teachers. Analysis of event logs, a la big data, will permit capture of learning behavior of students. This will be important additional parameter for research and practice in advancing personalized instructions (one of the 14 grand challenges in engineering, for this century) There are important concerns with MOOCs, some of which are discussed in one of my older papers (https://iuceedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/summary-of-talk-d-b-phatak_-blendedmoocs.pdf; also available at http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/nmeict/pdfs/MOOCs.pdf). These are: non-recognition of MOOCs marks in the regular university grades, absence of learning through face-to-face interaction, and lack of laboratory work for technical courses. The established university system, although curious about the MOOCs phenomenon, remains generally aloof. Some universities have ventured to experiment, but most retain a safe distance, often guarding their established ways of teaching and assessment. Shortcomings of the University system are well known, especially in India with its quaint system of affiliated colleges. Some of these are: fixed and outdated syllabus, stereotyped examination system, defined duration of semesters and degree programs. Teachers in affiliated colleges have no say in either formulation of the syllabus, or in setting the question papers. They have the 'autonomy' to teach only to a set pattern. Students focus primarily on getting best grades. They quickly figure out that their teachers are toothless tigers as far as exams and grades are concerned. They often ignore local teaching, throng coaching classes, and read guide books rather than text books. The university system is aware of these aberrations, but stays the chartered course. This is primarily due to its belief that the employers, and therefore the society at large, will continue to 'recognize' its degrees and grades as 'essential' for job prospects, at least for initial filtering by prospective employers; while MOOCs certificates are not yet so recognized. Employers may soon figure out that MOOCs certifications are good enough to judge competencies and knowledge. They will learn that their employees do not necessarily need conventional degrees to perform their jobs well, and such independent online learning and assessment provide an adequate filter for their recruitment process. Already, the PSUs in India have started asking for the GATE score of applicants. It is of course in addition to a valid degree as of today, but things are likely to change. Whether it will happen in 5 years, 10 years, or 50 years is not known. But when it does, a great disruption may occur. In any case, if MOOCs wer ever to simply come out as plausible replacement of conventional education, holistic education will remain a silent casualty, as we may simply be replacing one set of inadequacies with another. Rather than waiting for the market forces to play out this game, I believe it is possible to develop a blended system, where the conventional face-to-face education is meaningfully supplemented by great online courses. Use of flipped classrooms in local colleges, a collaborative group of large number of teachers working jointly with MOOCs and classroom engagement, may reintroduce the emphasis on problem solving, vigorous discussions, and new ethos in our system. This will significantly enhance the learning experience and quality of education. I believe the key for such a blend is to make Institutes start with using the composite approach, with an agreement to factor the MOOCs marks earned by the students in the final university grade obtained in conventional assessment and exams. Once students know that the grade for a subject depends on both marks, they will pay attention to both, and hopefully benefit. I am lucky to have found 50 Institutes in India willing to practice this model in the coming academic year. I am holding a discussion meeting with them in Mumbai on 6 June. Three courses (which we have successfully offered as MOOCs on edX and also on IITBombayX) are being offered under this blended scheme. A large number of Indian learners are independently expected to enroll for these MOOCs for an honour code certificate. Of these some 20,000 students from the 50 institutes Institutes will actually get a grade for their regular degree course, comprising of scores from MOOCs and conventional assessment. I am pretty excited with the prospect.

http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~dbp/