The Instructional Methodology
The entire programme consists presently of several semesters lasting over 6 months each. The programme material is so designed across the various semesters to ensure that the learning experience and the instruction provided changes with the development of the student. It is assumed that at the entry to the program the student is not very comfortable with self research and does not possess the discipline and the enthusiasm to seek out information and learn through self motivated effort and activity. The student is habituated to an instructor lead learning environment and the online self instructive methodology needs to be inculcated and enhanced across the semesters of the programme.

Instructor Driven to Self Driven Approach

By this methodology the initial semester programme content will explain the concepts more in detail while the programme material will incorporate several tasks and activities which will enliven the study effort and enhance the knowledge application. As the student progresses through the program the programme material will explain the concepts in brief while laying more emphasis on application of the concepts and attributing them to real life situations. The students will grow comfortable with the online medium over time and will begin to appreciate the benefits of the online programme.

Courseware Development
Process The courseware development for Online programmes has gone through the following stages of development:

• The syllabus for online programmes has been developed by eminent academicians and industry experts taking in to consideration the curriculum being taught in the best of the universities in the world including Wharton, Stanford and Harvard.

• The syllabi from various Indian universities and colleges including IITs, IIITs, and also regular courseware of PTU were thoroughly scrutinized to the finest details.

• Finally computing curricula 2001 prepared by IEEE joint task force was studied to find out the latest trends in IT Education world-wide.

• Subject Faculty was appointed and assigned the task of developing content for different programmes.

• Faculty started delivering content chapter by chapter. This time was not really predictable. However we found that it took around two month's time minimum for the faculty to deliver the complete subject content.

• Auditing of Content- First round of review used to take place to check if the figure numbers/references/tables/grammatical review/ objective/ summary/ technical content/ is correct. This used to take about two hours per chapter. We realized this was necessary to remove the errors which get carried over till the end.

• After this the document is released for content placement and voice over recording.

• After this was done, content was digitized, processed, images and animation were developed and placed parallel to text placement. - placing the images / animations in the docs/ adding the links /tasks/notes/tools section.

• Quality Test- After the digitization of the content the quality was tested analyzed for any error, QA report was prepared and debugging process used to follow.

• Finally the content was packaged into individual Volumes and CD's were written.

• Final QA- After the CDs were written, the quality of CDs was checked by random sampling method.

Content Presentation & Delivery
The student experiences an exhilarating learning environment provided by state of the art programme material delivered via a "Virtual Classroom" which helps the student to learn more efficiently and effectively. The content shall also be available to the students on a CD for offline browsing along with option to have a printed copy.

Once the programme consultants have proofed the content the same is given for digitization and adaptation to the computer medium. Here the critical elements of the programme content are given the proper representation using multimedia technologies and the programme material is digitized.

The crucial elements are-

1. Pictorial and graphical representations

2. Animations to explain concepts

3. Voice over explanations of concepts

4. Audio and video presentations

5. Power point presentation with voice over commentaries

The content is presented in a manner that keeps the student focused and involved in the subject matter. The student may be prompted to seek out information either through direct field or desk research or proceed on an internet exploration to garner additional information.

The student has access to the evaluation of his learning through self tests and quizzes. In addition the faculty can constantly keep track of the student's progress through various assignments and submissions made by the student.

The student can use various productivity tools including -
Glossary- This tool allows students to search for information based on alphabetical index.
Search- This tool allows students to search for specific information from within the programme content by entering specific keywords.
References- This tool provides additional information like reference books, links to related websites, tutorials, etc.
Notepad- This tool allows students to capture their notes and views on the content.