During the Covid Pandemic, if you were in-charge of running your college, what would you do?

IMPACT OF COVD 19 on B-SCHOOL CURRICULUM The Coronavirus pandemic has spawned a tsunami of innovative ideas for redesigning B- Schools PGDM curricula. The lessons learnt from the widespread disruption have spurred academicians to doff their hats and redesign syllabii of courses in Economies, Strategy, HR, Supply Chain Management etc. At JIMS, Kalkaji, New Delhi, apart from our pioneering efforts in embracing technology and successfully conducting online classes and examinations for our PGDM students, we have also tweaked our courses in real time to reflect the changing reality of the global pandemic. Our HR focused courses now include lessons learnt on how workplaces and their dynamics are continually evolving whilst the Economic course addresses the impact of crashing oil prices on the global economy. Other novel initiatives adopted by us to enrich the PGDM curriculum pertain to inclusion of predictive models in the financial markets and strategy courses as well as addition of new modules in courses of Disaster Management and Sustainability. It is well said of us that in keeping with our motto we strive to "evolve as the world revolvesDr ( Cdr) Satish Seth Director General JIMS Kalkaji New Delhi.

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Supriya Sehgal, Registrar JK Business School "There is no education like adversity"-Benjamin Disraeli JK Business School is an industry anchored business school with a complete focus on training students for dynamic industry requirements. The current pandemic has necessitated that students prepare themselves with challenges and opportunities in the industry post lock down. We are one of the first movers to adopt this remote mode of education with the outbreak of the pandemic. We started our online classes, from the very day the first class was scheduled after Holi break, without any breach in the past schedule. Except for the mode of delivery nothing has changed for us. JKBS has adopted Google Meet under G Suite as our preferred platform for the delivery of online lectures. Thanks to our enthusiastic professors and innovative and liberal initiatives of Google to allow online classes with a capacity of 250 participants and facility of screen sharing, video recording, and many more. Students are also taking compulsory live projects to get necessary corporate experience. In spite of all the negative outcomes, this pandemic has made us witness a new phase of digitization, especially in education and knowledge sharing. Under this lockdown situation, JKBS is organizing an ample number of webinars and guest lectures by industry experts and great personalities. Students are getting a golden opportunity to listen to them, interact with them, and take their interpersonal and management skills at higher levels. To further strengthen their practical training and hone managerial and critical thinking skills, the Biz lab, online business simulation programme has been made compulsory credit course. Its a management simulation game that helps a student to integrate all the concepts of different functional areas that they have learned in various courses. In this game, the student becomes a CEO of an organisation and runs a company. Students get an opportunity to make strategies in every functional domain of the company and then take decisions to increase profit and market share. During Covid 19 students are spending more time to strategies their business model and are taking winning decisions. This game provides complete knowledge to students in Finance, HR, Operations, Production, and Marketing domain.

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Dr Preeti Singh Professor and Head of the Department PGDM (International Business JIMS Kalkaji Education is the most important activity in a nation. By building the talents of youth it benefits and builds nations. Do we always require a classroom and lectures with students writing notes? The lockdown has thrown a challenge to innovate for a transition into new doors opening. Teachers should be gurus and mentors and make students think and they can make a huge difference in the lives of students. Higher education is not only about exams, classes, or grades. It is to create an experience that prepares students to become meaningful members of the work force, with knowledge, skills, and life experiences. Mentors have to now switch from physical classrooms to online method of imparting knowledge and testing capabilities of students. We at JIMS Kalkaji took up the challenge to create opportunities for our students and our faculty members.1. We imparted information and training to our faculty by faculty development programmes held every week for 6 weeks.2. We started taking online classes on Zoom and also recorded lectures for self-improvement and building a library for future for dissemination of knowledge.3We announced internships and prizes for the best social media project of a student mentored by a faculty member.4. We collaborated with some employers and students were give internship placements through work from home basis.5 We at JIMS organized examination through Google forms and proctoring through Zoom on camera to avoid unethical practices. Examinations were all encompassing through Multiple Choice Questions, Case studies, subjective Questions and Viva. The experience of online instruction and examination leads one to believe that there is always a silver lining beyond the dark clouds of a pandemic situation.

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It is human nature to look for certainty. The quest for certainty compels people to cling on to the known and time-tested methods of leading life and/or doing work. This would stall the progress of humankind from one level of equilibrium to another. Disruptions, whether natural or manmade, happen to grant impetus to the evolutionary cycle. COVID-19 is one such disrupting phenomenon. The model of education that we have been used to is a by-product of the factory model of production, wherein emphasis is on the mass production of educated people, graded as per the level of their educational qualification, and in recent times, the institution where they have been educated. Such a model of education ignored the idiosyncratic variations in the style of learning. We did make changes to this by way of introduction of flipped classroom teaching. But such efforts have been limited to pockets of excellence. With the sudden swoop of COVID-19, the transition from mass-based education to individual learner-centric education has become inevitable. We at JIMS, Vasant Kunj, have been fully cognizant of this and have, therefore, embraced this so-called threat as a challenge and an opportunity to make this paradigmatic change. So, as a first step, we have switched wholesale from classroom face to face teaching to online teaching, followed up with online mentoring and counselling classes to steer students out of the labyrinth of their academic and personal doubts to empower them as learners. We intend to carry forward this engagement with individual learning and empowerment in the coming session to effect a paradigmatic change in the teaching learning process at JIMS, Vasant Kunj, from teacher-led to student-centric learning.

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If I were the in charge of running the college, I would have done followings things: 1- Final year students who will be graduating and looking forward to their future, webinars would be a good option on the topics based on the current market scenarios like future studies, jobs, etc. 2- Online webinar for all the students through their respective pool of professors on how to cope with this kind of situation as mental preparation is must for everyone at this time. 3- Online lectures for the respective classes should be planned and started accordingly. Workload of teachers and professors should be balanced.

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According to me, there are 3 crucial points that needs to be addressed: 1) Final Year students who will be graduating should be ensured that their semester ends on time so that they can engage themselves 100% in work that is being provided by the companies in which they are recruited. 2) All the classes should be finished on time by various means. Being a faculty of Department of Mechanical Engineering at The NorthCap University Gurgaon, the university has ensured the same and all the classes are taken on time through Microsoft Teams app. Students are also motivated to take this as a challenge and bring out their true potential irrespective of the situation. 3) Extra Curricular activities in these times plays a vital role in maintaining the zeal and enthusiasm of students to take things positively. We have constantly engaged our students in different webinars, being delivered by various personalities across the globe. Students have also participated in various online activities and competitions where they participate and win some prizes and certificates.

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If I were the in-charge of the college, after the announcement of lockdown, I will divide all the students according to their roll numbers and allot a group of students to the faculty. Then, the faculty will be asked to maintain contact with all the students of the group and provide study material on regular basis to the students so that there study is not hindered due to the lockdown.

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These are challenging times where we need to innovate and set up new standards in academics. First of all, we need to understand that all the stakeholders are stressed whether it is students or their parents, the faculty members, and other non-teaching staff. Whenever these sorts of things happen this is an indication of new emerging patterns the society so institutions who are able to identify and gear up will come out a winner. One thing that all the institution builders need to understand that the now future focus for any institute should be on Technology & People so most future investments have to be made in these two areas. The traditional benchmark of good infrastructure will now change forever. The physical evidence in terms of the building will change to virtual pieces of evidence and how the institution is contributing to generating and disseminating knowledge. For any institution to be successful there are certain suggestions which need to be done: * Emphasis needs to be given on the development of students.* The faculty and students need to be trained on the technology platforms. * The learning needs of a diverse set of students have to be catered so relevant technology to be deployed. * The curriculum needs to revamped to make it online friendly for learning. * The learning outcome evaluation has to be done online.* The corporate interaction dimensions need to be redefined to make the students come-up with terms of a new reality and how the industry has changed the way they are working. * The internships, industry projects, and visits would be a major challenge so new models have to be developed. * The confidence of stakeholders has to be restored in the institution.* The institution needs to understand the new service dimensions that are emerging. Dr. Ashok Sharma, Professor Marketing & Strategy, Director JIMS Kalkaji.

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The moment when we receive the call for lockdown, we immediately got active and framed a time table to conduct and run online classes on various online platforms specifically Zoom and Google Hangout. Special sessions for those students who couldn't attend these online classes due to any technical reason have been scheduled and conducted successfully, we had also arranged mock interviews as a pre-preparatory session for pre-final year and final year students. These students have been facilitated for their capability enhancement through MOOCs and other online courses being provided free by various institutions like AICTE, NITTR, IIC, etc. All our students were engaged in getting at least one online certification course. Continuous and rigorous online tests followed by feedback sessions have been arranged. After data analysis and valuable inputs received from our student, we have developed strategies to motivate students to brush up their innovative skills by providing them opportunities to be a part of IIC and incubation centre. This leisure time was utilized as a big booster in terms of capability enhancement of every individual and all together as a team. These activities are being carried forwarded till the lockdown is lifted, moreover this period has evolved as a new horizon and provided avenues for the young generation to live with this virtual world and develop in all dimensions using these new easy available technologies. Dr. R K Raghuwanshi, Director,JIMS Engineering Management Technical Campus, Greater Noida.

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If I were in-charge of running my college, first of all I'd definitely make sure all the students are regularly in touch with studies and curricular activities without a single bridge or gap in between. Online classes through Zoom or Microsoft Teams must be conducted in a regular manner in a prescheduled way and in order to make sure whether all the students are present actively or not, random questions should be asked to random students. In order to check everyone’s performance statistics, weekly tests need to be conducted wherein attendance of all must be mandatory. If anyone can’t be present due to poor internet connectivity, then tests must be rescheduled for them, especially by academics & system authority. Special workshops must also be arranged for them for enriching their skills. Virtual Internships should be provided to all for practical experiences. Passing by time is easy but utilizing it in an optimizing way is challenging. But Challenges are Opportunities must be kept in mind forever. Well, being alone I can’t develop nation's GDP in this scenario, but when many students' career is in my hand, then it must be dealt in an effective way without hampering their knowledge and skill growth for a nation with bright future.

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I will make sure that the students get access to all the courses on leading websites for free during this period.

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The COVID-19 has affected the education globally by the closure of schools and universities. Our university has taken certain steps so quick that students’ academics couldn't suffer in this pandemic. The NorthCap University has decided to shift the normal class routine to online classes with proper utilization of resources available with us from 16th March 2020. I must appreciate everyone for their cooperation and support. Students also understand the situation well and they also appreciate decisions taken by the university. NCU started online classes through Microsoft Teams with optimized timetable for students and faculty so that long duration in front of screens could be avoided. Faculty has been trained with Microsoft Teams software and various discussions are being held so that there should be no lag in the studies of students which is of prime importance. At NCU, we have Learning Management System in place for students where they can access their class notes, lecture PPTs and assignments, etc. Proper timetable is been followed with lectures, tutorials and labs. All the labs have been conducted through virtual labs, simulation-based labs with MATLAB and also through video demonstrations wherever possible. Regular assignments and quizzes have been conducted as a part of continuous evaluation. Regular feedback have been taken from students and faculty for improvements and moreover, the university has planned for online examinations for final year students so that their placements would not suffer. Continuous evaluations throughout semester plays major role in assessing the students well. Overall, it was an excellent experience for our students, staff and faculty.

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During this Pandemic, NorthCap University is the first university which transformed physical education into virtual education by involving the service of third part. NorthCap University cannot tolerate loss to studies and involved itself to find best possible solutions. We prepared discussion posts that invited responses, questions, discussion and reflections. We adopted micro-modular learning components and involved every student to generate his interest. We used to receive informal feedback after every 15 days from students for effective learning. Regarding the connectivity problem for those students facing connectivity problem, separate classes need to be arranged for them and this calls for additional faculty. Students need to be grouped for effectual learning. Effective Study material needs to be provided regularly to students even through email also and discussing the same on and off. Every student needs to be taken due care and same is the responsibility of teacher to involve every students to discuss with him problems he faces and help him in resolving the same. After proper effective teaching virtually by involving every student through discussions, random quiz, different assignments to be carried out. In this pandemic, both the online exams and assignments are way out to tackle this situation. The question paper can be formulated into 4 parts: (1) Evaluation of assignments already submitted by students.(2) Few MCQ questions can be asked.(3) Short time questions because most of the students will face internet connectivity issues.(4) Case study/ application based/ questions can be asked to avoid unfairness in exams. Slight relaxation needs to be given but at the same time must not compromise the integrity of academics.

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According to me, two important things that will serve the purpose:- 1) Creating more connections with good overseas universities (like Cambridge, Oxford and Howard) and getting practical picture through online Webinars. 2) Reaching rural areas to teach everyone. Even after pandemic gets over, education needs to be provided to everyone.

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One of the major changes that should be done in many teaching institutions is that they should follow the new trend of the education system instead of traditional ones. Because if we need something better and durable then we need to transform ourselves. After the pandemic, data will be the key source of any job. Therefore, students need to learn these things for a better future and a better tomorrow. So, institutions need have to open the sources of data related courses.

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The first thing that a university management needs to do is: they need to put themselves in the shoes of the students and think. It is very important for any student to proceed with his/her career at the right time, without loss of any year. So, classes need to be conducted in online mode through platforms like Google Meet, Goto Webinar, Go Meeting, CISCO WebEx, etc. Laboratories may be conducted using Virtual Labs (vlab. Co. in) platform by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India. Programming related laboratories can be done using standard programming editors, Matlab, Hacker Rank, etc. Exams and assignments can be done using Google Classroom, where question papers may be sent to the students. Students may write the answers, scan and upload, which may be assigned directly from the platform to the teachers to check. To avoid malpractices, question papers may be set using analytical questions and open book type questions, where students may refer to books, but answers will not be available there straightforward. Analytical mind will be needed to deduce the answers. Also, invigilation of the exams can be done again using video conferencing software like Google Meet, Goto Meeting, etc. One teacher may be assigned 10 students to invigilate. As all universities/colleges maintain a 1:20 teacher-student ratio and not more than half of the strength of the university appears in exam at one point of time, assigning invigilations to not more than 10 students for a teacher is possible. If the exams can be divided into further more time slots, allotment of less than 10 students per teacher can be possible also. It can be further reduced by assigning non-teaching staffs also to the invigilation purpose. Also, universities need to be ready for reopening following all social distancing protocols, like assigning spaces with minimum distance of 2 meters for the students to sit. Classrooms need to be increased, or classes need to be further divided into more slots to allow less students. Similar should be done for laboratories also. A routine with increase on time and number of days may also be thought of, while reducing the number of students coming together. Partial online mode may also be used to reduce the number of students coming at a time to the university.

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During the Covid Pandemic, if I were in-charge of running my college, I would do the following changes: I will instruct the staff to start the students' studies through virtual classes so that this pandemic does not affect their studies. The teachers must teach the students through video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype, etc. And try to solve each and every doubt of students. Conducting virtual classes are very essential during this pandemic in order to continue the students' learning programme. I will try to ensure that this period does not have adverse effects on student's studies.

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I would have digitalized every process. Admission forms filling, online classes, online quizzes and tests and all the administrative work. As the safety of the employee and students is the most important at this time. So, I would have converted the entire process into digital form.

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To ensure the protection of prospective students, parents and staff, we can adopt online virtual methodologies to facilitate the complete admission process. We can conduct virtual classes, online assignment submissions and teacher-student interactions.

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Firstly I would like to say "No matter what everyone says or what the popular belief is nowadays no online platform or technology can replace the traditional teaching platforms and methodologies. " But the question here is not about that. So coming to the question here we have to adapt to change our ways a bit. The answer here is based on my experience during MBA. We had a lot of case studies and chapters to go through during the MBA. And I can assure you most of the learning didn't happen when the teacher was teaching us most of it happened when we used to sit in groups and discuss the cases/chapter before the class, when we cross questioned the teacher and post class when we again discussed the actual outcome amongst our group. So apart from giving the students online assignments and submissions, I would arrange for live online sessions supervised by the teacher where students can discuss what they think they have learnt from the chapter or what should be the solution toh case be. In the end there would be time for teacher to give his/her feedback to the students and an additional 15 minutes for cross questioning. I would also encourage students and teachers to not focus on the college curriculum. Rather only try to cover 30-40% of the curriculum on online platforms. And rather focus on the courses that may help them in developing the support skills as most of the students focus on learning and developing skills that are taught in colleges and doesn't focus much on skills that would actually be helpful to them when they sit in an interview such as communication and presentation or skills that are currently in demand in various industries. As the course mentioned in the curriculum can be covered later when the classes resume after the pandemic gets over by having some extra classes As for the exams there would be two kinds of exams. One that would be conducted on a weekly basis to test the basics of what the students have learnt during the week. And a second test to check whether they can apply this basics to other real life situations. The weekly exam would be MCQ based and the second exam that shall be conducted bi- weekly or monthly would be assignment based.

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