SRINAGAR: A two-week interdisciplinary refresher course in Information Technology started at the University of Kashmir on Saturday.
The online refresher course for college and university teachers has been organised by the varsity’s UGC-HRDC.
Vice-Chancellor Central University of Kashmir Prof Mehraj-ud-Din Mir was the chief guest at the inaugural session, where KU Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir was a guest of honour.
In his presidential address, Prof Mehraj-ud-Din urged the participants to acquire sufficient digital literacy and competence that is necessary in the present global digital revolution and also learn about the interventions made by Information Technology in the teaching-learning process.
He said there is no choice but to accept the change, acquire knowledge of IT tools and skills and incorporate these in the teaching-learning process.
In his special address, Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir underscored the need for enhancing IT skills of both teaching and non-teaching staff in higher educational institutions. He applauded the efforts of the UGC-HRDC team in conducting several refresher courses in online mode after the outbreak of Covid-19.
Dr Mir assured the university administration’s all possible help in upgrading the existing infrastructure and online teaching facilities at the HRDC.
He urged the HRDC to conduct capacity-building courses for non-teaching staff and academic administrators to hone their administrative and managerial skills.
In his welcome address, Director UGC-HRDC Prof Mushtaq Ahmad Darzi highlighted the role of HRDC in training more than 8,000 teachers in the past 33 years of its establishment. He said the Centre has been striving hard to emerge as a centre of excellence in the country in faculty development and is constantly improving the quality and nature of its courses to make these relevant and useful.
In his opening remarks, Coordinator HRDC Dr Geer M Ishaq said the present refresher course is aimed at familiarising the participants with the latest trends and recent advances in Information Technology, including internet of things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, block chain revolution, cyber security and network security, apart from promoting their competencies in newer teaching-learning methods including flipped learning, e-learning through MOOCs and Moodle, e-content development, open-source learning resources and e-governance.
Refresher Course Coordinator Dr Javaid Iqbal, faculty at KU’s Department of Computer Sciences, gave an overview of eminent resource persons from all across the country who have been invited to deliver lectures in the online mode in next two weeks.
“Renowned experts in IT from reputed institutions like IIT, JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi University and many other institutions of the country are scheduled to interact with the course participants”, he said.
On Saturday, the lead lecture was delivered by Prof Dharmendra Kushwaha on Bitcoin and block chain technology.