Prema Nedungadi

The VALUE @ Amrita Virtual Labs Project: Using Web Technology to Provide Virtual Laboratory Access to Students

In response to the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) Initiative, the Virtual and Accessible Laboratories Universalizing Education (VALUE @ Amrita) Virtual Labs Project was initiated to provide laboratory-learning experiences to college and university students across India who may not have access to adequate laboratory facilities or equipment. These virtual laboratories require only a broadband Internet connection and standard web browser. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University (Amrita University) is part of a consortium of twelve institutions building over two hundred virtual labs covering nine key disciplines in science and engineering. This National Mission project hopes to reach out to Indias millions of engineering and science students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Virtual Labs Project is providing virtual laboratory experiments that directly support the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) model curricula for engineering and sciences undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Enhanced facilitation of biotechnology education in developing nations via virtual labs: analysis, implementation and case-studies

Methods for educating students in biotechnology require intensive training in laboratory procedures. Laboratory procedures cost Universities in terms of equipment and experienced guidance which often come short in many developing countries. Universities need revitalizing approach and well-adapted curriculum especially in terms of laboratory practice. For enhanced education at the level of University-level laboratory courses such as those in biology or biotechnology, one of the key elements is the need to allow the student to familiarize laboratory techniques in par with regular theory. The Sakshat Amrita virtual biotechnology lab project focusing on virtualizing wet-lab techniques and integrating the learning experience has added a new dimension to the regular teaching courses at the University. Establishing virtual labs requires both domain knowledge and virtualizing skills via programming, animation and device-based feedback. This paper reports a cost-effective process used in virtualizing real biotechnology labs for education at Universities. The major challenge in setting up an effective knowledge dissemination for laboratory courses was not only the scientific approach of biotechnology, but included the virtualization aspects such as usage/design scalability, deliverability efficiency, network connectivity issues, security and speed of adaptability to incorporate and update changes into existing experiments. This paper also discusses an issue-specific case-study of a functional virtual lab in biotechnology and its many issues and challenges.

Effectiveness of adaptive learning with interactive animations and simulations

We present the adaptive simulations of Amrita Learning, a web-based, interactive eLearning program that aims to create a realistic mathematics and science laboratory environment for school students to study equipments, perform simulation experiments interactively, measure or analyze results, and understand their application, It teaches abstract concepts, such as flow of electrons and magnetic fields, using highly sophisticated and interactive simulations.

Enhanced STEM learning with Online Labs: Empirical study comparing physical labs, tablets and desktops

Indias educational challenge includes a large school going population, shortage of science teachers and lack of science labs in many schools. To counter this challenge, the Online Labs (OLabs) pedagogy is designed as a complete learning environment with tutorials, theory, procedure, animations, videos and simulations while the assessment includes conceptual, experimental, procedural and reporting skills. We discuss two separate empirical studies using OLabs to study the performance gains, student attitudes and preferences while using physical labs, desktops and tablets. The first study was at a school that compared students who learnt individually with OLabs on desktops, to students who learnt with the traditional teacher led physical labs. The second study was at a science camp and compared OLabs on desktops to OLabs that were context adapted for android tablets. There were significant differences between the physical labs and the self study mode using OLabs on desktops, but no significant differences between OLabs on desktops compared to OLabs on tablets.

Biotechnology Virtual Labs - Integrating Wet-lab Techniques and Theoretical Learning for Enhanced Learning at Universities

For enhanced education at the level of University courses such as those in biology or biotechnology, one of the key elements is the need of time and expertise to allow the student to familiarize laboratory techniques in par with regular theory. The Sakshat Amrita virtual biotechnology lab project focusing on virtualizing wet-lab techniques and integrating the learning experience has added a new dimension to the regular teaching courses at the University. Establishing virtual labs requires both domain knowledge and virtualizing skills via programming, animation and device-based feedback. Challenges in the biotechnology sector in setting up a laboratory that integrates both the feel and phenomenon includes the medley of multiple techniques. This paper reports one such cost-effective process used in virtualizing a real biotechnology lab at the University-level. The major challenge in setting up an effective knowledge dissemination for laboratory courses was not only the scientific approach of biotechnology, but included the virtualization aspects such as usage/design scalability, deliverability efficiency, network connectivity issues, security and speed of adaptability to incorporate and update changes into existing experiments. This paper also discusses an issue-specific case-study of a functional virtual lab in biotechnology and its many issues and challenges.

Biotechnology Virtual Labs: Facilitating Laboratory Access Anytime-Anywhere for Classroom Education

Biotechnology is becoming more popular and well identified as a mainline industry. Students have shown greater interest in learning the techniques. As a discipline, biotechnology has led to new advancements in many areas. Criminal investigation has changed dramatically thanks to DNA fingerprinting. Significant advances in forensic medicine, anthropology and wildlife management have been noticed in the last few years. Biotechnology has brought out hundreds of medical diagnostic tests that keep the blood safe from infectious diseases such as HIV and also aid detection of other conditions early enough to be successfully treated. Medical kits for diabetes, blood cholesterol and home pregnancy tests are also biotechnology diagnostic products. Industrial biotech applications have led to cleaner processes that produce less waste and use less energy and water in such industrial sectors as chemicals, pulp and paper, textiles, food, energy, and metals and minerals. Laundry detergents produced in many countries contain biotechnology-based enzymes making them nature friendly and safer. Agricultural biotechnology benefits farmers, consumers and the environment by increasing yields and farm income, decreasing pesticide applications and improving soil and water quality, and providing healthful foods for consumers. Biotechnology has created more than 200 new therapies and vaccines, including products to treat cancer, diabetes, HIV/ AIDS and autoimmune disorders.

Enhanced sentiment analysis of informal textual communication in social media by considering objective words and intensifiers

Sentiment analysis is a valuable knowledge resource to understand collective sentiments from the Web and helps make better informed decisions. Sentiments may be positive, negative or objective and the method of assigning sentiment weights to terms and sentences are important factors in determining the accuracy of the sentiment classification. We use standard methods such as Natural Language Processing, Support Vector Machines and SentiWordNet lexical resource. Our work aims at improving the sentiment classification by modifying the sentiment values returned by SentiWordNet for intensifiers based on the context to the semantic of the words related to the intensifier. We also reassign some of the objective words to either positive or negative sentiment. We test our sentiment classification method with product reviews of digital cameras gathered from Amazon and ebay and shows that our method improves the prediction accuracy.

A high performance hybrid algorithm for text classification

The high computational complexity of text classification is a significant problem with the growing surge in text data. An effective but computationally expensive classification is the k-nearest-neighbor (kNN) algorithm. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has commonly been used as a preprocessing phase to reduce the dimensionality followed by kNN. However, though the dimensionality is reduced, the algorithm requires all the vectors in the projected space to perform the kNN. We propose a new hybrid algorithm that uses PCA & kNN but performs kNN with a small set of neighbors instead of the complete data vectors in the projected space, thus reducing the computational complexity. An added advantage in our method is that we are able to get effective classification using a relatively smaller number of principal components. New text for classification is projected into the lower dimensional space and kNN is performed only with the neighbors in each axis based on the principal that vectors that are closer in the original space are closer in the projected space and also along the projected components. Our findings with the standard benchmark dataset Reuters show that the proposed model significantly outperforms kNN and the standard PCA-kNN hybrid algorithms while maintaining similar classification accuracy.

Performance improvements in schools with Adaptive Learning and Assessment

This paper presents Amrita Learning, a web-based, multimedia-enabled, Adaptive Assessment and Learning System for schools. Computer-based adaptive assessments aim to use an optimal and individualized assessment path to determine the knowledge level of students. The new goal for adaptive assessment is based on educational outcomes, which describe what learners must be able to do as a result of items studied. Assessment based on outcomes creates the initial roadmap for the educational model, ensuring that students are not learning items that are already mastered. Learners and instructors can accurately determine their areas of strengths and weaknesses, and use this to determine future instruction.

Computer Science (CS) Education in Indian Schools: Situation Analysis using Darmstadt Model

Computer science (CS) and its enabling technologies are at the heart of this information age, yet its adoption as a core subject by senior secondary students in Indian schools is low and has not reached critical mass. Though there have been efforts to create core curriculum standards for subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Math, CS seems to have been kept outside the purview of such efforts leading to its marginalization. As a first step, using the Darmstadt model from the ITiCSE working group that provides a systematic categorization approach to CS education in schools, we coded and analyzed the CS situation for the Indian schools. Next, we focused on the motivation category of the Darmstadt model and investigated behavioral intentions of secondary school students and teachers from 332 schools in India. Considering the CS subject as an educational innovation, using Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion of Innovations, we propose a pedagogical framework for innovation attributes that can significantly predict-adoption of the CS subject among potential-adopter students and teachers. Data was analyzed to answer research questions about student and teacher intentions, influence of gender, school management, and school location in adopting CS. Interestingly, girls, urban students, teachers, and private schools were seen favoring the adoption of CS. An important issue that needed to be addressed, however, was the interchangeable use of terms like CS, Informatics, ICT, and digital literacy. Through our article, we offer a promising picture of the educational policy directives and the academic environment in India that is rapidly growing and embracing CS as a core subject of study in schools. We also analyze the factors that influence the adoption of CS by school students and teachers and conclude that there is a very positive response for CS among educators and students in India.