Certification process

NPTEL began the initiative of offering certification to students for courses in March 2014. The process of certification is as follows.

1. Subject Matter Experts (SME - faculty from IITs or partner institutes with input from industry) create recorded video content for courses.
2. The course is uploaded on the portal and opened for enrollments, which is free.
3. Every week, about 3 hrs of video content is released along with an assignment , which is evaluated and provides the student with a score.
4. Teaching Assistants (TAs) and the faculty members support the discussion forum – answering questions and clearing doubts.
5. If someone wants to get a certificate from the IITs/IISc after doing the course, he/she should register for the in-person proctored certification exam that is conducted in 170+ cities across India and in select cities outside India too in collaboration with an exam partner. For learners in many other countries looking to get certified, online remote proctored exams are also administered. The certification exam is not free but has a nominal fee of Rs 1000.
6. A learner will pass and be certified only if Average assignment score (out of 100) >= 40 AND Final exam score ( out of 100) >= 40. E-verifiable certificates are made available inside the candidate login. Only e-certificates will be published. Hard copies of certificates will NOT be printed. The pass criteria depends on the courses. The above mentioned is applicable for most of the courses but for those courses which have non proctored programming exams and for courses in other disciplines, the pass criteria may be different.
7. These certificates are envisioned for use in credit transfer to universities or for making the student more employable or for enhancing their growth in their current place of work.

Credit transfer from SWAYAM courses

UGC and AICTE have issued guidelines whereby upto 40% of course credits can be obtained by taking courses on SWAYAM. For more details visit: swayam

Why should a learner do NPTEL online certification courses?

• Enables the student to directly engage and learn from the best faculty in the country in that particular subject. This strengthens the fundamentals of the student in the course
• Gives the students the opportunities to explore new areas of interest – which are not possible in a regular college environment.
• Faculty can use these for career progression.
• The audience in a MOOC includes students spanning the length and breadth of India and a small fraction of foreign students. This mix of peer groups gives the students a chance to assess where they stand with respect to this group of learners.
• These courses also bring out the self-learning initiative of the students – where their own motivation is what drives them to complete the course and not external compulsions. This fosters the habit of keeping oneself updated always by means of self-study.
• The certificates issued bear the stamp of the institute offering the course and hence are valuable additions when the students apply for jobs.
• Companies can also recruit from this pool of candidates with specialized skills.

NPTEL Local Chapters – partnership with colleges

NPTEL partners with around 4500+ colleges as on date in the form of NPTEL Local chapters and each college has a coordinator with whom NPTEL works closely. For more details, visit: NPTEL Local Chapters

Internship

From 2018 summer onward, NPTEL has started offering internships to NOC exam toppers with the respective course faculty. In the winter of 2021, more than 90 toppers are pursuing their internships online with various faculty.

Workshops

The aim of these workshops is to create maximum awareness among learners about NPTEL and its various initiatives. The workshop will include sessions on NPTEL and its features, NPTEL Online Certification courses and the concept of NPTEL Local Chapter. NPTEL does this in partnership with host institutes who in turn invite their students and learners/faculty from other institutions to participate. For more details, click on

Live Sessions

As part of the certification courses, we also organize LIVE interactive sessions with the faculty and team for learners. Such sessions facilitate the learners to interact directly with the course team and get their doubts clarified. These will be announced on the respective courses.

Industry Associate

Currently, NPTEL is working towards bringing in an industry perspective to its technically rich courses which led to the inception of NPTEL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATE (NIA). NPTEL aims to partner with organisations in a mutually beneficial manner by offering courses to train the freshers in the companies and to cross-skill and up-skill the existing workforce. Other ways in which companies partner with NPTEL is to have their senior management give live talks on current technology trends, conduct mock interviews for NPTEL learners, run short term workshops, and also provide CSR support to the various initiatives that are not supported by MoE currently.

Faculty Development Program

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) the statutory body and a national-level council for technical education, under Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development and NPTEL have signed an MOU on July 24, 2018 whereby advanced NPTEL online certification courses are approved as Faculty Development Programme (FDP) by AICTE. (F. No. AICTE/RIFD/FDP Through MOOCs/2017-18). If faculty in these colleges enroll and complete any of the NPTEL-FDP approved courses, by passing the certification exam, they can apply and obtain the NPTEL-AICTE FDP certificate.