Online Learning has seen much growth since past few years. People prefer learning through Online Platforms rather than moving to an offline training. Both have their pros and cons but we will not be discussing them here.
In this article we will be knowing about the eLearning platform Swayam. We will also be mentioning some popular online courses from this platform and how you can register for the same. So, if you are someone who wants to get into the world of Digital Learning then stay till the end of this post.
What is Swayam?
Swayam is a free online learning program initiated by the Government of India. It was announced back in 2014 and was officially launched in the year 2017.
Swayam online courses are focused on achieving the three fundamentals of Education namely access, equity, and quality. With the help of Swayam, the Government of India wants to take digital learning to a whole new level.
Are Swayam Courses Free?
As we have already shared the fact that all these courses are provided as MOOCs. Massive Open Online Course is a distance learning program for free online learning.
For getting a certificate through Swayam online courses you will have to take an exam at the allotted exam center. You only have to pay if you want to take the exam and get certified. There is no charges for enrolling in a course and learning through it.
Is Swayam Certificate Valid?
This question arises every time someone hears about online courses. Yes, the certificate provided by Swayam is valid as it is a Government of India initiative. Most of the courses are designed to give students both an overview and a start towards learning new skills.
The certificate can also be mentioned in your resume. You will only get the certificate after undergoing and clearing the exam. Exam centers across the country are allotted and the students need to attend the exams. The scoring system allows you to add these as additional grades in your regular university courses.
What Courses Are Provided?
There are multiple fields for which the platform provides courses. Below are the main points that you may want to know about the type of content provided:
1. All the courses that are provided through offline learning from Class 9th up to Post Graduation level are available.
2. Course categories include Science, Humanity, Engineering, Management, Mathematics, Arts & Recreation, General Education, etc.
3. The platform is capable to host more than 2000 courses with 80,000 hours of course content.
4. The course content is not limited to videos but students will also get:
- Reading material prepared by experts
- Tests and quizzes to examine the learning progress
- An online forum for students for all their queries and discussions.
5. The grades can be easily transferred to your university academic records. UGC issued the Credit Framework Regulation in 2016 which allows Universities to transfer the credits to academic records from online courses.
6. For helping students in getting the best quality content, multiple national coordinators are selected. Together they will help this initiative by creating and managing the best study material for students. They are as follows:
- NPTEL – For Engineering related syllabus
- CEC – For undergraduate education
- NCERT & NIOS – For Education up to senior secondary classes
- IIMB – Management Learning
- IGNOU – For out of the school students
- NITTTR – For Teacher Training Programme
How to Register for Swayam Online Courses?
It is very simple to get enrolled in the courses provided on this platform. Follow the steps given below:
1. Move to the official website here Homepage
2. Click on the button Sign-In/Register, it will take you to the registration page.
3. Fill in the details including Username, Email ID and a strong password.
4. Verify your Email ID by submitting the code that has been shared on your Email.
5. You will be forwarded to the homepage after the signup process.
6. There is an option for All Courses at the top right corner. Just click on that and you will be taken to the Explore page.
7. You can filter the courses based on Coordinators, Course Duration, Exam Date and Categories.
Tech Skills Courses from Swayam
The platform hosts more than 500 courses from different domains as explained earlier. But we will only be mentioning some important Tech Skill courses. For more courses, you can go through the list provided at the website itself.
These courses are currently open for enrollment and have different end dates for enrollments. We will try to keep the list updated and will remove all the courses that are not allowing the enrollment. So, Let’s Get Started:
1. An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
This course is for beginners who want to enter the world of Artificial Intelligence. The students will be trained on a variety of AI concepts and important models including Search, Logic, Bayes Nets, and MDPs. After this course, the student will able to dive deep into the field with further advanced courses.
Course Duration: 12 Weeks
Start Date: 27 Jan 2020
End Date: 17 April 2020
Exam Date: 26 April 2020
Level: Undergraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to AI
Week 2: Modeling of Different Types of Problems
Week 3: Heuristic Search & Domain Relaxations
Week 4: Some Basic Algorithms
Week 5: Adversarial Search
Week 6: Constraint Satisfaction
Week 7: Propositional Logic & Satisfiability
Week 8: Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence
Week 9: Bayesian Networks Learning & Inference, Decision Theory
Week 10: Markov Decision Processes
Week 11: Reinforcement Learning
Week 12: Introduction to Deep Learning & Deep RL
2. Cloud Computing & Distributed Systems
Cloud computing is one of the trending tech skills in the market and this course from Swayam will get you on track. The course is delivered by Prof. Rajiv Mishra from IIT Patna. After completing this course students will have the knowledge about how cloud computing works and how it uses Distributed systems to work.
Most of the companies are now moving towards cloud solutions thus it is good to learn. If you have some interest in Cloud computing then surely enroll in the course.
Course Duration: 8 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 20 March 2020
Exam Date: 29 March 2020
Level: Undergraduate/Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to Clouds, Virtualization and Virtual Machines
Week 2: Network Visualization
Week 3: Leader Election in Cloud, Distributed Systems
Week 4: Classical Distributed Systems
Week 5: Consensus, Paxos, and Recovery in Clouds
Week 6: Cloud Storage
Week 7: P2P Systems
Week 8: Cloud Applications
3. Data Analytics With Python
Python language needs no introduction and most of you might have heard a lot about it. So, this course is about how Python can be used to analyze data. With the advancement in Digital World, every business depends so much on data. Most of them are working on a data-driven approach where the analytics reports guide the workflow.
This makes Data Analytics an important and interesting field. Students will be getting hands-on experience with real-world data and tools.
Course Duration: 12 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 17 April 2020
Exam Date: 25 April 2020
Level: Undergraduate/Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to Analytics
Week 2: Basics of Python Programming
Week 3: Starting to work on Data
Week 4: Linear Regression
Week 5: Linear Regression Continued
Week 6: Logistic Regression
Week 7: Trees
Week 8: Trees Continued
Week 9: Text Analysis
Week 10: Text Analysis Continued
Week 11: Clustering
Week 12: Clustering Continued
4. Data Science for Engineers
Data Science is a very vast field that includes multi-stage processes to extract important information from Data. This data may be present in either structured or unstructured forms. The extracted information is then used to make important business decisions.
This course is instructed by Professors from IIT Madras. After completing the course students will have knowledge about Data Science and how to work further in this field.
Course Duration: 8 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 20 March 2020
Exam Date: 29 March 2020
Level: Undergraduate/Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to R Programming Language
Week 2: Linear Algebra
Week 3: Basics of Statistics
Week 4: Optimization
Week 5: Data Science Problems
Week 6: Linear Regression
Week 7: Logistic Regression
Week 8: KNN and k-means Clustering
5. Introduction to Blockchain Technology and Applications
Blockchain is a trending technology providing an umbrella to cryptocurrencies. On a simple definition Blockchain is a series of records of data that are immutable. These data records are managed by multiple devices with no single owner entity.
This is an emerging field for students and can help them in to shape a good career path. Swayam blockchain course will take you through the basics of Blockchain technology and how it can help in defining future products.
Course Duration: 8 Weeks
Start Date: : 24 Feb 2020
End Date: : 17 April 2020
Exam Date: 25 April 2020
Level: Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Basics of Blockchain
Week 2: Hashing and Other Stuff
Week 3: Bitcoin Blockchain
Week 4: Alternative Coins
Week 5: IOTA
Week 6: The Real Need of Mining
Week 7: Permissioned Blockchain
Week 8: Further Uses of Blockchain
6. Introduction to Machine Learning
Machine Learning is one of the trending tech skills in the market currently. Businesses have started using Machine Learning models for various problems. It is the process of building algorithms with self-learning capability through provided data sets and conditions.
It is also one of the highest-paid fields in the IT sector and thus most recommended for everyone who wants to get into the IT field. Although it is a very vast field that requires years of expertise to learn all the concepts and points about working. This course will let you start with your Machine Learning journey.
Course Duration: 12 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 17 April 2020
Exam Date: 26 April 2020
Level: Undergraduate/Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 0: Probability Theory, Linear Algebra, etc
Week 1: Statistical Decision Theory
Week 2: Major Types of Regression
Week 3: Linear Classification
Week 4: Perceptron. Support Vector Machines
Week 5: Neural Networks
Week 6: Trees
Week 7: Bootstrapping & Cross-Validation
Week 8: Gradient Boosting
Week 9: Undirected Graphical Models
Week 10: Partitional Clustering
Week 11: Gaussian Mixture Models
Week 12: Learning Theory
The course content also contains further sub-topics which we have not mentioned. You can check the official site for a full content list.
7. Speaking Effectively
This course helps the students in understanding the dynamics of effective speaking. Students will be able to learn all the fundamentals of one to one and one to many communication. They will be able to speak out their thoughts with confidence.
Public speaking is also an important factor in career growth. This makes it an important course to enroll no matter from which field you are.
Course Duration: 8 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 20 March 2020
Exam Date: 29 March 2020
Level: Postgraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to Effective Speaking
Week 2: Nonverbal Communication
Week 3: Phonetics
Week 4: Voice & Delivery
Week 5: Basic Conversational Skills
Week 6: Appearing in Interviews
Week 7: Making & Assessing Presentations
Week 8: Group Discussions & Meetings
8. Programming, Data Structures, and Algorithms Using Python
Data Structures are one of the most important parts of any programming language. You will be facing problems if you skip this part while learning to program. This course is here to give you an introduction to problem-solving with Python.
Course Duration: 8 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 20 March 2020
Exam Date: 29 March 2020
Level: Undergraduate
The course content is as follows:
Week 1: Introduction to Fundamentals
Week 2: Python Programming
Week 3: Basics of Algorithms
Week 4: Working on Dictionaries
Week 5: Exception Handling and Basic Input Output
Week 6: Advanced Algorithms
Week 7: Data Types
Week 8: Dynamic Programming
9. Effective Writing
Writing is another important thing that every person should learn. Writing has so many dimensions and every other requires a different structure, process, and emotions. The course on effective writing will help students in learning the subtle art of learning their thoughts keeping in mind the end goal.
As there are different occasions where writing is needed and each one has a different way. Thus, there are different segments in this course including Web Content, Report Writing, Academic Writing, etc.
Course Duration: 4 Weeks
Start Date: : 27 Jan 2020
End Date: : 21 Feb 2020
Exam Date: 29 March 2020
Level: Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Some More Important Courses
1. Programming in C++ From IIT Kharagpur
2. Programming in Java From IIT Kharagpur
3. Entrepreneurship Essentials from IIT Kharagpur
4. Reinforcement Learning from IIT Madras
5. Software Testing from IIT Kharagpur
6. Digital Marketing from Punjab University Chandigarh
So here comes an end to the list of some of the Swayam online courses. They were mostly related to Tech Skills and Swayam has got them covered really well.
There are more courses related to different other fields which you can check on the site. Happy Learning!