How Sharda University is enabling its campus with tech for academic excellence

A leading UGC approved university in Delhi-NCR, Sharda University is a technology based, global university, which attracts students from more than 80 countries. “The high technology pursuit to achieve academic excellence in teaching, learning and research has attracted footprints of different cultures and countries at Sharda University,” affirms Prashant Gupta, Executive Director, Sharda University.

The university provides technology enabled campus with all-round latest interactive interfaces. “Sharda promotes a paperless ecofriendly environment among students, faculty and staff in the growth of academic, research and university activities. Students at Sharda are connected via digital devices and utilise their devices for various academic, administrative and other activities,” states Gupta.

At Sharda University classrooms are integrated with technology to enhance better learning and teaching. The high-end classrooms are enabled with wireless and wired connectivity, projector, smart lecturing systems which supports interactive mode where faculty provided hands-on lectures for programming-based subjects. “Students are provided with customised LMS where each and every student is connected with their subject related material, details, documents, assignments, quizzes and faculty interface,” mentions Gupta, adding that at Sharda, students are trained for their placements through LMS based test series, which students have to attempt in the time slot provided.

The university is focused on providing its students outcome-based learning. Gupta explains that students do hands on practices on their subjects, it is more like working on live projects. Students need to develop projects for every subject to showcase their understanding and skills for respective subjects. Furthermore, they are involved with various industries for solving problems specified by the industries.

“Through,Technical Skill and Enhancement Program (TSEP) test series which are developed by institute/department, students are exposed to real technical problem practice as per industry requirements which helps them during internships and final placements,” he mentions.

Apart from their curriculum, students are focused on participating in MOOC courses for their better understanding and skill enhancements in respective subjects. “These courses are mapped with their internal assessments so that they may earn their credits while they learn. At Sharda we follow strong mentor-mentee system through the portal, which is proved as a distinct strength in the holistic development of the students,” states Gupta, informing that another unique strength of Sharda University is the utilisation of university intranet through which each and every student is approachable and accessible. Using this easy and effective analysis of student progress related to his presence, grades or sending updates to their parents, easy sharing of resources and semester-wise growth of the students can be monitored and mentored.

Sharda University offers project-based learning and training to the students where projects on latest technologies like IoT, cloud, AI are offered as a part of regular as well as industry offered projects. Gupta points out that students are involved in real-time industry projects where they are participating in various development modules at various industries. They also participating in consultancy projects and other industry based professional activities.

Lab facilities are provided 24×7 to all the students. Importantly, their entrepreneur zeal is supported with Sharda Incubation Center which is one of the renowned and most-established incubation centres in NCR. “Students are supported to nurture their budding ideas in new possibilities of business prospects. A team of experts is available for the students to enable them to capitalise the resources,” informs Gupta.

Gupta believes that the following emerging technologies will not only make a significant difference in how institutions are imparting education rather will impact culture, the marketplace and society the most over the next decade:

• Artificial intelligence / machine learning / deep learning
• Internet of Things, sensors and wearables
• Blockchain – cryptocurrencies, Distributed Ledger Systems, DAOs, DApps
• Big data – apps, infrastructure and predictive analytics
• Robots including drones and autonomous vehicles – consumer / commercial / industrial robots and robotics
• Cybersecurity including adaptive security – security, intelligence detection, remediation and adaptation
• Voice assistants – interfaces, chatbots and Natural Language Processing
• Human-computer interaction – facial/gesture recognition, biometrics, gaze tracking.

The university is committed to continues development of IT infrastructure as per the latest requirements. Most of the IT infrastructure is according to industry standards, with regular inclusion of market-based analysis for development and expansion.