I did PGDOR (Post Graduate Diploma in Operations Research) in Pondicherry University
through correspondence during the year 2002-2003, when I was doing my M.C.A. first year
in Annamalai University. I heard a lot about this University and DDE (Directorate of Distance
Education) before I selected this University for my Post Graduate Diploma programme.
There are so many Universities offering humpty number of courses through
distance education. How to select a particular University is definitely a challenging task?
Here are my points to finalise a University to do a course through distance education.
1) University origin & reputation - Go through the information about the university about
its origin, reputation, whether it comes under central / state government through websites and news
papers. The more the university is old, the more its name is known by others.
2) Standard of Course papers - Compare the different papers of that university
with regular courses in other universities and also with the same university.
3) Addition / Revision of papers - Check whether the university update the syllabus,
addition / revision of papers frequently over a period of 3 to 5 years.
4) Frequent syllabus revision - It is highly preferable to do the course in any particular
university if it comes under central government purview. The reason is that all universities that
comes under the central government purview revise its syllabus frequently.
5) Faculty qualification & experience - The next thing is to check for the qualification of the
faculties and their experience in distance education programme. A better and suggested way is to
ask your friends / relatives who earlier undergo / undergoing any course with the DDE of that
university. If not go directly to the particular location where you are planning to undergo DDE
programme and enquire about them.
6) Industry tie-up & Guest Lecture - This is highly required in the present day-to-day
environment to keep the syllabus on par with industry needs and requirement. Good industy
tie-up with frequent guest lectures makes the candidates aware of the ongoing things related
to a particular subject / area.
7) Assignment - Next thing is the assignment. Frequent revision of assignment
questions validate the candidate about his / her understanding of the subject. Any university that
follows this system is a very good university, because it is a sign of involvement between the
university and the candidates to test individual understanding.
8) Validation and frequent revision of assignments - Also validating the assignment
properly with feedback given to the candidate is highly appreciable.
There is one more scheme in some university such as IGNOU (Indra Gandhi National Open
University) in which assignment marks are considered for percentage and the same will be
shown in the mark sheet. This is also a good scheme.
The good thing with respect to assignment is that the candidate can get a chance to
improve his / her skills and understand the subject in a better way.
9) Quality of Lecture - This is most important one. In any DDE programme, a candidate
is expected to read the subject twice (or) thrice to know about the subject material well in advance,
because PCP (Personal Contact Programmes) are scheduled closely to the exam dates and so
there is no time to discuss each and everything.
However the faculty who is handling a particular subject, should possess good
knowledge and experience in handling classes regularly, so as to help the candidate to clear his /
her doubts in a particular area.
10) Intimation about tentative exam dates - Most of the university never inform you
already about the tentative exam dates. If any univerisity informs the same much early, it will be very
useful for the candidate to take leave in case of employees who are working in a company.
11) Standard of question paper - Finally exams are the most important one. In distance
education programmes previous year questions are repeated most of the times, to show the pass
percentage of that university and their faculties capability. Any university which set benchmarking
question papers with all new questions then and there are the best to study.
.