Overview and Future Scope of SWAYAM in the World of MOOCS: A Comparative Study with Reference to Major International MOOCS

In the present competitive social structure characterized by multitasking, the need for additional qualifications apart from traditional degrees has become a necessity both for students as well as professionals. However, time being a limiting factor, gaining additional specializations is indeed cumbersome and calls for home schooling or schooling at the aspirant’s convenience. In this backdrop, the significant solution lies in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). MOOCS are a host of courses delivered online with usually free access to anyone, anywhere, anytime and can be studied at the user’s own convenience and choice. In the world of MOOCS which started flourishing throughout the world from 2012, India is relatively a new player which has just significantly stepped in the scenario in 2017 with the introduction of SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active–Learning for Young Aspiring Minds). SWAYAM is an online academic resource platform sponsored and developed by The Ministry of Human Resource Development and based on the principles of “access, equality and quality”: [1]. The primary objective of SWAYAM is to deliver education to the remotest of places and the less advantaged groups of people who are yet not touched by digital revolution, [1]. However, with the advent and prosperity of digitization, when the world is becoming virtually smaller every second and quality resources are increasingly becoming freely accessible, it is necessary to have a comparative study of SWAYAM with other International MOOCS to understand the future viability, sustainability and further scope of the same. In this chapter efforts have been made to present a relative position of SWAYAM in the current context by comparing it with some of the major international MOOC players such as ‘Courseera’, ‘edX’ and ‘Future learn’. It is equally important to address the futures scope of SWAYAM and the limitations that it faces as compared to other MOOCS. SWAYAM being very new in such a venture, efforts are made to point out the areas of improvement with the help of comparative analysis on various parameters like ease of access, time effectiveness, cost effectiveness to mention a few. The objective of this paper is to find ways in which SWAYAM can attain a position of being a major MOOC from a novice player.