The Covid-19 pandemic had already turned regular classrooms into virtual lecture rooms and now libraries, too, have moved online for several city colleges. Students, who would flock libraries for reference books before exams, are being provided with access to e-libraries, e-books and in some cases, teachers are even sharing reference material and notes online.
“Our online classes have been running very smoothly and teachers have ensured students have all necessary reference books in e-book version for easy accessibility,” said Sobhana Vasudevan, principal RA Podar College, Matunga, adding that teachers at their college have also formed groups of students to ensure reference notes are shared among the class.
“In case of non-availability of an e-version of any book, teachers share prints of necessary notes to ensure students are not at loss,” said Vasudevan.
The concept of subject textbooks is common for traditional courses in the science, commerce and arts stream. However, students of unaided or self-financed courses heavily depend on reference books as study material.
Most colleges follow the University of Mumbai prescribed curriculum and reference books mentioned by the Board of Studies (BoS), making it convenient for students to find study material in libraries.
“Every year, the exercise of putting notes together for certain topics is marked as assignments for students in order to encourage them to read more. This year, most teachers ensured the reference material is posted in virtual classrooms, so that students don’t struggle for notes before exams,” said co-ordinator for the Bachelor in Mass Media (BMM) course at a suburban college.
{{/usCountry}}“Every year, the exercise of putting notes together for certain topics is marked as assignments for students in order to encourage them to read more. This year, most teachers ensured the reference material is posted in virtual classrooms, so that students don’t struggle for notes before exams,” said co-ordinator for the Bachelor in Mass Media (BMM) course at a suburban college.
{{/usCountry}}What has also helped is that several colleges, over the past few years, have already set-up their e-libraries to ensure easy accessibility of books for students and staff.
“Our students have the advantage of referring to any book from our library online, and this has been very advantageous during the entire semester for both students and teachers. Sharing notes for every subject became easier and we’ve also been conducting our semester exams smoothly,” said Parag Ajgaonkar, principal of N M College, Vile Parle.
Students, too, have formed their own groups on social media and are sharing notes among themselves. “My friend and I found out about a BCom in Banking and Insurance (BBI) students’ group on Facebook, where students from several colleges share notes of different subjects given to them by their respective teachers. This way we have managed to amass a lot of notes and be better prepared for exams,” said Yash Dedhia, a second-year student at Wilson College.