The faculty members and industry experts shared their views and experiences on various topics. The series saw participation from 91 faculty members from printing and packaging specialisation.

Two webinars were scheduled each day at 10am and 2pm respectively. Certificates were awarded to participants who completed the activities and submitted the tasks given.

Choosing the technology
The first webinar was headed by ASMG Ashokan, chairman of Arasan Ganesan Polytechnic (AGP). He spoke about the institute and the importance of education. Nanda Kumar, principal of AGP spoke about the institute’s website, which was built using freeware. The objective of this session was the AGP case study, which was meant to bring out the benefits of using the open web facilities relevant to printing topics.

T Mirthubashini and TKS Lakshmi Priya of Avinashilingam Institute were the speakers for the second webinar and spoke on LMS–Google classroom. The objective of this session was to give an overview of an LMS system and to demonstrate the use of Google Classroom. Mirthubashini gave an orientation on LMS, which provided a teaching-learning environment. Lakshmi Priya demonstrated how the participants of the FDP should access and post the assignments.

 
(l-r) ASMG Ashokan and T Mirthubashini

Teaching styles for online classes
K Panthalaselvan and professor Shrikala Kanade spoke on the topic 'Online Teaching-Learning: Stakeholders View' in the first webinar. Panthalaselvan, managing director, Idealliance South Asia, presented the results of two surveys taken by teachers and students. He presented statistics, which reflected the thought process of online teaching and learning activity. Shrikala, assistant professor at PVG’s COET described the benefits and disadvantages of online teaching and highlighted the changes that teachers should adopt for online teaching.

The second session was themed 'Making ICT work and the problems encountered in using ICT'. Ashish Mittal of Yugasa Software Labs, Haryana spoke about the problems faced from basic level of technical incompetency to advance level of problems such as software settings. Laxmi Sapkal, assistant professor at PVG COET briefed about ICT tools, its usage and challenges.

  
(l-r) K Panthalaselvan, Ashish Mittal and Shrikala Kanade

Mirthubashini highlighted the need for basic knowledge in the installation and configuration of computer hardware, software and computer networking.

Evaluation and assessment in online classes
CN Ashok of Autoprint Machinery Manufacturers shared his experiences in evaluation and assessment. He gave his views on the evaluation of a candidate in service after a regular interval. Ashok said, “Employees' performance on all fronts is what will help to flourish or perish. It is important to evaluate middle level management on the basis of the ways by getting things done and process driven problem solving. The top-level management should also be evaluated on the strategic thinking, innovation and influencing the systems."

Madhura Mahajan, head of department at PVG’s COET discussed the six-stages of an assessment cycle – design, construct, conduct, grading, analysis and evaluation. She said, "Assessments must be conducted by following Bloom's taxonomy and its mapping with different types of methods of evaluation. Rubrics can be generated for effective evaluation of various approaches towards designing it."

 
(l-r) CN Ashok and Madhura Mahajan

In the second half, a panel discussion was conducted by Mahajan to talk about the research cycle and help young minds doing research or pursuing PhD.  The topic for the discussion was 'Tools for Planning Research and Publishing of Research Papers'.

B Kumar of Anna University, Akshay Joshi of PVG COET, Ambrish Pandey of GJU, Amruthraj Krishnan and Nagaraj Kamath of Manipal Institute of Technology were the panel members.

    
(l-r) B Kumar, Amruthraj Krishnan and Akshay Joshi 

The panellists shared insights on planning a research, evaluating risk factors, experimental designs and encouraging innovating ideas from students and faculty. Joshi said, "Planning of a project can be possible by a work breakdown structure. Utilise a  critical path analysis to map important tasks and identify the amount time required for each task as well as identify the dependencies of each activity on any others."

Nagaraj added, "Research tools such as Scopus, Mendeley, Scival, Grammarly, Research Academy Elsevier and SPSS statistical software can be used to aid publication work."

Open Educational Resources (OER)
Jacob George, director at Pressideas Publishing mentioned the advantages of OER, it is an alternative to expensive books. In his presentation, George spoke about Creative Commons – a non-profit organisation to help people with knowledge and information to build on the work done by others.

A Alagusundari, assistant professor at Avinashilingam Institute explained the various aspects of free source of educational content that is created under Creative Common Licenses. The difference between open licence and copyright was explained to the participants along with the four basic elements of Creative Common Licenses. She discussed finding, using and creating OERs.

 
(l-r) Jacob George and A Arulmozhi

The second webinar of the day emphasised on multimedia content creation and posting online. A Arulmozhi of Avinashilingam Institute spoke about various ways of creating multimedia and sharing them online. J Veeranathan of Balaji Institute of Computer Graphics, Coimbatore, who was the guest speaker demonstrated how to create a GIF animation  and how graphic designers can static images, quickly elevate static images to animations.

Effective use of online resources for labs
Harveer Sahni, chairman of Weldon Celloplast spoke about his experience in the label industry as well as his blogs. Sahni said, "The secret of success is to be passionate about blogging, to keep updating the blogs depending on user’s preferences and to post attention capturing contents."

  
(l-r) Harveer Sahni, Padmaja Joshi and TKS Lakshmi Priya

Padmaja Joshi of PVG showcased a range of experiments on material sciences created by her as VLabs under IIT Bombay. She ran through a few experiments to show how students can use these for lab experiments.

In the second half, a panel discussion was conducted by TKS Lakshmi Priya on the topic 'Industry opinion about online Internships and Projects'.

L Ramanathan of Sree Vinayaga Screens, Darshana Prasad of Deanta Global Publishing Services, Rishi Singh of Healthkart, Shyamala V of Eenadu, Gayathri Madeshwaran of Rashid Printers and Rahul Bhargav were the panellists.

  
(l-r) Darshana Prasad and L Ramanathan

The panel members spoke on advancements in technologies under Print 4.0 such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, automation and remote access, which can facilitate online projects and internships for students of printing technology.

Ramanathan said that printing students must be given physical projects and internships.

Darshana Prasad shared her views on the publishing process and said that she vouches for online projects when it comes to the publishing industry. Students must come over for reviews and discussions.

Singh said, "There are specific areas that have excellent and high end automation systems in packaging: Artwork management, Packaging procurement, pre-media, Factory Acceptance Test and Site Acceptance Test (FAT & SAT), Industry 4.0, process analysis, costing and all process-based Projects.

  
(l-r) Gayathri Madeshwaran, Shyamala V and Rahul Bhargav

Shyamala V said, "Internships in printing need the touch and feel experience. The fascination and wow-factor comes only by seeing the machines on the floor. Simulation environment is meant for experienced people, but not for students or career starters. In certain topics, projects can be carried out online, like cost reduction, wastage reduction, ICC profile for different substrates."

Madeshwaran added, "Online projects or training cannot help students in understanding the reality on the shop floor. Problem solving happens on the shop floor."

Concluding the session, Rahul Bhargav said, "Printing industry is unique and extremely diverse. I prefer to go Phigital – physical plus digital. This requires the collaborative effort from students, industry and faculty. That way it will benefit all three stakeholders."