PI: Dr T Venkatesh
CO PI: Dr Samit Bhattacharya

We believe that the application of ICT in a typical large classroom overcomes the hurdles for effective learning and makes the classroom learning effective even when it has a large number of students. We propose to develop a framework for effective lecture delivery, raising questions, interaction of teacher and student, and interaction among a group of students when a doubt raised by one of them is relevant to a large section of students. We also propose to provide support for attendance taking and conducting examinations with our ICT solutions. The activities that would broadly be considered for ICT framework are: delivery of slides and voice, taking attendance, ability to raise questions, ability to answer questions outside the class, conducting a quiz or a short exam, and personalized message delivery to students. The portable computing devices with the students will be used to make lecture delivery effective and personalized. The communication between all these devices will be enabled though a Wi-Fi network that spans over a single lecture hall or on a campus. The interaction between the students and the teacher can happen both traditionally and through an application running in the device with the student. Voice delivery over the wireless network would cater to effective lecture delivery and interaction between the students and the teacher. Those students who do not get the attention of the teacher can do so using the application on their device and the questions raised in the class can be answered by the teacher either immediately or outside the class through an online portal. Moreover, the framework will have support for quick assessment of the student's progress and test the level of learning through short exams. The solutions proposed in this project can also be extended to work in remote classrooms.

Project staffs

• Nilotpal Biswas

• Saikia, S. I., Bhattacharya., S, & Venkatesh, T., Avabodhaka: An ICT based tool to facilitate classroom activities in a large classroom, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (communicated)
• Saikia, M. S. I., Kumar, P.,Bhattacharya, S. & Venkatesh, T. (2016). Estimating Attention and Understanding Level of Students in a Large Classroom Environment. Proc 8th IEEE int conf Technology for Education (T4E 2016), Mumbai, India, pp 128-131.
• Choudhury, N., Venkatesh, T., Bhattacharya, S., & Sarma, S. (2016). Avabodhaka: A System to analyse and facilitate Interactive Learning in an ICT based system for Large Classroom. The 7th Intl. Conf on Intelligent Human Computer Interaction, IIIT Allahabad, India, pp. 160-168.
• Choudhury, N., Tamarapalli, V., & Bhattacharya, S. (2015, December). An ICT-based system to improve the learning experience in a large classroom. The 7th Intl. IEEE Conf on Technology for Education, NIT Warangal, India, pp. 27-30.

PI: Prof Pradeep Yammiyavar, Dept of Design, IIT Guwahati
Co PI: Dr Samit Bhattacharya

PI: Dr Samit Bhattacharya

PI: Dr T. Venkatesh

PI: Prof. Sukumar Nandi
Co PI: Prof. Rohit Sinha, Dr. Samit Bhattacharya, Dr. Sanasam Ranbir Singh

Smart Home Environment Creation through Automatic Monitoring and Utilization of the Physical and Cognitive State of the Residents

Project staffs

PI: Prof. Sukumar Nandi
Prof. Rajib Kumar Bhattacharya, Dr. Samit Bhattacharya

Cultural Heritage (CH) is an identity of any group (community or tribe). It provides a sense of bindings and belongingness amongst a group and allows them to have a better understanding of their previous generations and traditional evolutionary history. Cultural Heritage also promotes tourism and acts as a means of cultural exchange between groups. However, traditional preservation methods (museum, live tour with written description) of CH have failed to attract individuals, especially the younger generation. Moreover, restricted access to real-world heritage inhibits users' complete understanding of it. These lead to a lack of proper appreciation of CH amongst observers. These motivated researchers to digitize the Cultural Heritage to preserve them as well as to attract individuals. The digitization of CH can be achieved using archiving technologies and immersive technologies (Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)). The users can get the sense of being immersed in the CH environment with informative content using immersive technologies. In a VR based CH system, the user should feel like being at a site without being physically present there. In order to generate that feeling, the virtual environment should be as realistic as possible. The user should also be able to navigate through the environment naturally. Allowing the user to interact with the virtual content would enhance the user�s sense of belongingness to the environment. The expectations and capabilities vary from user to user, which necessitates the VR based system to be personalized tailored to individual needs. In an AR assisted CH system, the information presented to the user should be easily perceivable. Moreover, it should not hamper the real-world experience of the user. In order to augment the virtual content in a real environment, there should be a fine-tuned blending of virtual and real environments. The user should also be able to interact with those virtual contents naturally, which enhances the user experience. Like VR systems AR systems also necessitates personalization with the user needs. We have considered three types of users, viz. Live Tour Users, Virtual Tour Users and Mobile Tour Users. Live Tour users being present in-situ, experience CH using smart-glass. Multimedia information is overlaid in the real-life view of the users. Virtual Tour users experience the CH remotely using Head Mounted Display (HMD). The Mobile Tour users, on the other hand, use their handheld mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) to get detailed information about any CH entity. Our main focus is to make our CH system to give a user the experience of sensing realism and allow the users to interact with the virtual world using controllers or without using controllers (body gestures).

Project staffs

• Dhrubajyoti Borah (Current) Dhrubajyoti Sharma (Current) Shoubhik Purkayastha

PI: Sukumar Nandi
Co-PI: Sanasam Ranbir Singh, T Venkatesh, Samit Bhattarcharya, P K Iyer

The e-Varaha project visualizes importance of using IT-based tools for the holistic development of the piggery sector by the way of making available the right information at right time and establishing functional linkages between different players of the value chain so as to augment production, productivity and profitability of the piggery sector. IT application to record and visualize the movement of pigs-to-pork will help in understanding the current pig-to-pork chain in NER. Stakeholders of the piggery will be benefited in many ways by the output of the project Pig farmers will be integrated to other players of value chain by enrollment into traceability system and pork processors will get several aids for ensuring safe pork production.

Project staffs