The main goal of Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations Repository) is to build a large repository of web-based, interactive animations and simulations, referred to as learning objects (LOs), for teaching and learning concepts in science and technology. These could be useful not only for a classroom environment but also for enabling independent learning and distance education.

The current goal is to develop LOs for topics in various subjects at the Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.

An auxiliary goal of Project OSCAR is to provide training opportunities to students in developing LOs, managing the back-end of the repository, and conducting educational research.

A learning object is a digital resource that contains an objective, a learning activity and an assessment. Examples of learning objects are educational animations, simulations, webpages for e-learning that contain text, images and media.

The learning objects in Project OSCAR pertain to concepts ranging from high school subjects to advanced topics in many areas of science and engineering. Each LO focuses on one concept and provides the following:
   The learning objectives for that LO.
   A brief description of the concept.
   An interactive animation or a simulation, wherein the user manipulates experimental parameters relating to the concept.
   A self-assessment test.
   References for further reading.
   Downloading of the source code, for local use/modification.

Each LO is platform-independent, developed in either Java or Flash or Blender, and can be viewed through a web-browser interface. The interactive nature of these LOs is their key difference from powerpoint/openoffice animations.

All the material developed in project OSCAR are Open Source Courseware. The LOs are released under the Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 India license. For more details Click here.

The LOs are periodically published on a CD, for distribution to interested colleges and organizations. Please Contact us for requesting a copy of the CD.

The LOs in Project OSCAR are developed using a 3-stage process, as shown in the figure below.

Stage 1: The Subject Matter Expert (SME) selects the concept and decides the details that need to go into the LO.

Stage 2: The Instruction Designer (ID) creates the Instruction Design Document (IDD) for the concept, in consultation with the SME. The IDD is a detailed document that:

   contains descriptions of the learning objectives and pre-requisites,
   specifies the chunking and sequencing of content,
   elaborates the particulars of the concept, and
   provides questions, answers and feedback for the self-assessment test.
 The final output of this stage resembles a storyboard containing detailed instructions to the animator.

Stage 3: The Animator does the coding of the LO. The SME periodically reviews the LO which is then uploaded into the repository upon approval.

Project OSCAR was conceptualized by Prof Sridhar Iyer, at IIT Bombay. He is the Principal Investigator and Prof Sahana Murthy is the Co-Project Investigator of this project. C. Vijaylakshmi is the overall coordinator of this project.

Project OSCAR evolved out of the xNET Project. xNet served as a pilot study with focus on creating animations for concepts/protocols in computer networking.

For more details Click here

1. Awareness workshops : The goal of these workshops is to create awareness of how visualizations can be used in the teaching-learning process. The target audience for these workshops are both teachers and students.

2. IDD workshops : These workshops provide guidelines on how to write Instructional Design Documents for creating e-learning content. These are aimed at faculty members and PG/UG students who intend to write ID documents.

3. Blender training: The goal of these workshops is to develop familiarity of Blender as a tool to create 3D animation.

We conduct the above workshops a few times a year. Please contact us at: oscar@it.iitb.ac.in if you are interested in attending one of these workshops.

Here are links to slides/reports of some past events:

OSCAR Talk, NCERT (Aug2009)
C3C Contest Poster (Dec 2006 - Jan 2007)
Demystifying E-learning Seminar in CDAC Kharghar (Dec, 2006)
Visit to Kendriya Vidyalaya , Bhandup (Nov, 2006)
Floss (March, 2006)
Time 2005 (Dec, 2005)

Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD),GOI
Tata Teleservices IITB Center Of Excellence in Telecommunication
Open Source Software Resource Centre
Development Gateway Foundation
For more details Click here