LOST: Old Impartus Videos
Written on November 25th, 2019 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}Impartus is a word that is given a lot of importance here on campus, arguably one of the things that makes BITS Hyderabad what it is, in its unique and wonderful way. Impartus is a lecture recording system that records lectures conducted in a select set of classrooms (F101 to F106 and F208) allowing students to watch the video lectures online anytime they want. As well as storing lectures from the current academic year, Impartus also served as a repository for lectures over the past three years.
Whether it be catching up on bunked classes, last minute revision or the thirst for extra knowledge, Impartus has been a major support system for students looking to achieve the aforementioned activities. In a survey conducted amongst students, consisting of more than 150 responses, we learnt that the majority of students used Impartus for the following reasons - watching the lectures of a professor they are not registered to (72%), getting over inconvenient class timings (59%) and watching lectures at a pace that suits them best (64%). It can be said to a degree of certainty that these numbers represent the opinions of the general body with some accuracy. Something else that survey brought to our attention was the frequency with which most people use Impartus. Over 90% of the respondents use Impartus regularly (3+ times a week) with over 10% claiming it to be a sort of “Life Support” system for them. On August 22, 2019, an email from Timetable Division announced the removal of all lecture recordings before the current academic year. Given the vital role Impartus plays in the lives of many students, almost all of them were bewildered by this sudden disappearance of their favourite lectures, toppling their academic plans for the semester. Students also voiced their opinions with respect to why they felt like this was a bad decision - numerous students were left disappointed as lectures from what they perceived as a “better” professor was now beyond reach.
Impartus Student Poll: How often do you use Impartus?
In addition to that, there were more niche problems we noticed which may not have been taken into consideration earlier. For example, it is no secret that a lot of non-CS students do sit for CS placements. Being able to learn CS courses on the side via Impartus was an absolute boon for them. However, in the status quo (post change), there are a number of CS courses that are not offered every semester and as a result, the chance for other students to learn those subjects is gone. A similar dismay was found amongst students who used to watch DSA lectures to prepare for ACM-ICPC.
Other students also talked about how having old lecture recordings allows students interested in the courses to watch a couple of lectures before deciding to enroll or not. As a consequence of the removal, the ability to watch a few lectures of a course before registering for it in the coming semester is also absent for a number of courses. While a small group of students have acknowledged this move could increase attendance in classes, most students believe this throws away the purpose of having a 0% attendance policy. Moreover, many lectures this semester are not being held in Impartus classes, making it impossible to go back and check what they’ve missed out, which they previously overcame by watching previous year’s videos.
Like every coin (and bitchy person), this issue does have another face. As mentioned earlier, a set of students applauded any efforts taken in the hope of increasing attendance as Hyderabad currently ranks last when it comes to average attendance percentage across all 4 campuses. Some students pointed out that storing all the previous lectures could have been costing the university a lot, in terms of storage space. However, this is easily countered by considering that the Timetable Division did not give sufficient notice to students and the change was implemented rather out of the blue. Had a considerable amount of time been given, students could have planned and downloaded lectures accordingly (assuming it was only a space issue from the management end). To confirm what exactly happened, JC reached out to the Timetable Division’s Faculty-in-Charge Prof. P K Sahoo, who made it clear that expense and storage space were definitely not the reasons for the removal of old videos.
In addition to students, it is professors that play an integral role in the functioning of any educational institution. Keeping that in mind, we decided to talk to a few professors to understand what they thought of Impartus.
Interviews With Professors
Prof. Tathagata Ray
Prof. Tathatagata Ray started off by making it clear that whether the removal of old videos was a good decision or not was an extremely difficult question to answer and he could easily take up both sides of the argument. He was of the opinion that Impartus was a great auxiliary tool for learning. The ability to rewatch lectures at a slower pace/with the option of pausing it in between can be especially helpful. He also provided insight on how class participation and attendance is an important aspect of the learning process, as questioning and discussion on a particular topic is what strengthens one’s understanding of it.
He highlighted the lack of maturity on an average student’s part to understand this. In many cases, students simply stop attending classes just because they have Impartus to fall back on the day before the exam. This is detrimental to one’s learning process. He did however talk about the utility of Impartus to students who could not register for some courses because of bad PR numbers. In this regard, removing old videos could negatively affect them.
Prof. Kannan Ramaswamy
Prof. Kannan believed that a combination of attending lectures and going back to Impartus to clarify difficulties was the ideal way of learning. He acknowledged the value of Impartus to students who learn at a different pace than what takes place in a class. Staying focused for 50 minutes is not the easiest task for every student. This is where watching recorded lectures can be useful. He did concede that using Impartus one day before the exam was pointless in the context of learning. There are some courses in which the content is interlinked. The concepts in one course may be necessary to understand concepts in another course. In this paradigm, he highlighted the value the previous year’s lectures could have, especially to a student who needs to revise the contents of a prerequisite course for another course.
Prof. Alivelu Manga Parimi
Echoing the sentiments of other professors we talked to, Prof. Alivelu believes that the majority of students need class attendance to ensure procrastination doesn’t set in. “For the top 10% of students, it really doesn’t matter - whether they come to class or Impartus or read from a book - however, that’s only a small subset of students.” She went on to add that attendance definitely fell considerably once Impartus lecture capture came in, and that it should be used primarily as a supplement to the classroom experience rather than a replacement to it. The interview ended with a question to the students - what do you do with the time you are saving from coming to class?
Interview with Prof. P K Sahoo
Prof. P K Sahoo began by talking about how attendance numbers as recorded by biometric aren’t really indicative of true values, when asked where Hyderabad’s attendance numbers stand in relation to attendance numbers in Goa and Pilani - mainly because of underreporting of attendance by students who are present in class and do not mark biometric. The Timetable Division’s rationale in supporting Impartus, he explained, was to ensure that students in large classrooms have some resources to fall back on - as personal interaction is hard in large classes with 200+ students is hard and paying attention can be challenging. “That is why I’m in support of Impartus, and we have even added Impartus in F106 and F208 as well this semester”. Installing Impartus in one classroom can cost the institute upto Rs. 4 lakh per room in fixed expenses, and a smaller amount for maintenance year-on-year. One representative from the Impartus company and one institute employee work on maintaining Impartus and addressing all biometric attendance related issues more or less permanently.
Why was access to old Impartus videos revoked?
One reason that Prof. P K sahoo stated when asked about the removal of Impartus videos was that it might confuse students. “Suppose I taught a course [a couple of years] ago - now another person is teaching that course. Following courses by two or three faculty from different years might be confusing, as emphasis on certain topics changes, and the style of teaching itself is different.” When asked about how having old Impartus videos helps students revise course prerequisites during a course (such as revising Discrete Math while doing DSA), Prof. P K Sahoo said, “If it is required by student and you approach me I will unblock them case-by-case, depending on the requirement.”
Conclusion
After analysing the responses given by both the students and professors, there is no questioning the fact that Impartus is an invaluable tool for learning. However, there is some concern regarding whether we are using this gift “correctly” or taking advantage of a pleasure many others do not have access to. The student body as a whole is clearly not happy with the decision taken, but was it the right one to make? Only time will tell.
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Other loosely related information from real life and found online.
- A conference paper by Prof. Tathagata Ray, Aruna Malapati, and L. Bhanu Murthy analysed the usage of MOOC-style online lectures while teaching CS F111 during the academic year 2015-16. While comparing Impartus to MOOCs is unfair, due to differing nature and aim of the two methods, challenges faced that year included difficulties in engaging students as lectures were prerecorded, low attendance numbers in some cases, and the lack of ability to tailor lessons as the class progressed. However, the paper did conclude that using a mix of MOOC-style and traditional classroom teaching (tutorials and labs) led to an “overall increase in grades and learning of the students”.
- Other TD Issues: While talking to Prof. Sahoo about Impartus, other general issues that the Timetable Division has been facing also came up as a part of the conversation. One issue that has apparently been plaguing the Timetable Division is chaos during exam seating arrangement. “All this confusion in seating arrangement happens because students sit in other rooms, instead of rooms they’ve been allotted”. This year, for the first time, Timetable Division introduced mixed-seating arrangement for midsems as a pilot experiment - wherein students of two different courses sit beside each other in the exam hall, as opposed to one room having students from only one course. Another issue that has come up surprisingly this year is the increasing occurrences of theft of classroom equipment - some wall clocks and a couple of mouses and keyboards went missing in the run-up to ATMOS, forcing the division to remove all the watches from the classrooms. Prof P. K Sahoo said that all the watches would soon be permanently attached to the walls with wooden casing, that we now see in a couple of classrooms.
- A series of blog posts by Philip Guo, an assistant professor of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego talks about his experience in organising classes and courses for large classrooms. (Phillip Guo is mainly known on the internet thanks to his work, The PhD Grind - an account that details his experience of pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Stanford)
Article by Rushabh Musthyala, Shreya Guda, Abhinav Krishnan. Edited by Rohit Dwivedula.