There has been a phenomenal growth of higher education in India since independence. There were only 20 Universities and 500 colleges at the time of independence (1947). Currently these numbers have increased to 24 times in the case of Universities, 52 times in the case of Colleges and 49 times in terms of student enrolment in the formal system of higher education. During the past two decades there has been a rapid expansion of the higher education system in India. The increasing demand of higher education needs to be understood in terms of the system's enrolment capacity, programme focus, regional balance, modes of delivery, quality and credibility, etc. In order to achieve and maintain high growth rate of the economy, it is essential to broaden the base of the system of higher education in the country and simultaneously ensure maintenance of requisite standards. There are serious issues involved, when a traditional university moves faculty from a conventional method to a digital learning environment without providing them with adequate technological and pedagogical training and resources. Web-based teaching raises new questions about the very role of faculty in course design and administration. Recent technological changes have propelled a change in the way modern universities think about their educational delivery systems, and have significantly impacted on the nature of modern education. To accommodate these new roles, faculty involved in Web-based education needs pedagogical and technical training. Pedagogical training is necessary for faculty to take full advantage of the new learning opportunities opened up by the Web. A linear transfer in class lectures to the Internet will ignore the strengths of the new technology. Technical training is also needed for faculty to effectively develop and deliver course content, assistance. In addition, faculty may require some training in content analysis, so that they can extract from the students, textual (or multi media) messages which are usually found in face-to-face education, such as body language, facial expression and other nonverbal communication. Web-based education is in its infancy. Things are evolving and changing as we enter the 21st century. Nothing in society will remain immune from technological change. Selling, marketing, buying, advertising, banking, and even education are going through an unprecedented revolution, changing the boundaries of time, place and language, as well as gender, race, nationality, economy and religion. Under the scheme of National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), more than 800 courses in various disciplines in engineering and science have been created and are available on-line under National Programme on Technology Enabled Learning (NPTEL). Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) conducted series of workshops through various remote centres across the country, under an initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to upgrade the knowledge and skills of faculty who play a critical role in Engineering Education. Years of research have identified the capabilities needed for an effective online training program and how they apply to the asynchronous learning environment. This research has been the basis for the development of most of the tools that are now available. The feedback was collected through online method and also using google forms. The response for the google form was not encouraging and a short analysis was done with 1173 responses. However, overwhelming responses was there from the teachers (8900 online forms) and still the data collection is in progress. Response from 950 teachers who were handling the subjects in the classrooms was recorded in camera. An attempt has been made in this study to interview the stakeholders at different levels for evaluation and also to examine the usefulness of the project especially the scaling up of faculty training programs throughout the country to all the faculty, students and working professionals of engineering and technology institutions. The commitment to offer a whole program and degree on-line is far different than a commitment to offer a few courses on-line. The results of the analysis indicates that the offering of on-line courses should, however, be a first step because it provides the experience necessary to evaluate whether the institution, the faculty, and the students are ready for greater commitment.
