NPTEL: A programme for free online and open engineering and science education

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning known as NPTEL is a joint programme executed by several Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science. It was launched in 2003 and has as its objectives the creation of curriculum material in higher education in all of science and engineering. It has created the largest freely accessible; curriculum based video archive in the world in technical education and proposes to create an effective open education forum. This paper traces the programme details and also presents a summary of activities to be carried out in the immediate future.