Written by Vignesh P

Online Teaching is growing leaps and bounds. It is the area of future. Technology aids online teaching. With technology there are now online classrooms, where teachers have to simply log in and start connecting students. In olden days, home tuitions were popular. After school or college hours, teachers would hold tuitions at their place of choice and students would reach the venue according to their ‘batch’ timings. We as students all have undergone this at some point in our lives, right? It is time for now for teachers to consider this as an alternate career prospect. In today’s social network world, it is important for teachers to stay connected with the latest student demands. According to a study around 20 % of students are now engaged in self-study through online mode like PROCKC. This figure is expected to go up in the coming months and teachers need to be prepared to understand this shift in the student preferences. Many online content companies are now coming up with the promise to introduce all the latest AI, ML and VR techniques in content creation. But can it replace the teachers is the question? Highly unlikely. Studies show that a way student perceives and learns the subject is more to do with teacher as much as the content like PROCKC. If students would have learnt from content alone, we would have had only libraries and teaching profession would have been long gone. But the fact that it has not gone and it is still growing strong points to the obvious need for humans to engage with human teachers rather than robots. This may well be the future but surely just like robots cannot replace artists and painters, it can also not replace teachers. Because teaching is an art! And online teaching is the new showcase of that art!e sample content.

Written by Mrinimoy Borah

South Asian University is established in New Delhi under the aegis of SAARC which is one of its kind. An international institution in type, it believes it providing knowledge by breaking away the borders in South Asia. The masters as well as the M.Phil/ PhD. Proggrame in the University has one of the the highest teacher to student ratio compared to other universities as South Asian University takes only 30 students in its Masters Programme and 6 students in its M. Phil/ PhD. Programme. Another unique experience one can get in this university is true sense of South Asia because the proportion of students in the class is such that 50 percent belongs to India and the rest half to all other SAARC countries or non- SAARC countries. Therefore, in the classroom of Social Sciences Departments such as Sociology, the students bring in different elements to the discussion from their own countries which enhances the knowledge. Sociology is a discipline within the domain of social sciences where one attains knowledge about the scientific ways of studying the interaction and relationship between an individual person and the society. The Department of Sociology at the South Asian University, New Delhi provides its students the knowledge and the ways of studying different phenomena taking place in different societies across the world. The Department believes that it is important to study societies across the world from different points of view rather than restricting to the studies of west. Therefore, it tries to blur the line between sociology and social anthropology which gives the student an in-depth historical understanding of the issues as well as their contemporary studies. Further, the department has designed its courses in such a way that almost every course contains some elements of South Asia, which sets it apart from other Universities not only in India but across South Asia. South Asian University is inclined towards academic research and therefore, the Sociology Department does not provide any placement opportunities in the industrial sector of Non- Profit Organisations. But the students are encouraged to pursue high quality academic research which also is a need of the time in South Asia context.

Written by Ananya Majumdar

Executive MBA is a special programme developed keeping in mind experienced and senior professionals who want to work full time while enhancing their qualification. The syllabus is same as that of any normal MBA programme on general management (Some colleges even offer specializations). The key focus of such a programme is to enhance the leadership skill of the participants and help them advance in their career paths. This helps them widen their vision from the nature boundary of their work and develop as CEOs of the future. The admission process is also like any other MBA programme. The main qualifying exam is GMAT, however, it may vary from institution to institution. The best institutions offering Executive MBA programme are: Indian School of Business, IIMs, SPJIMR, FMS, XLRIs, etc. The course fee and eligibility criteria vary across different institutes. It is advisable to go for such a programme with minimum 6-7 years of experience. Pros:
1. The course helps develop individuals for upper managerial positions.  
2. All concepts learnt can be applied instantly at workplace based on your power and position. 
3. The class generally has a rich experience bucket who are instantly able to relate to the concepts learnt with the practice at their workplace. 
4. The programme mainly aims at peer-to-peer learning with application based exercise rather than focus on theoretical concepts. 
5. Enhances growth in organization as well as career prospects increase. 
Cons: 
1. Work and study balance can take a toll on general schedule of things, as the classes might be in the evenings, or weekends or for 10 continuous days with classes stretching from 8:30am to 8:30pm.
2. Work pressures might force participants to miss classes at times.
3. Personal life and enjoyment has to be sacrificed to pursue the rigorous academic programme.
The ROI on such a programme is huge in terms of personal development and recognition at workplace. Hence, signing up for an executive MBA is definitely a good thing to do.

As PROCKC is based on pay-per-view model, the Earnings an Educator can ensure for their efforts will be directly dependent on two things : Quality of Content & the audience reach of the Educator. PROCKC is the launchpad for the aspiring educators as well as an accelerator for an established educators to expand their reach in online education scenario. PROCKC is the only platform in the world with such advanced and state-of-the-art tools at the disposal which provides equal opportunities to all educators.

PROCKC will help the educators in the process of expanding their community/audience through many ways.

Notwithstanding, the first few audience will mostly come from educator's already known circles. The known onces will be the first takers & most probable takers or consumers of the content. So, it is advised to all educators to market their content through their social media and word of mouth. This will surely create a cascading effect. PROCKC will definitely help the educators in this process through expert advertising & designing beautiful & effective creatives for the educators. So, advertising will be a combined effort form both ends to achieve the desired result.

At PROCKC, our strive is to help the educators through technology and marketing, and take the educator's skills & knowledge to the world thereby ensuring earnings. As an Educator, you can write to us at contactus@prockc.com or helpdesk@prockc.com to priortise your content in the PROCKC ecosystem. We have in-built options for promotional & sponsered contents & classes.

Therefore, to expand community, an educator has to produce quality content in first place. Then with our combined efforts we will surely open a set of audience for that content or class.

Always keep in touch with PROCKC Team during this process to strategise. We have a dedicated team specially for your help.  

The model of earnings on PROCKC is based on pay-per-view model on both teaching tools, YouC & WeC, as can be read in other sections. A payment incidence happens in Earnings wallet of an Educator whenever a paid view is done by any student/ viewer.

Suppose the 'Teacher's Charge' for a video lecture is 10 points on YouC [i.e, cost of view = 15 points], whenever a student agree to pay for that video content for viewing, 10 points will be automatically credited in Educator's earnings wallet. Also, that particular video lecture will be free for viewing for that particular student anytime in the future. In business parlance, that video commodity is purchased by the student by paying to the educator as per their charge, and is eligible to view the content whenever he/she wishes.

Whenever a new student pay for the content, Educator's Earnings wallet will be automatically credited. 

Before every payment for the video lecture or live session, the student/ viewer will be shown a free preview of the content/session. During the preview, that student's view will not be counted as paid view. Only after he/she confirm their payment, the complete lecture will be made available to them.

We will understand through an example of a Video lecture uploaded on YouC. The data here is only assumption just for the sake of better understanding.

Video Lecture Title : Oxidation & Reduction for JEE

Teacher's Charge (to be set by Teacher/Uploader) : 20 points

Therefore, Cost of View for student : 30 points (see relevant sections to understand Cost of View)

Total Views on Video : 100

Total paid View : 50 (assumption)

Earnings from the lecture till today : Teacher's Charge x Total paid Views [ 20 x 50 = 1000 points] 

As 1 point = 1 INR, therefore 1000 points will be equivalent to 1000 INR.

Any video lecture will keep on fetching earnings and views till the time its hosted on PROCKC and there is paid audience for it.

There will be ongoing special offers for Educators from PROCKC to enhance their Earnings. Keep a track on Special Offer section on Home Page.

Therefore, as an Educator, you have to assure quality of content & decide the right Teacher's Charge. Earnings will never be any limitation on PROCKC. Infact, your efforts today will always be relevant and can keep you fetching good earnings in a long span. 

Happy Teaching & wishing you a Handsome Earnings for your knowledge.

As an educator you can earn through both the current tools of PROCKC i.e., YouC (recorded video class) & WeC (live onlive class) as discussed in other sections. To summarise, educator has to decide the 'Teacher's Charge' on both YouC and WeC. On every paid view of the content, either on YouC or WeC, the educator's Earnings wallet will be credited with the points educator has decided while uploading the video or setting up the session. So, your earnings as an educator will be totally in your control.

We take example from both the tools.

1. YouC:

 2. WeC :

**The maximum number of students that can be joined in a session is dependent on Instructor's Level.

So whatever the educator earn through view of their content will be in Earnings Wallet. The wallet can be accessed from the Header or the drop down list from profile on Top - Right.

To claim their accumulated earnings, the educator have to provide their personal & bank account details in which they want their earnings to be paid in INR. Along with this, they have to provide correct details of their PAN (mandatory) & GST (optional) with uploading an clear image of their PAN CARD for processing the request of Earnings Claim.

An educator can see their individual earnings instances in the detailed list on Earnings Wallet page.

The Earnings can be claimed once the PAYOUT limit is reached. See Terms & conditions for payout limit or write to contactus@prockc.com for any further clarifications. 

We can understand how to set Teacher's Charge on WeC Live Session tool in two broad categories, as following :

1) One to One Session :

In the previous sections, you have read how to start a one to one session. While creating this session, as an educator, youu have to decide the "Teacher's Charge" which is the flat charge you wish to get whenever the student/viewer connect with your WeC session. This charge will be in points (1 point = 1 INR). Suppose, if you wish to earn 100 points for a WeC Session, you need to input 100 in the corresponding field. When the student joins that session, and agree to continue with the payments, 100 points will be deducted from student's Currenc Wallet and will automatically be credited into the Teacher's Earnings Walllet. There is no PROCKC Charge for either educator or Student for such a session. Also, there is no technology charge. Hurray ! So, what are you waiting for. Start connecting one to one with your audience and earn directly without any hassles in payments.

2) One to Many Session : 

In the previous sections, you have read how to create a one to many session. As an educator, you need to decide the "Teacher's Charge" which is the flat charge you wish to earn whenever a student connect with your Live WeC session. This will be in points also. Suppose you are a Level -1 (Master) Teacher [as per instructor's level], then you will be allowed to connect maximum 5 participants at a time. As the instructor level increases, so is the number of participants. The session duration is maximum 1 hour. You, as an educator, suppose, wish to earn 200 points from each student, then you will input 200 points in "Teacher's Charge" will starting the session. Whenever a student agrees to join the session, 200 points will be automatically deducated from student's CurrenC wallet and will be credited into Educator's earnings wallet. No hassles there. No worries for Teacher for payment default etc., There is no charge for an educator to start a new session. Hurray ! There will be two other charges on students in this type of session:

a) PROCKC Charge : This will be a flat charge based on Instructor Level of the Educator (Around 20-25 points only)

b) Technlogy Charge : This will a PER MINUTE charge levied on student to avail this high end premium technology, which not only broadcast but also able to interact with the educator and among themselves as well. For students convenience, they will be charged only for the time period they are joined on the session. A time counter is there on the WeC dashboard to keep a check. Suppose, the technology charge is 2.1 points per min and the student join for 20 minutes, then the charge will be 42 points.

Therefore, as an Educator, plan & decide the WeC session keeping all Parameter & Charges in mind. This is a wonderful & useful tool, which is multi level interactive as well as assure sureshot payment receiving guarantee for Educator.

As an educator if you want to conduct a live session with students, WeC is the ultimate multi level interactive tool you wish to have. A tool which can assure payments automatically for educators. Not only you can broadcast yourself realtime, you can interact live with our audience through video, text messenger, integrated wallet etc. WeC is a plethora of features integrated into one for the teaching purpose only. 

To connect with online students, there are two scenarios

1) You already have a student base/audience.

2) You want to build the student base/audience through prockc.com

So, in the first scenario you are ready to plug n play. Ask you audience to join prockc.com and connect with you over WeC live Chat.

In second scenario, you have to build an audience. So, to showcase yourself, first upload a free recorded video lecture/lectures  of yours' on YouC as explained in the previous sections. Promote your YouC video. Once there is a dedicated audience, you can start using the WeC way to connect with this new audience.

In addition, you have an option to conduct One to one Sessions as well as One to many Sessions on WeC.

If you choose One to One Session, you have to intimate the student in advance about the time & topic, and then enter his/her email id (registered with prockc) while starting the session. If student has not joined prockc, the ask him to. Then use that email id. A link will be sent to student to join the session, whenever the teacher starts. The Session will also be listed on One to One section of WeC landing page. A student can join from there too.

If you choose one to many session, you can connect with multiple students at the same time with brillinat features at your disposal. ( The no. of students that can join the session will be dependent on your Instructor Level).

So what are you waiting for. Start building audiences and connect with them online through WeC to transfer knowledge & assured earnings.

While uploading the video, you have to decide the 'Teacher's Chrge' you wish to earn through EACH PAID view.Whenever a student/viewer watches your uploaded video, a preview will be shown to them depending upon the play length of the video. If the student agrees to continue playing the video after preview, then "Teacher's Charge' for that video will be automatically credited into the Educator's (Uploader's) Earnings Wallet. 

The Teacher's Charge is set in three ways:

1) Regular : This is the default charge set by PROCKC depending upon the viewer's Student's Level. ( For level 1 Student, it is 10 points). As the viewer's level increase, the charge will decrease automatically. [1 point = 1 INR]

2) Paragon : You can decide any value from zero to infinity in this category, as seems appropriate to you as an educator. It will be same for all viewers.

3)Philantroph : The Teacher's Charge is Zero. This will a free video for the viewers. This is basically for promotion & introduction purpose.

So, the "Cost of View" for students is 1.5 times the "Teacher's Charge" currently. Suppose you wish to set " Teacher's Charge" as 10 points, then the COV is 1.5x10 = 15 points. This amount will be charged from student for every paid view.

Therefore, set the "Teacher's Charge accordingly. The freedom an d choice is completely yours'. PROCKC will assist you in the process, if you wish.

As an educator, you hold the knowledge regarding your chosen topic,thats for sure. You may also have a video creation experience. That's an added advantage for you at the outset.

Second condition is that you are a good educator but don't have necessary video creation experience. worry not. We will help yoi in the process through our suggestions. In this digital age, video creation is not the hard part. The difficult thing is to have knowledge, and that you have. So, you are perfectly suited for prockc.com to be launched to as an star educator. PROCKC is your launchpad.

There are three broad ways to create a video lecture.

1) Shoot the video with you present in it, teaching and speaking face to face with the audience. You can also use white/black board for your assistance in the frame. Your simple mobile or digicam will help you in the recording process. You can ask some friend of yours to hold the camera or you can have a tripod for your assistance. 

2) Creating Presentations of the lecture on Powerpoint etc and do voiceover/narration with video editing softwares like iMovie, Filmora, Adobe Premier Pro etc. You can also record your screen while doing narration through screen recording softwares.

3) Using an online notepad or animation software.

The quality of the Video is summation of three basic things : 

Quality of Content + Quality of Video + Quality of Audio

First two things can be controlled by your knowledge & video recordings. For good quality audio, you can use a good quality mic while recording/narration. It will help you a lot in gaining audience and earnings. What is the use, when the lecture is not clearly audible, right? 

The uploaded video should preferably in .MP4 format. You can use any video format convertor online to manage the format. The video file size should preferable to less than 1 GB for a low speed internet availing student. Anyways, PROCKC internally optimise the video quality for you.

Video Compressors like Handbrake can be used to optimise size & quality before uploading also.

Also, we have observed that video lectures with play length in range of 5 minutes to 20 mins are best suited for online students attention time span. The choice & freedom lies with you on PROCKC, always. 

First of all, Welcome to PROCKC as an Educator. You are reading this blog are signs that you are eager and have the potential to share your knowledge with the world.

The first step is choosing a topic or subject as an educator.The advantage with PROCKC is that you have the complete freedom to choose a topic and plan your course. Also, you can start uploading video lectures at your pace & time. As you might know, YouC is our recorded video class tool.

So, as an experienced educator or as a potential teacher, you just need to prepare & plan the topic in the way which is beneficial as well as interesting to the audiences.

PROCKC is with you in this journey. You can write to us at contactus@prockc.com for any clarifications or assistance.

Go through the subsequent blogs to get a complete overview on how to use prockc.com.

Be Empowered : Be an Educator

SAU entrance exam is coming up in the following weekend. South Asian University is known for its diversity of students from Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It has excellent faculty with rich experience and expertise. International Relations (IR) is one of the first departments to be established under the Faculty of Social Sciences. IR department has remarkable faculty members with a wide variety of experience. 

From the current year onwards, SAU has made entrance exam into online format. The exam format would be of MCQs only. There are 50 MCQs. Questions are simple. You can see last year's question paper here: solved paper-2018.

Questions are mainly from South Asian politics and geography. So atleast know details about your own country, you can be lucky with one question :)

Some questions are simple like in one of the papers it was asked: Who won 1996 Cricket world cup? (Hint: South Asian Team!).Expect questions like these.

Also another favourite pattern is questions related to literature,specifically south asian literature. 

One of the questions from the previous year is : Who is the author of the book 'The Inheritance of Loss' ? or Who is the author of the book ' Case of Exploding Mangoes'? So prepare for a few known authors from the previous year, who may have won some prizes.

Also, prepare for few basic IR theory questions. There are basic theories like Realism : which says states are in a state of anarchy and therefore conflict is inevitable. The second theory is Liberalism : which says that states are in an anarchy but they tend to cooperate through various international organizations and economic interdepence which will prevent them from waging war on each other.

The third is Constructivism which is a bridge between realism and liberalism. It says that it is about ideas and norms. Alexander Wendt is the foremost proponent of this theory. He says "Anarchy is what states make of it". That means states 'construct' their image of the situation of the world. 

While these are mainstream theories there are many critical theories like : Post Structuralism, Marxism and Feminism.

Materials to be used: Google basic IR theories book by Steven Smith. Be careful to not to go too deep into it. Just basic knowledge is more than enough.

Be very aware of important international events around you, questions are likely from this as well.

Leave your comments or write to us for more information.

All the Best!

UGC NET is the exam for those aspirants willing to enter academia. A candidate is eligible for both provided , age requirements are satisfied. Under UGC guidelines, 28 years of age is the maximum for appearing in JRF exam. However, NET can be taken up at any point upto age of 55 years. 

International Area Studies is very popular among those pursuing Political Science. It provides an opportunity to enter the field of International Affairs or Relations. The discipline has important applications in formulating theories on world politics and the practice of diplomacy. However, in India it has been neglected till now. Recently, a boom for the discipline has been witnessed with many students taking a liking for it. 

In the case for preparation for exam, UGC NET is competitive with 100 MCQs pattern. Questions range from IR theory to IR scholars. Scholars like Headly Bull, Morgantheau are frequently asked in these papers. Also, NET has focussed on critical theories like feminist and third word scholars. So you may want to read up on it.

Knowledge about current affairs and indian involvement in world affairs should be studied in detail. Events occuring in the past year will be the main focus on the paper.

The objective should be to score atleast around 70 marks. That would be the cut off limit usually, though it may year from year. 

Also, few institutes offer International Relations program. It would be helpful if you can check up those papers also. South Asian University has an excellent IR program Read their question papers for masters and Ph.D which would be very helpful. 

Please start the preparation ASAP and all the best :)

What is UGC NET/JRF ?

UGC stands for University Grants Commission. It is the apex University regulator in India. Its functions include granting of University recognitions to prescribing the guidelines for their functioning and teachers recruitment rules. For this purpose, UGC has mandated a National Eligibility Test (NET) for those willing to engage in teaching in university. It is only a qualifying exam and it is valid throughout life time. The UGC NET exam cutoff age for is 55 years old. The exam is conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) and it will be a Computer Based Test (CBT). This exam is mandatory for any Indian citizen willing to teach in India. There are the following fields of study in which the UGC NET is offered:

If you are wanting to engage in teaching any of the above subject, you are required to write UGC NET.

Junior Research Fellowship (JRF)

Another reason for writing UGC NET is to be valid for Junior Research Fellowship

However, Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) is valid only for 5 years. JRF is a facility offered by the UGC to those willing to undertake research activities in their respective fields.

NET EXAM DATE

The exam date is between June 20-28. Since this is a computer based test, only those candidates who receive admit card will be aware of the dates.

If you are wondering your lesser than expected earnings, you are not alone. Many Youtubers have now complained that their earnings have dropped. There are numerous videos explaining that there is something wrong with the settings and you should set it right or there inadequate SEO resulting in lower hits or that Youtube premium may have began its impact. But Economics tells us this was waiting to happen.

Its Economics Stupid!

As with everything in life, economics explains this drop as an event waiting to happen. Consider for example, taxi aggregators, you would have heard your taxi driver grumbling that earnings have dropped by almost 20% as when compared to the beginning period of the service. The reason is this. When the taxi aggregators first arrived, they required to capture market share, which compelled them to focus on taxi drivers. So they gave incentives which made these taxi drivers partner with them. With double bonuses and other rewards, the aggregators built up a base of taxi drivers. While the customers too benefitted from low prices (Remember those low prices you used to travel in?) Have you thought about where these aggregators got profit? Truth is they didnt. They were increasing their market share which was their aim at that time. Once that was achieved, have you noticed how the fares are now normal or at times 'surged'? This is how they are running their business. Fair enough!

But what has this got to do with YouTube? I am coming to that. There is another reason for drop in drivers' earnings. At first, the earnings were high which prompted more drivers to join the group. So there was a deficit in supply of taxis. Remeber how you wouldnt get cabs whenever you wanted? So the few drivers associated with the aggregator made a good deal of money. Seeing this, many other drivers bagan to join. This improved the supply. But you may argue that it also improved the demand.It all comes down to the difference in the growth rates. The rate of growth in supply is far greater than rate of growth in demand. Notice how these cab companies are still offering discounts on rides for users. This disparity in growth has impacted the earnings to a greater extent. So there is now greater supply of cabs hence the same earnings is now distributed among many drivers. So initially, a driver made X, now he is only able to make X/2. The other  X/2 is distributed among the newer entrants. 

Similar is the case with YouTube. Replace taxi drivers with content creators, the rest is the same story. Increase in content creators have provided viewers with choice. Earlier, a normal content creator would have had atleast two to three videos breaching 1 million mark. Today it is difficult to break in even 1 video. With the launch of YouTube premium services, it is further going to erode. The solution for now is to shift to a pay-per-view platform that offers the flexibility for content creators to charge their own viewing charge. 

For more on this read here.

Conclusion

It is now urgent for content creators to shift to newer platforms that offer a better monetizing potential than YouTube. Control over pricing is the most important aspect of this. For creators need to win back that freedom which is now dependent on advertising and earn based on the strength of the content itself.

Lets admit it, we all love stuff which is FREE and delivered to our doorstep. Online learning has provided a great platform for exactly such students. Simply search for the concepts on YouTube or the umpteen platforms available. If you are lucky, you will get exactly what you want. But most often than not, we end up looking at the same thing again and again without any solution for our issues. This is especially true for subejcts involving numericals. Everyone explains the basic concept which we all understand perfectly well. For example, we all know the formula for relative velocity. But the challenge and hence the majority of the marks obtained is for the usage of it. Thats where we lose out.

Online learning aims to ease out concerns in this area. However, the issue is not addressed exactly. Here is why:

1) YouTube: The simplest solution for students is to do a google search and land on YouTube pages. While you can get free content there from many teachers. You will spend unnecessarily sifting through videos before you get what you want. Even then, the part where you want will be hidden somewhere inside in the video. You will be either forced to listen to the full video or to skip the portions to find only the portion you want. Which is like striking Gold! Is this worth the efforts and time? especially the day before your tests and exam? You Judge!

2) Next, you move on to specific educational portals that offer you great content and perhaps the exact thing you need. But like all things in life, there are no free lunches. Depending on your desperation, you will either end up buying the whole course thats on offer or leave everything and get back to solving the next one!

This way you have wasted your time and money for a simple concept. (This may not even come for the exam!) 

So is online learning useless then?

Not really. You need to know where to find what. For instance, you cannot expect YouTube to give you all the answers. YouTube is not designed for educational videos. YouTube is more an entertainment platform which happens to be useful for education also.

So you will search on Google? Too bad, Google is designed for a business platform and education seems to be an offshoot of it. 

So what should we do then? Focus more on library books? Yes, for starters!

But the next thing, you should do is search for platforms that have pay-per-view format in educational content. These platforms tend to satisfy your needs just to fil up those gaps in understanding and revising concepts or numericals. And they are really affordable. Since you wont be paying for an entire set of course, you will have save a lot of money and also a lot of time. 

Be Smart and Search for those prockc modes of learning!