FAQ

NPTEL is an acronym for National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning which is an initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science. NPTEL provides E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and Humanities streams.

NOC stands for NPTEL Online Certification. NPTEL is now offering online certification courses through its portal https://archive.nptel.ac.in. There are 4wk, 8wk as well as 12wk courses offered twice a year.

The pass criteria for exams is being changed from July 2019. A learner will pass and be certified only if Average assignment score (out of 100) >= 40 AND Final exam score ( out of 100) >= 40. That is, to clear the exam you have to score a minimum of 10 out of 25% in the assignment and 30 out of 75% in the final proctored exam.
The pass criteria also depends on the courses. The above mentioned is applicable for most of the courses but for those courses which have non proctored programming exams and for medical courses, the pass criteria is different and will be mentioned in the course announcement page

Please go to the following link for information on NPTEL online certification courses.http://nptel.ac.in/noc/
For announcements, you may go to:http://nptel.ac.in/

Depending upon the demand of students and logistics, NPTEL may offer the course again. Kindly keep checking our website for latest news.

Step 1 - go to the following link - https://archive.nptel.ac.in
Step 2 – Click on the tab "SIGN-IN/REGISTER" seen on the top right-hand corner.
Step 3 - Use a Google account enabled email id to login.
Step 4 – Choose your desired course. In the upcoming page, go through the details and click on the Join button Next, fill the details and click on the "Join" button.
Step 5 – If the course has content uploaded, you will now be able to see it.
Once these steps are carried out, you will receive a confirmation e-mail.

No. Joining/enrolling for an NPTEL online course is free. Once enrolled, the videos and associated study material may also be downloaded for free. Learning from the course, submitting assignments, participating in the discussion forum is free. To write the final exam, you need to pay Rs. 1000/- per course.
If you are taking exams outside India, please write to outside-india@nptel.iitm.ac.in with the country and city where you will be taking the exam.

There is no specific eligibility criterion for any of the NPTEL online courses. The faculty of a particular course may recommend some basic knowledge of certain topics for a person to fully grasp the contents of a course.

Anyone may join an online course. There is no age limit..

Yes.You may join for any number of NPTEL courses you wish but you can write exams only for a maximum of six courses per semester.
You can take one exam in the forenoon session and another during the afternoon session on the same day. 2 exams a day x 3 days = 6 exams in a semester. You cannot take more than 2 exams a day even though you have joined for more courses whose exams fall on the same day. NPTEL will allot the session (Forenoon/Afternoon) and it will be mentioned in the hall ticket. There is no option to change the date of the exams. You need to have the same registered email ID for all courses to have two different sessions on the same day in the same exam centre. NPTEL will allot sessions accordingly and the sessions will not clash.

Once you have enrolled to a course you cannot withdraw from a course. You may choose to "Unsubscribe from Announcement and Forum" which is available in the Progress tab of the respective courses. This way, you will not be receiving email notifications.

Those who have registered for a course will receive a confirmation welcome mail. After that, when the course begins and the weekly lessons are released, you will be notified via e-mail. Also, any news, announcements, etc. will be posted in the Announcement Page of the course. You can now start watching the videos. Please keep checking your course page for updates.

Yes. For certain online courses, the text transcription of the video material has been made available for free download at the following link. http://nptel.ac.in/ > Courses. Here, you may search for your desired course and download videos and transcripts PDF, MP4 files. If you do not find your choice of course in that list, please understand that the transcription work is in progress. Kindly bear with us. Some of the text material has also been translated to local languages; do check it out (if available, it will be available within the course page).
Also, please visit https://nptel.ac.in/Translation/

We will most definitely take a note of your suggestion and consider that while designing future online certification courses.

All announcements and other vital information are posted in the Announcement page of the course. Also, e-mail and sms alerts will be sent periodically.

Your score will be posted online once after the deadline of the assignment you submit. Using your unique password and log in id, you may check your score any time after the deadline.

Yes. Certain online courses will have these types of assignments. These are meant only for assessing your learning from the course. Typically, these assessments will not carry any marks. The answers for such assignments will also be posted in the course page. Please note that the faculty decides on the type of assignments for each course.

Yes, the assignment scores also contribute to the overall score. 25% of the total score comes from Assignment marks; 75% from final exam.

The final score may be affected as the assignment scores will be counted towards the final exam score. But this will not hamper your writing the certification exam.

You may download the videos and watch them offline. Available on https://nptel.ac.in > Courses, website where the same content will be posted. Also, for certain courses, transcripts are available which are relatively smaller in file size and easier to download.

You have to check with your college/Univerisity if they will take this into consideration and incorporate it into your certificate.

Yes. You may enroll for any online course no matter where you live and go through the course material.

NPTEL conducts the final certification exam as a proctored exam where the candidate has to come in person to a designated centre and write the exam. We do not have a process in place to conduct proctored exam for candidates outside India. Hence you can enroll and study using these courses. If you want to take the exam, you have to travel to India and write the exam in one of the designated exam centres.
If you are staying outside India, please write to outside-india@nptel.iitm.ac.in with the country and city where you will be taking the exam.

You will have to check with the authorities at your college/university.
For 12 weeks/8 weeks/4 weeks courses, NPTEL recommends 3/2/1 credits respectively. NPTEL will share the e-certificate once the learner has passed, along with the score in the exam and the assignments as well.
The university/college may use this information and converts it into their system of grades as per their requirement.
It is upto your college/university how much credit should be given for each course.
Please check with your college/university authorities.
For more details kindly refer to the below document.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1miy4vEeRlpuWj32aDDPPRmzd5bh4OwU9

Please refer to the timelines and guidelines mentioned in https://nptel.ac.in/noc/NPTELSemester.html

For candidates enrolled to a course, a link will be published for exam registration. Email alerts will be sent to the candidates with the link. Kindly follow the guidelines posted there.

No. Certification exams will be conducted on Saturday and Sunday. There will be 2 exam sessions on both days. Morning Session - 9 am to 12 pm Afternoon session - 2 pm to 5 pm You will have to appear at the allotted exam center and produce your Admit Card and Identification Card for verification and take the exam in person.

At the time of exam registration, you will be choosing exam date and centre. Once this data is submitted, you will not be able to go back and change this input. So if you miss the exam, you cannot take it on another date.

The exam format - Online or Offline - will be decided by the respective course instructor.

Online exam : (Computer-based exam)
Candidates will have to appear at the allotted exam centre, produce the Hall ticket and Government Identification Card for verification, and take the exam in person. The questions will be on the computer and the answers will have to be entered on the computer. Type of questions may include multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, short answer type answers, essay type answers, etc.

Offline exam : (Pen-paper exam)
Candidates will have to appear at the allotted exam centre, produce the Hall ticket and Government Identification Card for verification, and take the exam in person. The question paper will be available on the computer. Answer sheets will be given to the candidate. He/she will have to write the answers on sheets of paper, tie them and submit the same to the invigilator. Type of questions may include multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, short answer type answers, essay type answers, etc.

There is no option to change the exam for the course which is already registered. You can cancel the exam registration, take the refund which you don’t want and register for another which you wish to take the exam. Please note that you will be able to do so only when the exam registration form is open. Once it is closed, there is no option to make any changes.

Yes. You may participate in 6 online certification exams. Exams are conducted on 3 days which will fall on Saturday and Sunday. There will be 2 exam sessions on both days. So, you can take two exams per day.

Currently, only the centres in the form can be chosen by individuals. If you belong to a college and more than 200 students are appearing for exams on the same date, the college Principal can write to us requesting for a centre in your city and we can try to arrange the same.

If the payment is successful, you will get a confirmation email saying so.

You are not permitted to bring a calculator. An on-screen calculator will be provided during the exam

Calculator, electronic diary, mobile phone, watches, and other electronic gadgets, blank papers, clipboards, log-tables will not be allowed in the examination hall.

The exams are scheduled for 3 hours. Candidates are allowed to leave the examination hall after the first 1.5 hours.

Yes. The candidate has to return these papers at the end of the examination.

Normally the final question paper is not released and hence the solutions also will not be released. If you have any specific doubts, you can write to the course instructor on the discussion forum of the course.

For an objective online exam, results and the e-certificate (go to the course at nptel.ac.in/noc) will be available 2-3 weeks after the exam date. For an offline subjective exam (paper and pen), the results and the e-certificate will be made available 5 weeks after the exam.

Please write to us explaining the reasons behind your contest. Give us the name of the course, date of exam, roll number and email id.We will forward it to the course instructor and his decision will be implemented.

E-certificate will be issued for those who have cleared the exam, hardcopy won't be issued.

Yes. The score will usually be a combination of assignment and final exam scores, as the course instructor decides.

The e-certificate can be downloaded and printed and used. It is anyway e-verifiable.

Within the candidate login, you can log these errors. (http://nptel.ac.in/noc/ > Exam Results login) Or, please take a screen-shot of your certificate and send us an email describing the error, within the stipulated time. If the error is genuine and reported to us within the stipulated time frame, we will re-generate another e-certificate. You may have to pay an additional fee for a new e-certificate, with the changes incorporated.

Only those who have appeared for the NPTEL online exam are referred to as candidates. And only after you are notified by NPTEL about the exam result publication will you be able to access Candidate login.

SWAYAM is the National MOOCs portal being developed by MoE, Govt. of India. In order to ensure best quality content is produced and delivered, seven National Coordinators have been appointed under SWAYAM. NPTEL is the official SWAYAM national coordinator for engineering. All NPTEL online certification courses are SWAYAM courses too, and they are available on the SWAYAM platform. By participating in NPTEL online courses, you and your college are officially participating in SWAYAM.

You may enroll (join) to courses in SWAYAM portal.

To write exams and get a certificate, you have to:
- enroll at https://archive.nptel.ac.in/
- register for exams at NPTEL portal
- pay exam fees
- write exams at designated exam centre
- pass the exam by scoring 40 marks or above, that is you have to score a minimum of 10 out of 25% in the assignment and 30 out of 75% in the final proctored exam. - pass the exam by meeting the eligibility criteria in both assignments and proctored exam as per the course.

NO. In SWAYAM portal, you can watch videos and do self-study.

To get a certificate, you need to write the exam.

Please follow these steps:
- enroll at https://archive.nptel.ac.in/
- register for exams at NPTEL portal
- pay exam fees
- write exams at designated exam centre
- pass the exam by scoring 40 marks or above, that is you have to score a minimum of 10 out of 25% in the assignment and 30 out of 75% in the final proctored exam
- pass the exam by meeting the eligibility criteria in both assignments and proctored exams as per the course.

Once the exam fee is paid, arrangements will be made for you to take the exam. You may choose to cancel the exam registration before the prescribed deadlines mentioned in the Timelines sheet available in our portal. If exam cancellation is done before the deadlines, exam fee will be refunded within 2 to 3 weeks. Once the deadlines are over, exam registration CANNOT be cancelled and exam fee will not be refunded.

E-Mail : support@nptel.iitm.ac.in
NPTEL : http://nptel.ac.in/
NPTEL ONLINE COURSE REGISTRATION: https://archive.nptel.ac.in/
Local Chapter (For Colleges) : http://nptel.ac.in/LocalChapter
YOUTUBE : http://www.youtube.com/iit
Translation of transcripts: https://nptel.ac.in/Translation/