Institute's Best Practices

Project Based Learning - PBL

Every semester, BMSIT&M instills the spirit of "Do it Yourself" amongst the students. An initiative to encourage every student to gain experiential learning. Students (in groups of 3 - 4) engage in PBL right from the first/second year itself. They do one project every semester in the area relevant to their courses and matching their interest. All these projects (approximately 600-700) done by students are exhibited in BMSIT OPEN DAY, once a semester. Renowned industry executives, investors and academicians evaluate these projects, and about 80 - 100 projects are given cash prizes every semester to encourage students to do better.

Open Day

Just like IISc, BMSIT&M arranges an OPENDAY: PROJECT EXHIBITION to exhibit the project based learning work carried out by the students of the institution. The projects exhibited the student’s ability to apply their learning to solve the real world problems. Several hundreds of projects in the emerging areas like IOT, Block Chain, Bluetooth, Cryptography and Network Security, Data Analytics and Data Mining, Automobile, Waste management, Android, Agricultural equipment, Health etc. were exhibited and their working principles were demonstrated. Experts from the industry and reputed academic institutions were part of the Judging team.

Open Courses

The institute has been striving hard to ensure that students are ready for either employment (self- or otherwise) or higher studies. As a part of this, institute offers at the beginning of every semester more than 20 open courses (each with 25 hours) in the areas that are demanded by the industry. These are beyond University curriculum. Any student of any branch and any semester can register for any course offered by any department. Every year, more than 1300 students benefit from these courses.

MOOCs

Students and Faculty members are encouraged to complete online courses offered by NPTEL, Course era, Udacity, etc. More and more of them are reaping benefits of this open access to learning materials. NPTEL resources have been procured and made available on the institute’s server.

Students Industrial Internships

A great emphasis is given to facilitate students to undergo industrial internships. Although, the time window available as per the university calendar is not very convenient to permit a long-term internship (like minimum of 3 months), in the last 2 years, more than 2000 students have completed industrial internships (of about a month each) in about 550 companies. Autonomous status would be well utilised to engage in industry internships very systematically.

Industry Internship for Faculty Members

It is mandatory for all the Faculty members at BMSIT&M to undergo industry internship at least for 10 days in a year (feasible time-window available in the University calendar). This best practice has been there for the last 4 years, and it is proposed to extend the internship to at least 4 months in a year.

Innovative and Case study-oriented Internal assessment

Effort is made to compel students to think originally by introducing mandatory questions that are case-study-based and that demand innovative solutions in every internal assessment. They constitute about 40% of the question paper. There need not be one right answer for a question. The solutions are discussed in the class after the assessment.

Promotion of Student Entrepreneurship

BMSIT&M has been a good place for students to pursue their entrepreneurial interests. More than 50 students have been pursuing their business prospects from the campus. Some of them are registered businesses and some other amateurs. A few of the ventures are social enterprises too.

Other value addition programs

• Industrial Visits: A large number of visits to industries is organised to help students to acquire exposure to industrial and real-life environment
• Invited talks: A large number of invited talks by industry practitioners, researchers, start-up entrepreneurs and well-paced alumni are arranged by all departments every year
• Technical fests: Students actively compete in innovation challenges, technical seminars and competitions
• Community Services: They volunteer in activities of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, NSS, NCC, Red cross, Civil Defence Units of the college.

Direct interaction of students with the BOG

The Board of Governors (BoG) of the institute which meets quarterly interacts directly with students to know about the quality of education, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and support services being provided to them by the institute. Their inputs are considered to improve the academic ambiance in the institute.

360-degree Feedback on Teaching-Learning Process and Administration

An effective feedback system is in place for students to give their feedback every semester about the teachers’ contribution in their learning process. They assess all theory, laboratory and project course teachers. Further, both students and staff give feedback on the quality of services (as applicable) like placement, canteen, library, transport, hostels, housekeeping, security, etc. All staff members (teaching, laboratory and office staff) evaluate the performance of Principal, Vice principal, and Deans. All staff in a department evaluate their HOD. Horizontal feedback among a department’s faculty members is also present. Feedback from parents and employers are also given due importance to improve the system. Wherever the score is less than 60% the concerns are addressed immediately.

Transparency in administration

All financial transactions of the college undergo statutory audit and the audit reports are published on the institute’s website. All BOG meeting proceedings are placed on the website regularly. Mandatory disclosure document is also available on our portal for any public scrutiny. Principal holds Townhall meetings with faculty members and all sections of students briefing them about the matters related to the institution thus making administration participatory.

Each Department is guided by a Department Advisory Board (DAB)

Although having DABs is not mandatory by the University, BMSIT&M volunteered to constitute them in every department. These Boards have representation from all stake-holder groups namely, industry, research organisations, academia, employers, parents, and students. The DABs have senior professors from IISC, IITs, NITs or IIIT, accomplished scientists from national research labs and senior executives from industry. As such there are more than 10 professors, 11 scientists and 10 industry practitioners on various DABs. These DABs advise and mentor the departments to stay relevant to the industry and society and progress towards their vision.

Eminent Adjunct Faculty from Industries

Eminent persons from industries who are domain experts engage students to provide practitioners’ perspective of the course contents. They teach about 25% of selected courses, whereas the remaining portion would be taught by a faculty. This brings in both the theoretical and practitioners’ perspectives to the class-room discussion.

Gnanavardhan

Almost all engineering problems are multidisciplinary in nature. Hence, to inculcate the practice of understanding the engineering problems from multiple disciplines, HODs and senior faculty members meet one hour every week, wherein one of them will present his/her research work and the members discuss it from their points of view. More than 130 lectures have been conducted. The proceedings of all lectures of Gnanavardhan are published once a semester in the form of a monograph. Further, Principal conducts on-line exams for all the staff members of the institution with regard to Outcome-based Education, NBA and NAAC evaluation processes, Cyber security awareness, National Education Policy and so on.

Higher Education Facilitation Centre

This centre has been created to help students to choose right university/institute and education programs for their higher education abroad, and avail financial support. The centre is manned by a highly experienced adviser who has served in US-India Education Foundation. The adviser also provides assistance relating to visa processing. This in-house service has prevented students from falling prey to deceitful/unauthorised agents. The centre has organised several workshops to students helping them in their pursuit of higher studies abroad. It has also helped faculty members to write good Letter of Reference.

Green Campus

The campus is lush green with about 750 varieties of plants/trees/shrubs and a great habitat for a variety of birds. All buildings are built with rain-water harvesting systems. The campus also has captive 350 kLD sewage treatment plant of its own. The entire garden in the campus is watered with these sources only and not a single drop of municipal and tube well water is used for this purpose.

Green Composting

The green waste generated by trees and plants are not burnt but composted in pits on the campus. The manure created would be used to fertile the garden again. While we have three composting pits, we are planning to have an accelerated manuring facility soon.

Minimum Plastic-use Campus

Everyone on the campus strives to reduce the use of plastic and hence, the campus is environment friendly. Periodically students and staff together do ‘Shramadaan’ to ensure that campus is cleaned of garbage and litters if any.

Shramdaan

As a part of the Swachcha Bharat Abhiyaan, OIKOS has drafted the Institutional Framework, a copy of which has also been submitted to VTU. Under this action plan, "Shramdaan" a plastic cleanup drive under the supervision of Shri Vijay Hashia (Campus Manager & Secretary-OIKOS) was conducted thrice in the campus mobilizing the entire fraternity of BMSIT&M to maintain a cleaner outlook to environment and it is one of the top engineering colleges in karnataka.

Proctoring System

BMSIT&M takes care of its students via a unique system - Proctoring System. The highlights of this are:

1. Under each proctor a maximum of 25 students will be allocated.
2. Proctoring of each department will be monitored by a team of deputy chief proctors and a chief proctor at the institution level. The central team submits a monthly report of proctoring at all departments to the principal.
3. Students who face various adjustments problems which include behavioral / Psychological issues can avail the help from a professional counselor, Mrs. Chethana Srinivas who will be visiting the campus on Tuesdays and Fridays from 1pm – 4pm.
4. Parents are periodically intimated through SMS, email about the performance and attendance status of their wards.
5. First year students can approach first year student co-ordinator Mr. Thyagaraj, Assistant professor, Department of ECE and Mrs. Tejaswini, Assistant professor, department of ME to get acquainted with the system smoothly at the earliest