What is TLR?

TLR or Teaching, Learning and Resources is one among the 5 broad categories of NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework). It provides a holistic insight into the teaching and learning resources available at a particular institution and their utilisation by students and faculty for better academic and research outputs. This parameter is one that takes a close look at expenditure by the institute on its material and human resource - it helps assess whether each student is getting individual attention from the faculty, helps form an informed perception of the qualifications and experience of the faculty, and whether the educational resources and infrastructure, such as the libraries, laboratories, engineering workshops, etc are accessible and utilised extensively to contribute to the benchmark academic output. 

There are 4 sub-parameters that sum up to give the TLR score:

• Student Strength (SS) - 20 marks

This is based on the total number of students enrolled in UG, PG and doctoral programmes. Let's look at the SS scores for the top 7 IITs:

• Faculty-Student Ratio (FSR) - 30 marks

The optimum expected ratio is 1:10 to get maximum marks. For ratios less than 1:50, FSR is set to zero. The FSR scores for the top 7 IITs:

• Combined metric for Faculty with PhD and Experience (FQE) - 20 marks

This factor comes handy while assessing the qualifications of the faculty and their experience in teaching and research. It takes count of permanent faculty with PhD and their respective experience. For the top 7 IITs, FQE scores are as follows:

• Financial Resources and their Utilization (FRU) - 30 marks

FRU is obtained by summing up average annual expenditure per student, and on infrastructural resources like workshops, labs, equipment, library, conferences, seminars etc. for three consecutive years plus operational/recurring expenditure on faculty, staff salaries and maintenance of academic infrastructure excluding hostels, messes and the like. These are then normalised by a percentile function. FRU scores for the older IITs are:

IIT Madras has various programs to enhance its teaching learning experience over and above impressive metrics for sub-parameters of TLR.   

The Teaching - Learning Centre (TLC) was formed by a core group of 10 to 12 members of the two faculty development programmes (FDP) on Teaching-Learning offered by Texas A&M University, to enhance the efficiency of course delivery and raise interest and motivation levels of the students in understanding engineering and science subjects. A Memorandum of Understanding, signed between the Institute and Wipro Technologies, Bangalore, India, also assists TLC in carrying out several FDPs and TA training programs with the help of Wipro experts.

Online and offline workshops by NPTEL for faculty which are conducted by experts in holistic education, experiential learning and gamification from institutes of repute across India and abroad are valuable. All faculty in IIT Madras have PhD qualifications to their name and have produced exemplary research papers too. IIT Madras faculty have almost 730 NPTEL courses to their credit on NPTEL and Swayam portals, providing an inclusive and immersive educational experience for all.

The Central Library is well equipped with modern facilities and resources in the form of CD-ROMs, On-line databases, audio video cassettes, books, e-journals, patents, e-standards, theses, reports, monographs etc. The library homepage will provide electronic access to various full text & bibliographical databases & e-journals. The IIT Madras Library subscribes the electronic resources through e-ShodhSindhu as well as from the publishers. The Off-Campus Access service is provided to the faculty members, scholars and students to seamlessly access the subscribed scholarly electronic resources from outside the IIT Madras campus. Departments have specific libraries and computer facilities. Proper guidelines are in place to ensure fair usage of the e-resources. 

Central workshops, and labs in IIT Madras maintain state-of-art conditions and contribute immensely to the annual academic and research output. The P G Senapathy Centre is now gearing up for a High-Performance Computing set-up as part of the National Supercomputing Mission. 

Overall TLR Scores for the top 7 IITs are as follows:

Among IITs, IIT Madras is in the top 3 in TLR scores, coming next only to IIT Bombay and IIT Kanpur, by a difference of less than 1 mark.