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Start Enrolling for new 93 courses!!

Dear Students,

We are happy to announce that the next run of NPTEL online certification courses will start on July 18, 2016. This time around, we are offering 93 certification courses comprising of 10 hr, 20 hr and 30 hr courses across disciplines.

Enrollments for the courses are open now. Click on the link "All running courses" below to see all the courses to be offered in July.

List of NPTEL Open Online courses for certification - July 2016 : Please refer the Link: http://nptel.ac.in/upcoming_courses.php

For any queries contact nptel@iitm.ac.in


-NPTEL TEAM

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Feedback for Programming, Data structures and Algorithms

Dear student

We are glad that you have attended the NPTEL online certification course.

We hope you found the NPTEL Online course useful and have started using NPTEL extensively.

In this regard, we would like to have a feedback from you regarding our course and whether there are any improvements, you would like to suggest.
 
We are enclosing an online feedback form and would request you to spare some of your valuable time to input your observations. Your esteemed input will help us in serving you better.

The link to give your feedback is :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q4RmzJIfMPkVb3NQgcrUwhafyuvgzC-9YsNES8cRolE

We thank you for your valuable time and feedback.

Thanks & Regards,
NPTEL Team

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About discussing exam dated 20th March

Dear Students

I request students who took the exam to not discuss the details of the questions for another week. Once both exams are over, all discussions about the exam questions can be had together.

General posts like level of difficulty, about the logistics of the exam etc. are ok. Asking for or giving out specific questions and related issues is not. I expect students to follow this simple honor code.

Thanks
Shankar

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Video recording of the interaction session

Dear All,

There was an interaction session with some of the students for the course"Programming, Data structures and Algorithms"

The video recording is now available in the portal under the last unit"
Interactive session with students"

Those who are interested can take a look.

-NPTEL TEAM

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Week 9 Assignments + Quiz + Exam Portal

Dear Students

We are at the end of the course and this week we have some interesting material on graphs. Also, there is material on how to structure your programs carefully.

Few important things:

1. Two programming problems and quiz are made public. These are due on 30th March 2016. The deadline is not a mistake, it is after the exams are over.

2. Week 9 quizzes and assignments will not be part of your final grade.

3. A small demo of how to use the exam portal has been placed under Week 9 videos. Please watch the video carefully. The video was made for another course last year but the portal is the same, so the demonstration of the portal is useful for those of you who are taking the exam on the 20th and 27th. You can also watch the video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dR2LFpl6FI.

Shankar

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RE: Refund amount

Dear Student

We have refunded the money from our side for failed transactions, if the money is not credited to your account you can check with your bank with the reference number which has been generated during your payment.

Refunds are not being processed for successful registrations.

If the bank confirms that your amount is not refunded, then please write to us at nptel@iitm.ac.in

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NPTEL Certification exam: Hall tickets available for download

Dear candidate:

Hall tickets have been published for the courses that have exams on March 20 and 27. The link for the same is https://www3.digialm.com:443//EForms/configuredHtml/885/2759/login.html

Instructions for candidates to access the hall ticket:

• Please login with your registered Google-enabled account email id (used to access the course on the portal and used for registering for the exam) and its password to access and download the hall ticket(s) for the March 20th/ 27th exams, from the link.
  
• Note that you will be able to login here, only if you have a valid registration for exams on March 20th/ 27th 2016.
  
•  Please download hall ticket, take a print out and along with a valid ID card, carry it with you to the venue (The exam centre address is there in the hall ticket).
  
• Read all instructions given in the admit card/ hall ticket carefully and follow them.
  
• Note1:- If you are writing 2 exams - 1 on March 20th and another on March 27th, please ensure that you have downloaded 2 hall tickets.
  
•  Note2: Exam time : 2 PM to 5 PM.
•  In case of issues - contact us at nptel@iitm.ac.in. 

Best of luck for your exams!

Thanks
NPTEL team

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Week 8 Assignments and Week 9 Videos

Dear Students

We are in Week 8 and inching slowly to the end of the course. To facilitate different schedules that you may have and constraints due to exams in your colleges etc., I had released Week 8 videos last week itself. The assignments are now posted online along with the quiz. The deadline for Week 8 assignments is 17th March.

I have also made Week 9 videos public. You can get started on watching Week 9 videos if you are already done with Week 8 and its assignments. The assignments for Week 9 will come online later.

Regards
Shankar

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Week 7 Videos (and Week 8)

Dear Students

Week 7 videos, quiz and programming assignments are now available in the platform. The deadline for Week 7 is Thursday, 10th March 2016 at 11:55 pm.  The download link for videos will be made available by 5 p.m. on March 1.

In week 7, two general strategies to solve optimization problems, namely greedy algorithms and dynamic programming, are discussed. Optimization problems are those where there is a cost function and the objective of the algorithm is to minimize or maximize the cost function. A good grounding in these techniques is useful for solving a variety of interesting problems in the real world.

Week 8 videos have also been posted to enable you to study ahead if you have the time. The assignments and quiz for Week 8 will also be put up this week itself. We are approaching the exam dates and we are providing the videos ahead of time so that you can plan on your assignments appropriately.

Regards
Shankar

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Exam Pattern

Dear Students

The registration for final exam is March 1. Please make a note of that and ensure that your registration is done before the deadline if you want to get a certificate.

The final exam will be a 3 hour exam and will be a computer based exam. You will be given 4 programming questions to solve, the problems ranging from easy to hard. Each problem will come with a pre-specified programming language, just like what we have on the platform for the course assignments. C and C++ knowledge is assumed.

The exam will have both public and private testcases. Just like the course platform, public testcases will be exposed and you will be able to see which passed and which failed. All private testcases will be hidden and you will not be able to see them. Your score for each question will depend on how many private testcases pass.

You will also have access to Dev C++ IDE during the exam so that you can debug your programs locally. As we keep recommending on the platform, we suggest and encourage that you test your programs on the local IDE before you make a submission to the exam platform. That way, you will have more confidence about your submission.

Note that this course will not have any MCQ type questions or essay type questions.

I request that all queries related to exam pattern be posted as a reply to this thread so that everyone can benefit from following just a single thread.

Regards
Shankar

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REMINDER: Registration closes on 1st MAR 2016 5 PM (Tuesday) - Register today!!!

Dear students

Hope you are doing the course and are enjoying the learning process.

Already 5766 students have registered for the exams, are you one of it? If not Please register for the exam today!!

The certification exam registration URL is : http://nptelonlinecourses.iitm.ac.in/
(Only if you are enrolled in a 10 hr / 20 hr course that started on Jan 18th, you will be able to login here)

If you have any payment issue and internet connectivity problem, please try to register earlier instead of trying out in the last minute.

Exam registrations close on 1st MAR 2016 5 PM (Tuesday)!! The last date will not be extended!

Dates of exam: 20th March 2016 (or) 27 March 2016
Exam Session time: 2 PM - 5 PM
Examination Cities: The exam is to be conducted in several cities across India whose list is available on the registration form.
Registration fees: Rs 1250/-
Mode of payment: Only online payment - debit card/credit card/net banking

The hall ticket will be available for download from 2nd/3rd week of March 2016.

Certificate will be awarded to candidates who register and attend the certificate examination. The scores obtained by the student in the assignments and in the proctored exam will be used to compute the final score printed on the certificate. The certificate will also have a link to the NPTEL website, where on logging in, your assignment scores and your score in the proctored certification exam will be displayed. Please do regularly submit assignments to get a good final score.

IMPORTANT NOTES

1) FOR CANDIDATES WHO WOULD LIKE TO WRITE MORE THAN 1 COURSE EXAM:- Once the registration form is submitted after payment, no changes like adding or removing the chosen course, exam date, city is possible. So, if you are choosing to write 2 course exams, please choose suitably and make the payment. Its not possible to pay later for the second course. Once the payment is made, the registration form will be non-editable.
Courses with exam on March 20th/ 27th : http://nptel.ac.in/LocalChapter/Assets/pdf/Courses%20with%20exams%20on%20March%2020-27%202016.pdf

2) FOR CANDIDATES WHO HAVE GOT SCHOLARSHIP VIA YOUR LOCAL CHAPTER: -  Students who have got scholarship via NPTEL local chapter can opt to pay individually using the above form. While doing so the reduced fee will automatically apply.

3) FOR CANDIDATES WHO ARE PAYING VIA THE LOCAL CHAPTER OF YOUR COLLEGE:- If you are paying fee via Local chapter of your college using the DD option, ONLY After the SPOC of your college has finished uploading the Bulk-Payment details for the March exam, please come to this form and add your signature, photo and certificate (in case of SC/ST). This step is mandatory fr generating the hall ticket.

Thanks & Regards,
NPTEL Team

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REMINDER: Registration closes on 1st MAR 2016 5 PM (Tuesday) - Register today!!!

Dear students

Hope you are doing the course and are enjoying the learning process.

Already 5766 students have registered for the exams, are you one of it? If not Please register for the exam today!!

The certification exam registration URL is : http://nptelonlinecourses.iitm.ac.in/
(Only if you are enrolled in a 10 hr / 20 hr course that started on Jan 18th, you will be able to login here)

If you have any payment issue and internet connectivity problem, please try to register earlier instead of trying out in the last minute.

Exam registrations close on 1st MAR 2016 5 PM (Tuesday)!! The last date will not be extended!

Dates of exam: 20th March 2016 (or) 27 March 2016
Exam Session time: 2 PM - 5 PM
Examination Cities: The exam is to be conducted in several cities across India whose list is available on the registration form.
Registration fees: Rs 1000/-
Mode of payment: Only online payment - debit card/credit card/net banking

The hall ticket will be available for download from 2nd/3rd week of March 2016.

Certificate will be awarded to candidates who register and attend the certificate examination. The scores obtained by the student in the assignments and in the proctored exam will be used to compute the final score printed on the certificate. The certificate will also have a link to the NPTEL website, where on logging in, your assignment scores and your score in the proctored certification exam will be displayed. Please do regularly submit assignments to get a good final score.

IMPORTANT NOTES

1) FOR CANDIDATES WHO WOULD LIKE TO WRITE MORE THAN 1 COURSE EXAM:- Once the registration form is submitted after payment, no changes like adding or removing the chosen course, exam date, city is possible. So, if you are choosing to write 2 course exams, please choose suitably and make the payment. Its not possible to pay later for the second course. Once the payment is made, the registration form will be non-editable.
Courses with exam on March 20th/ 27th : http://nptel.ac.in/LocalChapter/Assets/pdf/Courses%20with%20exams%20on%20March%2020-27%202016.pdf

2) FOR CANDIDATES WHO HAVE GOT SCHOLARSHIP VIA YOUR LOCAL CHAPTER: -  Students who have got scholarship via NPTEL local chapter can opt to pay individually using the above form. While doing so the reduced fee will automatically apply.

3) FOR CANDIDATES WHO ARE PAYING VIA THE LOCAL CHAPTER OF YOUR COLLEGE:- If you are paying fee via Local chapter of your college using the DD option, ONLY After the SPOC of your college has finished uploading the Bulk-Payment details for the March exam, please come to this form and add your signature, photo and certificate (in case of SC/ST). This step is mandatory fr generating the hall ticket.

Thanks & Regards,
NPTEL Team

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Week 6 Assignments

Dear Students

There are three programming assignments this week and all of them use C++. We are still working on getting iostream to work in the platform. Meanwhile, cstdio, and the I/O functions printf() and scanf() have been used in the week's templates.

The deadline for the assignments and the quiz is Saturday, 5th March 2016 at 11:55 pm.

It goes without saying that the work that you are submitting must be your own. Please do not post code snippets related to the homework asking for help. Also, I request that you do not use sources outside the platform for help regarding the assignments. I strongly believe that you gain a lot by doing things yourself. After all, did we all not fall hundreds of times when we started walking? Or did we not fall of our cycles/bikes before becoming comfortable? We should take the same approach to programming as well.

Have fun!

Regards
Shankar

Regards
Shankar Balachandran

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Week 6 Videos

Dear Students

Week 6 videos are now up. Starting from basic C programming, we have come a long way. This week we cover new ground: data structures. You will also see that the code snippets are shown in C++. This is a natural way to learn data structures: storage and operators on the stored values.

I am hoping that you are having fun learning.

Week 6 quiz is online. We are still dealing with a few issues about Week 6 programming assignments. I will send out an announcement as soon as they are resolved. As of now, you will not see any programming assignments.


Thanks
Shankar

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Revised deadline for Week 5 and issues with C++ code

Dear Students

There is a problem with the platform: our backend is not processing iostream and the operators cin and cout properly. We have now replaced the I/O operations with functions from cstdio (notice that #include<iostream> is replaced with #include <cstdio>) for problems 5.2 and 5.3. All cin and cout operations have been replaced with scanf and printf statements respectively. Your program must be able to compile and run with this. If you used a old copy of the code, please replace the old template code with the new one we have provided now. Check locally before you submit on the platform. Sorry for the inconvenience.

To accommodate for the inconvenience caused, the deadline is now extended to Satruday, 27th February 2016 at 11:55 pm.

Regards

Shankar

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Announcement regarding exam and certificate format.

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Registration open for certification exam

(Only if you are enrolled in a 10 hr / 20 hr course that started on Jan 18th, you will be able to login here)

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Week 4 Videos

Dear Students

Hope you are enjoying the course so far. This week, we are going to detour into algorithms. Specifically, we will study algorithms on arrays of data. Sorting, searching, finding the minimum and maximum in an array etc. are all common operations on data in an array.

There is a quiz and there are four programming problems this week. The deadline for this set is Saturday, 20th  February 2016 at 11:55 pm. Note that this is not the usual Monday night deadline. I am going to start pushing the deadlines for the upcoming weeks slowly ahead and settle down with a 7-10 day deadline for assignments eventually.

The download links for the videos are not made available yet but will be put up by end of day today.

There are plenty of emails that are on the forum with interesting questions and discussions. I suggest that you visit the forum section often. Once in a while, there are posts on the forum with complete code or code segments asking someone else to help. I would like to point out that it is against the code of conduct of the course. We have been deleting posts with code samples related to the homework.

There are a few requests for deadline extensions that come to me from time to time. Note that the deadlines are fairly strict and I will not be able to extend deadlines for individuals. My suggestion is to plan your homework carefully. Do not wait till the deadline date to start your work. Also issues like network connectivity in your area, exams in your university, personal work that you have to attend to etc. are not under my control and I will not be able to grant extensions based on these requests.

I would also like to remind at this point that the Assignment 2 is due on the 10th of February and Assignment 3 on the 15th.

Regards
Shankar

The section below is for students who do not know how to access the portal and/or how to submit assignments. Others can safely ignore this part of the email.

In case you don't know how to use the portal or to submit assignments yet, I am reproducing a section of an earlier email below:

Go to https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc16_cs06/. First of all, you have to login to access the contents of the course. See the login button in the right side of the page.  You have to give your login credentials with which you registered.

If you are already logged into gmail with that account, when you go to the link, you wlil  see that you are already logged in to the platform.

If you are logged on to any other account when you go to the course link, first log out of the current account and login back with the account you used for registering for the course.

If you don't see the login button but you see your id there, you are already logged in.

If you don't see anything to the right top, it is likely that your browser has a problem. Update your browser to the latest one.

After this, read through the announcements section for a post titled "Accessing the course/videos/assignments".

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Week 1 Assignments and Quiz due today

Dear Students

Week 1 quiz and assignments are due today at 11:55 pm IST. If you have done your assignment locally but have not put in your solutions on the platform, now is a good time to do this.

Note that there will be no extensions given. I also want to remind you that Week 2 assignments and quiz are due on 10th February at 11:55 pm IST.

Regards
Shankar

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Enrollment and Exam registration

Dear Students

The last date for enrollment to the course is 4th February 2016. If you have friends who you think would benefit from this course, please forward my announcement email titled "Accessing the course/videos/assignments" to them.

There are a couple of emails on the forum which seem to indicate that there is some confusion between enrollment and exam registration. Registration for exam is currently not open and I will send an announcement once the link is available.

Shankar

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Extensions to Week 1 and Week 2 Quizzes+Assignments

Dear Students

 Week 1 submission deadline is now extended to 7 February 2016 and Week 2 to 10 February 2016, at 11:55 pm on both days.

Since we had decided to extend the registration deadline to February 4, we had to move the deadlines of the assignments to accommodate students who register late. This deadline extension is a one time affair, applicable only to the first couple of assignments. Henceforth, the assignment deadlines will be roughly 10 days away from the release date and will be strictly adhered to.

Note that the "deadlines" tell you the "last" date of submission, not the "first" day when you start trying them out :-) Hope you are enjoying the course.

Regards
Shankar

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Runtime error, math.h and sqrt function

Dear Students

There are so many emails repeatedly asking for a few clarifications. Before I address them, I want to first give a few guidelines. One thing I repeatedly notice is that many of you seem to create a new thread asking a question which has been asked (and replied to) several times. You should first of all read what others are posting before creating a new post. Also, do not blindly say "Even I faced the same issue". Search for what you are looking for in the forum before you make a post. If you keep posting such emails over and over, the signal to noise ratio in the forum will be so low that it will turn away students from using the forum and useful information will get buried.

Now to the issues:

1. For the first week's  assignments, if you wanted to use sqrt function, and even if you included math.h library, it may not have worked for you. You should solve the problem differently. It does not matter it works in your IDE. If it does not compile in the platform you have to go and rework your strategy. So if you saw an error that says there is an undefined reference to sqrt(), or round() or any other math library functions, go and rewrite them yourself. This configuration was deliberate. From the second week onwards, you will have access to math library functions.

2. There are questions asking why Java/C++ etc. is not supported. The programming part of the course is in C only and there will be a part of this course taught with C++. However, for each problem given, there will be a restriction on the language that can be used. It is going to be C (but not C++) for most cases. For some problems it will be C++(but not C). 

3. There is another slew of emails about runtime errors. You have to have your main program declared as

int main(void)

and there should be a return 0; statement at the last statement of the main function. If you don't have these statements, you will end up with a runtime error. There are other reasons like memory violation, infinite loops or long runtimes, excessive memory usage etc. which may also show up as errors. However lack of return 0 statement is the major cause.

Shankar

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Accessing the course/videos/assignments

Dear Students

I still see several emails asking how to access the course or videos or how to submit assignments.

1. How to access the course?

Go to https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc16_cs06/. First of all, you have to login to access the contents of the course. See the login button in the right side of the page.  You have to give your login credentials with which you registered.

If you are already logged into gmail with that account, when you go to the link, you wlil  see that you are already logged in to the platform.

If you are logged on to any other account when you go to the course link, first log out of the current account and login back with the account you used for registering for the course.

If you don't see the login button but you see your id there, you are already logged in.

If you don't see anything to the right top, it is likely that your browser has a problem. Update your browser to the latest one. 

2. How to access the videos?

Once you login, you will see a panel on the left side called Course Outline. Below that you will see weeks listed. Click on a particular week and you will see that the different lessons will be listed one after the other. Click on the lesson names and you will see videos starting with the lesson.

Some of you expressed difficulty in watching youtube videos in your campus. The videos are also hosted at  http://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106133/. You can either watch the video there or even use the download links to download and watch locally.

Note that, to submit assignments and quizzes, you have to come to the platform (see how to do that below). The link  http://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106133/ is only for video downloads.

3. How to submit quizzes?

You will see that, every week, along with the lessons, there will be a quiz. Click on Quiz link and the questions will open in the panel on the right. The questions are multiple choice or fill-in kind of questions. You can take the quiz as many times as you can and whenever you want. There is no penalty on the number of times you take the quiz. Every quiz (and assignment) will have a deadline that is prominently displayed at the right top. Once the deadline is past, you will not be able to make submissions any more.

When you submit, you will only get a final score but you will not know what you got correct and what you got wrong. You have to work and get all your answers correct to get 100%

4. How to access programming assignments?

Every week, you will see three or four programming assignments posted. They are usually numbered Programming Assignment w.s where w is the week number and s is the problem number. If you click on the assignment, you will see the problem description.

Once you understand the problem statement, you click on Select the language, and choose C. You will see an editor opening and you will be able to type the program. If you already typed the program in your local editor and checked it, you will be able to cut and paste that program into the editor window.

Click on compile and run. When you do that, your program will be evaluated against the public test cases. These are testcases that are shown to you and the input and expected output are both given out. If your program does not pass the public testcases, it probably has something wrong and you should work towards fixing the errors.

Once you are satisfied with your code and you have passed public testcases, click on submit and this will evaluate against the private testcases. These are testcases that will not be shown to you until the deadline is over. Your program is expected to pass private testcases and you will get a score based on how many private testcases you pass. Remember, public testcases do not contribute to your final score, only private testcases do. Unless you click on submit, your code will not be scored. If you make any edit to the code, you have to submit once more to get the current score. We only save the most recent submission you made and there is no penalty for making multiple submissions.

If you get a score 100% after clicking on submit, your job is done. However, if you get less than 100%, it means there is something wrong in your code and you have to imagine all corner cases etc to ensure your code works on a variety of inputs.

5. How to access the forum?

To access the forum, you have to login to the platform and click on Forum link at the top. You will see email discussions that the class is having and it is usually sorted by recency.

Before you post a question on the forum, spend some time looking at the questions that are already there. It is very likely that your question is answered already. Effective participation in an online course requires you to use the forum effectively. If you ask a question that has been answered several times already, it is very unlikely that you will get a response, and sending the email more times is not going to help. Use the forum search facility effectively to see if your question is answered. Above all, exercise patience and be polite in the forums. After all, all of us are there to learn and enjoy the course.

Hope this helps. 

Shankar Balachandran

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Week 2 Videos Available Online

Week 2 videos are now available online. Quiz 2 and the programming assignments for Week 2 will be put up by end of day 25th January 2016.

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Week 1 lectures

Dear Students

The videos for the First week are now available on the course website. You will also see four programming assignments and a quiz along with the lectures. The deadline for this homework set is Feb 01st. You will also see this date prominently displayed in red in the top-right of the pages containing these assignments.

-Course Admin

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Programming, Data structures and Algorithms

Dear student

Welcome to NPTEL Online Courses and Certification!

Thank you for signing up for our online course "Programming data structures and algorithm". We wish you an enjoyable and informative learning experience.

The course will begin on January 18 2016. When content is released on the portal, you will get an email alerting you. Please watch the lectures, follow the course regularly and submit all assessments and assignments before the due date. Your regular participation is vital for learning.

We will open registration for the exam 2 weeks after the course starts. A form has to be filled and the certification exam has a fee, which needs to be paid at the time of registration. Everyone who has signed-up for the course, including those who do not register for the exam, will continue to have access to the course contents.

There are two sections on the portal apart from the course content and assignment sections:

•    The announcement list which will only have messages from course instructors and teaching assistants - regarding the lessons, assignments, exam registration, hall tickets etc. 
    
•    The discussion forum which is for everyone to ask questions and interact - If you have any questions regarding the technical content in the lectures, any doubts in the assignments or any question related to the exam, registration, hall tickets, results, etc, kindly write about this in the forum and the course instructor/TA will respond to it. Please use this well and participate to benefit from the course.

Details regarding the course:

Name of the course: Programming data structures and algorithm(8 weeks : 20 hrs)
Course url: https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc16_cs06/
Course duration : January 18 2016 - 11 March 2016
Dates of exams : 20 March 2016 and 27 March 2016
Time of exam : 2pm - 5pm
Tentative list of exam cities: http://nptel.ac.in/noc/pdf/Exam%20City-list.pdf
Final List of exam cities will be available in exam registration form
Exam registration url - Will be announced shortly

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team