Background

IIIT-Delhi aims to encourage research and innovation in IT and some allied areas. The objective of its BTech program is to prepare students to undertake careers involving innovation and problem solving using IT, or to undertake advanced studies for research careers in IT or the domain areas. The general requirements for the BTech program is defined in the UG Manual of the Institute - this note gives further details of one specific program - BTech (IT).

While Computer Science focuses on the foundations of computing, IT as a discipline focuses on satisfying computing technology needs of organizations. So, in a continuum between principles and application, IT is more towards application, with the goal being to apply knowledge of computing sciences for solving problems. As foundations of IT are in Computer Science, it is feasible to have a CS-based IT program, which will allow a graduate of the program to choose a career in CS or applied aspects of computing. IIIT-Delhi aims to have such a curriculum which is CS-based, and which will develop in students' skills for problem solving using engineering and research approaches, in the field of IT or some domains of IT.

Most engineering programs start with general courses in Sciences and Engineering, and then migrate to specialized courses for the disciplines. While these courses are indeed foundational for many engineering disciplines, they are not foundational for IT - rather they can be treated as application domains (as is evidenced from the fact that most sciences and Engineering disciplines heavily use IT now). Hence, the BTech (IT) program at IIIT-Delhi starts with computing oriented courses first, and allows the possibility of doing science courses later. Besides being better suited for an IT program, it also enables the possibility of students seeing newer applications and possibilities of relating IT with these subjects.

With this approach, the BTech program can be divided broadly in two halves. The first half will focus on building the foundations, and will be highly structured. The second part is for further developing the skills and knowledge of the students in various topics - computing and non-computing. This part also provides limited specializations, and different students may follow different paths and take different set of courses in it.

The main format and rules of the BTech program are described in this ordinance and this regulation.

Other details, which may change from time to time, are given below.

The Foundation Program and Core Courses

The Foundation program provides the basic knowledge about CSE/IT through a set of core courses, which are compulsory for all students. This program consists of four major streams: software, hardware, theory, and systems. Besides these, there are courses in Maths and communication skills also as part of the core program. Most of the core courses are done in the first four semesters (and a few in later semesters).

The courses of the first four semesters are shown in the table below. (Courses mentioned in [ ] are electives and the name mentioned is only an example course; others are core courses.)

The Advanced Part and Streams

The second half of the program consists mostly of elective courses. An elective course is one which is not compulsory, and a student will have choices from which to select the courses he/she wants to do. Some of the electives may be organized as streams, where a stream is a sequence of courses in an area providing a limited specialization in that area. Besides electives and streams for specialized areas in IT, as one of the objectives of IIIT-Delhi is to have teaching and R∓D in some domain areas (like health, life sciences, finance, economics, E-Governance, sciences, etc.), streams and electives from domains will also be offered.

The number and nature of streams and electives will evolve and may change with time, providing the ability to accommodate the evolving nature of IT in the program. The list of streams and elective courses cannot be exhaustive, as it is dynamic. Currently, streams are being planned in the following areas:

1. Image Analysis and Machine Intelligence
2. Data Analytics
3. Mobile Computing
4. Security and Privacy
5. Finance
6. Sciences (Physics, Biology)

Requirements for Graduation

General requirements for graduation are given in the UG manual of the Institute. For a BTech(IT) degree, a student must satisfy all the following requirements:

• Earn a total of 152 units (equivalent to 38 courses - 10 courses a year in the first two years, and 9 courses a year in the last two years.)
• Successfully complete all the core courses.
• Do at least 12 units of humanities and social sciences courses.
• Do 4 units of Community work / Self Development. These are pass/fail credits, which are required to be completed, but do not count for fulfilling the credit requirement (i.e. these are in addition to the credit requirements mentioned above)
• In each semester, the student must do at least two CS/IT courses.
• A BTech project (BTP) is optional. A student opting for BTP may take a total of 12 to 16 units of BTP. In a semester, the student can normally register for at most 8 units of BTP.

Honors Program

The UG Manual of IIIT-Delhi has provision for an Honors program. An Honors option is designed to challenge the brighter and more ambitious students, without burdening an average student. The BTech(IT) program also offers the Honors option and follows the requirements of the UG Manual, i.e.

• Only students with a CGPA of 8.0 or more are eligible for the Honors program.
• The student must complete an additional 12 units.
• The student must do a BTech Project.
• At graduation time, the student must have a CGPA of 8.0 or more.

Fee, Scholarships and Fee Waivers

The fees for 2010 and 2011 is Rs 100,000 per year (fees will be increased in 2012).

Income Linked Scholarship Scheme

As per its Act, IIIT-Delhi is required to be self sustaining. In other words, there is no provision in the Act for yearly grants to the Institute. As there is no yearly subsidy (the Govt is still providing a substantial subsidy by providing the land for free and by providing funds for infrastructure), the fee levels in the Institute have to be relatively higher as compared to those Institutes that are provided regular grants from the Govt.

To ensure that the education in the Institute is not denied to any student who gains admission, the Institute is launching an income-linked partial fee-waiver/scholarship scheme. In this scheme, based on the income level of the parents, some amount of scholarship/fee-waiver is provided to the student. This is a global best practice, being used by many Universities across the world.

In academic year (AY) 2010-2011, the yearly fee for all BTech students is Rs 100,000. In this first year of this scheme, institute will provide only one level of scholarship/fee-waiver: 25% of the fee. The fee-waiver rule is as follows:

• If Net Income of the family is < 500,000, the student is eligible for a waiver of Rs 25,000 for the AY 2010-2011.
• If the Net Income of the family is >= 500,000, no waiver is permissible.

Net income for determining eligibility for fee-waiver is Gross Income (including all taxable and all non-taxable incomes) of both father and mother, minus the income tax paid by them. For AY 2010-2011, income for FY 2009-1010 will be used.

The scheme will be operated as follows:

• All students admitted to the Institute (including those already studying) are eligible to apply. Students studying in IIIT-Delhi are eligible to apply only if they have passed all the courses in the previous year (i.e. have not received F grade in any course).
• For applying for fee-waiver, along with the application, copies of tax returns of both the parents will have to be provided for verification.
• If any of the parents did not file income tax returns, an affidavit on a stamp paper will have to be furnished stating that no income tax return was filed last year. The affidavit will also self-declare the income.
• The Institute will announce each year the list of students who got the scholarship/fee-waiver.

More information about the scheme will be available from the Institute office. Based on the response to the scheme, the Institute may expand the scheme in future.

Note: If an affidavit is found to be inaccurate at any time, all waivers given will be recovered with penalty of at least 100%. This fact may also be recorded in the character certificate of the student.