Bhubaneswar, Nov. 5: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has included a certificate course on sand art in its curriculum for the Massive Online Open Course (MOOC).

The course will be designed and developed by sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik and will be offered online.

"Ignou will launch a one-month online training programme on sand art from the next academic session," said Ignou's vice-chancellor (in charge) Ravindra Kumar.

Kumar added that the modalities of the course would be finalised within three months. A certificate course in sand art is the first of its kind in the world.

To start with, only students from Bhubaneswar will be able to enrol in the course. "There is a good demand for distance courses from this region. We will introduce the course in phases in other centres," said Kumar.

The course will include both theory and practical content. Students will be taught about the ideal kind of sand for making sculptures and ways to select it in the theory section. This section will also include lessons on how to measure the amount of water to be added and other such tricks.

"We will record the classes and make the videos available online for students," said Patnaik, while adding that the announcement has brought honour to the art form as well as the state, which has a rich history of sand art.

He said digitising sand art, as a course, will help generations of students to learn and improve on it.

"Sand art is essentially a practical art and the more the students practise, the more they will learn. The videos will have all the details and step-by-step procedure about the making of sculptures on the Puri beach," said Patnaik.

"We will formally launch the course after the syllabus is ready," said the Ignou authorities here.

Ignou has already developed more than 400 MOOC courses that will be offered on the government's own internet platform - Swayam - so that the programmes can be accessed by anybody.