Dr. Shikha Rai has an experience of over fifteen years in teaching and research. Her teaching and research areas include communication theories, research methodology, communication management, media marketing, social media, OTT, online learning, internet studies and social and behaviour change communication. A university merit holder at the graduate and post-graduate level, she is also a gold medalist in Post Graduate Diploma in Distance Education (PGDDE). She was also awarded the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) fellowship for Post Graduate Diploma in E-Learning (PGDEL). She has published over 20 research papers in reputed national and international journals. She has guided Ph.D. scholars and her scholars are currently working in areas like narrative analysis and narratology, social and behavioural change communication in tribal areas during pandemic and communication on COVID-19 on social media through cartoons.
She has undertaken projects with corporate organizations such as Indian Oil Corporation and Grey Worldwide Advertising. She is also the Co-PI of an ICSSR-fundedmajor project titled, ‘Youth Engagement and Social Networking Platforms: Assessing the Impact of COVID 19 and Future Challenges in North- East India’.
Her work in IGNOU comprises teaching and coordinating the Ph.D. programme, MA programme in Journalism and Mass Communication as well as MAJMC Online, soon to be launched BAprogramme in Journalism and Digital Media and Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Mass Communication which is now also being offered to South African countries through IGNOU-GOAL, Guyana Project.
She is also one of the editors of IGNOU’s Journal of Media and Empowerment. She is the nodal officer of the Centre for Internal Quality Assurance of IGNOU. She is the core team member of curriculum designing and expert committees of the academic programmes of the School. She is also part of the coordination and organizing team of the IGNOU Media Seminar Series and various other events the School organises from time to time. She is regularly invited as an expert for examination-related activities by national agencies. She also serves as a member of the Board of the School of Journalism and New Media Studies and in the past has been on the Boards of the School of Humanities and School of Computer and Information Sciences.
Dr. Rai has also produced E-content for various platforms like writing and recording modules for E-PG Pathshala on ‘Media and Communication Studies’, a UGC sponsored E-learning initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, GOI and Inflibnet. Further, she has contributed modules to MOOCs like Society and Media and Media, Information and Empowerment which are currently offered on SWAYAM. She lecturesregularly on the Gyan Darshan TV channel and Gyan Vani radio as well as on the official Facebook page and YouTube channel of IGNOU. Her lectures are also available digitally through various online programmes and e-Gyankosh, the digital repository of the University.
In the past, she also coordinated the ‘Train the Trainer’ workshops for working journalists in collaboration with Deutsche Welle, Germany. She has scores of invited lectures to her credit for students and newly joined college and university teachers at educational and training institutions, not-for-profit organisations, HRDC of some universities and prestigious institutions like the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and National Institute of Fashion Technology in various areas of mass communication, train the trainer, communication skills and personality development.
