The philosophy underlying the Industrial Tour is Student centered learning with the emphasizes on Outcome-based education, when a student visits the industries his decision for what he wants to be strengthens, a little push and the right kind of guidance may increase the learning capacity of this particular student to a great extent, this can in fact increase the signaling effect of any particular institution in a long run, there are few steps that we encourages the institutions to take while designing the industrial tour.

Step One: Conditioning the students; Encourage the students to come up with a possible layout of the premises that they are going to visit after the briefing of the sight, this possible layout may vary from subject to subject and should be strictly based on the previous conditioning of the students in their respective subjects. For example if you are visiting a Dairy Plant, Management students may come up with a possible management plan beginning from procurement procedure to distribution channel, where as the engineering students are concerned they may come up with a Flow diagram of processing units. This activity will condition the students with the possibilities of what they are going to observe, and this pre-visit step is necessary to achieve the outcome-based learning. Dedicate at least two to three class hours for
conditioning the students.

Step Two– Framing the Questions; There are two types of questions that may appear in students mind which they may want to ask, first one will be premeditated based on previous subjective or personal conditioning and the second one on the observation of the sight, so understanding these questions are very much important, institutions are recommended to have an insight about these possible questions so that a redirection can be made before embarrassment can occur, this can be done by arranging a question and answer section before the departure.

Step Three- Designing of what to observe Questioner- the objective of designing a questioner is to systematize and sequentialize the observational learning of students this can be done by utilizing the secondary data or with a brief consultation with the industry person about the layout, organizational structure, business philosophy, procedures etc. for example if you are planning for a visit in auto part manufacturing unit for mechanical engineering students and you come to know that the factory has a injection molding plant then you can have essential questions pertaining to injection molding in your questioner.
Once the students are done with the possible layout and possible question and the institution with what to observe questioner, the institutional guide, who is assigned the job for conducting the tour will realize the area of discrepancies that exists, and can take corrective measures.

Step Four- Briefing about Do and Don’ts, before starting the journey students should be briefed about the expected behavior, deviations and its consequences. This will help them to be focused on their objective, and will help in maintaining long term relationship with the industry. With the right kind of attitude you can always make a lot of friends.
Apart from this students should be briefed about what to carry to accumulate and retain the information, to fill in the “what to observe” questioner.

Step Five- The Visit, the observational study of practical working environment will connect the students to their theoretical conditioning, and will bridge the gap between the theory and the practices, here it is very necessary for them to record every relevant aspect that’s is in relation to their respective subjects, so that later on they can fill in the questioner and retain what they have observed and learned as an industrial visitor. During the visit students should interact with the industry person in a manner that could open up further opportunities for them or their successors.

Step Six- After the industrial visit students will be in a position to see the things in a better perspective, most of them gets an idea of what they will be doing after the completion of the course, at this point they should be asked to prepare a report on their visit, I always recommend this industrial report to go through two different steps and then complied in one, step one should include the reports based “What To Observe” questioner and step two should be based on the subjective experience of the student about the industrial tour and visit.

Step Seven– Compilation, submission and evaluation of Industrial Tour report should be followed by the publication of the industrial event. Blogs, Social media, college journal, college website are the best possible sites for showcasing the industrial visit, this in returns helps the institution by publicizing to wide audience and hence may increase the signaling effect of the institution benefiting the students.