ePathshala vs Top Hat

ePathshala is a free education portal and set of mobile apps from a joint initiative of the Ministry of Education and NCERT. It shares audio, video, ePub books, flipbooks, periodicals, and other digital resources with students, teachers, educators, and parents. On phones and tablets, the app provides eBooks as ePub; on laptops and desktops, the web portal presents them as flipbooks. Readers can select and zoom text, bookmark, highlight, navigate, share, and add digital notes. Text-to-speech is available through TTS apps, and offline access is supported. QR codes in textbook chapters link to related audio, video, multimedia, and text materials; users can also enter a code on the website to locate resources. The home page lists resources in Hindi, English, and Urdu. The service is available on Android, iOS, Windows, and the web. Its privacy policy says the app may require personally identifiable information and use third-party services that collect identifying information, including Google Play Services. The policy also says the service does not address children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their personal information.

Top Hat is a higher education student engagement and courseware platform for interactive learning in and beyond class. During lectures, educators can use polls, discussions, quizzes and instant feedback. For coursework, it supports interactive homework and readings, customizable digital textbooks and instructor-created materials. Instructors can create, schedule or upload tests and assignments, and use AI tools to generate questions from course content. Ace helps educators prepare classes and create interactive prompts; students can use it for personalized study and practice based on course materials. Top Hat turns attendance, participation, reading and assessment data into insights about student progress. It lists integrations with Canvas, Blackboard, D2L Brightspace, Moodle and Sakai; LTI 1.3 integrations for Canvas and D2L Brightspace can provide roster sync, grade sync, deep links and single sign-on. Students can use a browser or iOS and Android apps. Student access plans are $35, paid once for four months, $58, paid once for 12 months, or $96, paid once for 48 months. Eligible paid courses usually offer a five-day free trial.