11-04-2011 The Hindu : NATIONAL / TAMIL NAD…

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A-View to connect all varsities, colleges in the country free of cost

Amutha Kannan
It will be used to disseminate education, particularly in distance mode
Amrita Virtual Interactive e-Learning World (A-View), the e-learning platform, of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, will
be used to connect all universities and colleges of the country free of cost.
The platform will be used for education dissemination, particularly in the distance education mode. It will focus on
the courses being offered under the aegis of the National Mission on Education through Information Communications
Technology of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
This was announced by Kamal Bijlani, Head, e-Learning Research Laboratory of the university, at the recently
concluded Vice-Chancellors' Meet in New Delhi.
The platform is seen as an important tool in making education more accessible in the context of on-going discussions
on policies and strategies being planned for higher education in the XII Five Year Plan.
The result of several years of research and development at the university, the e-learning platform was launched for an
online programme for teachers conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in December 2010.
Online workshop
The online workshop on “Database Management Systems” involved participation of more than thousand teachers of
information technology and computer science disciplines from engineering colleges under the aegis of the e-Outreach
programme of the National Mission.
As many as 1,030 teachers from 500 colleges attended the workshop from 32 nodal centres across the country that
was connected by A-View.
On the successful completion of the maiden course, it was decided then that the e-learning platform would be used to
connect the engineering colleges of the country under the National Knowledge Commission.
But now, it has been decided to connect almost all colleges and universities in the country.
According to P. Venkat Rangan, Vice-Chancellor of the university, the software will run efficiently on the highly
subsidised network that is being provided to all educational institutions by the Government.
Milestone
The initiative is seen as a milestone by which India could become the first country to surge ahead in distance
education by connecting such a large number of educational institutions.
Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resources, said that the power of communication revolution taking place in
the country must be utilised in such a way that a student in one university should be able to access a course that was
being offered by another university.

The platform is seen as an important tool in making education more accessible

The software will run on the subsidised network being provided to all educational institutions

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