The Hindu Business Line : CEC, Inflibnet to spread awareness on networking classrooms

THE Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC) and Inflibnet (Information and Library Network), an autonomous inter-university centre of UGC, have joined hands for spreading the message of networking classrooms in colleges.

The two organisations will develop a programme on Inflibnet for telecast.

The CEC Director, Dr G.D. Sharma, formally announced the tie-up at the technical session of a seminar on `Networking of College Libraries through Inflibnet' at the PSG College of Arts and Science. Inflibnet sources said the details were being worked out.

Unveiling CEC's eContent development initiatives, Dr Sharma said the Learning Object Repository was one of its successful projects. "The user would have to key in the topic and subject to get the answer at the click of a button. We have so far covered 21 subjects. We are hoping to extend the repository to 50 subjects by this year-end," he said.

The video-on-demand facility is now available through VSAT connectivity, and CEC, according to Dr. Sharma was giving the feed to ERNET.

Heads of institutions and other university participants who attended the seminar could perceive the impact of CEC's Learning Object Repository project initiative, with Dr Sharma establishing a link with CEC, posing questions on different subjects, getting response and inviting the participants to try it out. "All you need is a screen, a web camera and an Internet connection to communicate. I am not carrying any special device," he said.

The Inflibnet Director, Dr T. A. V. Murthy, said the Centre, through the University Grants Commission, has been providing grants (initial and recurring) to 172 universities for automating the university library network. "So far, 150 universities have been networked for sharing library information. We want to extend this facility to colleges. Two hundred colleges (across the country) have been identified for the purpose. During the trial run, we will be giving e-journal and e-books. But the library information sharing network in these colleges is expected to be through in another 12 months."

The library automation process aims at modernisation of libraries, as it is the "knowledge manager or epicentre of knowledge," said Mr K. Manoj Kumar, senior scientist, Inflibnet Centre. He said the UGC was keen on improving academic facilities for higher education by setting up its own countrywide communication network called UGC-Infonet.

He said the Centre's database was huge, with 27-lakh records of 44 universities.

Explaining the advantages of this facility, he said most colleges, due to scarce financial resources, were forced to withdraw scholarly journals, which have great impact on the research community. "Through this UGC initiative, it would be possible to access journals in the electronic mode. Archival access is also possible," he added.

Satellite interactive terminals in 58 places around the country provide two-way communication between teachers at a central point and students at remote locations.

There is a terminal each at the Bharathiar University and the PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore.

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