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Millions of Users
Internet in Asia - 2009
Top 10 Countries
Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm
Estimated Internet users in Asia 764,435,900 for 2009Copyright @2010, Miniwatts Marketing Group
China
Japan
India
Korea, South
Indonesia
Philippines
Vietnam
Pakistan
Malaysia
Thailand
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 4500
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Foreword
e must remove the digital divide in education
nformation Technology is transforming our world in revolutionary ways. It is changing the
way we communicate, study, work, create wealth, produce new knowledge, find newapplications of knowledge, entertain ourselves, and deliver and access an ever-widening range
of services. It has enhanced the productivity of human labour to unimaginable levels, and
continues to do so with newer possibilities which too are unimaginable. Internet, through which
IT has reduced the world to a 'Global Village', is changing the ways in which people network and
form new communities. It is enabling more and more people to interact with one another in a
multitude of new ways by transcending the limitations of distance, both physically and virtually.
Some of the most dramatic changes wrought by IT can be seen in the area of education. It has
changed the very meaning of "school" and "student", by enabling people to pursue lifelong
learning in practically any subject of their choice. The potential benefits of IT in education for
personal development, social transformation and national progress are simply enormous.
However, we have to ask ourselves honestly: How is India faring in achieving the goal of
Education for All, as measured by the four cardinal principles of Access, Equity, Quality and
Affordability? IT can definitely help us make high-quality education accessible to all, and at all
levels of education - primary, secondary, college and university. But this is still a distant dream
for a vast majority of children and youth in India. IT can also help immensely in the
development of employable skills - both for first-time employment seekers as well as for the
existing workforce that needs training and re-training. But here, too, our performance so far is
dismal. Clearly, the rich-poor and urban-rural divide in Indian society has become pronounced
in the field of education, making a mockery of our claim to pursue the ideal of Inclusive
Development. The situation presents both a risk and a reward. On the one hand, IT has created
tremendous awareness and aspiration in all sections of our society, especially among the youth.
On the other hand, the government and privileged sections of society have failed, largely, to fulfil
those aspirations. This failure can prove very costly for India, just as success can be hugely
rewarding for all.
There is no doubt that a small section of educational establishments in India have benefited
from tapping the transformative power of IT. But how can this achievement be scaled up
quickly, widely and in impact-making ways? What are the impediments in resources, policy and
implementation that need to be removed? How can the enormous power of public-private
partnership be unleashed in advancing the agenda of IT-enabled education and employable skilldevelopment?
In this report, my colleague Dr. Leena Chandran-Wadia has examined these questions with in-
depth research, helped by the contributions of others who share the commitment of the
Observer Research Foundation to remove the digital divide in education and in other areas of
Indias national development. I am happy to present it for wider public debate.
Sudheendra Kulkarni January 2 11
Chairman
Observer Research Foundation Mumbai
I
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ContentsForeword ............................................................................................................................................................................. 1
List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
A model for the induction of ICT into educational institutions in India on a massive scale, to
promote inclusive access to quality education .................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Implementation Plan - Executive Summary ..................... ..................... ...................... ...................... ............... 7
ICT Infrastructure Requirements at Educational Institutions .................... ...................... ...................... ....... 9
Schools ............................................................................................................................................................................. 9
Colleges ......................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Universities ................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Research Institutes .................................................................................................................................................. 11
ICT infrastructure for Open and Distance Learning .................... ...................... ...................... ................... 12
Detailed Implementation Plan: An Integrated Approach to the provision of ICT Infrastructure at
Educational Institutions ............................................................................................................................................. 13
Overall Scope of Work ............................................................................................................................................ 13
The Novelty of the Approach ............................................................................................................................... 15
The Organization ........................................................................................................................................................... 16
Responsibilities of the User Group .................................................................................................................... 16
Characteristics of the User Group ...................................................................................................................... 17
The Value Proposition ................................................................................................................................................. 18
Key Drivers for this Approach ............................................................................................................................. 19
Exciting Ripple Effects ............................................................................................................................................ 20
Financials and Business Models .............................................................................................................................. 20
Revenue Models ........................................................................................................................................................ 21
Role of Governments ............................................................................................................................................... 21
A Representative Pilot Project ................................................................................................................................. 22
Benefits to Stakeholders ............................................................................................................................................. 22
Regulators .................................................................................................................................................................... 22
Funding Agencies ...................................................................................................................................................... 23
Faculty ........................................................................................................................................................................... 23
Students ........................................................................................................................................................................ 24
Researchers ................................................................................................................................................................. 24
Institutions .................................................................................................................................................................. 25
Society ........................................................................................................................................................................... 25
Vendors/Service providers .................................................................................................................................. 25
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Final Thoughts ................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Annexure I Report of the Consultative Roundtable Discussion held at the Observer Research
Foundation Mumbai ..................................................................................................................................................... 27
List of Invited Participants .................................................................................................................................... 27
ORF Participants ....................................................................................................................................................... 27
Report of the Roundtable ........................................................................................................................................... 27
What ails education today? ................................................................................................................................... 28
What are the ICT infrastructure requirements? .................... ...................... ...................... ..................... ..... 29
Why a centralised approach? ............................................................................................................................... 31
Promotion of FOSS and OER................................................................................................................................. 31
Finances and Business Models ............................................................................................................................ 32
Conclusion and Action Plan .................................................................................................................................. 32Annexure II - Suggestions for a representative Pilot Project ...................... ...................... ..................... ..... 33
Benefits of the Pilot:................................................................................................................................................. 34
About Observer Research Foundation Mumbai................................................................................................ 35
Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................................................... 36
About the Author ........................................................................................................................................................... 36
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List of Abbreviations
AICTE All India Council for Technical EducationA/V Audio/Visual
CMS Content Management System
CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial ResearchERP Enterprise Resource PlanningFOSS Free and Open Source Software
GER Gross Enrolment RatioICT Information and Communication TechnologyIIM Indian Institute of Management
IISc Indian Institute of Science
IIT Indian Institute of Technology
ITI Industrial Training InstituteIT Information Technology
LAN Local Area Network
LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
LMS Learning Management SystemsMCIT Ministry of Communication and Information Technology
MHRD Ministry of Human Resource Development
NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training
NCTE National Council for Teacher EducationNGO Non Government Organization
NKC National Knowledge Commission
NKN National Knowledge NetworkNMEICT National Mission on Education through ICT
NMITLI New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership InitiativeNPTEL National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning
NSERB National Science and Engineering Research BoardOCW Open Course Ware
OER Open Educational ResourcesOLPC One Laptop Per Child
OLPF One Laptop Per FacultyORF Observer Research Foundation
PC Personal ComputerPPP Public Private Partnership
Q&A Question and Answer
R&E Research and Education
SaaS Software-as-a-ServiceSLA Service Level Agreement
UAT User Acceptance Test
UGC University Grants Commission
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A model for the induction of ICT into educational institutions in India
on a massive scale, to promote inclusive access to quality education
IntroductionIt is well known that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can expand the reachand quality of education in India1,2 like never before. Recognizing the need to use ICT to help
increase Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and launch skill development initiatives across the
country, the Government of India has recently put in place two very important initiatives.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is rolling out the National
Knowledge Network (NKN)3,recommended by the National Knowledge Commission4, which will
provide research institutions with high-speed network connectivity and Internet access at
Gigabit speeds.
The Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD) has launched the National Mission onEducation through ICT (NMEICT)5. About 60 percent of the budget of the NMEICT
(approximately Rs. 4600 crores for phase I) is earmarked to provide Internet connectivity to all
the Universities and colleges in the country6. MHRD is also working with State Governments
through their ICT@Schools initiatives to provide computer hardware and software in schools in
collaboration with vendors7. Some of the other key initiatives that are part of the NMEICT are
The National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) 8, being run in
collaboration with the IITs and IISc Bangalore, seeks to improve engineering
education in India by developing video and web based courses and placing them
in the public domain. There is also support for other content generationactivities such as the creation of training material on ICT and so on.
Sakshat9 - the one-stop education portal - to facilitate lifelong learning, free of
cost.
Extensive content generation activities at various institutions around the
country.
1http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf Section 1.2.20,
pg 34.2The word education is used here not only to refer to formal classroom -based instruction but also to
refer to education relating to Skill Development, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning.3http://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-network.4http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asp5 http://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdf is the mission document of NMEICT. The 11th
plan document (Vol2) also lists the goals of the NMEICT (Section 1.3.61, 62 pg 50) and ascribes focus to
working with state governments (Section 1.2.22, pg 35) on ICT@schools as a sub-mission of NMEICT.6http://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfPresentation by Prof. Mangala
Sundar Krishnan, IIT Madras7For example, NIIT is working with many state governments such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,
Tripura and others to provide services to schools and colleges under the BOOT
model.http://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pag
es/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspx
8 http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/ Website of the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning. Theselectures are also available on Youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd9http://www.sakshat.ac.in/The one-stop education portal of MHRD.
http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20http://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.sakshat.ac.in/http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrdhttp://nptel.iitm.ac.in/http://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.niit.com/SERVICES/SOLUTIONSFORGOVERNMENT/ITEDUCATIONFORSCHOOLS/Pages/ComputerEducationAtSchools.aspxhttp://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09/presentations/NPTEL%20Presentation.pdfhttp://www.education.nic.in/dl/MissionDocument.pdfhttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/knowledgenetwork.asphttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/national-knowledge-networkhttp://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v2/11th_vol2.pdf%20Section%201.2.20 -
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Provision of e-books and e-journals, support for development of low-cost access
devices, and other initiatives for provision of ICT infrastructure.
However this top-down initiative of the MHRD, despite being extremely timely and having
adequate scope, is unlikely to address the scale problem. Given that there are over 500
universities, 25000+ colleges and about 150,000 secondary and senior secondary schools (wellover 1 million schools) in the country presently, the task of reaching ICT infrastructure to these
educational institutions within a reasonable period of time is of gargantuan proportions. The
NMEICT is an unprecedented opportunity for capacity-
building in education as well as in ICT, for exploration
of new pedagogies and innovative ways of teaching and
learning. It is therefore imperative to try and leverage
this opportunity to the maximum extent. A key
ingredient that is missing from the NMEICT initiative at
present is the involvement of the User Community in
adequate numbers grassroots level participation offaculty, staff, researchers, and senior students from
different types of institutions. These representatives of
the User Community could be invited to become actively involved in creating and nurturing a
parallel movement for the innovative use of Computers in Education (as opposed to Computer
Education)which would enhance the impact of the NMEICT enormously.
What is really required is a clear focus on the opportunity for capacity-building and on
the value-addition that can be created from these two government initiatives. The latter
includes a push for increased access to scientific computing and the eSciences, for faculty,
researchers and students from a much wider set of institutions. This will enable them to enternew and exciting computing-intensive fields such as computational biology, weather and
climate modelling, and the data-driven sciences, among others. On the capacity-building front, it
is necessary to create a vast ICT-enabled workforce which can help leverage the benefits of ICT
in their own respective fields - not just in science and engineering but also in healthcare,
agriculture, governance and many others.
The vision therefore is the empowerment of Students and Faculty, in formal as well as
non-formal education. Within the field of ICT, students have contributed to some of the most
important advances in information and communications technologies. These include data
compression, interactive computer graphics, Ethernet, Berkeley Unix, the spreadsheet, public
key cryptography, speech recognition, Mosaic, and Google10. Increasingly, we see a trend of
younger and younger innovators. There is now a move in the United States to launch another
student led wave of innovation, supported by the private sector with funds from the Broadband
Technology Opportunities Program11. In India too our young students, who tend to be natively
comfortable with all things digital, must be empowered with free access to broadband and all
the associated tools and resources so that they can make contributions to ICT and to the many
10 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-
networksThe role of student-led Innovation in Killer Apps for broadband networks, blog post by Tom
Kalil (Deputy Director for Policy) and Aneesh Chopra (U.S. Chief Technology Officer and AssociateDirector for Technology) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, USA11http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/
The NMEICT is an unprecedented
opportunity for capacity-
building in education as well as
in ICT. It is imperative to
leverage this opportunity to the
maximum extent.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networks -
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other fields. An obvious place to start is the classroom where they spend a large part of their
day. While the Telecom revolution has ensured voice connectivity, education and innovation
require access tohigh-speed networks, cutting-edge peripherals, software development kits
and cloud computing services12.
The consultative Roundtable held at ORF Mumbai on May 8, 2010, discussed many aspects ofeducation and the opportunities for value creation thrown open by the coming of the NKN and
the NMEICT. A specific suggestion by the author, of setting up of an organization devoted to
serving the ICT infrastructure needs of the Research and
Education (R&E) community, was discussed in detail. The
organization, which would be not-for-profit, would consist
mainly of educators, researchers and technologists from
various representative educational institutions, as well as
representatives from industry. The mandate of the
organization would be to supplement the efforts of
NKN, NMEICT and ICT@Schools with specificinitiatives for capacity-building among stakeholders
and to explicitly leverage all the opportunities for
value-addition. The organization would also work with industry for the actual rollout of all
services, by providing detailed requirements for software and services, and by conducting user
acceptance tests and overseeing quality control.
This report is based on research conducted at ORF Mumbai and on discussions at its
consultative Roundtable. The list of invited participants and a more detailed report of the
Roundtable is given in Annexure I. As suggested by participants at the Roundtable, this report
provides a detailed description of the model for implementation so that it can form the basis forfurther, informed, discussions on transforming the ideas into reality. The implementation plan
is an integrated approach that has the potential to create a movement, to unleash cascading
changes that can completely transform the practice of education, by involving the larger
community - members of society and all interested stakeholders - and getting it to contribute
towards the effort in large numbers.
Implementation Plan - Executive Summary
The implementation plan describes how the NMEICT can be further supplemented so that
faculty, staff, students and management of educational institutions, throughout the country, can
derive maximum benefit from the generous spending on ICT by the Government. Some of the
key supplements that are required include:
Provision of software for all aspects of learning and for administration of educational
institutions, such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) systems, among many others.
Provision of software in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which benefits a much
larger number of educational institutions due to the shared development cost of the
specialized software. Cloud computing and other virtualization technologies can be
12 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-
networksText from the white house blog described earlier, which is also relevant for India.
Setting up a non-profit
organization dedicated to
serving the ICT infrastructure
needs of the R&E community
can help institutions induct
ICT quickly and optimally.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networkshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/25/role-student-led-innovation-killer-apps-broadband-networks -
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leveraged to create shared data centres that are accessed through high-speed networks,
resulting in huge cost savings.
Appropriate support for management of local as well as shared ICT Infrastructure at
these institutions, in the form of managed services, and supported by helpdesks.
Fulfilment of a myriad of training requirements for users in varied disciplines and at
different types of institutions, by the creation of inexpensive training material and their
widespread dissemination.
As mentioned earlier, grassroots level participation of the user community, in large numbers, is
critical to ensuring that ICT is optimally used in educational institutions to help improve the
quality of education. We believe that this can best be achieved by creating an organization
devoted to working with the users, with the
government and with service providers to
deploy cost-effective, yet state-of-the-art, ICT
infrastructure in educational institutions. The
organization must be representative of the usercommunity it serves. It must consist of
researchers, educators and technologists who
can help educational institutions understand
their requirements and help them induct their
local infrastructure from the market. It can help
disseminate information and knowhow widely
and assist institutions in sharing experiences
with each other. It can also work with the
government, with vendors and all other
stakeholders to commission and deploy sharedinfrastructure in the most cost effective way. All this will ensure that individual institutions will
get the best possible ICT infrastructure, given their budget and their needs, and will put it to use
innovatively in the provision of quality education. Such an approach has the following key
benefits:
Addresses the scale problem by sharing the knowhow (and also the common
software and services) across institutions this initiative has the potential to scale out
quickly to a large numbers of institutions in the country that have little or no ICT
infrastructure.
Provides Inclusive Access - this initiative will serve tier 2 and 3 institutions best,bringing them on board well before they would otherwise be able to do so.
Proactive Capacity Building effort the focus here is on empowering generations of
young students. They will make maximum use of the infrastructure, teach themselves to
a very large extent, get comfortable with current technologies and then innovate.
Deep Commitment to Quality and Excellence sub-standard infrastructure or sub-
critical levels of it will not have the same inspirational value that a Google quality
service would have. The aim here is to provide cutting-edge infrastructure at the lowest
possible cost.
The net intangible benefits from a national perspective would therefore be
Reaching out to the unreached at a faster pace Tier 2 and Tier 3 institutions
The net intangible benefits from a
national perspective would be
Reaching out to the unreached
at a faster pace Tier 2 and
Tier 3 institutions
Faster democratization of
education and opportunities
Increased transparency in all
aspects of advance
administration of educational
institutions
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Faster democratization of education and opportunities
Increased transparency in all aspects of advance administration of educational
institutions
In the following we first describe the Whatnamely, the type of ICT Infrastructure that needs
to be inducted into educational institutions, before moving on to outline the How in moredetail. We believe that full implementation of this plan will produce a transformation that will
fulfil the stated goals of the Government, of 1) Accessand Equity,2) Qualityand Excellence,
and 3) Expansion of education across the country.
ICT Infrastructure Requirements at Educational Institutions
We begin by outlining the details of the ICT infrastructure that is required at the different
types of institutions across the country. The aim is to provide end-to-end (turnkey) services
to all users faculty, students and staff.This will ensure that the users can focus on using ICTin education without having to worry about managing the ICT infrastructure.
Schools
The Hole in the wall experiment13 amply demonstrated the fact that children become
comfortable with technology quickly. They dont need to be taught how to use computers, they
learn on their own. The ability to self-learn is independent of their social, economic and
educational background, literacy levels in English or any other language, ethnicity and place of
origin etc14. Therefore, children from all walks of life must be provided with access to
technology most urgently. Ideally, a school must be provided with the following:
PCs and/or Laptops for all faculty and selected staff.Just as the OLPC15(One Laptop
Per Child) initiative, we should launch a One Laptop Per Faculty (OLPF) initiative all
across the country. These laptops must be supplemented with Data Cards for Mobile
Internet access so as to encourage faculty to explore online educational resources
continuously.
One or more computer rooms with PCs for students, from which they are never
locked out. (These are already being provided in many states as part of the ICT@schools
program.)
LCD projectors and Screens in one or more classrooms.To keep costs low there can
be just one Audio/Visual (A/V) room per school, but since projectors are portable and
screens can even be painted on the walls, it would be best to have them in all
classrooms.
Internet connection in classrooms so that students and faculty together can access
shared resources (text, Audio, Video) as well as content on the Internet during class.
This would require deploying Local Area Networks (LANs).
13 http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html outlines the description of the first experiment
conducted in 1999.
14Description of the Hole-in-the-Wall experiment, in NCERTs position paper on Educational Technology.Available athttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htm15http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml
http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.htmlhttp://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.htmlhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtmlhttp://www.ncert.nic.in/html/focus_group.htmhttp://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html -
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Wireless Internet access on campusand a well thought-out policy on mobile phone
usage. In time, mobile phones will become cheaper and more comfortable to use for
educational purposes (bigger screens and full capability browsers).
Domain based email for faculty, staff and students.Also, list based addresses such as
[email protected] ease of communication.
A hosted website for each schoolbacked by a Content Management System (CMS) and
training for selected staff and senior students on how to use the CMS to manage the site
Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative for educational content in which
faculty and students are not only encouraged to re-use educational content created
elsewhere but also encouraged to create and contribute educational content to the pool,
particularly in Indian languages.
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)in order to keep costs low. This will include
the Operating System, Office Productivity Software, Audio and Video Conferencing
software etc., all with Indian language and localization support where available.
Shared software: individual schools can choose to participate in a shared software
initiative that will cover software for generic administrative needs such as Student
Management, Finances, Examinations, Grading and Results etc., but also software for
Teaching and Learning.
Comprehensive Security Services including protected web-surfing, spam and virus-
free email, access control and many others.
Backup Power Facility for local infrastructure.
In addition, schools can be encouraged to make their infrastructure available, outside of office
hours, for adult education, skill development, or even for an Internet Caf. This will help defray
the costs. Entrepreneurship models can also be encouraged whereby entrepreneurs take charge
of the upkeep of the entire local infrastructure through appropriate business models.
Colleges
In addition to the list mentioned above, which may be scaled up appropriately as needed,
colleges will need the following additional infrastructure.
Intranet - for proprietary content: Not all content created by educators and faculty
need to be freely available. Many institutions will create specialized content that will
only be accessible to bona fide students and staff of the college.
Specialized hardware, software packages and tools:Technology institutions such as
Engineering colleges and ITIs will need local laboratories - LANs to support Servers, PCs,and specialized hardware as well as software libraries, simulation and design tools,
graphics and imaging tools and other support for scientific computing.
Software support for Open and Distance Learning: Colleges which participate in
open and distance learning programs will require appropriate technology infrastructure
support in the form of suitably equipped A/V rooms and appropriate software. Details of
the latter are described below.
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Universities
Most of the universities in the country today are affiliating universities with many colleges
attached to them. This responsibility immediately translates into additional software
requirements:
ICT support for scheduling and conducting examinations including
management of examination centres; creation, printing and dispatch of question
papers; facilitation of online printing of Hall Tickets; announcement of results
and many other related activities.
ICT support for the management of affiliated institutions including
gathering of financial reporting data online from them and integration with the
accounts of the University.
Student management systems standardised with the help of regulatory
authorities such as the UGC, so that students can transfer, within the university
as well as to other universities in the country, relatively easily.
ICT support to conduct open and distance learning described earlier. In
particular, it should be possible to make niche university courses available to
students in colleges affiliated to the university through web conferencing and
other such tools.
Universities have a lot of physical infrastructure large campuses, buildings etc.,
but they do not yet have scale on-campus i.e., they do not support adequate
number of students on-campus. Given ICT support for maximizing the use of
their physical infrastructure, universities could become more vibrant
campuses supporting many more students. Some examples (partial list) of such
ICT support include:
o
Classroom and Seminar room scheduling software (for optimal use of
classrooms),
o Software for automating the application and admissions process,
o Online payment systems for fees and other payment collection, and
o Local content repositories for management and re-use of courseware
(proprietary) with a provision to share them with affiliated colleges, on
need basis.
Scientists and Researchersadditionally require:
o Software support for organizing conferences as well as for creating a
comprehensive listing of academic conferences and workshops,
o
Software libraries for scientific computing, and
o Access to research journals and databases.
Research Institutes
The premier research institutions in the country do not need much support from this initiative
since they are well-endowed with respect to the type of ICT infrastructure being discussed here.
This is also true for some of the premier teaching institutions such as the IITs, IIMs and others.
These institutions must instead become important resource centres in the Implementation Plan
because most of the expert educationists, researchers and technologists required for the
proposed organization will be drawn from them. Since these institutes are also engaged in
cutting-edge research, this kind of involvement will help build bridges between research and
education at different levels.
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ICT infrastructure for Open and Distance Learning
This is an area where ICT can make the maximum impact quickly. The ability to conduct open
and distance learning programs at will, would empower many institutions around the country
to increase their reach enormously, thus contributing directly to the increase in GER being
sought by MHRD. Moreover, pressing concerns such as the nationwide shortage of teachers
could be addressed by training teachers using distance learning methods.
On 6 April, 2010 a separate brainstorm session was held at ORF Mumbai in order to discuss the
use of ICT in Distance Education (taken to mean both open and distance learning modes). The
minutes of the session are available separately. The requirements for ICT support for distance
education depends broadly on which mode is chosen namely, Synchronous vs. Asynchronous
and also on whether the model of learning is classroom-based (all students are gathered at a
remote location) or individual-based (students are sitting at their own computers, at their
preferred locations).
In the Synchronous mode, lectures are beamed live to audiences. A good example of this is theuse of high-speed networks of the NKN by some of the IITs to
mentor the new IITs. For example, high definition video and
audio are sent across to students at IIT Gandhinagar from IIT
Bombay. In this model, both students and faculty use specially
prepared A/V rooms with two-way Video connections. IIT
Bombay uses a 4-quadrant model consisting of the talking
head (faculty), the presentation (digital) material, the Q & A
session and a video of the remote class. A leaner model,
particularly useful in individual-based teaching, is to utilize
only audio and presentation materials. Web-basedconferencing systems16 typically provide these. These can be
supplemented by recording services, where live lectures are recorded and stored on servers to
allow students repeated access to them.
The Asynchronous mode is generally less expensive because pre-recorded material, either CDs
or DVDs, can be handed out and students can watch them at their leisure. This mode has the
potential to scale enormously. Institutions must, however, have the infrastructure to record
lectures, either while they are being conducted live in a specially equipped classroom or
specifically for distribution purposes using video recording crews.
In either case, Synchronous or Asynchronous, it is best to supplement the Audio/Video materialwith a Free and Open Source (FOSS) Learning Management System such as Moodle 17 for
presentation material, and an appropriate student management system for administration of
the courses.
16 There are many free and commercial web-based conferencing systems. See for example, Dimdim athttp://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_in17A popular, free and open source Learning Management Systemhttp://moodle.org/
ICT and broadband
Internet are considered
as basic infrastructure in
the developed countries.
Optimal delivery of Open
and Distance learning
can only be done through
the extensive use of ICT.
http://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_inhttp://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_inhttp://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://www.dimdim.com/website/signup_in -
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Detailed Implementation Plan: An Integrated Approach to the
provision of ICT Infrastructure at Educational Institutions
Much of the hardware, software, services and training requirements are common across
institutions in a certain grouping (example,engineering colleges). Therefore, the knowhow with
respect to inducting ICT is completely reusable across
members of a group. Institutions will benefit from
sharing requirements, documents, whitepapers,
training modules, best practices etc., among
themselves. This would be extremely useful to them
because the knowhow is in fact an extremely scarce
commodity among educational institutions in India
today. Many institutions do not have local decision makers who are abreast of the latest
information regarding technologies that need to be inducted.
Therefore, an organization consisting of educators, researchers and technologists, drawn from
representative educational institutions, would best be suited to oversee the creation and
sharing of knowhow across all institutions. This organization can help select and commission
shared software and services, identify training requirements, make choices with respect to the
technologies that need to be inducted, share experiences and best practices and prescribe
guidelines for standardization and interoperability. This will create a buzz and build a
movement that will generate a PULL for the products and services of NMEICT and NKN. With
the support of the organization, educational institutions will be able to take the initiative to
induct ICT infrastructure instead of having it prescribed to them. In the following we outline an
integrated approach to the provision of ICT infrastructure that can result in large savings in cost
as well as in the requirement for trained manpower.
Overall Scope of Work
Generally speaking, all the requirements at various institutions as well as those for distance
education described in the previous section (being referred to as ICT Infrastructure), can be
classified into the following groups:
1. Local infrastructure(at the premises of each of the institutions)
PCs, Thin Clients, Laptops & Mobiles are appropriately chosen for different
user groups and local Servers wherever necessary. Campus LANs - wired and wireless, backed up by registration software that
monitors all bona fide users and their devices. A useful consequence of the
registration process will be the creation of a Database of Professionals in the
education space, as only they would be allowed access to Campus LANs.
Optionally, this can also be supplemented by Roaming18 facilities between
educational institutions so that genuine collaborators can get more privileges
than simply Guest access at the institutions they visit.
18See for example EDUROAMhttp://www.eduroam.org/which is a secure world-wide roaming access
service developed for the International Research and Education community.
The knowhow with respect to
inducting ICT is completely
reusable across similar
institutions. They will benefit
from sharing requirements
documents, whitepapers, training
modules, and best practices
http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/http://www.eduroam.org/ -
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Selected people at individual local institutions must be assisted with the knowhow they need to
commission their local infrastructure needs from Vendors of their choice. For instance, they
must be alerted about the need to build in service and support for the local infrastructure into
the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that are built into contracts of the Vendors, and educated
on enforcement of these SLAs. All ICT facilities must be backed up by high-quality managed
services so that management does not have deal with problems related to malfunctioning
hardware or software. Users must have access to 16x7 helpdesk services.
2. Shared infrastructure and services
Shared Data Centre Services for hosting websites, mail servers and all
shared application software. This can be done using Cloud Computing and
other virtualization technologies. It will save costs enormously and will require a
much smaller group of people to manage the shared data centre on behalf of
many institutions.
Shared software in the Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) model, hosted at the shared
data centres. Some examples of such software (a partial list) include;o Content repositories that can support free as well as paid content
contributed by stakeholders. The repositories must be accompanied by
appropriate tagging (labelling) and rating systems that allow quality
content to be found easily and quickly;
o Learning Management Systems for the creation of courseware online and
for management of the progress of students (assignment submissions
etc.);
o Student Administration System for handling admissions, collecting fees
through online payments, managing students records, tracking courses
taken, tracking completion requirements, announcing results and so on;and
o Financial software - Accounts and Auditing, particularly with respect to
reporting to funding agencies.
3. Technical support for all shared software in the Managed Services paradigm
using Call Centres as required. This can be outsourced to Vendors who will be
expected to provide support for software and services under stringent SLAs. [As
mentioned earlier, support for local infrastructure must be built into the SLAs of the
providers of the local infrastructure.] Managed Services and support must be
provided for All software provided in the SaaS model above;
Generic services such as email, website creation and hosting, conferencing and
other A/V services; and
Tools for computation, modelling and simulation, graphics and visualization, and
collaboration.
4. Training support for all users (faculty, students, staff and managements) on the
utilization of all application software as deemed appropriate. Additionally, selected
personnel at each institution must be trained to become Systems Administrators of
all local infrastructures, using standardized training modules. Training material canbe distributed in the form of CDs or DVDs or made available on the web. These
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efforts can be supported by workshops and conferences for information
dissemination and for gathering of feedback.
5. High-speed network connectivity, to connect the local and shared infrastructure
and good Internet connectivity for access to global knowledge repositories. It is
extremely important that networks are not under provisioned and can support
several multimedia streams.
The advent of virtualization technologies and cloud computing provides us with an opportunity
to induct software in the SaaS model at relatively low
cost using shared data centres. This is indeed a huge
opportunity. The fact that there is almost no installed
base of software in educational institutions across
India creates a unique opportunity to directly deploy
this cutting-edge technology. Elsewhere in the world,
educational institutions are trying to move towardssuch a shared infrastructure model19in order to save
costs maximally (through software reuse and server
consolidation), earn carbon credits (reduce energy
usage for computers and for cooling) and foster
innovation and collaborative discovery.
Many institutions that have already inducted ICT at various levels may prefer to continue down
their own path. However, they can have the option to get new software, services and training
from the community, if they so desire. The largest beneficiaries of this initiative however, is
likely to be a completely different set of institutions - tier 2 and tier 3 schools, colleges anduniversities - who would otherwise be unable to induct ICT anytime soon due to the lack of local
knowhow. Here the rollout of ICT must be accompanied by a strong human capacity building
effort in terms of training and support. It is important to also mention here that the full
spectrum of institutions - universities, colleges and schools all over the country are candidates
for the provision of services under this initiative. The ICT infrastructure can also eventually be
thrown open to students and educators from the non-formal sector NGOs, individuals and
civil society.
The Novelty of the Approach
The novelty of the approach comes from the following aspects:
1. Involvement of the user community at the grassroots level. We expect that some of
these people will become part of the organization and champion the use of ICT in all
institutions.
2. The integrated approachof providing end-to-end service - including software, services
and training, to all users. The vibrant IT industry in the country can be used to provide
high-quality software and services that will help extend the reach of quality education.
19 http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4 Ed Lazowska, Bill &Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, Director,eScience Institute and Chair, Computing
Community Consortium at the University of Washington, speaking on cloud computing.
Educational institutions all over
the world are trying to move
towards a shared infrastructure
model in order to save costs
maximally, earn carbon credits,
and foster innovation and
collaborative discovery.
http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4http://cenic2010.cenic.org/stream/regency/Cenic-20100309-110644-021.mp4 -
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3. The idea of Centralized Provisioning: of planning centrally and rolling out
simultaneously all across the country. This ability to cover geography quickly, thereby
reaching out to institutions throughout the country within a short span of time is critical
to the growth of education at this juncture.
4. The plan to use Cloud Computing and other virtualization technologies to share
resources innovatively, thus reducing costs enormously and minimizing the
environmental impact. India can seek to be a leader in this space, and additionally be
able to harvest the benefits of fostering innovation and improving collaboration for joint
discovery.
5. The use of a widespread information dissemination campaign, coupled with a
strong push towards sharing of knowhow, will generate the momentum that can help
the benefits of this initiative reach the institutions that stand to benefit from it the most.
The Organization
As mentioned earlier, the goal is to help faculty and
students get accustomed to ICT technologies so that they
can utilise them optimally to teach, learn and innovate.
This is best accomplished by constituting a User Group
which is the Voice of the Community. The User Group
must work with the government and with the IT industry
to ensure that users at educational institutions are
provided with comprehensive end-to-end services with
respect to ICT infrastructure. The User Group, working
on behalf of all educational institutions, will oversee thecreation and use of shared infrastructure and facilities
and will also help institutions rollout their in-house
infrastructure.
Responsibilities of the User Group
An indicative list of tasks could include the following:
Provide consultancy and technical support to institutions that are seeking to induct ICT
on campus by creating and sharing whitepapers, reports, requirements documents and
other material pertinent to the tasks at hand. Commission Shared Software on behalf of different groups of users, conduct User
Acceptance Testing (UAT) and arrange for maintenance of the entire software lifecycle.
The important task of UAT is often overlooked when software is commissioned through
the use of consultants, resulting in software that is not user friendly, has incomplete
functionality, and is prone to bugs.
Become a conduit for fresh requests for new software and services from institutions.
Oversee the provision of 16x7 technical support to users and institutions, also in the
form of Managed Services where necessary, with the help of private players.
Negotiate access to important libraries, journals and knowledge repositories that are
hard to secure, for all students and researchers countrywide, at the best prices. Assist institutions with purchasing special purpose software and tools.
The organization must be
representative of the user
community it serves. It must
consist of researchers,
educators and technologists
who can help educational
institutions understand their
requirements and help them
induct their local ICTinfrastructure from the
market.
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Design and coordinate rollout of training programs in association with private players.
Disseminate information aggressively, through organizing conferences, workshops and
other events in order to generate PULL for the software and services - a preferred
option.
Invite support and participation from civil society and donors and coordinate their
efforts by pairing resources up with institutions.
Engage in fundraising to help/pay for the costs of disadvantaged schools/colleges to
embark online.
The opportunity for close coordination among institutions and the potential that exists in
tapping into the expertise of the User Group on behalf of all institutions can result in enhanced
value additions. Some of these include the following:
A vision for the development and growth of Scientific Computing and e-Sciences
nationwide.
A method of creating a Database of professionalsand their expertise in the educationalspace (a stated goal of NMEICT).
The creation of a movement around Open Educational Resources and Open Courseware
(OCW). The most scalable model for educational content creation is to allow the
community to create and share. Open Education Resources20 (OER) is a recognized
movement which seeks to take advantage of our collective knowledge. Wikipedia21is a
brilliant example of how users can become active resource creators. We in India need to
take the OER and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement forward in
innovative ways and create similar archives for content of various kinds. Moreover,
given that less than 10% of the Indian population speaks English we need to initiate this
kind of activity in Indian Languages urgently.
Characteristics of the User Group
Whilst the general consensus at the Roundtable was for the establishment of an organization
that could deliver on the goals outlined earlier, there was a lot
less clarity regarding the manner in which this organization
ought to be created. The argument for a single centralized
organization is that core policies (for example, promotion of
FOSS) for interoperability and for sharing of infrastructure can
be formulated in a coherent manner. But some at the
Roundtable expressed reservations that an organization such asthis, that was centralized, could become monopolistic. A single
organization is naturally prone to monopolistic tendencies and
this must be actively discouraged. The need of the hour is for an
organization that will act as a facilitator. It may be best if there
is more than one such organization, perhaps one in each state.
The participants were also clearly in favour of creating a non-profit organization.
20http://www.oercommons.org/Open Educational Resources Community21http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/HomeThe Wikimedia Foundation and its largest collaboratively
edited reference projects, Wikipedia
Software support for
administrative tasks,
will allow institutions to
become more efficient.
In particular they can do
more with their physicalinfrastructure and enrol
many more students
than they do presently.
http://www.oercommons.org/http://www.oercommons.org/http://www.oercommons.org/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Homehttp://www.oercommons.org/ -
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One way to fulfil many of these expectations is to encourage the formation of multiple user
groups, one among each institution or group of users that have some commonality of interest
with respect to ICT infrastructure. These user groups could then contribute members to a
specialist Task Force, a smaller group of people that is entrusted with the responsibility of
accomplishing the consensus goals in mission mode. Ideas, information, knowhow and even
people can flow freely between the user groups and the Task Force. The responsibility of the
user groups is to be the representatives of their respective communities and to be a watchdog
over the Task Force. While details need to be worked out separately, after more extensive
consultations, some key expectations from such a Task Force could be the following:
The Task Force must be professionally managed, focused on the central goal of
coordination (through the user groups) among educational institutions for the creation
of shared software and services.
Although there can be many User Groups, they must all coordinate to select the Task
Force. The Task Force takes over the role of Individual Consultants.
The Task Force is an agency that is primarily building infrastructure, not doing R&D.Therefore, unlike R&D organizations, it is subject to Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
with respect to the quality of service that it provides. Therefore it must use proven
technology and employ people with a different mindset, one that is service oriented and
focused on strict adherence to SLAs.
The organization must be willing to pay competitive salaries as needed, in order to be
able to source talent from the market.
The guiding principle is to Maintain the highest level of QUALITY in all technology
deployments in order to promote excellence.
Ideally the Task Force must be stationed at a University campus so that trainees, interns
and students can work on related projects.
The Value Proposition
The intent is to view this initiative as a capacity building endeavour and to encourage active
participation of stakeholders so that there is plenty of
diversity with respect to the deployment of ICT
solutions. No attempt will be made to enforce uniform
solutions locally at individual institutions. Only the
knowhow and best practices will be shared so thatinstitutions can make informed choices with respect to
selection of hardware and software vendors and other
service providers. The aim is to create a User
Community by using social networking and Web 2.0
technologies extensively, holding regular conferences
and meetings to help disseminate information and to
generate a PULL for the shared software and services. The guiding principle with regard to the
entire initiative is one of complete commitment to quality and excellence from the start.
The most scalable model for
educational content creation is
to allow the community to
create and share. Open
Education Resources (OER) is a
recognized movement which
seeks to take advantage of our
collective knowledge.
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Key Drivers for this Approach
While it is true that the ideas outlined in this initiative overlap in parts with the work of other
ongoing initiatives such as the NMEICT (and to a much lesser extent the NKN), what sets this
one apart is the fact that it addresses the entire scope of the problem it provides a blueprint
for the provisioning of complete end-to-end services. This approach corrects for the lacunae in
the system currently and is therefore likely to render maximum benefits to the largest number
of students and faculty, as well as to funding agencies. The other key drivers for this initiative
include the following:
Providing Inclusive Access - Tier 2 and 3 institutions are likely to benefit the most
because they will get access to state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure much earlier than they
would have otherwise. They will also receive support for creation and consumption of
content in Indian languages which is a long overdue effort.
Addressing the Scale Problem The number of institutions that need to be
empowered is dauntingly large. Through sharing of all knowhow across institutions and
through sharing infrastructure where appropriate, it is possible to quickly rollout ICT
infrastructure and educational content to a large number of institutions in the country
today that have little or no ICT infrastructure.
Building Capacity ProactivelyThe focus, in this initiative, is on training generations
of young students in high schools and colleges. They will be self-learners to a very large
extent and as soon as they become comfortable with the current technologies, they will
begin to innovate and create new technologies.
Making a Deep Commitment to Quality and ExcellenceThe aim is to provide state-
of-the-art ICT infrastructure to educational institutions, leveraging volumes and newer
technologies such as cloud computing to keep costs low. A sub-standard or sub-critical
infrastructure will not possess the same inspirational value for students that a Google
quality or an Applequality service would have.
Promoting Interoperability and Standardization where required Lack of
interoperability, which will inevitably arise if educational institutions are left to equip
themselves with ICT infrastructure on their own, will eventually push the costs higher.
Therefore, it is wise to build in interoperability from the start.
Promoting the use of FOSS and OER for Education & Research This is the trend
worldwide, mainly because it helps keep costs down and allows interested stakeholders
to experiment with source code and with the creation of educational content. It will also
promote entrepreneurship, whereby smaller companies will be created to maintain and
support specific software with localization support (example, Red Hat Linux), for a
relatively small fee.
Providing Opportunity to Leverage many Value Adds: for example, the opportunity
for distributed Content Creation, which will help build a vibrant marketplace for
educational content:
o Access to ICT Infrastructure will enable distributed content creation by all
interested parties including non-traditional contributors such as homemakers
and NGOs,
o Backed by a lightweight moderation and editing system and quick information
dissemination facilities, this will ensure that the problem of shortage of digital
content is mitigated quickly,
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o Educational material can be made easy to locate by linking relevant websites to
content repositories from Sakshat (MHRDs one-stop education portal),
o Searches can be made easier by mandating that the creators of content label
their content appropriately (using tags such as age group, syllabus, language
etc), and
o
Industry players can upload and showcase material (free as well as paid),
thereby allowing them to easily reach out to their constituencies.
Exciting Ripple Effects
Students will innovate in new and unexpected ways.This is probably the single most
important opportunity that this initiative can bring about. India can look forward to its
own versions of companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and more in the future.
Collaborative discoverywill become the norm. At the Roundtable, one of the invitees
described an inspirational example of how a group of 400 young students, under the
guidance of a few senior researchers, were able to sequence the TB (tuberculosis)
genome using mobile phones and Web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter to coordinate
among themselves.
Internet penetration will increase sharply as the demand for Internet Access from
homes will track the growth of Internet Access from schools and colleges.
Frequent Curriculum Extension and Revision will become possible. The initiative will
promote new learner centric approaches which will demand more flexibility and
frequent changes in the curriculum. Since technical difficulties with revising curriculum
will be mitigated by ICT, this will indeed be possible and students will become the
beneficiaries.
Growth of Intranets with reusable and competitive content, student management
systems, distance education support, etc., will enable institutions to accommodate more
students thus increasing GER much faster than it otherwise would have.
Teacher Training programmes, one of our biggest and most important challenges
currently, will become far easier to rollout nationwide , thus contributing to
significant improvement in the quality of education provided by our institutions.
It is important to note that the issue of educational content itself (generation, dissemination,
quality control and standardisation etc.) is outside the scope of work being described here. This
initiative stops at providing the infrastructure that enables experts to create educational
material in a distributed fashion and to share it easily. Despite the fact that only technology
infrastructure is sought to be provided, the desired effect of the generation of a large body ofquality educational content will be a natural outcome, as more people learn to use the
infrastructure, become confidant and start to express themselves innovatively.
Financials and Business Models
On the question of Who will pay for this infrastructure? the consensus at the Roundtable was
that the Government (States and the Centre) must be an important contributor, even if it does
not cover 100 percent of the costs. Operationally, it is clear that there are two separate cost
components: the local infrastructure at the institutions and the shared data centre and softwareservices. The former must be paid for in a User pays model in which the institutions pay as per
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their own technology choices, irrespective of whether they are government-run, government-
aided or privately owned. Governments can make provisions for providing funds to the
institutions in the first two categories. However, payment for shared infrastructure must be
done exclusively by the Government.
Revenue ModelsSince the infrastructure required is extremely capital Intensive, multiple sources of funds need
to be explored to cover all costs. Institutions can pay for
local infrastructure and then recover them through
additional fees, charges for usage of infrastructure after
hours and top-up subsidies. Whats more, students and
parents are likely to be more than willing to contribute
to the additional costs provided it gives them access to
better quality education. Therefore, student
contribution is critical and needs to be carefully
evaluated. Regarding purchase of local infrastructure,here the institutions must directly pay the vendors.
There is an opportunity however, for the User Group to
negotiate best prices on behalf of all institutions, and
this should be looked into. With respect to shared
infrastructure, it is best that the government pays for it.
However, it should also be possible to mobilise funds from foundations, corporate donors and
individuals.
Assuming that a not-for-profit organization is created, it will need to generate funds for its
operational expenses and to pay salaries. An important component of income for theorganization could be membership fees paid by Vendors. So far we have not discussed the role
of companies in the technology and education space that are likely to be a part of this initiative.
While it would be business as usual for them in terms of products and services that they provide
to individual institutions, this ICT initiative would result in a sharp spike in their sales (as
awareness sets in and more and more institutions look to introducing ICT infrastructure) and
therefore it is reasonable to ask them to contribute a small sum annually as membership fees to
the organization (similar to the NASSCOM membership model). Conversely, institutions must
also be members, paying a relatively small fee for the privilege of receiving knowhow, training
and being kept abreast of developments in technology.
Role of Governments
Coming back to the role of the central government, the consensus was that it should pay for one-
time costs of the shared infrastructure namely, the Data centres (one or more, in different states
if necessary) and also for the software development costs. Later on, it should be the endeavour
of the User Group to generate not just its own running costs, but also that of maintaining and
upgrading the shared hardware and software. State governments must provide the necessary
funds to institutions within their states in order to induct local ICT infrastructure as per their
needs.
Another very critical role that can be played by the central as well as state governments is to put
their weight behind this initiative thereby helping it succeed. Through its agencies such as the
UGC, AICTE, NCTE etc., it can help reach out to all the Vice-Chancellors, heads of institutions and
Worldwide there is only one
model of funding education
that works:
education funded in
part by students (fees),
contributions made byfaculty ( consultancy),
donations,
corpus, and
Government.
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faculty, thus helping to disseminate information to all the institutions that are a target of this
initiative. This will help the initiative achieve critical mass quickly.
A Representative Pilot Project
There was agreement among the participants that a representative pilot demonstrating the
utility of all the ideas outlined so far is critical at this juncture. The Pilot will also sensitize all
the stakeholders - the institutions, government, administrators, faculty and other decision
makers and, in turn, bring valuable inputs from them on strategies to take the initiative
forward. The Pilot can be taken up anywhere in the country, depending on which set of
stakeholders come forward.
On the technology side, this will help fix the requirements that different kinds of institutions
may have, provided a representative set of institutions are chosen for the Pilot. The Pilot will
also enable the gathering of detailed information regarding price points and costs towards a
detailed business plan for the full initiative.
A representative Pilot deployment of ICT infrastructure must include a University Campus,
Colleges of different kinds (Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Management), Secondary Schools,
Adult Education programs and Skill Development programs. Further guidelines for the Pilot
project are available in Annexure II. Funding for the Pilot could be sought from one or more of
several sources such as private Foundations or Trusts, the newly formed National Science and
Engineering Research Board (NSERB), the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership
Initiative (NMITLI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research22 (CSIR), or the
Multiplier Grants Scheme23
of the Ministry of Communications and Information technology.
Benefits to Stakeholders
The ability to disseminate information widely and quickly, through domain-based list email
addresses ([email protected], [email protected]) and through the use of Web 2.0
technologies isa game changer. It has the potential to usher in transformative change through
ensuring better communication and coordination among all stakeholders, including funding
agencies and regulators. The ability to create online communities of practice, with quick
dissemination through email, bulletin boards, etc. will push the speed of learning, research anddiscovery in all areas. Aside from this, some of the other benefits to different stakeholders
include the following:
Regulators
Regulators will have the ability to enforce transparency and accountability norms at all
levels; among Management, Administration, Faculty and even students. They can mandate the
use of shared software for Accounting and Finances that can be viewed online by concerned
22 http://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htm R&D scheme to boost public-
private-partnership (PPP) with industry23 http://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-scheme Multiplier Grants for joint R&D with
industry.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmhttp://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmhttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.mit.gov.in/content/multiplier-grants-schemehttp://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htmmailto:[email protected]:[email protected] -
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regulators. They can also mandate that the websites of all institutions carry the following
information (partial, suggestive, list)
Fee structure,
Faculty profiles,
Course structure and course content, Accreditation status, detailed information regarding local infrastructure, and
An online rating system for students, parents and employers of the facilities provided by
the institution.
Vigilance can be achieved through a distributed mechanism by giving students, parents,
employers and civil society a process that allows them to report discrepancies online. Combined
with the fact that tribunals are already in the process of being set up to look into speedy
resolution of complaints, this would result in a system that is more accountable to the
constituency that it serves, a remarkable improvement.
Funding Agencies
Funding agencies will see their money achieving more. The User Group will be able to
leverage the economies of scale, that come from serving a large number of institutions, to
provide more infrastructure and to many more institutions for the same outlay of money.
In terms of transparency in the usage of funds, funding agencies can demand online access to
reports from all institutions in prescribed formats. This can be facilitated by commissioning and
deploying software for the purpose and then mandating the use of this software for financial
reporting by all aided institutions. As more and more institutions start to use it, the value of
shared software increases. Therefore, under these circumstances, it is best that the use of such
financial reporting software is mandated by the funding agencies themselves.
Similarly funds disbursements can be made quicker and more effective . Since the precise
financial situation will now be known online at all times, reallocation of unused funds can be
done quickly between different budget heads
within the financial year, ensuring that funds are
spent on time and for the right purposes. In short,
funding agencies will have an accurate and detailed
picture of the utilization of funds at all times, again
a remarkable improvement.
Faculty
The current situation vis-a-vis shortage of trained
faculty can be resolved only if ICT is used
extensively to achieve this goal, particularly
distance learning technologies, so that faculty can
be trained even while they continue working at
their home institutions. In general, distance
education programs tend to have only limited
success among first-time learners of a subject but
faculty does not fall into this category. They can benefit immensely, partly because they will usedistance learning mode mainly for refresher courses and partly because they are more mature
Distance learning technologies
provide the added advantage that
faculty can be trained even while
they are stationed at their
respective home institutions. Bothtrainers and trainees need not be
displaced during faculty training
workshops. This is a tremendous
saving in time which opens up an
all-year round opportunity for
training faculty, instead of only
summer training programmes.
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with regard to handling the new medium. ICT provides the added advantage that faculty
(both trainers and trainees) need not be displaced during the training programs, a
tremendous saving in time which opens up an all-year round opportunity instead of only
summer training workshops for faculty. Of course, the distance education effort must be backed
up by workshops and demonstration sessions as necessary.
Other benefits include
Faculty gets access to all the training material that is designed for them during office
hours and are not obliged to take time out from their homes.
Faculty and students get access to educational material when they are together in class,
so that more engaging discussions and interactions can take place based on the material
provided.
Many students and faculty may not be able to afford broadband Internet access from
home (there are only approximately 9m broadband connections in the country
presently). Therefore, it is imperative to enable plentiful access for them from theirinstitutions