vidya amrita-interview

When did the idea of building Vidya

strike you and how did it happen?

The first spark of idea occurred way

back in the year 2000, few months after

I joined Amrita, Ettimadai. Well, my

coming to Amrita appeared sheer co-

incidence then which I now understand

as nothing but providence. I was previ-

ously trained in the area of Avionics En-

gineering and had no proper training in

‘computers. Since I joined the Systems

Group ( Now ICTS) and was put in one

of the computer labs I had no other op-

tion than to learn computers. Those

were the times I used to spend almost

the entire day in the lab ( 6.30am-

10pm), if routine jobs kept me busy dur-

ing the day time, teaching myself the

basics of computers kept me busy the

rest of the time and it was great oppor-

tunity to interact with students as well.

Since the campus did not have an in-

formative website at that time I took

upon myself to build a website, that

meant learning HTML , JavaScript, and

tools like MS-Frontrpage and HotMetal-

Pro and later Dreamweaver. Here I

must thank one of our alumni Mr.JSrinivasan ( Currently doing is Ph.D at

Edinburgh University) who first showed

me a website he made, his personal

website. That was my initiation into the

world of hyperlinks.

It was just around that time Internet

began to penetrate into the campus, we

had a few machines with internet con-

nectivity, if I remember right it was a

64Mbps divided connection. So,

emails,browsing the web and building a

website fascinated me immensely and

that kept me occupied all through my

post-routine working hours. Since I

worked in the Computer Lab, I had lot

of opportunities to interact closely with

the students and faculty members and

it was that interaction that gave me the

triggering pulse towards building Vidya,

To be more specific Interacting with

Dr.K I Ramachandran ( Currently with

CEN) and seeing him downloading

PowerPoint presentations and lecture

notes which he used to write on a CD

and use it to prepare his course notes

made me think of archiving it all in a

way that could be used by the entire

campus than just his class. So one day

I asked him for his CD of downloaded

tutorials, made a copy of it, configured

a basic Windows web server and

hosted the contents. It was a single

webpage index pointing to tutorial

specifically on Mechanical Engineering.

I showed it to Ramachandran sir and

few other people, they were quite ex-

cited seeing it. It was the sort of thing

many at that time thought was possible

only on the Internet. Thus the initial at-

tempt at Vidya became the first “In-

tranet Portal” of Amrita.

I was in fact enthralled seeing the re-

action of students like Ajith Peter (now

working on his PhD at IIT-Bombay),

Srinivasa Varadhan ( now working for

Cognizant Technologies, London) and

Shyam Divakar( who just completed

his PhD in Computational Neuro-

science from University of Milan, Italy).

For them it meant a lot, downloading

learning material from the internet

across a slow connection was not quite

a feasible option for the students

then…the idea of making a down-

loaded collection accessible across the

LAN appealed to all of them and it is

they who made me feel convinced of

the enormous potential in developing

‘Vidya’. Every one needed quality mate-

rial in the quickest way possible. This

was the precursor to a series of convic-

tions that followed eventually propelling

me steadily towards developing ‘Vidya’

further. I never had to look back since

then…I literally breathed and lived

‘Vidya’. Yes, I had a big price to pay,

sacrifices to make and tough stances to

take. In the end, it was all worth the ef-

fort. I have the joy of having the task ac-

complished leaving it with further

possibilities of enhancement and en-

richment.

To me, Vidya beckoned as that

course of work which will add more

meaning to my existence providing our

students the opportunities I missed as a

student, so there was that passionate

involvement. I feel the best way to ex-

press it would be to borrow the terms

used by Dr.Deepak Gupta of ASB who

remarked once “Vidya is a labour oflove”.

If you are to start building Vidya

anew, how different it would be?

Yes, it will be different and better organ-

ized with a content management sys-

tem in place...and if it serves better , it is

only because of what I learnt from build-

ing the current Vidya.

What are the other reasons that

prompted you begin building Vidya?

Those days library used to be in the

main block (opposite to staircase in the

ground floor). That used to be one

place I used to frequent, looking

through magazines and journals to find

relevant topics/ key words for down-

loading material. During one such visits

to the library I found a good number of

quality text books authored by

renowned professors from universities

abroad remaining untouched. When

enquired many students expressed the

view that they considered such text

books abstruse. I knew that this view is

rooted in slavish dependence on local,

popular text books.

Contd on page 27

ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine

ANWESHI May2008 Page 26 In Focus - VIDYA

The VIDYA Digital Knowledge Archive that is cur-

rently deployed in four campuses of Amrita University

had its modest beginning in the year 2000. With an initial

content volume of 64 Mb, VIDYA has grown to a 1600+

Gb knowledge base covering a wide spectrum of areas,

comprising of extensive Audio/ Video lectures as well

by leading academicians/ scientists from around the

world. VIDYA over the years has become an indispensi-

ble resource for every devout seeker of knowledge mak-

ing the dictum “ Study Locally, Learn Globally” a living

reality !

*

* This logo is designed by D G Suryanarayana & Irshad of 4th Year ( IT )

Mr. Ajai Narendran (Con-

tent manager & Webmas-

ter) and the Architect of

‘Vidya’ speaks on his expe-

rience of building ‘Vidya’

while responding to a bar-

rage of questions. He elu-

cidates on how Vidya could better be

utilised in a way that helps redefine learn-

ing and revitalise teaching.

A comparison of a few local text books

and books authored by internationally

renowned academicians revealed the

fact that our students will end up miss-

ing quite a lot by the time they graduate

if they relied only on local textbooks ab-

horring books that have found interna-

tional acceptance. I tried getting

presentation slides and class notes by

the same authors and listed them in

Vidya under different categories ( this

was the beginning of subject-wise list-

ing with a basic collection of material on

various engineering topics based on

UG programmes). In a few weeks time,

I could see those untouched books of

the library in circulation. Talking to the

students revealed that the presenta-

tions helped them come out of the

mindset and made them attempt to-

wards learning from quality textbooks.

This I would say, was the second con-

viction- adding a global touch to local-

ized learning. On the other hand at the

personal level I was going through a cri-

sis that was emotionally gripping. I had

to keep myself busy during waking

hours to save myself from slipping into

delirium. The best time to work on

‘Vidya’ was of course late nights be-

cause thats the time we used to get the

best internet speed then. So it was just

the perfect mix of reasons , both profes-

sional and personal, and what more

could I ask for - if the very work I chose

to plunge deep into ferreted out deeper

meanings of my existence, enriching

the lives of our student community.

How was Vidya received initially by

the campus community?

There was a group of students and

some faculty members who instantly re-

alized Vidya’s potential, and of course

there was the other category who

watched it all with a kind of disbelief (

suspicion would be a better word I

guess). For me what mattered the most

was not the number of people who

used Vidya, instead the difference

Vidya can make in the lives of the few

who used Vidya then. Some even felt

that I encroached into other’s domain, I

guess it is natural for them to think so

because here’s this guy who is trained

in avionics engineering working with

the Systems group doing things on in-

formation science / knowledge man-

agement with no formal training either

in IT or Information Science . I counted

it as a real complement anyway no mat-

ter how thwarting many remarks were.

Well, I remember a specific remark by

some on Vidya during its fledgling days

that ‘what’s the big deal…the informa-

tion available in Vidya can easily be

googled out’. I do not contest that point,

but it takes lot of discerning effort to se-

lect the right ones for Vidya. The former

remark is much akin to saying that

‘what ever available in a library is avail-

able in a big bookshop’, the point is we

do not call bookshop a library though

quantitatively the latter is a subset of

the former. Vidya is a sincere attempt to

implement the concept of ‘Selective dis-

semination of Information”. This ap-

proach is of increasing relevance in this

era of information overload.

How will you define Vidya?

It is hard to define Vidya in any concrete

terms because ‘Vidya’ has evolved and

will continue to evolve, each phase of

growth in tune with the vision that initi-

ated it. Vidya is not a tutorial archive…it

is much more. Vidya is envisaged to

help one deepen one’s knowledge and

expand one’s awareness harnessing

the best of World Wide Web.

I wish people get the experience of ex-

ploring a rainforest when they navigate

through Vidya than just walking around

a landscape. If every one who visits

‘Vidya’ finds something interesting and

useful , then I believe ‘Vidya’ has de-

fined the essence of its existence, in

short ‘ Vidya’ in functional essence

mean ‘Something for every one’.

Is Vidya Accessible from outside the

campus?

No , ‘Vidya’ is not accessible from out-

side the campus except Amrita cam-

puses across the ISRO-EduSat link.

‘Vidya’ is an intranet archive and it has

to remain so adhering to the copyright

regulations. A great part of ‘Vidya’ is in-

tegrated with the ‘Educational fair use’

laws that restricts the use of down-

loaded material to ‘ within the campus,

for purely academic/ non-commercial

purposes.

Well, before we think of ‘out of the cam-

pus’ access to Vidya, let us get ‘Vidya’

accessible to all our hostels within the

campus. I am sure it can bring in a big

difference in the learning attitude of our

students because I have observed ( I

have lived in our hostels for the last 7

years) that most of our students study

late into night. Yes, those without lap-

tops need not feel out of place here, I

am sure that people with laptops can

group with the ones who do not own a

laptop and have combined study ses-

sions, this will significantly strengthen

peer bonding as well.

Which is your most favourite sec-

tion in Vidya?

That’s hard to answer. Each section in

Vidya is built with lot of care and it all

had a specific reason behind it. For ex-

ample it is on ‘Teacher’s Day’ that we

decided to build a separate section on “

Teaching & Learning”… another section

‘Envisage’ , the animation repository in

Vidya. There is a whole variety of such

off beat sections in Vidya that has to be

explored, to be experienced. I feel that

it is the ‘Video Lecture Archive’ on a

wide variety of areas that instantly ele-

vates ‘Vidya’ to a unique position when

compared to any other repository/ digi-

tal library in the world.

Have you implemented all your ideas

you have on Vidya?

Not quite. What you now see as ‘Vidya’

is just the core around which many lay-

ers could be built. Better user inter-

faces, specific community portals, and

a whole lot of dynamic elements could

be built around. I have the architecture

clear in my mind, it is impossible for a

single person to build it all. I have al-

ways wished that I had atleast two

more people good at programming with

me. Had that been the case the look

and feel of ‘Vidya’ would have been far

too different. Of course people are try-

ing to build layers around Vidya else

where in our campuses…if all those at-

tempts could be integrated we can

make Vidya one of the most formidable

knowledge archives in the world and

this is something ‘Amrita’ alone can

claim of. The core is built, the layers

need to be added. Vidya , where it

stands now is just a fractional material-

ization of the enhancement ideas I have

on Vidya. Here I must say that two

B.Tech teams have so far tried to build

‘search engines’ for Vidya, I must thank

those teams and especially Mr. Adi-narayanan of IT department and

Mr.Shivpratap of CEN who guided

them. We need more people like them

and it is such people who can enhance

Vidya and in turn enrich the lives of

thousands of students.

You must have showcased Vidya to

numerous visitors, what was the re-

sponse to Vidya?

Yes, quite a good number of visitors

from all over the world and Govt. of

India ministry officials as well including

the UGC team. All of them showed

great interest in learning more about

Contd on page 28


ANWESHI May 2008 7 In Focus - VIDYA

Vidya Story- Contd ...

how it is built and was awe struck at the

variety of sections in Vidya. We had vis-

itors from Chinmaya Mission Schools,

Arvind Eye Hospitals and DRDO as

well who spent hours with me dis-

cussing on the possibilities of building

such archives. The most touching mo-

ments are those when I see students

bring their parents to show Vidya .

Do you think that Vidya’s full poten-

tial is effectively utilized by the stu-

dents and faculty members?

No, we are yet to even understand the

potential of Vidya, let alone utilizing it

fully. I have been interacting with stu-

dents closely over the last seven years,

right from day 1 of my joining Amrita. A

lot of awareness on ‘Vidya’ had been

spread through word of mouth, informal

discussions etc. This does not work be-

yond a limit. I feel that the best ones to

help students understand the useful-

ness of ‘Vidya’ are, the faculty members

because they get that unique privilege

of interacting with/ addressing no less

than 50 students at a time. This does

not seem to happen, students are

never told about the learning resources

we have and I can tell this with total

conviction based on my interaction with

the students. Innumerable times I have

had students come to me and ask

questions like “do you have tutorials on

thermodynamics? … Do you have

books on Networking? Do you have in-

troductory lectures on Java? …etc. I

feel that this would not have happened

had they been made aware of the

learning resource we have here.

I have also had faculty members com-

ing and asking me for material on areas

that is already there in Vidya in abun-

dance. So there is clear lack of aware-

ness of our own resources among the

students and the faculty members. The

best thing I could do from my side was

to map the entire B.Tech/ MCA syllabus

to the content in Vidya. Despite this as

well I feel many have no idea what

Vidya is all about. Of course here I must

say that there had been incredible sup-

port from faculty members , I must

thank Dr.K.I.Ramachandran, Dr.DeepakGupta of ASB, Prof Subba Rao ofChemical Engg Dept, Mr.Adi-narayanan of IT Dept, Dr.Shanmug-mavelayutham of CSE Dept, Dr.R KSuresh of Mech. Engg Dept, Dr.K PSoman, Mr.Rakesh Peter, Mr.Shiv-apratap, Mr.Loganathan of CEN.

They are doing their best to bring Vidya

closer to Amrita fraternity.

To a newcomer , how will you ex-

plain the potential of Vidya?

Assuming that the newcomer is a first

year B.Tech student who is aiming for a

career in the Industry or core R&D, I

would present Vidya to him/her as the

prime source in that campus that will

help him learn with the aid of some of

the finest tutorial material, ever created,

from across the globe. Vidya is un-

doubtedly one of the best assemblages

of Audio/ Video lectures on almost all

major areas taught here. This is on the

academic front. Looking at an individ-

ual’s overall development there is

enough material on Humanities, Apti-

tude and Soft skills, Philosophy & Com-

parative Religion, Management

Sciences , Journalism & Communica-

tion and an array of allied areas. So

here is an archive that you can count on

and grow along with. Vidya has also in-

corporated gateways to IEEE, ACM,

Digital Engineering Libraries as well.

Journal papers can be accessed

through this gateway from any com-

puter in the campus. The best thing that

can come out of utilizing Vidya re-

sources to the fullest extent is aware-

ness that one has learnt / explored an

area of interest listening to the masters

from around the world. Isn’t it great if

our students tell that they learnt Linear

Algebra from people around plus

through video lectures by none other

than Prof. Gilbert Strang of MIT. Isn’t it

great for our students to learn JAVA

programming from the video lectures of

the legendary Dr.Andy Vandam of

Brown University - the same professor

who taught programing to Prof.Randy

Pausch. So here is an opportunity for

our students not to feel second to any in

the world when it comes to learning

using globally accepted tutorials from

some of the best universities/ research

centers across the world. In short

here’s a resource that will help you

graduate with, immensely more than

just a UG or PG degree.

What is the single aspect or the most

vital element that one requires to

build an archive like Vidya?

I cannot pin point ‘the single most

thing’. I feel it is a combination of factors

that contribute towards building some-

thing like Vidya. Still, if I am to general-

ize I would reduce everything down to

that single word “Passion” – passion to

gather, organize and disseminate infor-

mation, passion to reach out and inter-

act, passion to read,explore and learn,

passion to share and give, passion to

make a positive difference no matter

what you do… all these primary factors

coupled with freedom at work can work

wonders. Yes, I was fortunate enough

to have that kind of freedom with no

strings attached all through my seven

years here. What is the point in having

skills and ideas if one does not have the

freedom. In my case I had the freedom

in abundance and I owe a lot for it to

Mr.M Sreeevalsan, Head , ICTS.

What are the significant phases of

growth Vidya went through?

My work on Vidya started as a pleasant

pass time activity, as one of my hobbies

and soon it began to take huge chunk

of my waking hours. Routine working

hours kept me busy with other respon-

sibilities, of which working on the web-

site was the most demanding one for, it

meant being on task 24X7. Vidya has

benefited immensely from lot of events

and people in terms of ideas, input and

support. The first phase was of course

archiving few PPTs and PDFs on Me-

chanical Engg. downloaded by Ra-

machandran sir and later we worked as

a team. We shared the downloading

tasks, he could get some of the best tu-

torials on Mech Engg and related areas

and I began to do some kind of oscillat-

ing downloads on many other areas.

My love for reading came to great help

here, I never ran out of ideas on what to

download on a specific day…I always

had something to search for. It was just

around the time I began developing

Vidya, MIT released news on their

OCW launch. The idea really fascinated

me and I wrote to the then MIT Presi-

dent’s Office at once appraising them of

our modest efforts in building local web

archives. The reply from the MIT presi-

dent’s office was really encouraging

and that reinforced my belief in the po-

tential of Vidya. So clearly the next

major phase of development Vidya

went through was with the development

of MIT-OCW. We were perhaps the first

ones in the world to systematically mir-

ror locally the choicest best ( based on

our requirements/ courses taught) of

MIT-OCW right from the day OCW was

launched to this day, this includes mas-

sive collection of audio/ video lectures

as well. In Vidya you will find an exclu-

sive MIT-OCW section categorized

topic-wise and mapped to our Engi-

neering curriculum. In fact it is with the

addition of MIT-OCW materials, Vidya

gained the recognition and trust of

many in the campus, they believed they

Contd... on page 29


ANWESHI May 2008 Page 28 In Focus - VIDYA

Vidya Story - Contd ...

could expect more and Vidya will de-

liver it. Improved internet connectivity ,

availability of a variety of download

tools, advent of peer-to-peer net-

works…all these have considerably

helped Vidya grow fast. The Indo-US

initiative brought in a lot of eminent

professors to our campus to deliver full

length courses, expert / guest lectures.

Most of these courses and lectures are

recorded and archived in Vidya under

the E-Learning video lecture series.

This is something significant that hap-

pened to Vidya. Now we have our own

video content and with that came into

being our own institutional video repos-

itory.

My colleague Ms.Lekshmi Prashantwho joined to work on Vidya played a

great role in giving a real face lift to

Vidya at a time when it was needed the

most. We could divide tasks, plan

schedules and execute it in a system-

atic way. I could focus more on Content

and Architecture and Lekshmi took up

the arduous task of rebuilding the inter-

face and discover more useful content

on the web. Our working as a team for

little over one year took Vidya through a

significant phase of development. Lek-

shmi was instrumental in establishing

Mindscape as well. She worked in a

truly inspired manner with total dedica-

tion to the task at hand exploring new

possibilities of enriching Vidya.

Automation in Vidya was first tried out

through integrating D-Space into Vidya.

All the major video lecture collections

and E-learning video lectures are now

on D-Space platform. Now the video

lectures are searchable through key-

words (meta-tags) associated with each

video lecture. Recently, realizing the im-

portance of forming interest groups/

communities to help disseminate the

content through annotated entries/ rec-

ommended links, we integrated “Wiki-

Media” as well to Vidya. Now the users

can interact with each other and bring

out information lying in the deep re-

cesses of Vidya. We owe it to

Mr.Rakesh Peter of CEN for deploying

D-Space and WikiMedia in Vidya and I

can never forget the day when he re-

vived D-Space, when the server it was

hosted almost crashed. I thoroughly en-

joyed integrating content to D-Space

and WikiMedia and I guess it debunked

the myth that such specialized tasks

can be done only by people belonging

to certain fields. Associating meta-tags

to each video lecture was an exercise

that was an eye-opener for me for, it is

then my reading background played a

decisive role in the most efficient way

possible. Meeting and interacting peo-

ple like Prof.Deepak Gupta of ASBadded a lot of vigor to the development

of Vidya. Deepak sir , Ramachandransir, Dr.K P Soman (CEN), Prof, Gan-gadharan (Chairman, IT Dept) andProf.Rakesh Kataria ( ASCOM) had

always been excited about the new

content added to Vidya and eager to in-

corporate it into their teaching as well.

In fact had it not been for Deepak sir, I

would not have possibly heard of some

of the best names in the area of man-

agement education world wide. Getting

to know many things thus helped me

look for material on the net and archive

it.

Vidya blossomed further when our cam-

puses at Kochi, Amritapuri and Banga-

lore expressed the desire to have Vidya

mirrored in their campuses. I had been

to Amritapuri and Bangalore campuses

recently to deploy Vidya there, the en-

tire Vidya is mirrored there. I also built a

custom built archive for the Arts and

Science campus in Kochi. Had it not

been for Mr.Vipin Pavitran of Amrita-puri campus, Mr.S Pyarilal of Banga-lore campus and Dr.Krishnakumar ofKochi campus who took the initiative

to mirror Vidya in their campuses, thou-

sands of students there would have re-

mained deprived of this precious

learning/ teaching resource we have.

Is updating Vidya here synchronized

with the mirrored repositories in the

other campuses?

No, it is not fully synchronized and I feel

it need not be. I feel that from this point

onwards, Vidya in the respective cam-

pus must grow and attain its own iden-

tity in tune with the requirements and

developments in the campus. It is like

having four different gardens with the

same set of flowers and more based on

the climatic conditions of the respective

place. Of course the best things col-

lected at each campus must be shared

across.

Which is the next important phase

you think Vidya ought to go

through?

The most vital phase is the next phase.

Vidya must be hosted in a new- sturdy

server as soon as possible. Lest, I see

all possibility of Vidya crashing because

the central repository of Vidya runs on a

P-III machine, perhaps this machine is

the oldest machine in the campus sub-

ject to the heaviest load. Right now the

1.6 TB archive on three different

servers is running different services.

Once this is done, one can think of em-

bedding Vidya into a good content man-

agement system and giving external

access through VPN ( restricted to our

alumni)

How do you decide on the content

that goes into Vidya? Is the usage of

Vidya monitored?

Interaction with students and faculty

members helps a lot towards deciding

on the content. Besides, one should

keep oneself well updated on the recent

developments. General reading helps a

lot here. Being a member of many on-

line communities is of great advantage

because of the free flow of information.

For example I get regular updates on

MIT-OCW additions, Howstuffworks,

Edge and a number of other credible

sources. There are seasonal variations

in the usage of Vidya. After the exams,

I see increased access of Humanities,

Philosophy section and general reading

sections. The placement season brings

in maximum hits on almost all areas

with specific focus on the “Career Guid-

ance’ section in Vidya.

When there is so much of informa-

tion available on the Internet , when

almost anything can be ‘googled’ out

what is the contemporary relevance

of Vidya?

What you get when you search for

something on the world wide web is pri-

marily hundreds of links pointing to var-

ious information sources. A good

search used will be easily possible

through the right combination of key

words. It is not the case any more, your

search results depend a great deal on

who owns the key word auctioned by

the search engine giants. This was not

quite the case few years back, page

ranking took into account the merit of

the content of a specific website judged

by various factors. Now many more

variables and business interests have

crept in and all these combined, de-

cides the positioning of the search re-

sults you get. In short a quick search

need not take you to the right source of

information if you go only by the top few

listings. The links to the best source of

information you look could be listed a

few pages down, this is where human

discretion comes in.

Contd... on page 30




The content in Vidya is carefully chosen

and one must not forget that Vidya has

material collected right from the year

2000, of which a good quantity of infor-

mation is not available any more on the

world wide web.

The relevance of Vidya in terms of the

information archived lies in the time

span it consistently covered and care-

ful content selection. Here I must add,

Vidya owes a great deal to Google

search results and another lesser

known but effective search engine

called “Vivisimo” that gives categorized

search results. In short in this era if in-

formation overload, Vidya does a load

balancing act through selective informa-

tion dissemination.

Has Vidya been presented in any

Symposiums or Conferences?

Yes, in 2005 we had in this campus an

International conference on digital li-

braries ( ACDL 2005) with participants

from the American and European uni-

versities. I had presented Vidya as our

initiative towards building a comprehen-

sive digital library and they showed a lot

of interest in the way we do things. I

must thank Prof.Prashant Nair (

Asst.Chairman, IT Dept) for organizing

ACDL 2005 and giving me an opportu-

nity to represent Amrita. Few months

back I got an invitation to speak at the

Conclave - Freed.in 2008 organized

by Jawaharlal Nehru University ,

New Delhi and SARAI Research Cen-

tre. They became interested to know

more when they heard about Vidya and

this is a clear indication of how the

world looks at Vidya.

Do you ever get the feeling that

Vidya might make lazy students

lazier ?

Vidya can make lazy students smarter,

not lazier. I guess you meant this - stu-

dents resorting to the copy+paste

method of solving problems and com-

pleting assignments. It is quite akin to

an open book exam( which is not despi-

cable at all). I am only happy that the

students could spot the information they

need from Vidya and I call that smart-

ness.

Now, it is for the teacher to use

his discretion to judge the originality of

such submissions. The nature of what

a student writes will have a clear imprint

of the students style of talking and

other abilities (analytical/verbal) dis-

played in the class. A smart teacher will

immediately figure out the anomaly and

test the student thoroughly instead of

blindly awarding grades based on sub-

missions by the student. A smart

teacher will be discerning enough thus.

So the equation gets reduced to these

facts:

1. Vidya can make a lazy students

smarter.

2. Smart teachers can make lazy stu-

dents work harder and do better.

3. Only lazy teachers can make lazy

students lazier.

...and I am sure one cannot afford to get

lazy in Amrita campus.

Well, it is like this-here’s a set of

tools and book of rules, one can either

build a stepping stone or stumbling

block. It all depends on individual per-

ceptions and attitudes. There is a com-

prehensive section in Vidya called

“Academic Integrity” that has well or-

ganized information on plagiarism,

copyright regulations etc. It is good for

students to be aware of all this from

their first year itself.

In the near future do you see video

lectures in Vidya being an integral

part of class room sessions, Can it

be an alternative to the teaching

methodology followed in most uni-

versities in India?

I wish it happens that way and it does

not take much time for such things to

happen. A good resolve to teach better

and learn better can make it happen

right away. Students do take these

video lectures and watch it on their lap-

tops, but then not all can afford laptops.

So one section of students miss out this

mode of learning completely if they are

not in a position to see video lectures

even in the computer labs. There is a

lot our teachers could also benefit from

viewing these video lectures. So when

a teacher is benefited thus, the whole

class in turn gets benefited. For exam-

ple Mr. J Shrikrishnan of Cisco Acad-

emy plays Vidya video lectures in his

class and he remarked that such exer-

cises make the class more lively and in-

teractive. I wish there are more

practitioners of this approach. In fact

finding right kind of video lectures to

play in the classrooms is not difficult at

all since the entire curriculum is

mapped to Vidya resources. I must tell

that Ms.Smrithi Rekha of CSE depart-

ment has tried out playing motivational/

inspirational videos from Vidya in her

computer science classes which was

well received. I was really surprised

when she told one day that she played

a short video ( from the Social Sciences

archive of Vidya) in the class when

there was a delay on starting the project

presentations session. Such attempts

are real exemplifications of how an in-

spired teacher can inspire a whole class

of students and how well we can use

Vidya in effective ways for the overall

development of our students. I have

also been overwhelmed seeing the en-

thusiasm of Mr.Satheesh Babu of

Chemistry department every time I

added a new collection of Chemistry

material in Vidya. This is the openness

needed and it is good that we have peo-

ple like them.

How different is Vidya from other

knowldege bases and digital li-

braries?

Let me change the word ‘difference’ to

‘uniqueness’. The term ‘digital library’ is

something that is getting redefined.

There was a time when ‘digital library’

meant a separate enclosure adjacent to

the central library with a few machines

dedicated to access digital contents.

This is the concept of the 90’s. Digital

content is best disseminated if it is dis-

tributed across the network . The very

term ‘digital’ means communication at

the speed of light. If some one has to

walk across a few blocks to access dig-

ital content in a an environment of LAN

and WiFi, I feel we are following the

‘vacuum tube generation’ practices in

the ‘digital era’ .But it is great to have a

centralized location where people can

meet and discuss. Looking at this way,

Vidya is a floating presence across the

campus, it reaches every one any time,

one need not walk to it.

All formidable digital libraries will have

gateways to a wide variety of online

journal subscriptions and other reposi-

tories, this surely needs seamless inter-

net connectivity . Vidya has IEEE,

ACM, Dig Engg Library gateways. We

need to add more any way. The unique-

ness of Vidya lies in the variety of mate-

rial locally archived (even when internet

is down, people can continue to learn

using global resources. Vidya is some-

thing one can explore and experience

almost any where in the campus across

the LAN. One must consider each

repository a unique one because it is

built primarily to cater to the community

it belongs.

The true potential of Vidya can beunleashed to our student communityonly if Vidya is made accessibleacross the campus WiFi , then Vidyawill begin to evolve into a ‘LearningResource Centre’

Contd... on page 31


ANWESHI May2008 Page 30 In Focus - VIDYA


Which is the best feedback/ testimo-

nial you have received from students

on your work on Vidya?

These are the times of online communi-

ties and social networking portals, and

testimonials seem to be the sponta-

neous and easiest way (some times

frivolous and superfluous too) one can

gift the other person expecting the

same in return. So I do not want to dig

out anything specific. Being with stu-

dents really meant playing the changing

roles of a friend, critique and mentor

and brother. I have tried to do my best .

But, there are two reflections from stu-

dents I would cherish unto my last even

if I am to lose the rest of my credentials

and testimonials :

This is what I earned and I feel all the

struggle was well worth it.

What were the most unforgettable

experiences related to your work on

Vidya?

There are many incidents associated

with building Vidya and my life in the

campus, in fact too many of them.

Some day I will narrate it all in a novel

I am gearing up to write. I have worked

on Vidya with the conviction that every

speck of information that goes to Vidya

is precious, it could inspire, inform and

transform some one’s life and that is

just what I have experienced all through

the process of building Vidya. At the

personal level, looking back in retro-

spect, I cherish those moments of utter

restlessness and vigor that facilitated

rigorous creative outpour… forgetting to

eat, sleep or any other recreation obliv-

ious of the passage of time, I was totally

engrossed (to the point of obsession)

in adding more to Vidya. Now I wonder

how did all that happen. When I see

digital library initiatives around involving

huge funding and large number of peo-

ple involved, I really marvel at Vidya be-

cause it is perhaps the best example of

creating the most economical digital

archive. Students like J.Chan-drasekhar ( Mech-2008 batch) pro-

vided great support consistently

convincing me that there are many tak-

ers who are eager for anything good

that goes into Vidya.The tag line of

Vidya is the mission of Vidya - To In-

form, Inspire and Innovate.

As far as my work in Amrita is con-

cerned, it is the last two years that saw

an effective consolidation of everything

I was involved with. It is work on Vidya

that eventually lead to conceiving

‘MINDSCAPE’- The Documentary

Screening Group , later forming

‘ASTHA’ - Amrita Science and Technol-

ogy Action Forum and ‘ANWESHI’-The

Newsmagazine. I must thank the stu-

dents Mr.Binit Bhatia ( IT, 2007 batch)

Rajesh Rajan ( Mech 2008 batch) and

Meenal Purohit (CSE 2008 batch) who

were instrumental in establishing Mind-

scape. Had it not been for the spirited

efforts of Rajesh Rajan, Meenal Puro-

hit, Kothai Priyadharshini ( CSE 2009

batch) and the team, Mindscape and

ASTHA would not have reached where

it is today. I have great faith in the cur-

rent batch of students and I am sure

that they will take the initiatives further.

I thank every one who supported and

sustained me in all my endeavors.

It’s been a real privilege, Thank You!



This is my testimonial.......................................

( for the man who has silently engi-neered an ecstasy called 'Vidya' Am-rita's Digital library )Karthik Sankar.RM.Sc 2005 Batch

Dear Ajai Sir.

I am reaching out to you at this

juncture where I really should be

viewed from a different frame of

reference, and none else than you

sir. I think, currently, there are so

many stuff running in my mind that I

feel I have temporarily lost the clarity

to think objectively. As you know me,

I didn’t think twice about reaching

out to for your help… please guide

me.

When I watched the movie ‘Taare

Zameen Par’, I couldn’t help recalling

you as teacher Nikhumb and myself

as the dyslexic student. Without your

guidance I wouldn’t have scaled the

initial loss of IIT during first year, and

all that I learnt later… And as a per-

son who knows me inside out in the

context discussed above, I felt it

more than necessary to reach out to

you. Kindly let me know your

thoughts sir…This is something that

I can’t discuss at home or friends or

siblings (as I have none)…. It’s over

to you………

Mar 6, 2008

( This alumnus (2004 batch) is asuccessful professional in Europe)Identity protected as requested by the

writer.

VIDYA - The [email protected] the infrastructure development has

been at a rocketing pace in Amrita, which

scores well over many contemporary institu-

tions, I feel that the single largest influence

that changed the learning attitude of students

was initiated by Vidya – the e-Learning

repository of Amrita. When I was a student

(2002) Vidya was in Her fledgling stage

(compared to what She is now), but even

then She was my saviour for 2 of my final

year electives (FEM & Mechatronics). Vidya

for me was an inspiration and guide to my

future of opportunities, teaching me the es-

sentials of engineering, management, philos-

ophy, humanities, spirituality, and creativity

– all capsuled within a mouse-click. Within a

couple of years Vidya has changed academic

attitudes of students from that of routine ed-

ucation to meaningful learning and holistic

development: the latter being the actual pur-

pose of the former. Vidya transcends beyond

teaching subjects, for She guides students

how to Learn.

Nowhere else could I have got to meet

Chanakya, Oscar Schindler, Einstein, Patan-

jali, Edward de Bono, Jack Welch, Prof.

March, Sri Gandhi, Richard Feynman and

Amma, over one single table! And imagine

arriving at a confluence of their ideas and

contemplating over them? That’s exactly

what Vidya made me do: Think. But, that is

the power of Vidya, showing you the broader

aspects of learning and giving you an oppor-

tunity to assimilate within. She was (is) the

gateway of access to any personality I

wanted to learn about, and Oscar Schindler

was a great influence on my concepts of

ethics and morality. Nowhere else could I

have imagined to meet Schindler!

Today, I find that stu-

dents are in a greater pace than we were, but

still finding it hard to keep up with Vidya.

From the latest video lectures to ground

breaking scientific inventions, Vidya has

more to offer than the students could possi-

bly want. But I am immensely happy that

students have fully realised the indispens-

ability of Vidya and are working together to

redefine the process of learning. Vidya, in

many ways, has positively influenced the

peer bonding within Amrita. Today, students

stay back during vacations to enjoy the ab-

solute bliss of learning through Vidya, for the

fun of it (purpose will follow later!). As

probably the most frequently visiting alum-

nus of Ettimadai campus, I have been able to

witness the silent transformation in the stu-

dents’ learning mode, getting healthier every

month, as further confirmed through my in-

teraction with them. Vidya has touched and

changed lives at Ettimadai, and She will con-

tinue to guide generations of students to

come.

Srinivasa Varadhan

Cognizant Technologies, London

( Former Amrita Alumni Vice President

2005-2007 )



ANWESHI May 2008 Page 32 In Depth - VIDYA