The Hindu : Satellite-based e-learning programme launched

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Satellite-based e-learning programme launched

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JAN. 28. The Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, launched a satellite based e-learning project that will benefit students of 113 engineering colleges affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), at the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) here on Wednesday.

The pilot programme is a joint initiative of VTU, ISRO, and the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Application Centre to introduce distance/e-learning using "multicasting and interactive multimedia" systems.

The pilot phase will be used to develop "new high quality content", gain experience in multicasting with satellite return channel, and optimise system parameters, a release said. Mr. Krishna viewed an inaugural lecture from ISAC, beamed via the INSAT 3A satellite, to some 70 of the 113 engineering colleges in the State.

The lecture, delivered at the city studio of VTU's Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT), reached students in 64 colleges in the Bangalore region and six in the Mysore region of the university.

The pilot project is being run to gear up for a larger countrywide programme, to start after ISRO launches its GSAT 3 (EDUSAT) satellite, in September. VTU is one three universities in the country participating in the pilot programme. The other two are Yashwantrao Chavan Open University in Maharashtra and Rajiv Gandhi Technological University in Madhya Pradesh.

The larger countrywide programme could cost some Rs. 3,000 crore over three to five years. The pilot project, expected to last two years, would cost Rs. 90 crore.

G. Madhavan Nair, ISRO Chairman, said: "This is going to make an impact at the national level and, in the course of the next two years, it will be spread across the nation."

In the first phase, a Ku-band transponder of INSAT-3A, which is in orbit, will be used to link over 100 classrooms in each of the three States.

After EDUSAT is launched by an indigenous Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket, the second phase will be a "semi-operational project" covering about 100 to 200 classrooms per beam, while adding two more States and one institution.

By March when the new semesters start, all the remaining colleges in the State, including those in Gulbarga and Belgaum regions, will be networked with VSAT connections.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka