Breaking barriers
G. KRISHNAKUMAR
IGNOU has embarked on several programmes aimed at stepping up its ICT-based educational services offered across the country. The ‘virtual classroom’ project is one among them.
According to the university authorities, the objective is to set up study centres at 3,000 railway stations in the country in association with the government-owned Railtel Corporation of India Ltd.
Vice Chancellor V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai said that the university would offer its academic programmes through these study centres. IGNOU will utilise Railtel’s high-speed optic fibre cable network (OFC) to provide educational content.
Students can interact with teachers using the university’s distance-learning modules and online tests at these virtual colleges. The move was part of IGNOU’s efforts to extend its reach to the interiors of the country.
The university has also plans to set up study centres at railway stations in rural areas, apart from tier II and tier III cities. Railtel has laid about 30,000 km of OFC network. For the project, it will offer land, bandwidth and data centres to IGNOU.
The university also acts as a national resource centre for expertise and infrastructure for the open and distance learning (ODL) system. It has developed e-gyankosh, a unique digital repository giving open access to all its materials.
Steps toward strengthening research in the area of ODL and enhancement of the domain knowledge in all the core disciplines of humanities, social sciences, arts and basic sciences, using the technology-intensive ODL, are being given top priority now.
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