Report
of the National
Workshop on
EMERGING
TRENDS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
(August
25-27, 2015)
Organized by
Association
of Indian Universities (AIU) New Delhi
National
Institute Of Technology (NIT) Silchar
Held at
National Institute of Technology Silchar
INTRODUCTION
The phenomenal growth of
information and application of IT in the form of high degree of computerization
and transmission of electronic information has changed the basic structure and
functioning of university level institutions in some of the developed
countries. Even in the developing countries effective functioning of
universities in the present era is conditioned by automation and
computerization of management. Although projects of automation and modernization
through use of computers have tremendously speeded up activities like
transactions, management, decision making in corporate sector of India,
universities are still lagging behind in this area. The use of computer and application of IT in
the administration, finance, examination, teaching, learning process etc. in
the universities are still at initial stages. Time has come when application of
IT is inevitable, if the universities have to realize their goals effectively.
This requires not only suitable infrastructure but also trained managers in the
said areas.
On the said backdrop a National
Workshop on Emerging Trends in Information Technology in University Management
was jointly organised by Association of Indian Universities (AIU) and National
Institute of Technology Silchar was held at National Institute of Technology
Silchar during August 25-27, 2015. It was attended by about 27 top level and
middle level university officials of different universities across the country.
The workshop had provided opportunities for senior administrators/ managers/
finance officers of university level institutions to learn as well as
deliberate on the issues related to use of computer and application of
information technology in the administration and management of universities in
India.
The workshop aimed to provide
opportunities for senior administrators/ managers/ finance officers of
university level institutions to learn as well as deliberate on the issues
related to use of computer and application of information technology in the
administration and management of universities in India.The objectives of the
workshop were as follows:
Ø To sensitize administrators about the recent developments in information
technology.
Ø To train the administrators in the use of computers and application of
IT for improving the quality and efficiency of university management and
decision-making.
THE MAIN THEMES OF THE WORKSHOP WERE
·
To understand the present status of universities in terms of acquisition
and use of the recent developments in the information technology (IT) for
improving the administration, and teaching learning process.
·
To understand the environment within the universities for accepting the
challenges arising out of the application of information technologies in
administration, and academics.
·
To understand the planning for application of information technology in realizing
the goals of the university.
·
To understand the assessment of training needs for various uses of
computers and application of information technologies in administrative,
pedagogical and research activities of universities and software requirements
thereof.
·
To understand the use and application of IT in the university management
and administration.
The workshop aimed to sensitise the administrators of the university
management system about the recent developments in the domain of information
technology and to train the administrators in the use of computers and
applications of Information Technology for improving the quality and efficiency
of decision making at the university level saw 27 participants (including
2 Directors, 6 Registrars, 3 Finance and Accounts Officers, 3 Controller of
Examinations, 2 IT Managers, 2 Academic Staffs, 2 Faculties, and 7 others) from 21 universities across the
country and even from neighbouring country Bhutan. Total there were 20 nos. of experts called for
delivering lecture & conducting practical tutorials.
INTRODUCTORY CUM INAUGURAL SESSION
In the
beginning of the Workshop, the introductory remark was given by the Workshop Coordinator Dr. K. C.
Satpathy, Librarian & Coordinator, BARC Akruti Project, NIT Silchar. He
said that the application of Information & Communication Technology
for improvising the university administration still remains a grey area in the
university set up in India due various factors such as resistance to change,
mindset of the people & lack of adequate financial resources. However, this need to be changed for
achieving the quality in higher education in India, he observed.
In welcome address, Prof. A. K. Barbhuiya,
Registrar, NIT, Silchar, emphasized about the impact of computerization on various
walks of life that has significantly contributed to the development of the
society. He stressed that the management in higher education cannot escape this
impact & university administrators has to act proactively to achieve this
target.
Dr. Amarendra Pani, Deputy Director I/c,
Research Division, Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi, outlined the
concept & rationale behind the workshop. He mentioned
that the management of university administration has two components, viz.,
academic and administrative, both of which need to be functional & efficient.
For this, it is essential that the administrative set up be tuned to faster
planning and execution of programmes. The important areas are automation of
offices, admissions and examinations which may be achieved through
computerization and networking the offices and departments. It is, therefore,
necessary to sensitize the administrators who have the important role in
implementing decisions.
Addressing the
gathering, Chief Guest Dr. K. S. Selvakumar, Head C-DAC Silchar said that
keeping pace with the globalizing trends is becoming the inevitability. Accountability to the stakeholders, primarily
the students should therefore, be the prime mission of university administration,
facilitating interaction between students and administration through use of IT.
He further mentioned that the first and most important thing is to improve the system
and suggested that computerization may lead to improve the efficiency and
delivery in the university system by creating data bank and linking various
departments and offices of the university. He also said that tools like Moodle which offers open source
learning system are bringing about a change in the pattern from instructor
driven approach of learning to a more learner oriented approach where learners
have more control over the major issues.
Guest of Honour Prof. N N Pandey,
Department of Education, Assam University, Silchar while addressing the
gathering said that university administration should nurture the idea of
prioritising institutional growth above everything else. He also stressed that
it is the university administrators who are the driving force for bringing
efficiency in the system.
By addressing
the gathering, Prof. N. V. Deshpande, Director NIT Silchar, touched upon the most vital chord of
changing the mind-set of the people towards application of IT. Administration in the university should be
student friendly and accordingly updating of technological support is
essential, he said, while pointing out that the inhibition to the use of
technology must be shaded. Prof NV Deshpande also said that it is
the technology which is bringing about a sweeping change in the county’s
development scenario and people must accept the changes for better results.
Presenting the
Vote of Thanks, Dr. Kishore Chandra Satpathy, thanked AIU, New Delhi for
providing this opportunity to NIT Silchar to host the Workshop. He also thanked
the members of the Organizing Committee of the Workshop and his own team of Central
Library, NIT Silchar for making the necessary arrangements for the Workshop.
TECHNICAL SESSIONS
The
entire Workshop was divided into seven Technical Sessions, viz.,
The
first technical session started with a talk by Dr. Amarendra Pani (AIU) on the
topic “General Introduction Challenges and pit-falls in University Administration
Automation” in which he highlighted that modern tool like Information
Technology are of great help in improving the university system.
Prof. Fazal
Talukdar, Department of ECE, NIT Silchar, discussed the “Leveraging ICT for
administrative efficiency- need for CIO”. He highlighted the importance of CIO
in the higher education system setup.
In the next
session, Dr. T. R. Lenka of Department of ECE, NIT Silchar discussed on “High
Performance Computing (HPC) in Higher Education and Research” and pointed out
the need of HPC in Higher Education & Research, problem solving capacities
of HPC.
Ms. Tahseen Afroz
Khanday, Solution sales manager, Elsevier South Asia, discussed about the
“Research & Ranking- BRICS”.
Dr. Wasim Arif of
Department of ECE NIT Silchar talked about “Innovation and Higher Education:
Indian Perspective”. He discussed about National Innovation Foundation and
Council, importance of Innovation culture in the educational setup. He presented
a case study of the Innovation Lab created at NIT Silchar.
In the third session,
Dr. Arup Bhattacharjee, Associate Prof., Department of CSE NIT Silchar discussed
on “Issues and Challenges in campus wide Networking”. He observed that
application of ICT needs involvement of management in facilitating
technological support, and involvement of faculty and students in reciprocating
to the same. In spite of powerful network & servers and proper storage of information, the system will
not achieve the target without proper dedicated manpower.
In the next session,
Mr. Mithilesh Kumar, Head, Central Computer Centre, NIT Silchar discussed about
the “Enterprise Campus Networks” where he touched upon the Traditional Campus
Network, Topology & Network Requirements, Bandwidth utilization,
Multiplexing, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Link Aggregation Control Protocol
(LACP), Proxies & Tools and Security requirements. He focussed on website,
e-mail, intranet, importance and maintenance of networking, etc. Followed
by Dr. Sudipta Roy, Head of Information Technology, Assam University Silchar
who discussed about “ERP Solutions for University Automation”.
Dr. K. L. Baishnab of Department of ECE NIT
Silchar talked on “Importance of Cloud
Computing in Higher Education” He highlighted on various aspect of Cloud
Computing such as cloud service Model, Traditional infrastructure Model,
Utility Infrastructure Model, Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a
Service (PaaS) and Advantage and Disadvantage of cloud computing.
In the Session-V,
participants visited to HPC & Innovation Lab of NITS and went to visit Assam
University Silchar and interacted with Vice Chancellor Prof. Somnath Dasgupta &
also Registrar and Finance officer of Assam University Silchar on various
aspect of IT application on university administration.
In Session-VI Mr. Ripon Patgiri of CSE Deptt. NIT Silchar talked
about “Big Challenges in Big Data”. He also presented & demonstrated the learning
management system application of NIT Silchar. Mr. N. Amit Kumar Sinha & Aashutosh
Kumar. C-DAC Silchar Centre focussed on the Open Source Software & specially
on “Moodle”. Realizing the importance of libraries in the academic institution,
an exclusive session was organized on integrated library software on "Koha".
Ms. Happy Nath & Mr. Barga Deori, C-DAC Silchar Centre delivered a
comprehensive lecture on "KOHA ILS” in which they discussed on various modules
of Koha and also technical parts including administration and customization and
also discussed on online searching in Koha.
In the
concluding session, Dr. K. S. Selvakumar, Head C-DAC Centre Silchar delivered a
talk on “Parikshak” is an Automated Program Grading Tool which allows teachers
to conduct programming in Online Mode with auto-evaluation of subjects
programming assignments. The sessions were followed by active interactions
among participants.
In
the workshop Prof. Susheel Mittal, Dy Director, Thaper University, Patiala shared
his experience in automating the university system at TU Patiala. Dr. Satyaki Bhattacharjee,
Controller of Examination, Jadavpur University Kolkata, shared his various
experience about ICT in examination branch. He enlightened the delegates about the
use of computer and information technology in university examination system.
Mr.
Nitin Patil, IT Manager, Savitribai Phule, Pune University also shared his
experience. Speaking
on the role of IT in university administration, he appraised the delegates
about the strength and shortfalls of Information Technology in India till date and
focused on Pune University’s venture in facilitating IT in various sectors,
particularly in establishing triple connectivity (audio, video and data).
VALEDICTORY SESSION
Speaking at the valedictory session of the three-day
national workshop the Chief Guest, Prof. Somnath Dasgupta, Vice Chancellor,
Assam University, Silchar said the varsity is adapting the changes in
information technology for ensuring better management. “We
are largely benefitted by the varied technological sources regarding our
admission procedure, financial management and examination paper works. Soon
other branches of university administration will also be technologically
upgraded,” Prof Dasgupta said adding that admissions for the 2015 session were
done online. Prof Dasgupta said that role of information technology has been
significant from admission procedure to examinations. However, there is great
reluctance in adapting the IT based operations, which he believes is because of
the fear of being caught. He added to say that the government is playing a
proactive role in disseminating the benefits of technology by promoting
programmes like the digital India week.
Dr Amarendra Pani, Dy Director in-charge of Research
Division of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), New Delhi said that
in the present day context, there has been a metamorphic change in higher
education. IT has enabled a significant change where students are making the
schedule and the institutes are complying with it, unlike the yesteryears
concept of institutes preparing the examination programmes for the students. He
underscored the fact that even as technology provides a huge room for
development, the pitfalls of the process must also be addressed carefully.
Prof NB Biswas, Dean, Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay School of
Educational Science at Assam University, Silchar opined that machines and
technology will help us if there is a strong will to solve the problems. The
machines and managers operating the machines at the universities must keep a
close vigil to stop activities like in-campus ragging etc., he maintained.
Prof M.A Ahmed, Dean, Students Welfare at NIT Silchar in his
presidential address said that the rapid proliferation of IT is narrowing
the geographical distances bring the like-minded scholars to contribute towards
development.
Prof AK Sinha, Dean Academics gave the welcome address. Some
of the participants also shared their experiences of learning the ways of
better management applying the IT based options.
Dr. Kishor Chandra Satpathy, Librarian at NIT Silchar the
host coordinator of the workshop said that the sessions were an
opportunity for the senior administrators, managers and finance officers of university
level institutions to learn and deliberate on the issued based on computer
applications in the administration and management of universities in India. A
book Library 2.0 authored by Dr K C Satpathy was released by Prof. Somnath Dasgupta
on the occasion.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE
WORKSHOP
Some of the suggestions/recommendations which emerged
from the five day workshop were as follows:
1.
AIU to
organise separate workshop for university officials of different level.
2.
Two
days brain storming programme for Registrars may be designed regarding emerging
technology in university management.
3.
University
Librarians, Deputy Librarians and Assistant librarians should be sensitized
through separate workshops.
4.
Universities
must provide opportunities for ICT training and develop clear policies,
guidelines and strategies for better use of ICT equipment by all.
5.
It should
be made mandatory for university to maintain database of students and
faculties.
6.
Success
stories of students and faculties of universities should be displayed on their
respective websites.
7.
AIU
should show case the success stories of those Universities who have successfully
employed ICT in different functions of University.
FOR UPDATES ABOUT THE WORKSHOP,
KINDLY VISIT THE FOLLOWING SITE.
PHOTOGRAPHS: The photographs (500+) of the conference have been uploaded. To access the same, please follow the links.
Book Release:
Inaugural Session of AIU
Workshop@NITSilchar:
Certificate / Memento Distribution at
NITS& AIU Workshop:
Individual Photo@AIU_NITS Workshop:
Presentations@AIU Workshop at NITS:
Visit to AU Silchar:
Visit to Tea Garden
Valedictory Function@NITS_AIU
Workshop
Participants:
NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS: The newspaper clipping (23 Nos)
of AIU workshop have been uploaded to
the Blog. To access the same please follow the link:
PPTs: The PPTs of the workshop and conference have been uploaded to: http://www.slideshare.net/ksatpathy .
