All state universities to go digital

Soon, all the seven State-run universities will go digital. As a part of reforms, the Higher Education Department has decided to go ahead with digitalisation of Utkal, Sri Jagannath Sanskrit Viswavidyalaya, Berhampur, Ravenshaw, North Odisha, Fakir Mohan and Sambalpur universities.

With this, admission to publication of results will become online, paperless and information regarding students’ enrolment, examination dates, among other things, would be available at the click of the mouse.

A meeting of the higher authorities of the department, Odisha Knowledge Corporation Limited (OKCL) and Vice-Chancellors of

universities was held this week where a decision on signing of MoUs between the universities and the OKCL was taken.

Accordingly, OKCL authorities visited all the seven universities and gave presentations on the benefits of the digitisation project.

Gagan Dhal, Secretary of the Department, said the digital university model would help universities offer one-stop solution to different issues like managing students and colleges. Students would benefit as they would be given personalised login to access e-learning, examination schedules and relevant alerts.

For university authorities, digitisation would mean minimising paper work and better management of academic and administrative process, he added.

Santosh Berari, Managing Director of OKCL, said MoUs with the universities are expected to be signed by August 20.

“Under the digitisation project, each student of the universities will get a personalised login. We call it e-Suvidha. From admission/registration forms to information about examination dates, competitive examinations, career options, job opportunities, everything will be provided to them in the personalised login,” he said.

Berari added that software required for the purpose has already been developed and once the MoUs are signed, the software would be installed in the universities and training of authorities will begin.

Every information about the universities will be stored in the central database server of OKCL.

“We are not challenging the existing system, but we are trying to make it more effective, transparent, paperless and quicker. In the coming years, the number of students will rise, but the manpower in universities will remain the same. Under these circumstances, the digitisation project will come in handy for them,” he said, adding that OKCL is hopeful of implementing the project in next three to four months and it would be functional in 2014-15 academic session.

Sources in the department said while in the first year the digitisation software will be implemented for free, from the second year, Rs 100 will be charged from each student towards maintenance of the system.

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