How educational institutions in India are using IT

IIM -Lucknow

“The automation of student registration processes, admissions, placement,
accounting systems has been in place at IIM Lucknow for more than a decade. IIM-L
students have been running an Intranet portal called Blondie for almost a
decade. The  Blondie server available on IIM-L intranets integrates many
collaborative technologies, for creating, disseminating, and sharing information
among the student community. The collaborative services are further augmented by
'Claronline' course management system for managing the learning resources.

The integration of these two services on Intranet platform offers completely
seamless connectivity and sharing amongst the faculty and student community.
Currently, we are in the process of integrating all our IT solutions for various
functions using ERP platform. The other thrust area, is the implementation of
virtual classrooms at both of our Lucknow and NOIDA campuses. It is due to the
high degree of reliance of IT infrastructure we have been able to scale up to
three times increase in PGP intake, multi-fold increase in training and launch
of several programs with marginal change in support staff strength”.

Vidya Niketan School Bangalore

Vidya Niketan School Bangalore has implemented the Promethean's Active
Whiteboards through Almoe Digital Signage Solutions. This interactive whiteboard
is a large interactive display that combines an interactive whiteboard with the
power of a computer and front projection, enabling anything that can be seen or
done on a computer screen to be projected onto an interactive whiteboard
capturing the interest of the students through images, video and audio,
enhancing interaction and retention. The educators utilize
Prometheanlearning.com as a resource centre and download and prepare the board
for specific teaching modules.

IMT Ghaziabad and XIMB Bhubhaneshwar

IMT Ghaziabad and XIMB Bhubhaneshwar are using NIS L.I.V.E (L.I.V.E. — acronym
for Learning in Interactive Virtual Environment), a tele-education network,
providing interactive tele-education services across the country, to provide
executive education programs to working executives who wish to pursue management
programs, but being within the comforts of their own city.  NIS L.I.V.E is an
initiative of NIS Sparta, which uses video conferencing based platform to
establish virtual multi-classroom environment with two-way interaction &
collaboration among its educators and students. As part of this platform, a live
virtual studio environment has been created, which is connected to remote
location delivery points (class-rooms) in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai,
Kolkata, and Bhubaneswar. The instructor delivers lectures in a studio that may
be located within the respective management institution and the enrolled
students attend the sessions at the remote classrooms, enabling them to attend
live lectures, interact with the professor and view the content which is being
delivered during the session.

ITM Gurgaon

An interaction with Deepak Satyarthi, IT Head, ITM, Gurgaon threw light on
how IT is being utilized in facilitating education at ITM.

" Class room teaching at ITM is supported by an e-learning portal called
Learning Management Systems (LMS) that aims at providing students with online
access to the various course contents using a single access point. The system is
interactive with knowledge base of lecture plans, tutorials, assignments,
previous year question papers etc. Students are encouraged to visit the web
site, prepare themselves before coming to the class for better understanding of
complex engineering concepts. It is envisaged that LMS facilitates better
learning in a friendly environment.  This system is accessible to all students
enabling them to conveniently access information related to the different
subjects running through the semester. It gives a brief picture of the
proceedings for a particular subject. ITM's LMS is based on Moodle, the open
source e-learning system which is a free web aplication that educators can use
to create effective online learning sites. One of the most eminent advantages of
Moodle is that it facilitates collaborative work and is designed under a social
constructivist philosophy. This philosophy allows for a student-centered
environment where learners are able to work independently, reflecting on their
own work and on the work of other students, while at the same time being
connected to a group of learners who can share ideas and reflect on each other's
work."

Amity University

An interaction with J.S.Sodhi, AVP-IT, Amity University threw light on how
IT is being utilized in facilitating education at Amity.

"We have an intranet portal Amizone, to which every individual student and
faculty staff has been given a login id. This portal enables the faculty
members, research associates and students to work in a collaborative manner on
the same project, thus bringing together various domain stakeholders of same
interest. Now it's easy for them to identify whether an intended project has
been already being done by peers, or some similar projects have been done. Under
a special agreement with Youtube, we have set up Amity University channel on
Youtube - Youtube.com/amityuniversity, which allows us to design our own portal,
change its look and feel, upload video clips without any time limit, create
various playlists etc. Using this channel we are transmitting events, programs
and lectures. We are already doing Class Room Recordings and now we want to make
Live & Recorded Sessions, and exams available on mobiles also."