INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE
In the present world, which is dynamic and knowledge based, universities have a much wider role to play in creating, preserving, organizing, transmitting and applying knowledge. Modern educational technologies developed from information technology will certainly change in terms of access, interaction, curriculum and instruction etc. The physical locations and facilities will be less important in defining a college or a university due to the easy on-line access of the educational resources of a higher educational institution to the urban as well as rural public. This will provide opportunities to our high school graduated youths from rural areas as well as urban youths to access higher education without a need to forgo their working and earning opportunities to physically attend a college or a university. So universities need to adopt modern education technologies to provide increase access to knowledge resources.
Online technologies are going to make traditional class room teaching less important in many subjects except where it is absolutely necessary. Therefore interaction between teachers and students will have to play a vital role in imparting higher quality education. This means that more frequent and effective internal mechanism of interaction between university faculty and students need to be developed. This, in turn, causes an external relationship between universities and non-university communities. Such external relationship will necessitate universities to respond quickly to the changes in the outside world. Therefore a mechanism to increase both the internal and external interaction efficiencies has to be developed.
The curriculum and instruction are going to be changed greatly. Because the new technologies make the learning and teaching easier, the contents of some courses will be expanded, a considerable number of new courses will be generated, interdisciplinary courses and studies will be more possible. Students and faculties will contribute together to the development of curriculum.
Modern higher education technologies will also change present instructional methods to a more effective one. The faculties will have to adopt an instructional method best suited to the class of students whom they target or to develop new methods best suited for them based on their feedback. Video conferencing techniques, simulators and on-line access to many practical training kits will revolutionize instructional methods.
During last eight years, Mohanlal Sukhadia University has created basic Information Technology infrastructure in the campus in order to provide quality higher education to students and to provide proper academic and research environment to support University’s endeavor for excellence. The basic information Technology infrastructure created in the university is comparable to one of the best facilities available in any other universities in the country. An overview of these facilities available in the university campuses are as follows
Main Computing Systems
Computer Softwares
University Internet Centre established in the year 1997 with the help of State Government of Rajasthan with the following objectives:
The Internet Centre which was located in the Department of Physics at Old campus was shifted to the Vigyan Bhawan in the main campus in 2003. Following facilities are located in the both campuses
Internet Centre , Vigyan Bhawan, Main Campus
University Intranet facilities
· Compaq Proliant ML350 Server configured as Windows ADS Server
· Compaq Proliant ML310 Server configured as Mail Server
· SUN Netra Web Server
· Pentium-III based PC’s configured as Network monitoring and backup servers
· DLINK Firewall & Layer 3 switches
· 10KVA UPS
Main Campus Network
100Mbps Ethernet LAN with
1500mtrs OFC backbone connecting following departments and units
·
Computer Centre
·
Faculty of Management Studies
·
College of Social Sciences and Humanities (All departments under
faculties of social sciences and Humanities)
·
University Administrative offices
·
University Central library
·
University Examination block
Old
campus Network
100Mbps Ethernet LAN with 1200mtrs OFC backbone connecting following departments and units
·
College of Science
(All departments under Science faculty)
·
College of Commerce and Management Studies(All departments under
commerce faculty)
All University Departments and Units of the university are equipped with Personal computers with Internet Access. All research laboratories have their own Computer Systems with Internet access. Through the campus network all major computers systems are also accessible. In addition to the main Computer and Internet centres of the university, inorder to develop infrastructure facilities and to provide laboratory facilities computer centers were also established in all major departments and units. Following are the main computer centers established with the help of UGC, DST and university Development Funds
A Computer Centre established with the help of University
Grants Commission and under University
development fund provides
facilities for Computer training to MA and B.A students and researchers. Windows
NT/2000 server and 20 Pentium computer system along with Digital Alpha
workstation available under DST research project are used for training in
Computer Applications and GIS
Department of Botany has established a computer center in the department
under DST FIST programme to meet
computational and Internet access
work in Botany and biotechnology research.
Compaq proliant server and a
network of
10 Pentium 4
computers are available in the center and research labs.
A Computer Center under MIB
programme along with computers at various departments and libraries in the
college are used to provide
computer training, computational work
and Internet access to teachers,
research scholars and students of BBM, MIB and MHRM courses.
A Computer Center established at the Department of Geology
with centralized and distributed facilities
in the department to meet Geological
computational needs. The computer
center facilities are also used for entrepreneurship training programme.
Department has developed and maintaining a website to provide information about
geological resources
A computer center with following facilities are established in the University Central library for computerization and Internet access
Computers are installed in all sections of the library to enable users to access catalogue, Internet access, access to INFLIBNET center etc.
In addition to the above following computer centers also established to meet computerization of university administration
UNIVERSITY INTRANET
FOR COMPUTERISATION OF ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE
FUNCTIONS
University has already computerized most of administrative functions including University library, University Accounts, Establishment, Examinations etc. In the year 2003, University has decided to automize all academic and administrative functions with following objectives
University has conducted a system study for the implementation of the above during next five years in a phased manner. Following facilities are available on the University Intranet and under testing.
ELECTRONIC JOURNAL & E-CONTENT
ACCESS
Under UGC Infonet Programme, full text of research papers published in various research journals are accessible to teachers and research scholars of the University. At present access to about 1500 journals published by following publishers are available through university Intranet
COURSES & TRAINING
University offers following courses and training programmes
in the area of Information technology
In addition to above courses, specilization papers/ Computer Application papers are
included in the following courses