Minutes of the Standing Committee Meeting of the National Mission on Education through Information Communication Technology (NMEICT) held on 5th June, 2010 at 11:00 A.M. in the Conference Hall, Institute of Town Planners, India, New Delhi The meeting was chaired by Prof. Mangala Sunder. In addition, the following were present: 1 S. No. I S C Members I 1. 2. 3. 4. Prof. Uma Kanjilal Prof. Pradeep Kaul Prof. Anil Kumar Tripathi Prof. Karmeshu / 5. 1 Dr. Yatindra Nath I.-I 6. 1 Dr. Jayashree Shinde i 7. 1 Prof. Kannan Moudgalya 8. Shri. N. K. Sinha, I.A.S., Joint Secretary and I Mission Director, NMEICT The list of participants is enclosed as Annexure-I. Prof. Mangala Sunder welcomed all the members and prospective Principal Investigators to the Meeting and impressed upon them their role in NMEICT and the collaborative aspect under which projects had to carry out. It was reemphasized to all the applicants that the NMEICT's main goal are on the following: Quality e-content creation Tools for effective & efficient access of contents by everyone. He also explained the parameters on the basis of which the projects would be evaluated by experts and requested all those invited to have their detailed project report for both pilot and thefull project. The following project presentations were made by various investigators to the National Mission on Education through ICT. They are summarized and the recommendations of the SC are given below: 1. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO THE INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS PRESENTED BY: YP KHUBBAR, DIRECTOR(SI&SBM)-NIESBUD (NOIDA) This was a pre-presentation inviting those who are participating to help in indigenous development of small scale technology for which NIESBUD will find financial support from its parent Ministry or NMEICT. I Recommendations of SC No sanction is required.
2. JAVA CERTIFICATION COURSES Control Number : DE-18051010873 Name of PI : Deepa Ganu, Keshav Memorial Institute of Technology (KMIT) SC made it very clear that it will not be in position to recommend certification course development for commercially certifying programmes such as SUNS, Java certification. It requested the PI to identify core conceptual learning components and re-submit. Recommendations of SC: The PI was advised to re-submit the proposal, as above. 3. EAGRIEDU: ICT ENABLED SYSTEM TO ENHANCE AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION CONTROL NO. BE-31 031 01 0775 PROJECT INVESTIGATOR / CO. PROJECT INVESTIGATOR: PROF. B. BHASKAR REDDY, PROF. T. V. K. SINGH, PROF. R. CHANDRASEKHAR Name of the institute(s) : (i) IIIT, Hyderabad : (ii) ANGRAU, R,nagar, Hyderabad : (iii) APHU, Tadepallygudem, W.G, A.P Observations of SC The SC pointed out to the PIS that the parallel development of agricultural content development under Ministry of Agriculture known as NAlP is being created. The PIS were requested to ensure that duplication with Agriculture Ministry sponsored content development be avoided. In addition the modules proposed by PI must also include the number of hours of learning in order for fund allocation to be made appropriately. The PIS were requested to identify modules for the pilot phase project. Recommendations of SC The PI was advised to revise the proposal as above and re-submit a comprehensive list of expert agricultural scientists who would review the pilot DPR.
3. GNUKHATA CONTROL NO. KE-29041010840 PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: KRISHNAKANTH MANE Prof. Shingare from Latur and Krishnakant Mane presented the need for teaching accounting to students from rural areas. Villages also need to do accounting. Unfortunately, however, they have to go to towns to get accountants, as there is no expertise in villages. Typically, shop owners have to shut down their business for one or two days while going to get the accountants. There is sufficient need for every village to have an accountant of its own: "barefoot accountant". It is proposed to train people from rural areas into barefoot accountants and empower them with an open source accounting software. The accountant will then be able to maintain the accounts of the shops of the entire village using just a netbook computer system. A commerce graduate from the village will be ideal. Failing this, a 12th pass person, if trained properly, can also take care of this. Proprietary software packages are expensive; they also require updates, for example, after every change in tax rules. Open source software packages, if properly designed, can be reconfigured by the user every time a change in tax rules comes. The current education system in accounting that uses software relies too much on proprietary software packages, such as, Tally. The students often end up learning Tally, rather than accounting per se. It is proposed to provide training in accounting to rural students from conceptual point of view. It is proposed to develop instructional material in Indian languages. GNLlKhata is an open source software that helps teach accounting in a conceptual manner. It is already used in some colleges to teach accounting. As a part of this project, a web version of this software is proposed to be developed in a period of about six months. The
other open source accounting software packages do not have the web capability. It will be very difficult to provide the web capability to these other software systems. Recommendations of SC: The SC feels that this is an important proposal that needs to be supported. The following recommendations are made: 1. The PIS should come up with a training programme to teaching accounting to rural students in a conceptually correct manner. 2. The PIS can use GNUKhata for this purpose. 3. As Latur is located in the rural area of Maharashtra, it is suggested to develop instructional material using Marathi, apart from English and Hindi. The help of the Spoken Tutorial project at IIT Bombay can be taken in this regard. 4. The Pls could come up with a web version of GNUKhata during the pilot phase. 5. A pilot proposal needs to be uploaded on Sakshat. 6. The project need not be presented to the SC again. After the receipt of the pilot project proposal, the Chairman of SC can forward it to the PAB. 4. INTRODUCTION TO PHOTONICS CONTROL NO.: (CONTROL NO: AE-13051010869) PROJECT INVESTIGATORICO. PROJECT INVESTIGATOR: DR. AALOK PANDYA, JAIPUR ENGINEERING COLLEGE & RESEARCH CENTRE, JAIPUR 302022 Observations of SC The Pl's ideas of course that would be help as an overview summary for all inter-disciplinary Science & Engineering students was welcomed. However, the PI was requested to identify innovative components in learniqg such as to 2D and 3D visual aids and detailed course organization plan that brings out the uniqueness of the course content. The Mission Director reiterated the fact that the PIS should try as much as possible to find a collaborator and
develop contents for national programme. Large levels of publications in Science & Engineering topics will be discouraged. Recommendations of SC The PI was advised to re-submit a revised and elaborative proposal 5-6. MICROSOFT CERTIFIED SOLUTION DEVELOPER AND JAVA CERTIFICATION CONTENT PRESENTED BY: LT COL UMESH B GOGTE (RETD) AND DEEPA GANU,KESHAV MEMORIAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (A UNIT OF KESHAV MEMORIAL EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY) 3-5-1026, NARAYANGUDA, HYDERABAD, ANDHRA PRADESH SC made it very clear that it will not be in position to recommend certification course development for commercially certifyirrg programmes such as Microsoft Development Programme or a programme tailored to JAVA developer suites. It requested the Pls to identify core conceptual learning components not related to a specific product in computer science and technology and re-submit. Recommendations of SC: The Pls were advised to re-submit the proposals, as above. The meeting ended with a Vote of 'Thanks to the Chair.
Attendance of the Standing Committee Meeting held on 5th June, 2010 at 11.00 A.M. under National Mission on Education through Information Communication Technology at Conference Hall, 1st Floor, Institute of Town Planners India, 4-A, Ring Road, I.P. Estate, New Delhi I - No. ( mail ID 1 Dr. Aalok Padva 09413906368 AS". ~rofe;&.iecrc, Jai ur Lt. Col. Umesh B. Gogte KMIT, Hyderabad 3 Ms. Deepa Ganu 1 S. I Name and Designation 1 Contact details, viz., Tel. No./ Mobile No. I E- 1 4 I WIT. Hyderabad Dr. Yatindra Nath Singh Associate Prof. EEIACES, IIT Kanpur U.P. 208016 Mr. Y.P. Khubbar Director ($I & SBM) NIESBUD- Noida (Ministry of MSME) 6 Prof. Kannan ~oudgalg Chemical- Engg., IIT Bombay 945204851 05122597944-Fax ynsingh@ieee.org 7 8 10 Prof. K. Mangala Sunder Deptt. Of Chemistry & NPTEL Coordinater, IIT, Madras, Chennai - 600036 Prof. Anil Kumar Tripathi IT,BHU, Dept. Of Computer Engineering Varanasi-22 1005 Jt. Director (H) IUAC Campus.Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi-110067 Prof. Uma Kanjilal Director, SOSS IGNOU New Delhi (M) 09444008706 9415518418 (0542) 257564863 6702689 (om 2368428 (Fax) 981 0488895 umakaniilal@innou.ac.in
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Prof. B.B. Bhaskar Reddy Res. IT Agriculture & Rural Development Centre Gochibolwly Hydra bad-500032 Mr. P.K. Krishna Reddy IIIT, Hydrabad Prof. Manik K. Shingare MDM College Anrud Shahajari, Tg. Nilanga Dist. Latur (MS) 41 3522 Mr. Krishnakant Mane Co. Principal Investigator GNUKHATA Ms. Anusha Kadambale Project Coordinator GNUKHATA Prof. Karmeshu Computer Science Deptt. School of Computer and Systems Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 1 10067 Dr. Jayashree Shinde Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University Mumbai 9989625236 bhaskarreddv@iit.ac.in 9649329324 pkreddv@iiit.ac.in 942 1 087279 mshin~are@vahoo.com 9820310472 kmane@qmail.com 9869049492 Anusha.kadambale~gmail.com Ph. (0) 26704773,26704767,26742526 9968284874 (R) 2701 4874,2701 3793 Fax - 26742526,26741 586 karmeshu@mail.inu.ac.in karmeshu@gmail.com jssndt@rediffmail.com det(3sndt.a~. in 9820779375