The cloud computing centre that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly on Tuesday would help researchers in Anna University to store and mine large volume of data. The aim is to increase storage facility as servers are not large enough, said a university official.
The need for such a facility had been felt as researchers could not access all libraries for their subject of interest.
The aim is to create a single state facility to enable e-learning process. “It will help to download and store information among universities. It will also help to verify certificates from other universities. In a sense it is part of e-governance,” the official added. The university has been allocated Rs. 50 crore for developing an audio-visual centre where video lectures would be recorded and uploaded for the benefit of engineering students across the State.
The university is also set to develop a research facilitation centre, which would help in product development. “Basically when new research goes on within the community, knowledge about it is limited. The International Centre for Facilitation and Training was initiated in the Vision 2023 document,” said J. Kumar, Director, Planning and Development of the university.
A student with a new idea can dip into the repository to check if anyone has mooted it earlier. “Generally when an academic has an idea the only aim is to publish the research. This centre will help to develop the idea, patent the product and take it forward,” he said.
The university proposes to have regional nodal centres and would also hold annual exhibitions of such products that industry could take up for development, Prof. Kumar said.
