Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) in Mysuru, the State’s only open university, has come forward to put an end to tonnes of paper used for printing study material. It is mulling over giving notes in the electronic form, thanks to a mobile application it has proposed to launch in January 2020, for the January cycle of admissions.
Also, if the State government supports its e-drive, the KSOU will provide each student a tablet with pre-loaded syllabus, lessons and other information as per the choice of the course. The large screen in the tablet will be convenient for them to prepare for the examinations, it argues.
Vice-Chancellor S. Vidyashankar told The Hindu that the app-route proposed by the KSOU was an eco-friendly initiative as it helps cut down the use of tonnes of paper for printing study materials for over 31 courses two times a year.
He said the KSOU’s Board of Management had approved the proposal and KEONICS had been approached on the plan. “We wish to launch the app that can be accessed by students from their smartphones from January 2020 when the admissions commence.”
Prof. Vidyashankar said the KSOU had proposed to seek a special grant from the State government to realise its plan of providing a tablet to each student. “There has been no grant whatsoever from the government all these years to the KSOU. If it supports our digital drive, we hope to distribute the tablet to make learning convenient for thousands of candidates who come from various background and professions.”
The KSOU’s idea is to give user ID and password to each student for accessing the digital platform for the payment of fees, downloading notes, interacting with the resource persons, and for other functions and activities.
Video classrooms
The KSOU is also planning to launch multipoint video classrooms to facilitate the students who can attend contact classes at places closer to their home towns instead of coming to Mysuru spending on commuting and stay.
The VC said the KSOU had 12 regional centres across the State and students could attend classes at the respective centres where videos of classes recorded in Mysuru from the resource persons would be showed. “We spend around ₹1 crore on the contact classes alone. This way, the cost will be come down not just for the KSOU but also for students,” he argued. Prof. Vidyashankar said the funds for launching the video classes had been sought from the Centre, which is pushing digital learning initiative.
