Get copies of answer scripts via email soon - southindia - Karnataka - ibnlive

BANGALORE: Waiting for a copy of your answer script will be history soon in Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).
With the revaluation process at VTU going digital from this year, students can now receive a copy through email immediately.
VTU Vice Chancellor H Maheshappa said, “We get over six lakh answer scripts from engineering streams alone. All these answer scripts are dispatched to the Belgaum Centre immediately after exams where all the answer scripts will be scanned and stored in the main server.” Earlier, teachers were required to travel to specific centres for evaluation of a particular subject. However, from this year the scanned copies can be accessed by evaluators from any place.
Maheshappa said that the teachers will evaluate the scanned copies digitally and marks will be allotted online.
By adopting digital technology, the VC hopes that the evaluation process will be transparent and free from errors.
When asked about the cost of scanning the answer scripts, he said that the cost is much less compared to the travelling allowance and dearness allowance that were paid to the teachers.
This is also applicable to the students of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Masters in Computer Application (MCA).

Schemes for Providing Financial Assistance for Preservation of Manuscripts/Rare Books Revised to Enhance the Financial Assistance to the Beneficiaries

Schemes for Providing Financial Assistance for Preservation of Manuscripts/Rare Books Revised to Enhance the Financial Assistance to the Beneficiaries
Since 1986, the National Archives of India, Union Ministry of Culture has been operating two Schemes for providing financial assistance for preservation of manuscripts/rare books to registered voluntary organisations/ educational institutions/individuals including private museums, libraries, colleges, universities, deemed universities for listing, cataloguing, evaluation, translation and publication of manuscripts/rare books, etc.; and to the State/ Union Territory Archival Repositories, Government Libraries and Museums, for augmenting their developmental activities and for the preservation, publication, microfilming, computerization and compilation of manuscripts in their custody. Both the Schemes were last modified in 1998. However, in order to keep pace with the changing environment and the need based demand for preservation of our heritage, further modifications have been made to widen the scope of both the Schemes as well as to enhance the financial assistance to be given to the beneficiaries.

Consequently, both the Schemes operated by the National Archives of India have been revised. The scope of the Scheme for the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) /individuals to be known as ‘Scheme of Financial Assistance for Preservation of Manuscripts/Rare Books’, has been widened to include archival photographs & prints (including oleographs & lithographs). The Scheme would also provide financial assistance for digitization of manuscripts/ rare books, archival photographs & prints (including support for digitization job work as well as purchase of equipments viz. Camera, Scanner, Computer printer, and Copier). The maximum limit of financial assistance under this Scheme has been enhanced from existing Rs.2 lakhs to Rs. 10 lakhs per project per annum. The eligible beneficiaries would now be able to avail of the assistance by applying in prescribed format, whose applications are required to be forwarded by the State Level Screening Committees constituted for the purpose.

The other Scheme to be known as ‘Financial Assistance to State/Union Territory Archival Repositories, Government Libraries and Museums’ has also been similarly revised to include preservation/digitization of records/manuscripts/rare books, archival photographs, prints (including oleographs and lithographs) and electronic records, air-conditioning of muniment rooms, purchase of computer, materials/equipments for reprography/conservation and for construction/addition alteration/renovation of the building. The maximum limit of financial assistance under this Scheme has been enhanced from Rs.10 lakhs to Rs.50 lakhs.

A one-time financial assistance upto Rs. 50 lakhs is also proposed to be provided in respect of the archival records which are recommended as records of National Importance by an Expert Committee to be constituted for this purpose.

The Grants Committee under the Chairmanship of the Director General of Archives would implement both these Schemes for financial assistance with the ultimate objective of encouraging and facilitating the preservation of documentary heritage of the country. The Schemes would become operational w.e.f. this financial year, 2011-2012.

Handle System

Welcome to the Handle System

The Handle System, developed by Corporation for National Research Initiatives, is an infrastructure on which applications serving many different purposes have been built. Among the objects we know of that are identified by handles are journal articles, technical reports, books, theses and dissertations, government documents, metadata, distributed learning content, and data sets. Handles are being used in digital watermarking applications, GRID applications, and repositories, registries and more.

Further it provides efficient, extensible, and secure resolution services for unique and persistent identifiers of digital objects, and is a component of CNRI's Digital Object Architecture. Digital Object Architecture provides a means of managing digital information in a network environment. A digital object has a machine and platform independent structure that allows it to be identified, accessed and protected, as appropriate. A digital object may incorporate not only informational elements, i.e., a digitized version of a paper, movie or sound recording, but also the unique identifier of the digital object and other metadata about the digital object. The metadata may include restrictions on access to digital objects, notices of ownership, and identifiers for licensing agreements, if appropriate...

UGC job breather for PhDs

UGC job breather for PhDs

BASANT KUMAR MOHANTY
New Delhi, June 11: A controversial UGC decision that virtually made thousands of PhD holders ineligible for appointment as college or university teachers unless they had cleared the National Eligibility Test is most likely to be withdrawn.

A source said the University Grants Commission (UGC) would meet next week to reconsider that decision, which exempted only those who had obtained their doctorates under tough quality standards similar to those implemented in July 2009.

The MPhil and PhD regulations the commission put in place in 2009 said persons aspiring for teaching jobs in universities and colleges would have to clear the National Eligibility Test (NET) or the State-Level Eligibility Test (SLET).

However, those who had done their doctorates under guidelines similar to the new PhD regulations or those already employed did not need to clear the tests...............