The Kerala Education Grid

Kerala Education Grid project proposes to address the problem of providing quality education in the colleges and universities using TELT by involving the teachers themselves as much as possible. It will establish a network of Education Servers across colleges linked to a few Resource Centres [EGRC] and a central Education Grid Operations Centre [EGOC]. The teachers and the colleges will be supported by the Education Grid project to develop quality content through its services and invoke such educational processes that effectively apply TELT methods. In this endeavour, the project will draw from the large volumes of content available or getting generated over the Internet or by the national level projects such as the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning [NPTEL].

There is a wide variety of issues to be addressed and several innovations to be made in the Higher Education system to benefit from the potential offered by the Education Grid. The vision of Education Grid is to provide quality education to all students independent of geography. The target group is the set of colleges, institutions and universities that constitute the higher education system. This is proposed to be achieved through modernising and equipping the colleges to make TELT methods a way of life in the colleges. The core issue of Education Grid is quality education. Here we state the two major issues addressed by the Education Grid to achieve its objectives. The first is to review the parameters that address quality in Education. The second concerns with the infrastructure, programmes and processes to be supported by the Education Grid project. In a fundamental way, the Education Grid project is different from merely deploying Internet, Education Servers and access to the same. The project has several major areas of operations, each run by its own task forces. All these task forces operate under the supervision of the Apex Project Coordination Unit and supported by either the Education Grid Operations Centre at IIITM-K, or, the Resource Centres proposed to be established in leading institutions.

The task forces that are assigned to create and sustain the Course Knowledge and Collaboration Space [CKCS] in identified courses are central to the Education Grid functions. Each CKCS task force will be duly constituted and approved by the APCU and called as Course Expert Group [CEG]. Each CEG will be rooted to one of the EGRCs or the EGOC. For example, 1st Year Mathematics for B.E/B.Tech/B.Sc. programmes will have its own CEG and associated network of Mathematics teachers and students across the colleges.