The Xavier University, Bhubaneswar on Thursday launched the country’s first digital university, the Xavier Digital University, here.
Agriculture, Fisheries & Animal Resources Minister Pradeep Maharathy and law and Panchayati Raj Minister Dr Arun Sahu graced the inaugural function.
Maharathy emphasised on the need to be in sync with the developments in the education sector and said he would extend his all support towards the growth of the Xavier University.
On this occasion, Minister Sahu interacted with students to understand their needs and to remind them of their responsibilities to the society.
IBM Regional Manager Mayank Jha gave a brief account of how the IBM contributed towards establishing the digital university. Jha also spoke about the possibility of IBM co-developing new programmes with the Xavier University for the next academic year.
Juniper Networks Pvt ltd senior consultant Kiran Mohan Das elaborated on the high-speed optical networking that has gone into building the backbone of the project.
HP India Sales Pvt ltd chief technical officer M lakshmi Narayan Rao informed that the ‘Xavier Cloud’ a system, has been formed to make all information available online at all times.
Vice-Chancellor & Director of the XIMB, Xavier University Fr Paul Fernandes SJ pointed out that with the changing times the needs of the future managers have changed and, hence, the methodologies to train them must adapt accordingly.
The Xavier Digital University would provide many modern tools and features to the teachers, students and management enabling efficient research and teaching methodologies. It includes several key technologies like ‘Xavier Videobook’ which is an award winning platform that makes use of several patented technologies and ‘Xavier My Room’ which creates a platform to host virtual classrooms and peer-interaction, using high quality video and audio conferencing.
The Xavier SIMS is another unique tool introduced through the digital platform that would allow improved management of the overall system by the administration. The digital library also boasts of a collection of more than 39,000 titles available online to the students and faculty at all times.