Empowering people
21st Century Digital Campus

The landscape of higher education is evolving. The world of higher education has a renewed commitment to enabling and preparing students for meeting the challenges of the new millennium. College campuses are now expected to help students develop the ability to communicate, collaborate, think critically, utilize media to gather information and incorporate awareness of the world around them. This calls for an enhanced focus on creating a diverse and inclusive learning environment; using innovative, effective teaching methods; and addressing important challenges of the 21st Century in the classroom and through institutional practices. The theme of sustainability is critical to our global future and is central to the values, vision and economic interests of our students- all with the ultimate goal of enabling greater student and institutional success.

Some of the changes occurring in higher education are driven by new technologies, changing demographics and globalization, creating “Campus without Borders”.

Digital & Distance Learning
  • Digital & Distance Learning refers to creating real world 21st-century learning environments that break through the conventional barriers: from flexible learning spaces that can be rearranged to fit different class sizes and subjects, to more malleable units of time.
  • Virtualization of classrooms and access to online universities enables students to "Do More for Less" by using on-line courses or a combination of on-line and in-classroom courses.
  • This approach provides students with the convenience of flexible schedules and a cost effective education -a need of today’s times.
Open Courseware
  • Many Universities are making available a collection of some of their most popular courses and course materials online, with open access to everybody.
  • The aim is to share and expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.
  • These are available free to all , do not require registration with the school and enact instruction for an entire course in an online format.
  • These courses are designed to help students learn the subject matter even without the support of a class or instructor.
Cloud Computing
  • Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.
  • Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them. Schools can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use.
  • Consumption is usually billed on a utility (e.g. resources consumed) or subscription (e.g. time based) basis or a flat monthly fee with little or no upfront cost. Other benefits of this time sharing style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications.
  • Schools are increasingly adopting cloud computing for student/faculty/research software and applications to become cost efficient.
Digital Textbooks & Web 2.0 based Projects
  • Academic authors, through various collaborations, are providing their books in a digital format or online as library digital archives
  • Web 2.0 tools are increasingly being used for course project collaboration and completion