UGC Infonet Overview - new

UGC-Infonet & E-journals Consortium : 

UGC-Infonet & E-journals Consortium Presentation By Dr. T A V Murthy Director INFLIBNET Centre & Dr. V S Cholin Scientist-B INFLIBNET Centre tav@inflibnet.ac.in cholin@inflibnet.ac.in

What is UGC-Infonet? : 

What is UGC-Infonet? University Grants Commission has launched an ambitious programme to bring about a qualitative change in the academic infrastructure, especially for higher education. Under this initiative UGC is modernizing the university campuses with state-of-the-art campus wide networks and setting up its own nationwide communication network named UGC-Infonet. INLFIBNET is responsible for execution and monitoring the entire project w.e.f Jan, 2003

The Mission : 

The Mission UGC-Infonet will become a vehicle for distance learning to facilitate spread of quality education all over the country. UGC-Infonet will be a tool distribute education material and journals to the remotest of areas. UGC-Infonet will be a resource for researchers and scholars for tapping the most up-to-date information. UGC-Infonet will form a medium for collaboration among teachers and students, not only within the country but all over the world.

Cont.. : 

Cont.. UGC-Infonet will be an Intranet for University Automation. UGC-Infonet will encompass entire University System for most efficient utilisation of precious network resources. UGC-Infonet will establish a channel for Globalisation of Education and facillitate the universities in marketing their services and developments.

Who are involved in the project? : 

Who are involved in the project? University Grants Commission (UGC) Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET) Education Research Network (ERNET) on turnkey basis Universities

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ERNET Design & Installation Maintenance Providing Backbone Hosting of Mirror sites Training INFLIBNET Decide type of connectivity Monitoring of Network Provide the content in terms of Bibliographic database and e-subscription Help Universities to setting up IT Infrastructure UGC Over all monitoring Constitution of Joint Technical and Tariff committee for smooth execution of project Providing finance support to the project University Place firm order to ERNET Provide necessary accommodation Identify two persons for training Campus network/ access center

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UGC ERNET INFLIBNET University Constitution of JTTC Guide lines Identify Universities Design Network Implementation Methodology

Network Architecture : 

Network Architecture UGC-Infonet is based on open IP platform, employing state-of-the-art technologies like IP Multicast, TCP spoofing and other tools that provide interactive education on PC, enabling online response to queries. Open system architecture will ensure high data rates access to Intranet and Internet resources.

Connectivity Options for the universities : 

Connectivity Options for the universities UGC-Infonet is overlaid on ERNET Infrastructure including a nation wide terrestrial backbone and a complementary satellite wide area network. Available options are: Digital Leases Lines (LL) Radio Link SCPC Broadband VSAT (FTDMA)

Main Features of the UGC-Infonet : 

Main Features of the UGC-Infonet Scaleable Architecture to grow from Universities to affiliated Colleges. Nation-wide Terrestrial Backbone using Fiber Optic links Integrated Satellite WAN supporting broadband and SCPC VSAT technology. Comprehensive Network Management Systems for overall monitoring of the network, down to each and every device. Linkage with other academic and Research Networks all over the world.

Cont.. : 

Cont.. Dedicated Data Centre for web hosting, e-journals and Mail Boxes. It will be dedicated for UGC-Infonet Protected with firewalls and IDS Co-located with Satellite Hub With single hop access to the universities over VSAT Mirror sites spread all over the country for content hosting Broadband Multimedia and Video Channels for Distance Learning.

UGC-Infonet summery as on 1 Oct, 2004 : 

UGC-Infonet summery as on 1 Oct, 2004 Bandwidth Summery Connected Universities

Pie Charts : 

Pie Charts

Cont.. : 

Cont..

Monitoring of the UGC-Infonet : 

Monitoring of the UGC-Infonet Each university sends bandwidth utilization reports INFLIBNET INFLIBNET is managing discussion forum at http://groups.yahoo.co.in/group/ugc-infonet/ for discussing of issues related to UGC-Infonet among participating Universities.

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University Grants CommissionThe E-Journals Programme for Universitieselectronic access to scholarly literature in all areas of learning

The Infonet Paradigm : 

The Infonet Paradigm Provide Internet connectivity to Universities / Colleges in Academic sector under the domain of UGC Provide access to literature and research publications in all areas of learning Facilitate the creation of multimedia content to supplement and aid the traditional learning process. Provide training to the community through orientation and refresher courses.

Access to Literature : 

Access to Literature Access to research literature, reviews and databases University libraries are depleted of these resources Infonet programme provide E-access to the literature. Funds provided by the UGC, and the programme is administered by INFLIBNET. Subscriptions provided to over 50 Universities and 50 more from this month.

Who are our users? : 

Who are our users? Universities Total No. : 311+ Covered under UGC : 171+ INFLIBNET supported : 142 so far These 142+ universities - core group to begin with Colleges More than 14,000 Govt.- 20%, Private – 80% Who are likely to be covered in phased manner

What is the journal collection base? : 

Current journals collection in a university Average number of titles subscribed: 250 60% titles : Indian publications Few universities do not subscribe to any foreign journals Abstracting/ indexing journals (e.g) Chemical Abstracts : 25 (98 Chemistry Depts) Biological Abstracts : 9 (101 Biological Sciences Depts) What is the journal collection base?

Why is this problem? : 

Problems faced by Universities Increase in price Fluctuation in conversion rates No proportionate funding to sustain the existing collections What is the way out? Large number of journals are available in e-form Access is provided on the Internet through web Subscription under consortia/ national site licensing Why is this problem?

Present Status : 

Present Status UGC-Infonet E-journals Consortium is quite an ambitious program initiated by chairman UGC to facilitate free access to scholarly journals in all areas of learning. The program is being executed by INFLIBNET Ahmedabad on behalf of UGC Academics are helping in identifying the resources We have conducted Regional meetings at different places to take the expert opinions of university librarians across the country while selecting the journals Expert opinions have also been taken from existing consortiums in few subjects; National Negotiation committee set up by UGC recommended number of resources to be subscribed in different areas of learning;

Present Status contd… : 

Present Status contd… The very purpose of this initiative is Universities across the country are now facing acute shortage of funds to subscribe the costly journals and are deprived of access to latest literature published. The situation calls for optimum use of resources through rational use. Thanks to the electronic publishing industry which made it possible to access the resources at much affordable cost. This consortia initiative has helped to get discount of more than 85-90% on many scholarly journals and databases. The research and academic community can now have an access to resources at their finger tips through this initiative. This initiative provides archival access and also provision for mirror sites.

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This facility enables the subject experts and academicians to browse, download print the relevant articles for their research and academic development. The resources subscribed under the program are available on Intranet of UGC-Infonet Program in each campus enabling multi user simultaneous access. INFLIBNET will also maintain one print copy of the journals subscribed for many titles as a national archive at Ahmedabad. The resources are accessed based on the IP address at individual universities. The consortium received number of proposals and finalized with 20 publishers / vendors to cover journals and databases in sciences, humanities, social sciences. Many other journals & databases are also under consideration and being taken up. Subscription for minimum 3 years initially and to be reviewed at the end of three years

E-Resources Subscribed under UGC-Infonet : 

31 222 23 + 6 DB 72 36 E-Resources Subscribed under UGC-Infonet 29 100 +100 subscribed, Access all 1200 titles 19 8 319 28 Lib. Sci. 34 Life Sci. In addition - Access to 2 Gateway portal services to 28 univ. each

More is yet to come !! : 

More is yet to come !!

To Conclude : 

To Conclude Consortia for buying e-infn. become very popular in last 2 decades Encouraging to note that successful consortia examples I would say that UGC-Infonet Consortium is a very systematic approach carried out Many commercial publishers have taken initiative to provide trial access for two to three months for all their full text journals viz. Elsevier, John wiley and many others. This shows their academic interest to enter into this consortia and to become a part of this noble initiative and attractive discounts offered by the publishers with eagerness to enter Indian market The e-subscription initiative of UGC-Infonet is expected to bring remarkable change in the academic environment. It is time now to inform our scholars to take the advantage and use the resources extensively and get the benefit

To Conclude : 

To Conclude We will be able to cover many more universities including colleges at much cheaper cost, as the major cost is paid for first 50 universities The resources subscribed under UGC-Infonet E-Journals consortium for 50 universities would cost Rs. 190 Crores if universities subscribe the resources individually, This effort shows an overall savings of Rs. 167 Crore Rupees to the National Exchequer for 50 universities. More than 2000 scholarly journals and databases are made available for access. The cost for additional universities even much cheaper than the first 50 universities enabling more universities to get access to scholarly journals. With time, via Infonet, education in Indian universities will shine at the global level as solar energy shines everyday, which indicates that no one should be deprived of education because of location or time inconvenience.

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THANK YOU