The proposal for the setup of NDL

A proposal has been put forward to the Ministry of Human Resource Development by the IIT Kharagpur for the formation of a NDL. This initiative has been taken by the IIT Kharagpur in order to develop the national online educational asset for those candidates who are interested in innovation and research.

The director of this prestigious institute, Partha Pratim Chakrabari stated at the 60th convocation ceremony conducted at the end of July that this project is granted by the MHRD and Rs. 100 crore has also been granted at the same time for the completion of the project. IIT Kharagpur is known for being one of the premier educational institutes in the country.

According to the professor Mr. Das who teaches in the computer and engineering department, generally, all universities have their own digital archive of the intellectual output and syllabus, called as the Institutional Digital Repository (IDR). The access to this IDR is always limited to the few students and staffs of the universities. This NDL proposal is modelled on this IDR, but it will include the IDRs of a number of universities. The best part is that all the students of this university will be free to access it, and there will be no sort of limitation. Even students of other universities can also access the study materials without any limitation. For instance, the candidates of IIT Madras can easily access the special study materials of IIT Kharagpur without any obstacles. The major focus of the National Digital Library is to streamline the study materials and IDRs into a single and common online.

Usually, all the data will be available at free of cost, except for those contents that are copyright. The concept of NDL is completely new in India. But it is widely popular in the Western Universities. The concept for the NDL has derived from educational institutions known for specialization courses. This library will also include materials of school-level study. This grand and multi-faceted project will start with the incorporation of the digital content of around more than 50 institutions at the basic level. The next target is 100 institutions. Again, the other aim of this project is to develop various types of e-contents, including interactive questions and answers, video lectures etc. The best part is that they would be available in different types of languages.

Prof. Das stated to the press that many activities have been planned in vernaculars, but initially the knowledge base would be developed in English. Vernaculars would also be added after sometime, giving path to multi-lingual interface. This will assist candidates from all over India in accessing it freely without any sort of language barrier.

This project is the brainchild of a small team, comprising of 4 members. Within the next 1.5 years this project will be launched successfully. The feasibility of this educational project would be checked with the help of a prototype, which will be launched recently. Around 100 courses would be launched at the primary level.

Under the strict and able guidance of Professor Chakrabarti, this amazing proposal was worked on by the professor who is in charge of the Central library of this institute, Subrata Chattopadhyay along with Sudeshna Sarkar, the professor of engineering and computer department as well as the central librarian’s professor, B. Sutradhar and Professor Das.

As per the planning this project could be access from all platforms – laptops, tablets and cell phones. The contents would be created keeping in mind the requirements of students.