BANGALORE: Starting 21 March 2005, Karnataka's Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) began transmitting live sessions through ISRO's satellite Edusat across its 100 affiliated colleges in Karnataka.
Earlier the transmissions, which commenced in September 2004, were being routed through INSAT-3B.
The Edusat or the Gsat-3 is the first satellite of the Education Satellite System and has a special configuration for multiple beams covering different regions of the country. Edusat was launched by the GSLV and has a powerful Ku band frequency to facilitate the use of easy to handle ground terminal. The INSAT 3B made possible only audio sessions, one way generally, while two video and two way audio sessions through Edusat.
The potential for such live teaching sessions is tremendous. In a country that faces a paucity of qualified teachers, a single teacher could reach out to 10000 students in the state at the same time. The lecture could be stored as a computer file or copied on a compact disc that can be accessed by the students. Services of a good teacher could be availed of by a large number of students.
Professor G L Shekar, special officer in the VTU learning center at Mysore, while speaking to indiantelevision.com from Belgaum said, "One of the main issues that we are discussing now is two way video and two way audio. 50 colleges have been provided with interactive terminals for two way audio and two way video. ISRO has provided some specifications for the web camera and colleges have been asked to buy these cameras and install them at their end, we'll be providing them with the software support. In another 8-10 days they should be in a position to have two way video and two way audio. VTU is the first university in the country, which is using Edusat officially from today. No other University has come any way close to us in the use of satellite technology for teaching," he added.
The program schedule in the VTU website shows 360 live class telecasts have been lined up between 21 March, 2005 and June 18, 2005. The subjects covered include Structural Analysis, Power System Analysis and Stability, Control Systems, Finite Automata and Formal languages, Digital System Design using VHDL, Power Electronics, Mechanical Vibrations and Mathematics for different semesters and branches of engineering. Teachers and experts drawn from industry will handle the courses. Each session will be of about one hour, out of which 45 minutes will be spent on the lecture followed by a 15-minute interactive session between students across the state and the resource persons in the studio.
