ANWESHI May2008 Page 26 In Focus - VIDYA

The VIDYA Digital Knowledge Archive that is cur-

* rently deployed in four campuses of Amrita University

had its modest beginning in the year 2000. With an initial
content volume of 64 Mb, VIDYA has grown to a 1600+
Gb knowledge base covering a wide spectrum of areas,
comprising of extensive Audio/ Video lectures as well
by leading academicians/ scientists from around the
world. VIDYA over the years has become an indispensi-
ble resource for every devout seeker of knowledge mak-
ing the dictum “ Study Locally, Learn Globally” a living
reality !

Mr. Ajai Narendran (Con-
tent manager & Webmas-
ter) and the Architect of
‘Vidya’ speaks on his expe-
rience of building ‘Vidya’
while responding to a bar-
rage of questions. He elu-
cidates on how Vidya could better be
utilised in a way that helps redefine learn-
ing and revitalise teaching.
When did the idea of building Vidya
strike you and how did it happen?
The first spark of idea occurred way
back in the year 2000, few months after
I joined Amrita, Ettimadai. Well, my
coming to Amrita appeared sheer co-
incidence then which I now understand
as nothing but providence. I was previ-
ously trained in the area of Avionics En-
gineering and had no proper training in
‘computers. Since I joined the Systems
Group ( Now ICTS) and was put in one
of the computer labs I had no other op-
tion than to learn computers. Those
were the times I used to spend almost
the entire day in the lab ( 6.30am-
10pm), if routine jobs kept me busy dur-
ing the day time, teaching myself the
basics of computers kept me busy the
rest of the time and it was great oppor-
tunity to interact with students as well.
Since the campus did not have an in-
formative website at that time I took
upon myself to build a website, that
meant learning HTML , JavaScript, and
tools like MS-Frontrpage and HotMetal-
Pro and later Dreamweaver. Here I
must thank one of our alumni Mr.J
Srinivasan ( Currently doing is Ph.D at
Edinburgh University) who first showed
me a website he made, his personal
website. That was my initiation into the
world of hyperlinks.
It was just around that time Internet
began to penetrate into the campus, we
had a few machines with internet con-
nectivity, if I remember right it was a
64Mbps divided connection. So,
emails,browsing the web and building a
website fascinated me immensely and
that kept me occupied all through my
post-routine working hours. Since I
worked in the Computer Lab, I had lot
of opportunities to interact closely with
the students and faculty members and
it was that interaction that gave me the
triggering pulse towards building Vidya,
To be more specific Interacting with
Dr.K I Ramachandran ( Currently with
CEN) and seeing him downloading
PowerPoint presentations and lecture
notes which he used to write on a CD
and use it to prepare his course notes
made me think of archiving it all in a
way that could be used by the entire
campus than just his class. So one day
I asked him for his CD of downloaded
tutorials, made a copy of it, configured
a basic Windows web server and
hosted the contents. It was a single
webpage index pointing to tutorial
specifically on Mechanical Engineering.
I showed it to Ramachandran sir and
few other people, they were quite ex-
cited seeing it. It was the sort of thing
many at that time thought was possible
only on the Internet. Thus the initial at-
tempt at Vidya became the first “In-
tranet Portal” of Amrita.
I was in fact enthralled seeing the re-
action of students like Ajith Peter (now
working on his PhD at IIT-Bombay),
Srinivasa Varadhan ( now working for
Cognizant Technologies, London) and
Shyam Divakar( who just completed
his PhD in Computational Neuro-
science from University of Milan, Italy).
For them it meant a lot, downloading
learning material from the internet
across a slow connection was not quite
a feasible option for the students
then…the idea of making a down-
loaded collection accessible across the
LAN appealed to all of them and it is
they who made me feel convinced of
the enormous potential in developing
‘Vidya’. Every one needed quality mate-
rial in the quickest way possible. This
was the precursor to a series of convic-
tions that followed eventually propelling
me steadily towards developing ‘Vidya’
further. I never had to look back since
then…I literally breathed and lived
‘Vidya’. Yes, I had a big price to pay,
sacrifices to make and tough stances to
take. In the end, it was all worth the ef-
fort. I have the joy of having the task ac-
complished leaving it with further
possibilities of enhancement and en-
richment.
To me, Vidya beckoned as that
course of work which will add more
meaning to my existence providing our
students the opportunities I missed as a
student, so there was that passionate
involvement. I feel the best way to ex-
press it would be to borrow the terms
used by Dr.Deepak Gupta of ASB who
remarked once “Vidya is a labour of
love”.
If you are to start building Vidya
anew, how different it would be?
Yes, it will be different and better organ-
ized with a content management sys-
tem in place...and if it serves better , it is
only because of what I learnt from build-
ing the current Vidya.
What are the other reasons that
prompted you begin building Vidya?
Those days library used to be in the
main block (opposite to staircase in the
ground floor). That used to be one
place I used to frequent, looking
through magazines and journals to find
relevant topics/ key words for down-
loading material. During one such visits
to the library I found a good number of
quality text books authored by
renowned professors from universities
abroad remaining untouched. When
enquired many students expressed the
view that they considered such text
books abstruse. I knew that this view is
rooted in slavish dependence on local,
popular text books.
Contd on page 27

* This logo is designed by D G Suryanarayana & Irshad of 4th Year ( IT )

ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
 ANWESHI
Vidya Story- Contd ...
A comparison of a few local text books
and books authored by internationally
renowned academicians revealed the
fact that our students will end up miss-
ing quite a lot by the time they graduate
if they relied only on local textbooks ab-
horring books that have found interna-
tional acceptance. I tried getting
presentation slides and class notes by
the same authors and listed them in
Vidya under different categories ( this
was the beginning of subject-wise list-
ing with a basic collection of material on
various engineering topics based on
UG programmes). In a few weeks time,
I could see those untouched books of
the library in circulation. Talking to the
students revealed that the presenta-
tions helped them come out of the
mindset and made them attempt to-
wards learning from quality textbooks.
This I would say, was the second con-
viction- adding a global touch to local-
ized learning. On the other hand at the
personal level I was going through a cri-
sis that was emotionally gripping. I had
to keep myself busy during waking
hours to save myself from slipping into
delirium. The best time to work on
‘Vidya’ was of course late nights be-
cause thats the time we used to get the
best internet speed then. So it was just
the perfect mix of reasons , both profes-
sional and personal, and what more
could I ask for - if the very work I chose
to plunge deep into ferreted out deeper
meanings of my existence, enriching
the lives of our student community.
How was Vidya received initially by
the campus community?
There was a group of students and
some faculty members who instantly re-
alized Vidya’s potential, and of course
there was the other category who
watched it all with a kind of disbelief (
suspicion would be a better word I
guess). For me what mattered the most
was not the number of people who
used Vidya, instead the difference
Vidya can make in the lives of the few
who used Vidya then. Some even felt
that I encroached into other’s domain, I
guess it is natural for them to think so
because here’s this guy who is trained
in avionics engineering working with
the Systems group doing things on in-
formation science / knowledge man-
agement with no formal training either
in IT or Information Science . I counted
it as a real complement anyway no mat-
ter how thwarting many remarks were.
Well, I remember a specific remark by
some on Vidya during its fledgling days
May 2008 Page 27
that ‘what’s the big deal…the informa-
tion available in Vidya can easily be
googled out’. I do not contest that point,
but it takes lot of discerning effort to se-
lect the right ones for Vidya. The former
remark is much akin to saying that
‘what ever available in a library is avail-
able in a big bookshop’, the point is we
do not call bookshop a library though
quantitatively the latter is a subset of
the former. Vidya is a sincere attempt to
implement the concept of ‘Selective dis-
semination of Information”. This ap-
proach is of increasing relevance in this
era of information overload.
How will you define Vidya?
It is hard to define Vidya in any concrete
terms because ‘Vidya’ has evolved and
will continue to evolve, each phase of
growth in tune with the vision that initi-
ated it. Vidya is not a tutorial archive…it
is much more. Vidya is envisaged to
help one deepen one’s knowledge and
expand one’s awareness harnessing
the best of World Wide Web.
I wish people get the experience of ex-
ploring a rainforest when they navigate
through Vidya than just walking around
a landscape. If every one who visits
‘Vidya’ finds something interesting and
useful , then I believe ‘Vidya’ has de-
fined the essence of its existence, in
short ‘ Vidya’ in functional essence
mean ‘Something for every one’.
Is Vidya Accessible from outside the
campus?
No , ‘Vidya’ is not accessible from out-
side the campus except Amrita cam-
puses across the ISRO-EduSat link.
‘Vidya’ is an intranet archive and it has
to remain so adhering to the copyright
regulations. A great part of ‘Vidya’ is in-
tegrated with the ‘Educational fair use’
laws that restricts the use of down-
loaded material to ‘ within the campus,
for purely academic/ non-commercial
purposes.
Well, before we think of ‘out of the cam-
pus’ access to Vidya, let us get ‘Vidya’
accessible to all our hostels within the
campus. I am sure it can bring in a big
difference in the learning attitude of our
students because I have observed ( I
have lived in our hostels for the last 7
years) that most of our students study
late into night. Yes, those without lap-
tops need not feel out of place here, I
am sure that people with laptops can
group with the ones who do not own a
laptop and have combined study ses-
sions, this will significantly strengthen
peer bonding as well.
ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
In Focus - VIDYA
Which is your most favourite sec-
tion in Vidya?
That’s hard to answer. Each section in
Vidya is built with lot of care and it all
had a specific reason behind it. For ex-
ample it is on ‘Teacher’s Day’ that we
decided to build a separate section on “
Teaching & Learning”… another section
‘Envisage’ , the animation repository in
Vidya. There is a whole variety of such
off beat sections in Vidya that has to be
explored, to be experienced. I feel that
it is the ‘Video Lecture Archive’ on a
wide variety of areas that instantly ele-
vates ‘Vidya’ to a unique position when
compared to any other repository/ digi-
tal library in the world.
Have you implemented all your ideas
you have on Vidya?
Not quite. What you now see as ‘Vidya’
is just the core around which many lay-
ers could be built. Better user inter-
faces, specific community portals, and
a whole lot of dynamic elements could
be built around. I have the architecture
clear in my mind, it is impossible for a
single person to build it all. I have al-
ways wished that I had atleast two
more people good at programming with
me. Had that been the case the look
and feel of ‘Vidya’ would have been far
too different. Of course people are try-
ing to build layers around Vidya else
where in our campuses…if all those at-
tempts could be integrated we can
make Vidya one of the most formidable
knowledge archives in the world and
this is something ‘Amrita’ alone can
claim of. The core is built, the layers
need to be added. Vidya , where it
stands now is just a fractional material-
ization of the enhancement ideas I have
on Vidya. Here I must say that two
B.Tech teams have so far tried to build
‘search engines’ for Vidya, I must thank
those teams and especially Mr. Adi-
narayanan of IT department and
Mr.Shivpratap of CEN who guided
them. We need more people like them
and it is such people who can enhance
Vidya and in turn enrich the lives of
thousands of students.
You must have showcased Vidya to
numerous visitors, what was the re-
sponse to Vidya?
Yes, quite a good number of visitors
from all over the world and Govt. of
India ministry officials as well including
the UGC team. All of them showed
great interest in learning more about
Contd on page 28
 ANWESHI
Vidya Story - Contd ...
how it is built and was awe struck at the
variety of sections in Vidya. We had vis-
itors from Chinmaya Mission Schools,
Arvind Eye Hospitals and DRDO as
well who spent hours with me dis-
cussing on the possibilities of building
such archives. The most touching mo-
ments are those when I see students
bring their parents to show Vidya .
Do you think that Vidya’s full poten-
tial is effectively utilized by the stu-
dents and faculty members?
No, we are yet to even understand the
potential of Vidya, let alone utilizing it
fully. I have been interacting with stu-
dents closely over the last seven years,
right from day 1 of my joining Amrita. A
lot of awareness on ‘Vidya’ had been
spread through word of mouth, informal
discussions etc. This does not work be-
yond a limit. I feel that the best ones to
help students understand the useful-
ness of ‘Vidya’ are, the faculty members
because they get that unique privilege
of interacting with/ addressing no less
than 50 students at a time. This does
not seem to happen, students are
never told about the learning resources
we have and I can tell this with total
conviction based on my interaction with
the students. Innumerable times I have
had students come to me and ask
questions like “do you have tutorials on
thermodynamics? … Do you have
books on Networking? Do you have in-
troductory lectures on Java? …etc. I
feel that this would not have happened
had they been made aware of the
learning resource we have here.
I have also had faculty members com-
ing and asking me for material on areas
that is already there in Vidya in abun-
dance. So there is clear lack of aware-
ness of our own resources among the
students and the faculty members. The
best thing I could do from my side was
to map the entire B.Tech/ MCA syllabus
to the content in Vidya. Despite this as
well I feel many have no idea what
Vidya is all about. Of course here I must
say that there had been incredible sup-
port from faculty members , I must
thank Dr.K.I.Ramachandran, Dr.Deepak
Gupta of ASB, Prof Subba Rao of
Chemical Engg Dept, Mr.Adi-
narayanan of IT Dept, Dr.Shanmug-
mavelayutham of CSE Dept, Dr.R K
Suresh of Mech. Engg Dept, Dr.K P
Soman, Mr.Rakesh Peter, Mr.Shiv-
apratap, Mr.Loganathan of CEN.
They are doing their best to bring Vidya
closer to Amrita fraternity.
May 2008 Page 28
To a newcomer , how will you ex-
plain the potential of Vidya?
Assuming that the newcomer is a first
year B.Tech student who is aiming for a
career in the Industry or core R&D, I
would present Vidya to him/her as the
prime source in that campus that will
help him learn with the aid of some of
the finest tutorial material, ever created,
from across the globe. Vidya is un-
doubtedly one of the best assemblages
of Audio/ Video lectures on almost all
major areas taught here. This is on the
academic front. Looking at an individ-
ual’s overall development there is
enough material on Humanities, Apti-
tude and Soft skills, Philosophy & Com-
parative Religion, Management
Sciences , Journalism & Communica-
tion and an array of allied areas. So
here is an archive that you can count on
and grow along with. Vidya has also in-
corporated gateways to IEEE, ACM,
Digital Engineering Libraries as well.
Journal papers can be accessed
through this gateway from any com-
puter in the campus. The best thing that
can come out of utilizing Vidya re-
sources to the fullest extent is aware-
ness that one has learnt / explored an
area of interest listening to the masters
from around the world. Isn’t it great if
our students tell that they learnt Linear
Algebra from people around plus
through video lectures by none other
than Prof. Gilbert Strang of MIT. Isn’t it
great for our students to learn JAVA
programming from the video lectures of
the legendary Dr.Andy Vandam of
Brown University - the same professor
who taught programing to Prof.Randy
Pausch. So here is an opportunity for
our students not to feel second to any in
the world when it comes to learning
using globally accepted tutorials from
some of the best universities/ research
centers across the world. In short
here’s a resource that will help you
graduate with, immensely more than
just a UG or PG degree.
What is the single aspect or the most
vital element that one requires to
build an archive like Vidya?
I cannot pin point ‘the single most
thing’. I feel it is a combination of factors
that contribute towards building some-
thing like Vidya. Still, if I am to general-
ize I would reduce everything down to
that single word “Passion” – passion to
gather, organize and disseminate infor-
mation, passion to reach out and inter-
act, passion to read,explore and learn,
passion to share and give, passion to
ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
In Focus - VIDYA
make a positive difference no matter
what you do… all these primary factors
coupled with freedom at work can work
wonders. Yes, I was fortunate enough
to have that kind of freedom with no
strings attached all through my seven
years here. What is the point in having
skills and ideas if one does not have the
freedom. In my case I had the freedom
in abundance and I owe a lot for it to
Mr.M Sreeevalsan, Head , ICTS.
What are the significant phases of
growth Vidya went through?
My work on Vidya started as a pleasant
pass time activity, as one of my hobbies
and soon it began to take huge chunk
of my waking hours. Routine working
hours kept me busy with other respon-
sibilities, of which working on the web-
site was the most demanding one for, it
meant being on task 24X7. Vidya has
benefited immensely from lot of events
and people in terms of ideas, input and
support. The first phase was of course
archiving few PPTs and PDFs on Me-
chanical Engg. downloaded by Ra-
machandran sir and later we worked as
a team. We shared the downloading
tasks, he could get some of the best tu-
torials on Mech Engg and related areas
and I began to do some kind of oscillat-
ing downloads on many other areas.
My love for reading came to great help
here, I never ran out of ideas on what to
download on a specific day…I always
had something to search for. It was just
around the time I began developing
Vidya, MIT released news on their
OCW launch. The idea really fascinated
me and I wrote to the then MIT Presi-
dent’s Office at once appraising them of
our modest efforts in building local web
archives. The reply from the MIT presi-
dent’s office was really encouraging
and that reinforced my belief in the po-
tential of Vidya. So clearly the next
major phase of development Vidya
went through was with the development
of MIT-OCW. We were perhaps the first
ones in the world to systematically mir-
ror locally the choicest best ( based on
our requirements/ courses taught) of
MIT-OCW right from the day OCW was
launched to this day, this includes mas-
sive collection of audio/ video lectures
as well. In Vidya you will find an exclu-
sive MIT-OCW section categorized
topic-wise and mapped to our Engi-
neering curriculum. In fact it is with the
addition of MIT-OCW materials, Vidya
gained the recognition and trust of
many in the campus, they believed they
Contd... on page 29
 ANWESHI
Vidya Story - Contd ...
could expect more and Vidya will de-
liver it. Improved internet connectivity ,
availability of a variety of download
tools, advent of peer-to-peer net-
works…all these have considerably
helped Vidya grow fast. The Indo-US
initiative brought in a lot of eminent
professors to our campus to deliver full
length courses, expert / guest lectures.
Most of these courses and lectures are
recorded and archived in Vidya under
the E-Learning video lecture series.
This is something significant that hap-
pened to Vidya. Now we have our own
video content and with that came into
being our own institutional video repos-
itory.
My colleague Ms.Lekshmi Prashant
who joined to work on Vidya played a
great role in giving a real face lift to
Vidya at a time when it was needed the
most. We could divide tasks, plan
schedules and execute it in a system-
atic way. I could focus more on Content
and Architecture and Lekshmi took up
the arduous task of rebuilding the inter-
face and discover more useful content
on the web. Our working as a team for
little over one year took Vidya through a
significant phase of development. Lek-
shmi was instrumental in establishing
Mindscape as well. She worked in a
truly inspired manner with total dedica-
tion to the task at hand exploring new
possibilities of enriching Vidya.
Automation in Vidya was first tried out
through integrating D-Space into Vidya.
All the major video lecture collections
and E-learning video lectures are now
on D-Space platform. Now the video
lectures are searchable through key-
words (meta-tags) associated with each
video lecture. Recently, realizing the im-
portance of forming interest groups/
communities to help disseminate the
content through annotated entries/ rec-
ommended links, we integrated “Wiki-
Media” as well to Vidya. Now the users
can interact with each other and bring
out information lying in the deep re-
cesses of Vidya. We owe it to
Mr.Rakesh Peter of CEN for deploying
D-Space and WikiMedia in Vidya and I
can never forget the day when he re-
vived D-Space, when the server it was
hosted almost crashed. I thoroughly en-
joyed integrating content to D-Space
and WikiMedia and I guess it debunked
the myth that such specialized tasks
can be done only by people belonging
to certain fields. Associating meta-tags
to each video lecture was an exercise
May 2008 Page 29
that was an eye-opener for me for, it is
then my reading background played a
decisive role in the most efficient way
possible. Meeting and interacting peo-
ple like Prof.Deepak Gupta of ASB
added a lot of vigor to the development
of Vidya. Deepak sir , Ramachandran
sir, Dr.K P Soman (CEN), Prof, Gan-
gadharan (Chairman, IT Dept) and
Prof.Rakesh Kataria ( ASCOM) had
always been excited about the new
content added to Vidya and eager to in-
corporate it into their teaching as well.
In fact had it not been for Deepak sir, I
would not have possibly heard of some
of the best names in the area of man-
agement education world wide. Getting
to know many things thus helped me
look for material on the net and archive
it.
Vidya blossomed further when our cam-
puses at Kochi, Amritapuri and Banga-
lore expressed the desire to have Vidya
mirrored in their campuses. I had been
to Amritapuri and Bangalore campuses
recently to deploy Vidya there, the en-
tire Vidya is mirrored there. I also built a
custom built archive for the Arts and
Science campus in Kochi. Had it not
been for Mr.Vipin Pavitran of Amrita-
puri campus, Mr.S Pyarilal of Banga-
lore campus and Dr.Krishnakumar of
Kochi campus who took the initiative
to mirror Vidya in their campuses, thou-
sands of students there would have re-
mained deprived of this precious
learning/ teaching resource we have.
Is updating Vidya here synchronized
with the mirrored repositories in the
other campuses?
No, it is not fully synchronized and I feel
it need not be. I feel that from this point
onwards, Vidya in the respective cam-
pus must grow and attain its own iden-
tity in tune with the requirements and
developments in the campus. It is like
having four different gardens with the
same set of flowers and more based on
the climatic conditions of the respective
place. Of course the best things col-
lected at each campus must be shared
across.
Which is the next important phase
you think Vidya ought to go
through?
The most vital phase is the next phase.
Vidya must be hosted in a new- sturdy
server as soon as possible. Lest, I see
all possibility of Vidya crashing because
the central repository of Vidya runs on a
P-III machine, perhaps this machine is
ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
In Focus - VIDYA
the oldest machine in the campus sub-
ject to the heaviest load. Right now the
1.6 TB archive on three different
servers is running different services.
Once this is done, one can think of em-
bedding Vidya into a good content man-
agement system and giving external
access through VPN ( restricted to our
alumni)
How do you decide on the content
that goes into Vidya? Is the usage of
Vidya monitored?
Interaction with students and faculty
members helps a lot towards deciding
on the content. Besides, one should
keep oneself well updated on the recent
developments. General reading helps a
lot here. Being a member of many on-
line communities is of great advantage
because of the free flow of information.
For example I get regular updates on
MIT-OCW additions, Howstuffworks,
Edge and a number of other credible
sources. There are seasonal variations
in the usage of Vidya. After the exams,
I see increased access of Humanities,
Philosophy section and general reading
sections. The placement season brings
in maximum hits on almost all areas
with specific focus on the “Career Guid-
ance’ section in Vidya.
When there is so much of informa-
tion available on the Internet , when
almost anything can be ‘googled’ out
what is the contemporary relevance
of Vidya?
What you get when you search for
something on the world wide web is pri-
marily hundreds of links pointing to var-
ious information sources. A good
search used will be easily possible
through the right combination of key
words. It is not the case any more, your
search results depend a great deal on
who owns the key word auctioned by
the search engine giants. This was not
quite the case few years back, page
ranking took into account the merit of
the content of a specific website judged
by various factors. Now many more
variables and business interests have
crept in and all these combined, de-
cides the positioning of the search re-
sults you get. In short a quick search
need not take you to the right source of
information if you go only by the top few
listings. The links to the best source of
information you look could be listed a
few pages down, this is where human
discretion comes in.
Contd... on page 30
 ANWESHI
Vidya Story - Contd ...
The content in Vidya is carefully chosen
and one must not forget that Vidya has
material collected right from the year
2000, of which a good quantity of infor-
mation is not available any more on the
world wide web.
The relevance of Vidya in terms of the
information archived lies in the time
span it consistently covered and care-
ful content selection. Here I must add,
Vidya owes a great deal to Google
search results and another lesser
known but effective search engine
called “Vivisimo” that gives categorized
search results. In short in this era if in-
formation overload, Vidya does a load
balancing act through selective informa-
tion dissemination.
Has Vidya been presented in any
Symposiums or Conferences?
Yes, in 2005 we had in this campus an
International conference on digital li-
braries ( ACDL 2005) with participants
from the American and European uni-
versities. I had presented Vidya as our
initiative towards building a comprehen-
sive digital library and they showed a lot
of interest in the way we do things. I
must thank Prof.Prashant Nair (
Asst.Chairman, IT Dept) for organizing
ACDL 2005 and giving me an opportu-
nity to represent Amrita. Few months
back I got an invitation to speak at the
Conclave - Freed.in 2008 organized
by Jawaharlal Nehru University ,
New Delhi and SARAI Research Cen-
tre. They became interested to know
more when they heard about Vidya and
this is a clear indication of how the
world looks at Vidya.
Do you ever get the feeling that
Vidya might make lazy students
lazier ?
Vidya can make lazy students smarter,
not lazier. I guess you meant this - stu-
dents resorting to the copy+paste
method of solving problems and com-
pleting assignments. It is quite akin to
an open book exam( which is not despi-
cable at all). I am only happy that the
students could spot the information they
need from Vidya and I call that smart-
ness.
Now, it is for the teacher to use
his discretion to judge the originality of
such submissions. The nature of what
a student writes will have a clear imprint
of the students style of talking and
other abilities (analytical/verbal) dis-
played in the class. A smart teacher will
immediately figure out the anomaly and
May2008 Page 30
test the student thoroughly instead of
blindly awarding grades based on sub-
missions by the student. A smart
teacher will be discerning enough thus.
So the equation gets reduced to these
facts:
1. Vidya can make a lazy students
smarter.
2. Smart teachers can make lazy stu-
dents work harder and do better.
3. Only lazy teachers can make lazy
students lazier.
...and I am sure one cannot afford to get
lazy in Amrita campus.
Well, it is like this-here’s a set of
tools and book of rules, one can either
build a stepping stone or stumbling
block. It all depends on individual per-
ceptions and attitudes. There is a com-
prehensive section in Vidya called
“Academic Integrity” that has well or-
ganized information on plagiarism,
copyright regulations etc. It is good for
students to be aware of all this from
their first year itself.
In the near future do you see video
lectures in Vidya being an integral
part of class room sessions, Can it
be an alternative to the teaching
methodology followed in most uni-
versities in India?
I wish it happens that way and it does
not take much time for such things to
happen. A good resolve to teach better
and learn better can make it happen
right away. Students do take these
video lectures and watch it on their lap-
tops, but then not all can afford laptops.
So one section of students miss out this
mode of learning completely if they are
not in a position to see video lectures
even in the computer labs. There is a
lot our teachers could also benefit from
viewing these video lectures. So when
a teacher is benefited thus, the whole
class in turn gets benefited. For exam-
ple Mr. J Shrikrishnan of Cisco Acad-
emy plays Vidya video lectures in his
class and he remarked that such exer-
cises make the class more lively and in-
teractive. I wish there are more
practitioners of this approach. In fact
finding right kind of video lectures to
play in the classrooms is not difficult at
all since the entire curriculum is
mapped to Vidya resources. I must tell
that Ms.Smrithi Rekha of CSE depart-
ment has tried out playing motivational/
inspirational videos from Vidya in her
computer science classes which was
well received. I was really surprised
when she told one day that she played
a short video ( from the Social Sciences
ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
In Focus - VIDYA
archive of Vidya) in the class when
there was a delay on starting the project
presentations session. Such attempts
are real exemplifications of how an in-
spired teacher can inspire a whole class
of students and how well we can use
Vidya in effective ways for the overall
development of our students. I have
also been overwhelmed seeing the en-
thusiasm of Mr.Satheesh Babu of
Chemistry department every time I
added a new collection of Chemistry
material in Vidya. This is the openness
needed and it is good that we have peo-
ple like them.
How different is Vidya from other
knowldege bases and digital li-
braries?
Let me change the word ‘difference’ to
‘uniqueness’. The term ‘digital library’ is
something that is getting redefined.
There was a time when ‘digital library’
meant a separate enclosure adjacent to
the central library with a few machines
dedicated to access digital contents.
This is the concept of the 90’s. Digital
content is best disseminated if it is dis-
tributed across the network . The very
term ‘digital’ means communication at
the speed of light. If some one has to
walk across a few blocks to access dig-
ital content in a an environment of LAN
and WiFi, I feel we are following the
‘vacuum tube generation’ practices in
the ‘digital era’ .But it is great to have a
centralized location where people can
meet and discuss. Looking at this way,
Vidya is a floating presence across the
campus, it reaches every one any time,
one need not walk to it.
All formidable digital libraries will have
gateways to a wide variety of online
journal subscriptions and other reposi-
tories, this surely needs seamless inter-
net connectivity . Vidya has IEEE,
ACM, Dig Engg Library gateways. We
need to add more any way. The unique-
ness of Vidya lies in the variety of mate-
rial locally archived (even when internet
is down, people can continue to learn
using global resources. Vidya is some-
thing one can explore and experience
almost any where in the campus across
the LAN. One must consider each
repository a unique one because it is
built primarily to cater to the community
it belongs.
The true potential of Vidya can be
unleashed to our student community
only if Vidya is made accessible
across the campus WiFi , then Vidya
will begin to evolve into a ‘Learning
Resource Centre’
Contd... on page 31
 ANWESHI
Vidya Story - Contd ...
Which is the best feedback/ testimo-
nial you have received from students
on your work on Vidya?
These are the times of online communi-
ties and social networking portals, and
testimonials seem to be the sponta-
neous and easiest way (some times
frivolous and superfluous too) one can
gift the other person expecting the
same in return. So I do not want to dig
out anything specific. Being with stu-
dents really meant playing the changing
roles of a friend, critique and mentor
and brother. I have tried to do my best .
But, there are two reflections from stu-
dents I would cherish unto my last even
if I am to lose the rest of my credentials
and testimonials :
This is my testimonial
.......................................
( for the man who has silently engi-
neered an ecstasy called 'Vidya' Am-
rita's Digital library )
Karthik Sankar.R
M.Sc 2005 Batch
Dear Ajai Sir.
I am reaching out to you at this
juncture where I really should be
viewed from a different frame of
reference, and none else than you
sir. I think, currently, there are so
many stuff running in my mind that I
feel I have temporarily lost the clarity
to think objectively. As you know me,
I didn’t think twice about reaching
out to for your help… please guide
me.
When I watched the movie ‘Taare
Zameen Par’, I couldn’t help recalling
you as teacher Nikhumb and myself
as the dyslexic student. Without your
guidance I wouldn’t have scaled the
initial loss of IIT during first year, and
all that I learnt later… And as a per-
son who knows me inside out in the
context discussed above, I felt it
more than necessary to reach out to
you. Kindly let me know your
thoughts sir…This is something that
I can’t discuss at home or friends or
siblings (as I have none)…. It’s over
to you………
Mar 6, 2008
( This alumnus (2004 batch) is a
successful professional in Europe)
Identity protected as requested by the
writer.
May 2008 Page 31
This is what I earned and I feel all the
struggle was well worth it.
What were the most unforgettable
experiences related to your work on
Vidya?
There are many incidents associated
with building Vidya and my life in the
campus, in fact too many of them.
Some day I will narrate it all in a novel
I am gearing up to write. I have worked
on Vidya with the conviction that every
speck of information that goes to Vidya
is precious, it could inspire, inform and
transform some one’s life and that is
just what I have experienced all through
the process of building Vidya. At the
personal level, looking back in retro-
spect, I cherish those moments of utter
restlessness and vigor that facilitated
rigorous creative outpour… forgetting to
eat, sleep or any other recreation obliv-
ious of the passage of time, I was totally
engrossed (to the point of obsession)
in adding more to Vidya. Now I wonder
how did all that happen. When I see
digital library initiatives around involving
huge funding and large number of peo-
ple involved, I really marvel at Vidya be-
cause it is perhaps the best example of
creating the most economical digital
archive. Students like J.Chan-
drasekhar ( Mech-2008 batch) pro-
vided great support consistently
convincing me that there are many tak-
ers who are eager for anything good
that goes into Vidya.The tag line of
Vidya is the mission of Vidya - To In-
form, Inspire and Innovate.
As far as my work in Amrita is con-
cerned, it is the last two years that saw
an effective consolidation of everything
I was involved with. It is work on Vidya
that eventually lead to conceiving
‘MINDSCAPE’- The Documentary
Screening Group , later forming
‘ASTHA’ - Amrita Science and Technol-
ogy Action Forum and ‘ANWESHI’-The
Newsmagazine. I must thank the stu-
dents Mr.Binit Bhatia ( IT, 2007 batch)
Rajesh Rajan ( Mech 2008 batch) and
Meenal Purohit (CSE 2008 batch) who
were instrumental in establishing Mind-
scape. Had it not been for the spirited
efforts of Rajesh Rajan, Meenal Puro-
hit, Kothai Priyadharshini ( CSE 2009
batch) and the team, Mindscape and
ASTHA would not have reached where
it is today. I have great faith in the cur-
rent batch of students and I am sure
that they will take the initiatives further.
I thank every one who supported and
sustained me in all my endeavors.
It’s been a real privilege, Thank You!
ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine
In Focus - VIDYA
VIDYA - The e-Guru@Amrita
...While the infrastructure development has
been at a rocketing pace in Amrita, which
scores well over many contemporary institu-
tions, I feel that the single largest influence
that changed the learning attitude of students
was initiated by Vidya – the e-Learning
repository of Amrita. When I was a student
(2002) Vidya was in Her fledgling stage
(compared to what She is now), but even
then She was my saviour for 2 of my final
year electives (FEM & Mechatronics). Vidya
for me was an inspiration and guide to my
future of opportunities, teaching me the es-
sentials of engineering, management, philos-
ophy, humanities, spirituality, and creativity
– all capsuled within a mouse-click. Within a
couple of years Vidya has changed academic
attitudes of students from that of routine ed-
ucation to meaningful learning and holistic
development: the latter being the actual pur-
pose of the former. Vidya transcends beyond
teaching subjects, for She guides students
how to Learn.
Nowhere else could I have got to meet
Chanakya, Oscar Schindler, Einstein, Patan-
jali, Edward de Bono, Jack Welch, Prof.
March, Sri Gandhi, Richard Feynman and
Amma, over one single table! And imagine
arriving at a confluence of their ideas and
contemplating over them? That’s exactly
what Vidya made me do: Think. But, that is
the power of Vidya, showing you the broader
aspects of learning and giving you an oppor-
tunity to assimilate within. She was (is) the
gateway of access to any personality I
wanted to learn about, and Oscar Schindler
was a great influence on my concepts of
ethics and morality. Nowhere else could I
have imagined to meet Schindler!
Today, I find that stu-
dents are in a greater pace than we were, but
still finding it hard to keep up with Vidya.
From the latest video lectures to ground
breaking scientific inventions, Vidya has
more to offer than the students could possi-
bly want. But I am immensely happy that
students have fully realised the indispens-
ability of Vidya and are working together to
redefine the process of learning. Vidya, in
many ways, has positively influenced the
peer bonding within Amrita. Today, students
stay back during vacations to enjoy the ab-
solute bliss of learning through Vidya, for the
fun of it (purpose will follow later!). As
probably the most frequently visiting alum-
nus of Ettimadai campus, I have been able to
witness the silent transformation in the stu-
dents’ learning mode, getting healthier every
month, as further confirmed through my in-
teraction with them. Vidya has touched and
changed lives at Ettimadai, and She will con-
tinue to guide generations of students to
come.
Srinivasa Varadhan
Cognizant Technologies, London
( Former Amrita Alumni Vice President
2005-2007 )
ANWESHI May 2008 Page 32 In Depth - VIDYA

ANWESHI - ASTHA Newsmagazine