The challenges will be addressed by the following approaches:

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1 Dynamic Cloud Server on Higher Education and Research *2. Computing costs in terms of hardware, software and human resource development are on the rise and are becoming unaffordable for individual organizations. Increasing capacity and capability of IT services entails considerable cost in terms of hardware, software licensing, training of personnel and obsolescence of technology and pose a big challenge for many organizations. Cloud Computing using virtual servers on the internet provides subscription based, pay per use service without heavy investments and the related risk of obsolescence. The recent economic recession has aggravated this problem and has seen many organizations resorting to cloud computing as a cost saving strategy. With the upcoming economic reforms, academic and research institutes will still retain their appetite for cost effective solutions based on Cloud Computing and services. Cloud computing services help modern business houses / institutes to scale up or scale down their computing needs and resources through public, private and hybrid clouds which are further promising the growth of cloud computing. *3 Our Dynamic Higher Education and Research based Cloud Server would not only provide category wise knowledge base, knowledge sharing and authentic information for students, researchers, educators and innovators but also would provide and share research related tools and techniques for use in R&D to meet current shortfall of Ph.D. s in India and across the globe. Our Cloud Server would provide access to a group of eminent educationalists and researchers, who would assist and impart knowledge and expertise to Ph.D. scholars and act as an internal/external guides. The Cloud Server would be fed by international /national publications and research papers using government and non-government agencies like IEEE, ACM, Springer etc. t o build up a knowledge bank. To start with, we would touch upon Computer Science & Information Technology and Electronics and Communication Engineering disciplines and will subsequently cover other engineering disciplines. The challenges will be addressed by the following approaches: Using Higher Education and Research Cloud, we would like to connect the Academic and Research community across the globe in the field of Computer Science & Information Technology and Electronics, & Communication Engineering etc on a single platform. Promoting and Enhancing Higher Education and Research to meet Global Requirements by putting Ph.D. scholars, Researchers, Engineers and Innovators under same roof known as Dynamic Higher Education and Research Cloud.

2 Access to International and National Research Papers, Journals, Articles, e-books, Publications etc on a Single Cloud based Server. Increase the Higher Education and Ph.D. ratio in India and across the globe. Promotion and sharing of Research tools and Techniques like Algorithms, Virtualization, Learning Management Systems, Simulating Tools, and Open Source Software for Higher Education and Research. *4 Experience of the following leading research organizations provides evidence of positive results and impact of Cloud Computing technology in the field of research. i) Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Education: AWS in Education provides a cloud computing technology based set of programs that enable the worldwide academic community to easily leverage the benefits of Amazon Web Services for teaching and research. With AWS in Education, educators, academic researchers, and students can apply to obtain free usage credits to tap into the on-demand infrastructure of Amazon Web Services to teach advanced courses, tackle research endeavors and explore new projects tasks that previously would have required expensive up-front and ongoing investments in infrastructure. ii) Harvard Medical School: Harvard Medical School is using Right Scale as part of their Translational Science in the Cloud seminar. The participants will conduct a series of exercises in biomedical discovery and translational science using cloud computing technology. To accomplish these objectives, teams will create, manage and use a translational research laboratory on the cloud based on emerging cloud technology and services. iii)ucsb Computer Science Department: The UCSB Computer Science Department has created the EUCALYPTUS project to foster community research and development of Elastic/Utility/Cloud service implementation technologies, resource allocation strategies, service level agreement (SLA) mechanisms and policies and usage models. RightScale and Eucalyptus have partnered to help make cloud computing simple and accessible to everyone from universities and students to entrepreneurs and enterprises evaluating large cloud deployments. iii) IBM s Cloud Computing and Education Initiatives: IBM has launched IBM Cloud Academy, a forum for educators and others to share best practices on the use of cloud computing in education. The IBM Cloud Academy represents a continuation of the cloud computing projects that IBM has initiated over the past two years.

3 These programs provide a forum for collaboration, research and innovation, as well as a showcase for the work and projects IBM has completed with the education industry. *5 The New Learner *6 Our project will help the consortium in the following ways: Subject Specific Study Materials: This particular Sub Cloud would be specific for students and educators who need information for their academic studies. Students would be provided categorized study materials and authentic information related to research and study. Apart from that this sub cloud would be for those who are in the education industry, including students, faculty and administrators to gain immediate access to a wide range of new educational resources and research applications and tools. Subject Specific Research Publications: This Sub Cloud will enable the academic community to inexpensively and rapidly build on global computing infrastructure to pursue course projects and accelerate their productivity and research results, while enjoying the same benefits of reliability, elasticity, and cost-effectiveness used by industry and academia. Research Tools and Techniques: This Sub Cloud will provide various tools and suites to test and simulate the research work in different streams. The research tools can be developed by the scholars to meet the individual requirements or some pre-integrated tools can also be executed. Different algorithmic techniques and paradigms would be shared by the research scholars to demonstrate, justify and defend the work. Research Guides and Forums: There is acute shortage of competent faculty in engineering discipline in India and across the world. A valid resource says that the percentage of Engineering Ph.D. output to graduate engineers output is less than 1% in India, compared to 9% in U.K., 8% in USA, 7% in Germany and 4% in China and Japan. These issues can be addressed by the development and use of Dynamic Higher Education and Research Cloud which would facilitate the researchers, educators, inventors and students to log in and gather knowledge, information and data for higher education, invention and research. The Cloud Computing is a dynamic source of Software, Hardware and SaaS (Software as a Service) on internet and can work like a Virtual University where apart from knowledge sharing, students, educators, researchers etc. can peruse higher education and interact with eminent educationists and researchers for seeking Ph.D. guidance.

4 *7 While the percentage of Ph.D. output to Engineering Graduates output is low all over the world, it is a dismal less than 1 % in India because of various constraints, namely lack of computing facilities, contemporary research material/publications, competent guides etc. These projects will go a long way to address this problem. *8 400 *9 60 *10 We have developed and introduced ERP system for students and faculty in the form of a portal which provides updates on assignments, evaluation, assessment, webinars etc. This portal is already on the Cloud. *11 ChalkPad Private Limited has associated with us in developing ERP system for use by higher education institutes. *12 We have been giving demos on online testing and assessment in educational institutes in this region. *13 Following are some of the changes / improvements as a result of this project: Two Faculty Development Programs comprising 20 faculty each from different Departments were organized to disseminate the concept and practice of e Learning through Tablet PC technology and assessment through customized MOODLE LMS and Classroom Presenter. Participation in Portal :

5 Good number of faculty and students are actively participating in hpiie portal for getting updates about e Learning across the world. As a result of this interest and awareness some students and faculty members presented Papers in the International Conference in Education Informatics Customized KOHA for Library Management The open source software KOHA was customized as per our requirements and introduced. As a result of this, Library Management including requisition, issue, return and tracking of books / journals etc. has been computerized. Development of Online ERP System An ERP system for online student information including attendance, messaging, interaction with parents, e Assignments, evaluation etc. was developed and introduced. Each student is issued a password to access his account and he/she along with his/her parents are kept updated with the record of the students on an on line basis. *14 There is high level of enthusiasm among the students for distributed e Learning using Tablet PC technology. From January, 2011, we have added more courses through e Learning. Our Institute has incubated a start-up company named Yellow Cursor ( which develops multi-media educational solutions for engineering students aimed at improved understanding and retention of concepts. *15 Cloud Computing, Software as a Service, Virtual University, Portal, Research tools and techniques.

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