The UGC Sponsored National Seminar on  Networking of Undergraduate Colleges –

Academic and Administrative Functions was jointly organised by the Departments of Physics
and Commerce of Maheshtala College on 5 th February,2007.The seminar witnessed a
galaxy of intellectuals and academics discuss and deliberate on a number of issues relevant
to the topic, and was well-attended by students and teachers. 

The issue of networking of Higher Education Institutes has emerged as one of the key areas
of concern in the field of education in post-globalisation India. Besides a Local Area Network
to enable better connectivity within campus has also been advocated, or where this is not
possible, Wi-Fi connectivity in campus needs to be introduced. Moreover, in a country like
India, there are a number of HEIs with severe infrastructure constraints, networking among
affiliated colleges can empower and encourage resource-sharing and meaningful synergy
among neighbouring institutions.

The UGC Sponsored seminar on Networking of Undergraduate Colleges – Academic and

Administrative Functions envisaged development of an information network that will
positively impact teaching-learning in the college as well as the larger scenario of education
in the state as well as in the country. The present age of development of MOOCs and digital
content (MOODLE etc) was in a way anticipated by the discussions and deliberations of the
seminar. The knowledge connectivity highway that has become a reality today was in a way
charted by experts from the field of academia and industry in the seminar.

As far as administrative functions of networking are concerned, the total financial and
administrative functions of a college and/or university are linked through e-portals to the
corresponding universities for various academic, administrative, examination, admission and
other activities. E-billing, E-pradan and E-pension are some of the examples to substantiate
the networking functions in HEIs.

This book of seminar proceedings took more than usual time for publication, and I once
again thank the University Grants Commission for their generosity. I also thank Dr Arindam
Basu for collecting and collating the actual seminar discourses, and Dr Sanghamitra
Ganguly and Prof Dipanwita Sarkar for painstakingly bringing out this volume. As we all
know, good thing in life come at a premium. Hence, I hope this book so patiently borne shall
definitely live up to its worth and initiate many more future discourses.

Dr Rumpa Das

Principal