Instituting and Internet

With the implementation of an intranet across the four Indian Institutes of Managements, the IIMS are going to be the only institutions in India, and probably in the world, to have gone the intranet way.

Today, there is reason for the four key institutes of management learning—the four Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)—to be proud of themselves. And why not? After all, the IIMs are the only educational institutions in India, and probably among the very few educational institutions in the world, to have gone the intranet way. And how important is it for an educational institution to be IT-enabled?

Answered Professor Nagadevra, IIM Bangalore, “Thanks to the intranet or because of the internet working of the four IIMs, information is easily accessible, and the flow is far more efficient”
Adding to the list of benefits, M.R. Rao, chairman, IIM Bangalore, said: “Since we have connected all the four IIMs into one, there will be a synergy between information and the brain.”

The compulsions for the IIMs to go in for a network-based environment were many. The institute always wanted to create forums for the exchange of resources such as documents, reports, clippings, CD ROM-based journals, and so on.

Sald Vishnuprasad Nagadevara, professor, Indian institute of Management, Bangalore, who is in-charge of the intranet at the campus: “IIMs need a secure network so that these resources can be accessed only by designated groups of persons.

In addition, there is a fairly large amount of information transferred across IIMs such as admissions data, placement data, etc. This data is highly confidential and the transmission has to be on secure lines. Because of the confidentiality involved, the Institutes have been depending on the normal modes of transmission such as telephones, faxes, and couriers. The IIM intranet will provide a highly secure transmission facility for this kind of sensitive and confidential information.”

Accessing databases
The beauty of the intranet at IIM lies in the fact that one can access all the databases by logging into the Web sites of the four IIMs.
It is envisaged that initially the entire information available in the libraries of all the IIMs will be made available through the intranet. Currently, all the IIMs subscribe to CD-ROM-based journals. In order to use the resources most efficiently, the IIMs have an understanding among themselves whereby all do not subscribe to the same CD-ROMs.
At present, if any faculty members, students or participants of the executive development programs require any article available with any other IIM, a request is sent to the concerned IIM, which in turn sends it in the form of a hard copy or a computer file.
With the help of the intranet, however, users will have direct access to all the CD-ROM servers (Juke Boxes). They will be able to view the article and if necessary download it or take a printout locally.

Similarly, all the course outlines from all the Institutes would be accessible to all the students and faculty.

“The secure communication will make it easier to transmit confidential information on-line,” said Nagadevra. “In addition, the faculty members from different Institutes will be able to create forums of interest and collaborate using the intranet facility. This will help in sharing the knowledge base and encourage more efficient ways of teaching. The students can get the placement information on-line during the placement season. Finally, even videoconferencing is envisaged so that classes held in one IIM can be beamed to other IIMs exclusively. Of course, this will depend on the availability of the required bandwidth,” Nagadevra added.

Cutting costs
Since the time that the hardware has been installed at the IIMs by Digital India, the key supplier, the institute at Bangalore claims it has barely exhausted its budgeted expenditure. While normally the IIMs individually spent around one crore rupees annually on the acquisition of books, journals, reports, etc., for the library, the sum has been drastically reduced. This year the expenditure on information material has come down to Rs. 75 lakhs, sources at IIM Bangalore claim.
Apart from the library expenditure, each of the IIMs also spends an additional one crore rupees on the acquisition of management-oriented software.
Said Nagadevra: “Even a ten percent saving on the library! software budget of these four Institutes will pay back the entire investment in a year’s time. Of course, IIMs are not really investing any significant amount on the hardware or software required for the intranet.
The whole community at the IIMs—the faculty, students, MIS personnel, and staff involved in activities such as managing libraries, admissions, placements, accounts, etc., are enthusiastic about the upcoming IIMnet.

The students at the institutes appear particularly upbeat about the arrival of the intranet. Balram Avittathur, a student who is pursuing a doctoral course at the Bangalore institute highlighted some of the advantages that students would derive out of the intranet.
“The IIM intranet will help students to access working papers and cases written in other IIMs; know about the library resources and holdings at other IIMs; know about the details of various courses offered; hold electronic liaisons with faculty and students of other IIMs; hold virtual conferences; access abstracts and full text of journals not available in their own institute but subscribed by one or the other IIMs; send notices through internal electronic bulletin boards; reduce the cost of accessing expensive software and electronic databases through a shared approach; and be able to create student forums that represent different courses,” said Avittathur.
According to Elizabeth Alexander, an ex-student of IIM Lucknow and currently senior systems manager at Modi Xerox, networking the IIMs information sharing. “Today, there is not a lot of that going on. Each IIM is pretty isolated from the others.”
In fact, said Alexander, activities such as job placements, summer internships, etc., can be organized on the network. “Besides, various case studies done by students can be put on the network for initiating discussions. Professors too can now use the network to share information relevant to the courses, and even get suitable consultancy assignments for the institute,” added Alexander.

Accessing IIMnet
The IIMs have about 280 faculty members and 1400 students (for both the semesters) and in addition, around 120 students in the doctoral program. All these will have access to the IIMnet.
Interestingly, before the intranet was put in place, the four IIMs were accessing the ‘Net. They were in fact using the existing networks at each of the IIMs to the fullest. The entire course registration for instance, is being done through Web-based software running on the Internet. However, access had been limited exclusively to students. Said Nagadevra, “The students usually submit their term papers, assignments, etc. through the network. We use the WWW/Internet extensively. As a matter of fact, our computer center is kept open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Atish Govil, an ex-student of IIM Bangalore, who is now working in Bombay added: “We had about 50 computers connected to the Internet with individual addresses. It was a phenomenal source of information.
We used to spend hours at night just ‘Net surfing. It also got us to interact more frequently with our friends who had ‘Net accessibility.”
He further stressed: “By the time you moved out of the place, you were more computer literate than you would have been if you had attended any money minting private computer training school.”