Higher Education Information Systems Project (HISP): A Concept Note

Introduction

India has a large and complex Higher Education System. This comprises of nearly 310 universities. Universities in India are either set up by an Act of Parliament or the State Legislatures. In addition, some institutions are also conferred deemed to be University status by the Central Government. Universities are either unitary or affiliating. 131 universities in the Country are affiliating type. They together affiliate around 15,500 colleges. Total student enrolment is around 92 lakh. In addition, there are several professional councils that maintain standards in their respective fields. Some of these professional councils also maintain a Central Register of Professionals in their fields. In 1956, the Central Government had set up the University Grants Commission (UGC) to discharge its constitutional mandate of coordination, determination, and maintenance of standards in higher education.

UGC's Mandate

Higher Education system in the Country is a loose configuration of heterogeneous organizational units - universities, colleges, professional councils etc. This diversity is a source of excellence and makes it vibrant. Coordination of such a diverse system of education is tricky yet necessary to ensure its credibility. UGC is mandated to ensure coordinated development of higher education system in the Country - Ensuring Quality Higher Education for All. More specifically, UGC would like to:

Leverage its funding to bring about change in the higher education in the country in a systematic manner.
Adopt objective based criteria for funding of universities and colleges maintained by it that promotes greater accountability and would like the other funding agencies to adopt similar mechanism.
Provide an efficient mechanism for data collection, compilation and dissemination on higher education with more comprehensive coverage.
Better targeting and monitoring of research funding both by it and through other funding agencies.
Promote greater collaboration between higher education institutions themselves and with industry and society through sharing of expertise and facilities.
Provide credible information about higher education institutions and programmes - including their recognition status and accreditation details in partnership with Professional Councils.
Ensure a grievance redressal mechanism for students and parents linking it with processes of inspections etc.
Create a labour market information system for graduates by evolving a mechanism for tracking them and build up confidence in education loans.
Create a Knowledge Repository for communities of teachers and researchers in the Country.

With such an ambitious mandate and huge system of higher education, adoption of an IT strategy is a must. A properly implemented information system project in the higher education sector would not only enhance its efficiency and effectiveness at the operational level, but also bring about a paradigm shift in the management of the higher education system.

IT Strategy for UGC

IT Strategy for UGC involves - incremental computerization to improve efficiency of operations of the UGC offices and units and systemic design, development and deployment of comprehensive information system (Higher Education Information System Project – HISP) covering various activities to smoothen the interface with the internal and external stakeholders of the higher education system.

Incremental computerization effort would involve effective utilization of existing hardware / software infrastructure including training of the staff. It also involves procurement/ upgradation of additional PCs / printers, other hardware / software, and appropriate maintenance of the infrastructure through AMC. Both these efforts are proposed to be launched in parallel that need to converge eventually.

Higher Education Information System Project- HISP

Under the comprehensive information system, various functional modules that would be designed and rolled out are:

Grants Management System - The UGC releases funds under different heads / schemes to more than five thousand institutions and several thousand teachers and researchers. Accordingly, the Grants Management System is to monitor flow of grants, physical and financial progress, rendition of accounts and utilization; criteria-based funding for institutions maintained by it; Monitoring through Performance Radars; Online submission of proposals and its monitoring till sanctions under various schemes; Generation of need-based reports State / University / Scheme Wise, Generation Exception Reports; withholding grants for non-compliance, unique numbering methodologies etc.
Statistics Collection & Compilation System - The system should facilitate timely automatic data collection as well innovative mechanisms for obtaining the relevant data from various institutions whether funded or not by the UGC for statistical analysis consistent with International Standards (ISCED). The system should facilitate online compilation and query based responses for policy planners, administrators and researchers.
Recognition Management System - UGC recognises Institutions and programmes based on their level of competence and performance. In addition, various Professional Councils, NAAC and NBA also approve / accredit institutions and programmes. The requirement is for generating and disseminating unbiased and relevant information about different institutions and programmes including their accreditation details as well as mechanisms for monitoring and evolve a comprehensive National Qualification Framework (NQF).
Research Project Management System - UGC funds a number of research projects through its colleges/ Institutions etc on an annual basis. UGC requires developing and maintaining a repository of research projects as well as a tool to monitor these research projects for its timely completion and effective utilization of the funds. This repository needs to be built around the metadata framework for effective tagging of resources and their timely retrieval. This may be expandable to include research projects funded by other agencies to monitor gaps and overlaps etc.
Expertise & Facilities Database- UGC aims to improve the interface between the academics and the society, in particular the industry to help continuously monitor the relevance of various curricula offered by the universities to the industry and the society as a whole. While the system covers various levels of e-enabling such as information, interaction, transactional and collaborative, this sub-system facilitates and promotes collaborative activities, for better use of limited facilities, facilitating and improving industry/Society interfaces.
Graduates Registration & Information System (Gratis) - a labour market information system; assigning unique number to each Student entering into Indian Higher Education system; Linking such numbers with subsequent qualifications acquired; develop and establish qualification-skill-competency card integrated with the multi-purpose cards; implement means-tested scholarship and loan schemes to contain the problem of malpractices in higher education and help track loan recovery, unemployment assistance etc.
Knowledge Repository - Develop a mechanism for tracking academic information resources such as learning resources, curricula, question banks, national theses etc., published in various formats through systematic, internationally used metadata data framework for tagging such resources.
University & College Admission Management- To bring in transparency in the process of admissions by various Institutions, ensure reliability of such processes and to prevent malpractices in admissions, appropriate mechanisms need to be designed for effectively monitoring various tests for admissions such as Aptitude tests, common admission test, national eligibility test, and information collection on seat allocation and counselling.
Web-based Standard Solution for an Educational Institution - Develop standards for computerization for institutional functions in educational set up, so that independently evolved computerization initiatives of different higher education institutions could be seamlessly integrated within each other and fit into the metadata framework of this Project and ideate a framework for a standard web-based standard solution for an educational institution.
Other functional modules - may be included during the study phase based on their relevance, rational and need

A Policy document on Electronic Records Management shall also be developed. This document shall cover - legal issues, Information Security including authentication and audit, issues relating to privacy, structuring a mechanism for institutionalizing the electronic Records Management Office, Records Preservation and disposal, strategies for incorporating metadata tags in various electronic documents of the UGC and the institutions under its coverage.

Implementation

It is proposed to appoint consultant(s) to draw up the system specifications and for handholding during the design and development phase of the system. The consultant/s shall provide a blue-print to roll-out the entire infrastructure, systems and sub-systems including those within each different university / college. Based on the blue print a second level tender will be issued for implementation and roll-out. In order to obtain an early understanding of the stakeholder requirements and get their buy-in, it is necessary to hold a series of workshops and seminars involving both the internal and external stakeholders. This is expected to significantly contribute to effective design and development of the required functional modules.

Please send your comments to pagarwal@ugc.ac.in