Startup Business Plan for Educational Technology Providing Firm in India

Advancements in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have completely transformed our life. Internet has become a technology without which it is difficult to survive now. Internet was initially used as means to access the information. But now, with the help of so many web applications, internet is providing enormous amount of business and personal tools. These tools are specially designed to make particular tasks easy. Internet is also used to share information and communicate with people who are geographically apart. Many businesses and social fields have benefited from the application of these technologies; and education industry is no exception. There are many applications of (ICT) technologies in education. The use of multimedia such as projectors and computers has captured education industry from decades. But when we specifically talk about internet or communication technology than distance learning using these enabling technologies is the first one that comes in our mind. Apart from that, there are many other terms which are related to digital technology and education industry such as e-learning, digital learning, simulation software, Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Competency Management Systems (CMS). All these technologies together make the process of providing quality education much easier and faster. LMS is usually deployed in educational institutes where it can facilitate the interactions between teachers and students more efficient. With the help of this technology, teachers can share coursework related information with their students, upload course documents, homework assignments and initiate online discussions. On the other hand, students can create their own study groups, post questions and comments in discussion forums and upload/submit assignments/homework. Teachers can track the progress of a student online. All these facilities improve the quality of communication and in turn education. This also reduces a lot of administrative overhead since all the information is stored online. CMS is similar in concept to LMS but it is mostly deployed by businesses. Many businesses, especially the consulting firms whose business model depends upon knowledge workers and their skills, need to manage the competency of their employees. Usually such businesses promote advanced learning and skills development among their employees by integrating learning and development as the part of their performance management systems. These companies can benefit by deploying company-wide CMS [12]. Through CMS, they can assign particular skills and competency to a particular employee and monitor their progress online. The same system can be used by companies to make project and resource allocation decisions by readily accessible mapping of competencies. Many universities and companies in USA actively use these technologies in some form or the other. However, although India is a leading provider of high class information technology professionals in the world, many Indian education institutes do not use ICT technologies to the fullest, especially LMS[6]. The primary reason for not adopting to the new technologies is the lack of IT infrastructure in the rural areas and increasing cost of ICT deployments in bigger cities. Deploying such technology in schools and colleges becomes very expensive. Usually, there are individual contractors who design the required systems for schools and universities. Designing and developing such systems is time consuming as well as expensive. Once deployed, these systems also have high maintenance costs. There are not many standard and easy-to-use commercial products in the market which universities could readily deploy on the campus and start using it. There is a strong need of such web applications, which could be easily used by education industries in India. This business plan is an attempt to bring the power of technology to Indian education industry

Wireless technology and clinical influences in healthcare setting: an Indian case study

This chapter argues that current techniques used in the domain of Information Systems is not adequate for establishing determinants of wireless technology in a clinical setting. Using data collected from India, this chapter conducted a first order regrssion modeling (factor analysis) and then a second order regression modeling (SEM) to establish the determinants of clinical influences as a result of using wireless technology in healthcare settings. As information systems professionals, the authors conducted a qualitative data collection to understand the domain prior to employing a quantitative technique, thus providing rigour as well as personal relevance. The outcomes of this study has clearly established that there are a number of influences such as the organisational factors in determining the technology acceptance and provides evidence that trivial factors such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are no longer acceptable as the factors of technology acceptance

Content creation and E-learning in Indian Languages : a model

In the era of E-publishing and E-learning, numerous universities and cultural organizations around the world have launched initiatives to develop tools for multilingual learning and web publishing and have given preference to local content. India has different languages and different culture. Most of the knowledge and information related to people, culture, science and philosophy of India is available in Indian languages, which will be useful for learning and developing knowledge base. In India E-learning systems and online courses are already started, but as a multi lingual country, which gives importance to education through regional languages, there should be facilities for multi lingual E-learning. This paper covers the issues of Indian language knowledge base/content base, its requirement, and its implication in e learning. An Integrated multi lingual E-learning system for India is proposed in this paper, where importance given to multi lingual course content creation

Circling the Cross: Bridging Native America, Education, and Digital Media

Part of the Volume on Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital MediaTo paraphrase a Native elder, any road will get you somewhere. The question for Native America is, where will the information highway take them? As Native Americans continue to face challenges from the legacy of colonialism, new media provide both an opportunity and crises in education. Standardized education policy such as No Child Left Behind and funding cuts in social services inadvertently impact Net access and Indian education, yet alternative programs and approaches exist. It is necessary that programs conceptualize new media learning strategies within a historical context by being sensitive to the political and cultural connotations of literacy and technology in Native American communities. By encouraging the use of new media as a tool for grassroots community media and locally relevant storytelling, this chapter asks educators to consider an alternative epistemology that incorporates non-Western approaches to ecology and knowledge

New media practices in India: bridging past and future, markets and development

This article provides a review of the academic and popular literature on new media practices in India, focusing on the country’s youth's use of mobile phones and the Internet, as well as new media prosumption. One particular feature of the Indian case is the confluence of commercial exploitation of new media technologies and their application for development purposes in initiatives that aim to bring these technologies to marginalized segments of the Indian population. Technology usage in turn is shaped by the socioeconomic location of the user, especially in regards to gender and caste. The potential of new media technologies to subvert such social stratifications and associated norms has inspired much public debate, which is often carried out on the Internet, giving rise to an online public sphere. In all of the writings reviewed here, the tension surrounding new media technologies as a meeting place of the old and the new in India is paramount

Usability and Psychosocial Impact of Decision Support to Increase Sexual Health Education in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

Despite sexual and reproductive health disparities, few evidence-based sexual health education programs exist for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, with even fewer tools available to assist AI/AN communities in adopting, implementing, and maintaining such programs. iCHAMPSS (Choosing And Maintaining effective Programs for Sex education in Schools) is a theory- and web-based decision-support-system designed to address dissemination barriers and increase the reach and fidelity of evidence-based programs (EBPs), specifically sexual health education programs. To investigate the potential of iCHAMPSS in AI/AN communities, we pilot-tested iCHAMPSS with adult stakeholders (N = 36) from agencies across the country that serve AI/AN communities. Stakeholders were recruited to review selected iCHAMPSS tools over two weeks in spring 2016. Pre- and post-surveys were administered to assess usability constructs, short-term psychosocial outcomes, and perceived feasibility. Data were analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric statistics. iCHAMPSS was perceived as acceptable, easy to use, credible, appealing, more helpful than current resources, and impactful of EBP adoption, implementation, and maintenance. Conversely, using iCHAMPSS significantly increased participants’ perceived barriers to adopting an EBP (p = 0.01). Overall, AI/AN stakeholders responded positively to iCHAMPSS, indicating the potential for adaptation to support the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based sexual health education in AI/AN communities

Kerala Libraries Network (KELNET): a Proposal

Visualizes the conceptual framework and propose the development of a Kerala Library Network (KELNET) by exploring and exploiting the available and the existing social infrastructures, social softwares, open standards and technologies

Private Enterprise for Public Health: Opportunities for Business to Improve Women's and Children's Health

This guide, developed by FSG and published by the Innovation Working Group in support of the global Every Woman, Every Child effort, explores how companies can create shared value in women's and children's health. The document sets out opportunities for multiple different industries to develop new product and services, improve delivery systems and strengthen health systems that can support global efforts to save 16 million women's and children's lives between now and 2015. It particularly notes that companies need not wait for health services to "catch up" with their economic model, but rather they can work proactively to help accelerate change, by partnering with other industries, civil society and the public sector to create collective impact in a specific location. The aim of the guide is to catalyze these transformative partnerships

English language in rural Malaysia: situating global literacies in local practices

This paper claims that underlying the naturalisation of teaching and learning of English in the Malaysian education system are ideological pressures and political dogmas, often emerging from colonial, urban/rural and even local ethnic conflicts and hierarchies. It suggests therein lie the inherent difficulties of teaching and learning English in rural communities in Malaysia. Three paradigms frame this view in the paper: the overarching view of literacy as a situated and variable social process; the use of an ethnographic perspective in investigating English language and literacy education in Malaysia; the stance on the need for Malaysians to acquire English as an additive rather than as a deficit philosophy