The University of Mumbai and its 673 affiliated colleges and institutions will now be part of an "e-office", connected through Internet and Intranet, to bridge the digital divide and to share high quality and speedy knowledge.

"The objective of this scheme is to provide high quality personalised and interactive knowledge modules over the Internet/Intranet for all the learners in higher education institutions free of cost in any time any where mode," the university officials said.

It is also aimed to bridge digital divide- the gap in skills to use computing and access devices for the purposes of teaching and learning among urban and rural teachers/learners, they said in a release.The initiative was developed under the guidance of the Vice-chancellor Rajan Welukar, it said.

A total of 673 affiliated colleges and recognised institutions in both urban and rural areas will be part of this interactive network, the release said.

Creating an e-office was to bring in efficiency in administrative processes and service delivery mechanisms, has bound for the e-office as a core mission mode project under the e-Governance Plan and DJMS will be in place from tomorrow, said Dr Rajpal Hande, Director, Board of College & University Development (BCUD).

"In future the University will have less paper uses, one of the attempt to be eco-friendly and to bring transparency in the university system. We have trained our staff by holding seminars and workshops for development of tools, technologies and products relevant to ICT needs for e-Education," he said.

This project will ensure and support the administration to improve efficiency, consistency and effectiveness of administrative responses so as to reduce turnaround time and to meet the demands of the students and will provide effective resource management to improve quality of administration, besides reducing processing delays, the officials added.

The drive will also have an ambitious program catering to the learning needs and a one-stop solution for all the requirement of the learning community with a system of identification and nurturing of 'Talent and Lifelong Learning'.

Knowledge modules or education modules based on the personalised needs of the learner would need to be delivered to him/her at the right time with the right content to take care of his/her aspirations, the officials said.

E-Learning (Access to Courses On-line), a learning management system is customised for learning on-line and extension education courses, is implemented on the E-Learning portal of the Department of Lifelong Learning and Extension. The portal can be accessed on http://lms.mudlle.ac.in or http://mudlle.ac.in, the release said.

"Students from all the colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai are now have the benefit of on-line courses. The portal provides course-wise e-contents for use of students and to place an appropriate institutional mechanism for the extensive use of the computer software and hardware as well as ITes among staff and students," the officials said.