Anna University embarks on a digital journey to go paper-less

Anna University paves a digital path as it aims to increase efficiency in administrative processes and effectively solve students’ grievances.

Anna University is embarking on a digital journey as it lays an online foundation to manage the institution’s administrative tasks. The digital push at one of India’s premier technical education institutions is aimed at improving internal processes, and providing comprehensive services to students, research scholars, faculty and staff members.

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The university’s new workflow allows students to select and enrol in courses, complete requirements, take examinations and get grades. It is also equipped with communication and collaboration tools to enable students and faculty members to interact. The overall design has been architected with smartphones in mind. But it is currently launched as a web-based tool.

Apart from digitising academic-related tasks, the portal automates the university’s procurement and accounting processes. This inclusion is aimed at streamlining purchasing, and making approvals faster and more efficient at the university.

“Once these processes are automated, pain points of students can be reduced and there will be greater transparency,” Professor R. Velraj, Vice Chancellor of Anna University told The Hindu. “Transparency will give more details about tendering process on who is purchasing what. And that information will be visible to all. This in turn will speed up approvals and reduce delays.”

The Chennai-based university was formed in 1978 after integrating the College of Engineering, Alagappa College of Technology, Madras Institute of Technology, and the School of Architecture and Planning to offer higher education in engineering, technology, architecture and applied sciences.

Over the years, the university has introduced several technical upgrades as part of its modernisation plan. That meant administrative processes were getting digitised in siloes. In the last few decades, the student and faculty body grew. The four campuses that come under the Anna University umbrella currently support 10,000 students and 1,200 research scholars. So, many more processes had to be automated and scaled up to meet the growing needs of students.