ISLAMABAD, May 13: Fifty-six universities have been interconnected through Pakistan Educational Research Network (PERN), while work to interconnect 59 more campuses will be completed within a year. This was told to the Higher Education Commission chairman, Prof (Dr) Attaur Rahman, in a meeting held here on Friday. The meeting was called to review the progress on the project.

The meeting was told that video-conferencing facility to six universities will be completed in 12 weeks and international video conferencing facility would be in place before October.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) are working together for the implementation of the project. The 59 campuses to be interconnected in the second phase include multiple campuses of universities already connected and 42 private sector universities.

Prof Attaur Rehman also ordered an early implementation of the plan. It was also decided to improve the Fault Management System for a better service to the universities.

The PERN is a dedicated educational network for public/private sector chartered universities/degree-awarding institutions registered with the Higher Education Commission.

The interconnectivity of all these universities/institutions provides integration of data banks, collaboration for research and development activities and upgradation of teaching and learning skills.

Under PERN, Internet facility to the public/private sector chartered universities/degree-awarding institutions registered with the Higher Education Commission has also been provided.

The body also provides access platform for interconnection of universities/educational institutions with the Virtual University.

Prof Rehman also decided that PERN will provide services including full-fledged hi-tech video lecturing facilities, web streaming service for video lectures, VRVS video reflector service for multi-point video-conferencing with international researchers and centralized and distributed content servers for information sharing.

This will include text and multimedia objects, Video Over IP and possibly Voice Over IP (VOIP) services for communication between universities, computer and test equipment resource sharing across universities, automated transactions between universities and HEC, link with international research networks through APAN (Asia-Pacific Advanced Networks) and access to on- line university libraries.

The meeting was also attended by the NTC chairman and senior officers of HEC and NTC. — APP