Students can now access resources of another institute

Asking the HEIs to make their state-of-the art resources available to the needy ones, the UGC has authorized the HEIs i.e., host institutions to charge a nominal amount from the guest institutions

Hyderabad: Researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) will now be able to utilize the resources like libraries, laboratories, and equipment etc., of another HEI, with the University Grants Commission (UGC) asking the central universities and HEIs to share their infrastructure and resources with each other.

Asking the HEIs to make their state-of-the art resources available to the needy ones, the UGC has authorized the HEIs i.e., host institutions to charge a nominal amount from the guest institutions. The additional revenue will help the host institutions to maintain their resources and infrastructure.

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Towards this, the UGC has issued guidelines for optimal utilization of resources by HEIs.

Sharing of resources and facilities between the HEIs can be done under City Model (collaborating within the same city) and Distant Model (collaborating institutions distantly located). However, they are asked to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) on the same.

Under the City Model, resources sharing at the research level can be done between peer to peer or lab to lab. In the case of postgraduate and undergraduate level, resources can be shared between department to department or at the institutional level respectively.

The UGC has asked the institutions to make their high end equipment, for instance central instrumentation facility, available on a minimum and no-profit no-loss, cost sharing basis. Both collaborating universities can provide access to E-books, databases and online resources through central licenses. However, the institutions should ensure that such sharing of resources does not give rise to copyright violations or data privacy infringements etc.

As part of the Distant Model, the collaborating institution can share the academic resources such as institutional learning repositories viz. online lectures, videos, learning materials, and access to learning management systems.

“All the HEIs are requested to take appropriate measures for the implementation of the UGC guidelines so as to extend the benefit to the UG/PG students and researchers,” the UGC said.