Tamil Virtual Academy to upgrade portal, get mobile app

CHENNAI: Moving another step forward in information technology, Tamil Virtual Academy (TVA), the erstwhile Tamil Virtual University, which was providing Tamil education through the internet, has decided to take its academic activities to next level by developing an Integrated Digital Archival Management System through a portal, including coming up with a hybrid mobile app.

A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that the academy has developed websites for Tamil digital library websites, which contain 50,000 rare collections of printed books, periodicals, manuscripts, palm leaves and photographs related to the Tamil language and culture.

“TVA wants to add more additional categories such as audio, videos, maps and charts to take up the website to the next level by revamping it,” he added.

Stating that all the existing data and the new data proposed to be added will be available on the new archival management system, he said the online system will provide all information about TVA’s digital library with high visibility, accessibility and user-friendliness. Importantly, the application needs to have a strong, customized content management system backing it.

The official said that TVA will be engaging IT experts to provide design, software development, solution deployment and operationalisation of the new system along with its content management.

“Accordingly, project manager, technical lead, front end developers, backend developers and designers will be engaged to create the new content management system,” he said adding “experts would be selected from an IT firm through a bidding process and proper technical evaluation”.

He said the user interface of the new system will be easy-to-use, intuitive, accessible to those who are differently abled as well, and available in both Tamil and English, in future other Indian, Asian, and European languages.

“The online system will be responsive to multiple screen sizes, such as those of a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone and also hybrid mobile app development for the same,” he said and pointed out “it will also support all industry-standard browsers, such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.”

The official also said that the system will support audio and video content without plugins besides allowing multiple user access levels and graded access for downloading and printing. “The system will display contents by integrating external links and Application Programme Interface such as social media (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs).