Bangalore University students can now download their degree certificates and use it till they get the original ones.
Launching the online certificate portal on Wednesday, Bangalore University vice chancellor N Prabhu Dev said that it was a first-of-its-kind initiative.
"This is to enable students of all affiliated colleges, who are eligible to receive their convocation certificate, access their certificate online without personally visiting the institution or the university," he said.
Students can download the certificate within two hours if they provide the required documents. The original certificate will be sent through post to their address within a month.
"During the first phase, only students who have completed their degree in 2010 will be eligible to apply for the convocation certificate. In the second phase, all students, including previous and forthcoming years, will be able to access this service," he said.
Prabhu Dev added that from next year, the convocation certificate will bear the photo of the student.
The e-convocation certificate generated during the first phase will be valid till March 31, 2011.
Bangalore University had tied up with MeritTrac Services and HDFC Bank to start this service.
HOW TO GO ABOUT IT
Students can access this service by clicking the relevant link on the BU website: www.bub.ernet.in.
Upon accessing this link, students will be asked to feed their BU registration number, and provide personal details (address, contact information, etc). They have the option to either make an online payment or pay through demand draft (DD).
In the first phase, students can make online payment either through DD or credit card. Later, even net banking and debit card will be accepted. Students should make an online payment of Rs317. Once the payment is successful and the transaction authorized by BU officials, the e-convocation certificate will be generated in preview mode.
Subsequently, after confirmation, the final certificate will be generated and available for the student to print or download.
NEW DOMAIN
Students can now access Bangalore University's new website: wwww.bengaluruuniversity.com to get information about the varsity. On Wednesday, Bangalore university released the beta version of its new website. The site has information on department, centre, students, distance education, constituent colleges, notifications, affiliated colleges and important links. The website has links that provide information on calendar of events for PG and UG courses, fee structure, exam timetable and eligibility criteria of all the courses.
E-BOOKS
At least 41,800 books have gone missing from Bangalore University so far. In an attempt to control thefts, the university library committee has decided to fix Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to every book in the library. Besides, BU has purchased 15,742 e-books published between 2005 and 2010 from Springer publishers at a cost of nearly Rs one crore. The e-books can be accessed from BU library website. Users can search for the e-books with their one keyword and they will get the results from the entire collection.
All BU-affiliated colleges can use the available e-resource by enrolling as institutional members to the library, paying Rs 10,000 for annual membership.