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Open Universities across the world are embracing ICT based teaching and learning process to disseminate quality education to their learners spread across the globe. In India availability and access of ICT and learner characteristics are uneven and vary from state to state. Hence it is important to establish the facts about ICT access among learners, their ICT usage patterns and their readiness to use ICT for educational purpose. In view of this, a study was conducted with the objective to find out the access level of ICT among distance learners. The analysis indicates that maximum learners have desktop/laptops and most of them are accessing internet very frequently from their home. The analysis also indicates that maximum respondents are browsing social networking sites followed by educational and e-mail service providing websites. Findings suggest that there is a need to generate ICT based tutorials complemented with social networking tools and mobile applications. Study also shows that learners are equipped with mobile phones and they are browsing internet through it and also availing support services offered by the university. Hence possibility of integrating mobile phone services may be used for providing learner support services and content delivery.

This paper aims at seeking recommendations for the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) policy from the industry to ensure learners graduating from ODL system are employable and are at par with those who have graduated from conventional system. Survey from total 97 employers spread over 7 industry sectors indicated that policy intervention is required to enhance skill development through ODL. This will enable ODL system and its learners to overcome major challenges related to credibility and recognition. These recommendations stressed on enhancing the quality of ODL education and skill development through collaboration between academia and industry and use of technology. It is highly advocated that government agencies should ensure that quality parameters like recognition, accreditation, industry relevant curricula, be implemented and fulfilled by ODL institutions as well. Apart from the core subject knowledge, employers also stressed upon the need to foster employability skills such as problem solving, critical thinking etc. in the curriculum. Both the quality of ODL programmes and its linking with skill development will enable ODL system to bridge the gap between demand and supply of skilled manpower. The herculean task of skilling millions of people in India can be achieved through collaboration and use of technology. Collaboration is the key factor to bring about synergy between academia and industry. It will enable the learners' job ready and give productive output at their work places, there by contributing to the economic development of the country. Alliance will also provide learners a smooth transition from learning to earning.

In this study, we extend the study of Function Point Analysis (FPA) for the measurement of source code based migration project using the migration tooling options. FPA is an objective and structured technique to measure software size by quantifying its functionality provided to the user, based on the requirements and logical design. It is noticed that the procedure for the above measurement is not fully described in FPA method. Hence, the same estimation concept has been applied to an in-house project on an experimental basis at a leading software development organization. The yielded results are compared with FPA for the re-engineering project

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