WE-ASC

Kamani Perera is currently working as the Librarian/Research Officer of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has gained nearly 25 years professional experience and worked in major research institutes in Sri Lanka. She is an international paper presenter/speaker in digital library conferences and a paper reviewer/editor/author in international library journals. She has compiled several Indexes/Bibliographies and presented/published (peer-reviewed) nearly 40 international papers on digital repositories, extended learning, scholarly communication, mobile data, digital preservation, electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), grey repositories, ICT application, digital museums/archives, cultural heritage etc.

She has undergone training on new information technologies at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand and obtained Military Library training at the National Defense University, Washington DC, USA and her papers have been accepted for presentation in International Conferences held in India, Egypt, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Finland, USA, and UK. Her paper on“Traditional Systems on Knowledge
Organization in Digital Environment” adjudged one of the best five posters in the Poster Session of the Second ICDL 2006 held in New Delhi, India from 5-8 December 2006, organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

She is an Associate Member of the Sri Lanka Library Association; Associate Network Member of Digital Curation
Centre, United Kingdom; Professional Development Fund member of the International Institute for Conservation
(IIC), United Kingdom.

Education and the Internet

Abstract-300 words

Rapid developments of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed the traditional concept of education system. Modern education is more powerful, dynamic and can reach their users without the restrictions of geographical boundaries. In this Internet era education is fast moving to digital mode. With the advent of new communication technologies education is redesigned their services to borderless world and become lifeline of the scholarly community.

The Internet has dramatically changed the history providing e-learning for the scholarly brains, reaching unreachable breaking the walls. It has become a new way to disseminate information among wider scholarly community faster than ever before. E-learning fill the knowledge thrust regardless of social class or ethnic background. It facilitates an economical opportunity for scholarly communication without any geographical barrier. E-learning gives better solutions for the users, focusing on distant education.

Scholars are knowledge creators and actively contributing their research outcome to the society through Web and at the same time access their scholarly literature. A document on the Web can be accessed rapidly to a large percentage of scholars within the scholarly communities.

People do not feel isolation due to developments of new technology tools and it makes human life comfortable by developing old education system. In the other hand, Internet has brought a new hope for the developing world. It provides new opportunities for information exchange and users can access text, sound and images under one umbrella. It has become an essential part of the information society. In this digital era, people work more closely together in making Internet for their educational and day to day activities. The main aim of the Internet is to deliver information from one corner to the other corner (end user). End user may not know where the information is stored physically or geographically or the people who handle the information. Internet has become integral part of the education.