The Western Regional Centre of the National Informatics Centre (NIC-WR) has come out with a range of software products designed as training tools.

NICTUT is a tutor on computer networks, with special emphasis on NICNET. NICTUT coaches the User on the fundamentals of computer networks, network topologies, applications of NICNET, Radix communication software, NICMAIL package and the NCS subsystem. Pictorial illustrations given by this package, especially the illustrations on satellite communications, communication subnets and configuration of NICNET; help the User to understand the concepts easily. NICTUT simulates the working of NICMAIL and Radix, and makes the User feel as if he is working on the actual system. The software can be run on a PC/AT 386 with SCO XENIX operating system with CGI 1.0.

DOS Tutor: This tutor teaches all major features and commands of DOS. The DOS Tutor is for Users who are totally unfamiliar with the Disk Operating System.

Computer Fundamentals Tutor: This is a CBT package developed under SCO XENIX/CGI 1.0. It provides an introductory tutorial on computer fundamentals, with graphical illustrations. The tutor has various modules, each with a quiz session.

FoxBASE+ Tutor: A CBT tutor developed under SCO XENIX, it coaches the User in the basics of FoxBASE+ database management system. This tutor can also be invoked from Ad-100 terminals.

It is a quiz-oriented authoring system developed under SCO XENIX/RDBMS ORACLE 6.0. It has been developed to enable a course participant or student to administer self tests or learn through quizzes. A User of AUTNIC may belong to one of the following three levels:

  • The Author: creates new courses or modifies the existing courses.
  • The Student: participates in the courses.
  • The Administrator: controls the course database.

The Author can attach help-text with the question, which can be called up by the Student if he requires more information. The author can also set up a series of lessons within a topic. Up to a hundred topics are permitted. There can be a hundred lessons in each topic. Each lesson can contain about 1000 questions. To use the system in the student mode, a topic within a subject is selected. The User can select a lesson within a topic. Once the lesson is selected, a quiz is presented with a choice of two, three or five sessions. The questions for each session are compiled dynamically during run time, in a random fashion. All user sessions are saved. The administrative module keeps track of the performance of each student at each session.