About

About College

Vidya Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), established in 2003, is approved by AICTE and is affiliated to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University. In few years, VAST has evolved to and achieved recognition as a notable School of Engineering with its competent and committed faculty, high quality infrastructure and high technology teaching aids, and by providing a serene atmosphere that complements academic life. VAST has a holistic approach to education where academic training goes hand in hand with offerings that develop the body, mind and soul to prepare its graduates to be future leaders. The College offers B Tech programmes in six streams of engineering, M Tech programmes in four specialisations and PhD programmes in engineering and mathematics.

About department

The Department of Computer Applications in VAST, which offers the MCA programme, was established in 2006 and has become the most sought after college in Kerala for pursuing the MCA programme. The Department introduced LaTeX as the preferred document preparation system from the very beginning of its existence, introduced mandatory add-on courses in emerging technologies like PHP/AJAXetc and in web hosting management, organised highly popular work-shops for students of neighbouring colleges, and created mobile apps, with student participation, like Vidya Mobile (distributed in lieu of College diary), Ramayana Parayanam (which attracted more than 65,000 downloads within two weeks of its release). In an attempt to strengthen the overall academic ambience of the College and going beyond the syllabus, the Dept acquired considerable expertise in the use of computer algebra systems and run introductory workshops in this software tool.

RElevance and objectives

Relevance

  1. A Computer Algebra System (CAS) is an integrated software package for doing symbolic, numerical and graphical computations. CASs have been in existence for about 25 years. The commonly used CASs are Mathematica, Maple and Maxima.
  2. CASs have become popular among a select group of academicians working in national institutes like IITs, NITs, IISc and universities. But these software packages are not commonly used in the affiliated colleges in India. The lack of awareness of these software packages is hindering the development in the quality of teaching-learning process in these colleges.
  3. Research has established that the use of CASs in the classrooms will enhance the understanding of the basic as well as sophisticated concepts in mathematics.

Objectives

  1. To provide an exposure to powerful computational tools like Mathematica/Maple/Maxima and the symbolic toolbox of Matlab
  2. To empower faculty membes through hands-on experience to apply a computer algebra system in the teaching of mathematics
  3. To provide an opportunity to learn the use of computer algebra systems in the preparation of interactive documents containing high-level mathematics and engineering subjects
  4. To help acquire expertise in the preparation of diagrams and pictures involving the representation of different mathematical functions and other related concepts.
  5. To help participants to develop methods using computer algebra systems to create a better understanding of the basic concepts in engineering and mathematics