New Delhi: The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), on Tuesday, launched SMS services for its 1.85 million students across the country as well as for the University staff.

The SMS services will be used for disseminating study material, conducting limited objective tests on mobile phones and sending alerts to students from time to time about various developments at the varsity.

The project was inaugurated by IGNOU Vice Chancellor, Prof. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai at the university campus.

The varsity is also planning to declare the results of its term-end examinations through SMS. "It wants to harness the power of SMS to support students in their endeavours as well as to solve their problems which are time consuming through other existing modes", an IGNOU official said.

Future SMS services by the varsity will enable students to check their marks and information in their profile on demand, updating their profiles through SMS etc.

"Latest profiles of students are very important for IGNOU to support students. For example, availability of the latest address of a student enables the University to send material to the student in time. This confirms, one of the objectives of IGNOU, to enable students update their profiles", the official further said.

"This service would work for both GSM and CDMA mobile phones. The next phase is to enable students get their materials and results on their mobiles", said Prof. P.V. Suresh, School of Computer Science.