Associated blog post date: 25th Dec. 2011, link: http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2011/12/tough-view-of-us-uk-cs-academia.html , short link: http://bit.ly/tough-view
A correspondent passed on "Hackers and Fighters" by Dr Mark Tarver: [archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20111203095605/http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/hackers.htm (short link: http://bit.ly/2HJdhsX ) for following broken link] http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/hackers.htm.
Dr. Tarver compares the "street programmer"/"street fighter" with the "CS grad."/"school-trained martial artist". I think it is an interesting comparison.
He also talks about how difficult it is to do something innovative in CS academia. He said it took eight years for a CS dept. where he was working to decide to move from Pascal to C++!
He also states that for a fast moving area like computing the university model is too slow to adapt. I entirely agree with his view.
He mentions that the only way of handling the heavy teaching load of five to six courses a year at junior positions in academia is to go for canned courses. I think he is spot on here. At junior positions the teacher himself/herself is struggling to master his/her courses and when he/she is burdened with five to six courses, and fair bit of research work too sometimes, what can the teacher do but go the easy route of canned courses for most if not all the courses he/she has to teach.
He wryly notes that the professor will comprehensively beat the street programmer in the "black arts of churning out papers". I think he is spot on here too :).
Then an acquaintance sent another article by the same author, "Why I am Not a Professor OR The Decline and Fall of the British University". This is a vitriolic article about British universities in general and CS departments of those universities in particular just before 2000. It is brutal in its criticism but offers no thoughts of solutions. Read it only if you can stomach very harsh criticism: [archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20111014155153/http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/decline.htm (short link: http://bit.ly/38RxBEr ) for following broken link] http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/decline.htm. [This seems to be the same article now on a different website: http://www.marktarver.com/professor.html.]
I studied the article carefully. My God! What a terrible indictment of the British CS educational system (prior to year 2000)! [I don't mean to imply that India is better off - it may be worse off in the "commoner" universities.] The language used is stinging and sarcastic to the hilt.
The analysis of the need for universities in Europe from the eleventh or twelfth centuries onwards and how free online "information" & general literacy is challenging the position of universities is interesting. So too is the analysis of the impact of British government policies on education post World War II.
I get the feeling that a lot of what the author has penned must be true. But I wonder whether somebody from the British educational system rebutted his article. Maybe this author was with a not-so-great university ["but the procession of students who walked into my office and said 'Dr Tarver, I need to do a final year project but I can't do any programming'... well, they are more than I can remember or even want to remember."]. I find it hard to believe that most British university CS departments would have many students saying, "I need to do a final year project but I can't do any programming". The students, of course, may not be great programmers - but student himself/herself confessing to "can't do any programming" & looking for an easy way out with the project work - that seems hard to believe. Maybe that happens with lots of "commoner" Indian university CS/IT departments too - I just don't know.
The author solved his problem by getting out of the system. I think many of the problems he points out, namely, egalitarianism requirements of politicians who are voicing the needs of the people at large, I guess, not being able to fail many students even if they deserved to be failed as otherwise the course may become unpopular and so be shut down, watering down of courses, farcical (maybe even fixed) teaching audits, the black arts of churning out papers (counterfeit academic Mozarts), academic profession becoming unattractive, foreign immigrant academics with poor language skills ... may be true even today, at least, to some extent of CS education worldwide. But I feel that today the academic system is being challenged by commoner students (the 99 %) (Occupy movement tried to make a point at Harvard), politicians and people at large, and so I am quite hopeful of some meaningful reform happening. The Internet can be a great force which may allow for elite, commoner ... various types of courses to co-exist & flourish based on student choice and industry demand.
On deeper thought, I felt that Dr. Tarver's article is perhaps too negative, paints a depressing picture & offers no thoughts of solutions. A reader may feel that the system is beyond any possibility of redemption. Which I don't think is accurate. What we need to do is to raise awareness of the problems and work amicably and peacefully with politicians, bureaucrats, academics, industry, students & parents to improve the situation.
Associated blog post date: 1st Oct. 2011, link: http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2011/10/software-development-professor.html , short link: http://bit.ly/software-d
No, we still don't have such a CS/IT Professor. We have only CS/IT Research Professors. But what if we had CS/IT Software Development Professors? I think such a career track will do wonders for the quality of Design & Code taught in CS/IT academia.
The entry level minimum requirements as per UGC rules are:
3.3.0 The minimum requirements of a good academic record, 55% marks (or an equivalent grade in a point scale wherever grading system is followed) at the master’s level and qualifying in the National Eligibility Test (NET), or an accredited test (State Level Eligibility Test - SLET/SET), shall remain for the appointment of Assistant Professors.
Source: [archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20111120222535/http://www.ugc.ac.in/policy/revised_finalugcregulationfinal10.pdf (short link: http://bit.ly/39INmxu ) for following broken link] http://www.ugc.ac.in/policy/revised_finalugcregulationfinal10.pdf (Page 4 of 130).
So a master's degree in CS/IT (M.Tech., MCA etc.) followed by clearing NET/SLET/SET allows a person to be considered for appointment as Assistant Professor (lowest level of university teacher - earlier it used to be Lecturer - I am not including T.A. - Teaching Assistant).
However I get the impression that the NET/SLET/SET exams are very theory oriented. Really don't know how much design & code expertise is tested there. Maybe not tested at all - it is a paper exam.
Alternatively if a person has a PhD in CS/IT he need not clear NET/SLET/SET to be appointed as Assistant Professor.
But the promotion to Associate Professor and Professor is where PhD becomes almost mandatory (Professor - mandatory). Direct recruitment of Associate Professor also seems to have mandatory requirement of PhD. Research publication record is given great value.
Is it any wonder then that CS/IT academicians focus on PhD and research publications? And naturally, design & code in CS/IT academia becomes irrelevant from a career growth point of view. And so, design & code knowledge level among CS/IT teachers in academia is generally poor with students' learning in design & code also being correspondingly poor. This is THE key systemic problem in CS/IT academia.
In a previous post, ‘Is a PhD in CS/IT Necessarily a Good Teacher?’ (article is included earlier in this book) http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-phd-in-csit-necessarily-good-teacher.html (short link: http://bit.ly/is-phd-in ) I had suggested academic teaching CS/IT departments and academic research CS/IT departments. The current AICTE/UGC norms may fit perfectly for academic research CS/IT departments.
But for academic teaching CS/IT departments, different norms based on software development expertise of the teacher may be introduced. Instead of research publication record, we could have Open Source software-development-record. We could also have an impact factor based on how many people are using the software developed.
Norms could be made to decide quality and quantity of software development which can be considered as PhD equivalent. Like the PhD defense, the software development PhD equivalent candidate could be grilled by software development experts (initially from industry but over time from academic software development professors).
Appointment as / Promotion to Associate Professor should recognise Software-Development-PhD-equivalent like current rules recognise Research PhD.
For appointment as / promotion to Software Development Professor appropriate norms of quality & quantity of software development work including guiding/mentoring Software-Development-PhD-equivalent candidates can be arrived at.
So we can have a complete software design & development academic career track with no research component at all for the Software-Development-Professors. Such Software-Development-Professors (Asst. Prof., Assoc. Prof. & Prof.) may be very suitable for academic teaching CS/IT departments. They will be unsuitable for academic research CS/IT departments.
If AICTE/UGC introduce this software-development-professor career track for CS/IT, I think we will see a quantum jump in job-oriented-skill-set quality improvement of CS/IT graduates/post-graduates. This is exactly what most students and their parents want. This is what the CS/IT industry will want. This is what will help the country's economy as industry will not have to spend huge time & money to train 'freshers'. This will allow 'freshers' to straight-away consider becoming software development free-lancers or entrepreneurs (like a Mark Zuckerberg).
Research needs of industry and the country can be met via the academic research CS/IT departments and industry research.
Let supply and demand factors drive how many academic teaching CS/IT departments are set up and how many academic research CS/IT departments are set up. Let us not coax innocent students to do research oriented CS/IT study if what they really want to learn is software development expertise so that they can get a good job. Let students have full and well informed academic freedom about what they want to learn - CS/IT research or software development.
I think this will be a great boon for CS/IT teachers. Right now they are under immense pressure. They have to try to keep some pace with ever changing software technology - so syllabus changes have to be made for courses quite regularly. And they have to produce research publications and take up 'project' work as well. Then there is an expectation from society that 'computer' professors can help them with software development. All this places a huge and impossible burden on the CS/IT academician.
IMHO, separation into two tracks - Research and Software Development - will simplify life greatly for the CS/IT academician. The Research CS/IT academician focuses on research and teaches research-oriented students. He can safely point software development queries and work to the CS/IT Software Development academician, who focuses on software development and does not bother about research.
Industry software development professionals who would like to contemplate moving to academia can fit in very well in the CS/IT Software-Development-Professor track. Entry of such industry experienced professionals can be a great boon to academic teaching CS/IT departments. AICTE/UGC in conjunction/consultation with software industry experts can come up with norms for deciding equivalence of industry experience quality and quantity wise with academic software-development-record.
As CS/IT is a special field in industry where we have persons from various streams of academia - Physics, Mech. Engg., Metallurgy etc. - the academic degree stream for industry professionals entering into academic teaching CS/IT departments should not be expected to be CS/IT only. If that sounds surprising to CS/IT academic policy makers, Andrew Tanenbaum, the famous CS textbook writer and famous Professor of Computer Science has a PhD in Physics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_S._Tanenbaum. So he moved from Physics to Computer Science. Similar movement happens in CS/IT industry.
These thoughts may seem very unusual. But I think they have significant value if AICTE/UGC policy makers want to fix the serious systemic problems regarding design & code in CS/IT academia that causes significant suffering to countless students and parents in the country.
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Given below are two comments from associated blog post.
A fellow industry software techie said in his comment that he has taught theory and programming for M.S. Computer Science students at Pune University, but lacks suitable academic qualifications (B.Sc. is his academic qualification). He said he would love to teach again (in Indian academia) and wanted my thoughts on it. [To see the exact words of his comment, please visit associated blog post.]
Ravi S. Iyer (Eklavya Sai Maalik) responded on October 2, 2011 at 10:05 PM:
As I understand the system:
Private Colleges (limited or no govt. funding) - You can be paid "visiting faculty" type - this will be like contractor instead of employee in industry. If what you teach helps in job placement of students, the private colleges may be willing to pay handsomely.
Govt. funded colleges - I think these colleges will be careful not to upset AICTE/UGC as otherwise they may not be given funds! So they may be happy to have you as a FREE "visiting faculty" - no issues whatsoever there about qualifications if they are convinced of your knowledge level. But if you want a paid academician career there, you have to either do a Master's in CS/IT (get above 55%) & clear NET/SLET/SET exam OR acquire a PhD in CS/IT. Otherwise there is no way that you will be taken as a regular "on scale" academician (Asst. Prof.).
BTW if you acquire a PhD then due to your industry experience they may consider appointment as Assoc. Prof.
However my entire understanding above could be wrong. You could check with some engg. colleges.
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Ravi S. Iyer (Eklavya Sai Maalik) wrote on October 2, 2011 at 10:12 PM:
Oh! I missed out mentioning pre-eminent clause.
AICTE/UGC allow for pre-eminent persons in a field to be made Profs irrespective of their academic qualification. But I guess that would apply to only really well-known experts like a Mr. Narayan Moorthy or Mr. Nandan Nilekani.
And IFIRC 5 journal papers in journals with impact factor of 2.0 and above in the same technical area is considered equivalent to PhD. So if you crack 5 journal papers in your area then you can probably be taken as Assoc. Prof.
Don't know how much value they place on patents. I mean, how many do they expect and how they measure the quality of the patent (impact factor equivalent) to treat it as PhD equivalent.
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Associated blog post date: 15th June 2014, last updated 16th June 2014, link: http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2014/06/is-accreditation-using-outcome-based.html , short link: http://bit.ly/is-accred
It seems that the top technical education academic administrators in the country involving Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), https://mhrd.gov.in/, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), https://www.aicte-india.org/, and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), https://www.nbaind.org/, are taking steps in the direction of Outcome Based Education being adopted by technical education institutions in the country. This applies to all technical education in which Computer Science and Information Technology are two streams (besides streams like Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering etc.).
Here's a report in The Hindu today, ‘NBA accreditation helps students secure quality education’, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/nba-accreditation-helps-students-secure-quality-education/article6116366.ece, about such efforts in the Andhra Pradesh district of Chitoor. Two small extracts:
"A three-day National Board Accreditation (NBA) workshop on ‘Outcome-based Accreditation’, under the aegis of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University – Anantapur’s (JNTUA) NBA Nodal Centre, was inaugurated at Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering (SVCE) here on Saturday." [Ravi: Here refers to Tirupathi, a city in Chitoor district of Andhra Pradesh.]
...
"They explained about the existing model of NBA i.e., ‘Outcome-based Accreditation’ and spoke on its process, validation and several other issues like how to define vision and mission of a programme, how to map Program Outcome (POs), Course Outcomes (COs) and Program Enabled Outcomes (PEOs) supplemented by its benefits to technical institutes."
--- end extracts ---
From https://www.nbaind.org/about, "NBA came into existence as an independent autonomous body with effect from 7th January 2010 with the objectives of assurance of quality and relevance to technical education, especially of the programs in professional and technical disciplines, i.e., Engineering and Technology, Management, Architecture, Pharmacy and Hotel Management and Catering Technology, through the mechanism of accreditation of programs offered by technical institutions." … "Over the period of its existance, the NBA has introduced a new processes, parameters and criteria for accreditation that are in line with the best international practices and oriented to assess the outcomes of the programme."
Ravi: So the stamp of approval from the top level in the country for Computer Science and Information Technology academic programs (e.g. B.Tech. Computer Science & Engineering, M.Tech. Computer Science & Engineering) is the NBA accreditation. NAAC may not be the suitable accreditation organization for CS & IT programs.
Outcome Based Education (OBE) seems to be the big thing for NBA. The two Powerpoint slides' files here: [archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140331000410/http://www.nbaind.org/En/1055-learning-resources.aspx (short link: http://bit.ly/3c1RnPw ) for following broken link] http://www.nbaind.org/En/1055-learning-resources.aspx give some idea of NBA's approach.
I have given below some key content related to OBE from one of its two Powerpoint files (Overview of Outcome Based Accreditation and Outcome Based Education – [archived link: (password not needed to open as read only) https://web.archive.org/web/20140701000000*/http://www.nbaind.org/files/oba_nba2.pptx (short link: http://bit.ly/2SPiHsT ) for following broken link] http://www.nbaind.org/files/oba_nba2.pptx) given in the above link:
[From slide 6]
What are the Outcomes?
Outcomes with reference to Educational Programme are the competencies, skills, knowledge and proficiency a student is expected to get at the time of graduation out of the programme.
Outcomes in educational terms could be Program Outcomes and Course Outcomes.
Program outcomes are statements that describe what students are expected to know and be able to do by the time of graduation.
...
[From slide 19]
Outcome Based Education
Starting with a clear picture of what is important for students to be able to do ...
Then organizing the curriculum, delivery and assessment to make sure learning happens ...
...
[From slide 20]
Outcome Based Education -> Outcome Based Curriculum (What the student should be able to do?) -> Outcome Based Learning & Teaching (How to make the student achieve the outcome?) -> Outcome Based Assessment (How to measure what the student has achieved?)
--- end slide extracts ---
Ravi: The above extracts seem to be really great on the face of it. But the wikipedia page for Outcome Based Education, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education, gives a mixed account. It seems that OBE did not go well in some places, and it seems to be not so popular a term in the USA now.
The Washington Accord uses OBE. First about the Washington Accord from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Accord, "The Washington Accord is an international accreditation agreement for professional engineering academic degrees, between the bodies responsible for accreditation in its signatory countries. Established in 1989, the signatories as of 2014 are Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States."
Additionally, "The Washington Accord covers undergraduate engineering degrees under Outcome-based education approach". The wiki page links to this pdf explaining OBE - http://www.utar.edu.my/fes/file/OBE.pdf.
Here's an interesting recent Indian news item "Boost for engineers: India now part of Washington Accord", http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Boost-for-engineers-India-now-part-of-Washington-Accord/articleshow/36519279.cms.
Some notes and comments:
India has become the 17th member of the Washington Accord after a lot of effort including some failures.
...
Washington Accord seems to exclude CS & IT which are covered by Seoul Accord.
...
"Becoming part of Washington Accord also does not necessarily mean that all engineering degrees by all Indian colleges will get equivalence with those of other member countries. NBA has shortlisted 220-odd engineering colleges as Tier-I institutes whose undergraduate engineering programme is in tune with what is required under the Accord."
[Ravi: This effort by NBA sounds encouraging. IT is excluded - so that is not good news. Hopefully NBA and MHRD are working on becoming a member of the Seoul accord too. BTW I did not know of these Washington and Seoul accords till I read news reports about the Washington accord recently.]
...
Extensive verification of these Tier-I institutes will need to be done prior to them being deemed as Washington Accord educational institutions. It is expected that courses will be redesigned to focus on outcomes and students given freedom to explore and innovate.
[Ravi: Excellent! I love the emphasis on outcomes (presumably involving a large component of learning outcomes). This kind of initiative will force engg. colleges to reorient their thinking towards improving the learning outcomes of their undergraduate programs.]
...
Other educational institutions have been given a roadmap by NBA to be followed if they want to attempt becoming institutions covered/approved by Washington Accord.
[Ravi: Sounds good.]
---- end notes and comments ---
Here is a link with Washington accord listed member countries (India is still shown as provisional status member), [archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140218094428/http://www.ieagreements.org/Washington-Accord/signatories.cfm (short link: http://bit.ly/38SJ0UD ) for following broken link] http://www.ieagreements.org/Washington-Accord/signatories.cfm.
Here's another article about India becoming a signatory to Washington Accord: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Rf8g7vPOsU2A9cZmpYnHMN/India-gets-permanent-membership-of-Washington-Accord.html.
[Ravi: The above link seems to give inside info. about how it was pushed through. It seems that former HRD ministers Shri Kapil Sibal and Shri Pallam Raju deserve congratulations for having pushed this through from a political and administrative will point of view. Separation of NBA from AICTE may have been the real big decision that paid dividends. NBA chief and former IIT Delhi Director Prof. Surendra Prasad, Dr. D.K. Paliwal and Shri Ashok Thakur of MHRD are reported to have been key contributors for this effort and deserve to be congratulated (perhaps congratulated more as they may have been doing the real hard work).]
Ravi: Now about the Seoul Accord as that is what comes into play for CS & IT field. I struggled a little to get quick overview info. of the Seoul Accord. Here's what I have been able to garner:
From [archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140402210458/http://www.abet.org/computing-mra-seoul-accord/ (short link: http://bit.ly/37L2okZ ) for following broken link] http://www.abet.org/computing-mra-seoul-accord/:
The Seoul Accord, established in 2008, is a mutual recognition agreement pertaining to computing and IT-related programs accredited by its signatories within their respective jurisdiction. Signatories to the Seoul Accord are organizations responsible for accrediting computing and IT-related programs in Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
[Ravi: That's pretty recent - around 6 years ago. No wonder it is not so well known.]
...
Graduate attributes form a set of individually-assessable outcomes that are indicative of a graduate's potential competency. The graduate attributes are exemplars of the attributes expected of a graduate from an accredited program.
The Seoul Accord has identified the characteristics of graduates of all computing programs that fall within the scope of the accord. A signatory may identify additional attributes that differentiate specific programs accredited by the signatory.
--- end extracts from abet.org ---
Details of the graduate attributes are available at the Seoul accord website here: [archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20150314052729/http://www.seoulaccord.com/accord/contents.jsp?menu_l=144&menu_m=195&menu_s=236 (short link: http://bit.ly/2PgL9lh ) for following broken link] http://www.seoulaccord.com/accord/contents.jsp?menu_l=144&menu_m=195&menu_s=236 but it is not an easy first read.
Ravi: Perhaps one can say that the graduate attributes of the Seoul accord are roughly the outcomes expected, and so the Seoul Accord could implicitly promote Outcome Based Education.
I guess NBA would be trying/will try to get on board with the Seoul Accord too. Once that gets done then Indian Computer Science and Information Technology departments of technical education institutions can strive for Seoul Accord accreditation through NBA. That may lead to emphasis on well defined learning outcomes of CS & IT graduates and post-graduates in India. These learning outcomes would also include, I presume, the practice of software development.
So, it seems to me, the Seoul Accord may be a great thing for NBA and then Indian CS & IT academic departments to ge