Why Employers Must Stop Requiring College Degrees For Middle-Skill Jobs

Employers are guilty of "degree inflation," requiring lofty academic bona fides for jobs that don't really need them. Joseph Fuller says the practice is hurting American competitiveness.

To read the full article:
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-employers-must-stop-requiring-college-degrees-for-middle-skill-jobs?cid=wk-rss

Active users of the LIRC - Novermber 2017

ACTIVE USERS OF THE LIRC

(Novermber 1 - 30, 2017)

Following  Active Users are eligible for one extra library card for the month of  December  2017.

Sr. No.	Member	No's.
1	AKASH DABHI	13
2	MAURYA NITIN BRIJALAL PHOOLANDEVI	12
3	RACHEL ALMEIDA	11
4	HRISHIKESH MAHESH TELANG	11
5	SHAH HET CHETAN SEJAL	11
6	SHANBHAG ANUSHREE ANIL VEENA	10
7	SAWANT SHIVANI SANDEEP SUMEDHA	10
8	SONALI PARAB	10
9	RAUT SAURABH PRAKASH VIDYA	10
10	DIXITA SURTI	10
11	KAUSTUBH PRABHU	10
12	NEVGI ANIRUDDHA VIVEK VIDYA VIVEK NEVGI	10
13	GUDDI TYAGI	10
14	SAYALI MARTAL	9
15	SHETH MANAN PRAKASH MEENA	9
16	SHRUTI SURESHAN RAJANI	9
17	STEPHINA RODNEY D'SOUZA	9
18	ASST.PROF.MONIKA PAL	9
19	MADHAV JANI	9

ANNUAL LIBRARY FEEDBACK SURVEY 2017

LIRC@SFIT HAS ALL THE RESOURCES FOR MY COURSES OF STUDY

AGREE?

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SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN?

LET US KNOW!

TAKE THE QUICK ANNUAL LIBRARY FEEDBACK SURVEY AT

https://goo.gl/forms/1PsUE1mxw80i6RCp1

Active users of the LIRC - October 2017

ACTIVE USERS OF THE LIRC

(October 1 - 31, 2017)

Following  Active Users are eligible for one extra library card for the month of  November 2017.

Sr. No.	Member	No. of Transactions
1	SHAILIN SHAH	15
2	VATSAL SOLANKI	14
3	NEVGI ANIRUDDHA VIVEK VIDYA VIVEK NEVGI	14
4	SHRUTI SURESHAN RAJANI	14
5	AISHWARYA NAMBIAR	14
6	SAYALI MARTAL	13
7	PINTO CALVIN CRAIG SAVIO ELAINE	13
8	SUPRITH UCHIL	13
9	RISHABH DUBEY	13
10	SONALI PARAB	12
11	JAYBHAY SHEETAL SHANTILAL MANISHA	12
12	CRASTA RYAN RONALD LEENA	12
13	HRISHIKESH MAHESH TELANG	12
14	MORAES ROSHAL SURESH LILLY	12
15	ANTONY ALEX LEENA	12
16	RAJESH PARSHURAM PRASAD	11
17	JOSHI SHUBHAM PRAMOD VINITA	11
18	TEJASWARARAO MOTAMARRI	11

Publishers and societies take action against Research Gate’s copyright infringements

Following unsuccessful attempts to jointly find ways for scholarly collaboration network ResearchGate to run its service in a copyright-compliant way, a coalition of information analytics businesses, publishers and societies is now left with no other choice but to take formal steps to remedy the illicit hosting of millions of subscription articles on the ResearchGate site.

Exchanging research and collaborating has been an integral part of academic work for centuries. Today, cooperation across geographic boundaries and disciplines has become easier than ever with online tools making connections in real-time, opening up infinite ways for breakthrough discoveries. These are true achievements and publishers of academic research welcome them and have helped to facilitate them.

To read more, visit http://www.responsiblesharing.org/coalition-statement/ (accessed on October 13, 2017)

Copy + Paste = Delete

No more copying or padding up assignments with information off the net. A new UGC guideline asks institutions to set up committees to cross check for copying

THOUGH PLAGIARISM WILL NOW BE PUNISHABLE UNDER THE NEW UGC GUIDELINES, IT IS NOT A LEGAL OFFENCE

It starts with copying homework from a classmate at school because you were too lazy to do yours. Then you begin copying a few lines from Wikipedia to pad up an assignment.

ILLUSTRATION: SHRIKRISHNA PATKAR

For a disturbingly large number of Indian students, plagiarism – the practice of taking someone else’s idea or work and passing it as your own – is part of academic life. It’s ignored by school and college until almost the post-graduate level, where regulations are stricter.
Now, the University Grants Commission (UGC) is taking active steps to promote academic integrity and prevent plagiarism in academics. A set of rules drafted last month make it necessary for higher education institutes across the country to set up an Academic Misconduct Panel to investigate assignments and projects submitted, for plagiarism.
The panel will comprise faculty, MPhil (master of philosophy) and PhD (doctor of philosophy) students. “Every student submitting a thesis, dissertation, term papers, reports or any other such documents to the higher education institution shall submit an undertaking indicating that the document has been prepared by him or her and that the document is his/her original work and free of any plagiarism,” reads the draft.
The draft also recommends that institutes conduct awareness programmes each semester to teach students and staff the importance of proper attribution of information, seeking permission of the author where necessary, acknowledgement of source compatible with the needs and specificities of disciplines.
Teachers welcome the move. “The education system gives Indian students very little time to research,” believes Kanchana Mahadevan, head of the department of philosophy at Mumbai University. Students end up not realising that they need to use the right sources and credit it when using material from the web and another person’s work. As Uday Salunkhe, group director of WeSchool, Matunga puts it, “Most students have no idea of the seriousness of the consequences. It has become the new normal.”
WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?
When Raj*, 23, was writing an essay to get admission in a humanities course in the UK, he took a couple of paragraphs from an essay online to impress the university with his language skills. “I figured that universities abroad get thousands of applications and won’t have no time to check mine for plagiarism,” he says. “I was terribly wrong. I got caught and was blacklisted from the university and lost a year. I learnt my lesson the hard way.”
Mahadevan of Mumbai University has encountered student plagiarism on a few occasions. “The students in these cases were looking for short-cuts [since they had not attended class regularly] and instant appreciation,” she says. “They didn’t even realise that plagiarism is ethically unacceptable.” It was only during classroom presentation of the assignments, when their peers presented creative and original work, that they realized what they had done.

It is a major problem, especially in medical colleges, says Dr TP Lahane, dean of Grant Medical College, Byculla. “Several students just copy the entire research paper at post-graduate level and submit it,” he says. “When found, they are punished. In most cases though, it’s difficult to know because they are just too many open sources of research both online and offline.”
Though the menace will now be punishable under the UGC guidelines, it is not a legal offence, says Mahesh Bhagnari, managing director at Bhagnari and Co, patent and trademark law firm in Fort. “For somebody to file a suit against you for plagiarism, you should have used the copy for commercial use and earned a profit, which students don’t do. Also, the laws are enforced on citizens above 18 years of age and undergraduates are often younger.”
It means that colleges and universities have the bulk of the responsibility to take action against plagiarism.
SMALL STEPS
Appropriating another person’s work was never very difficult, says Matthew Raggett, headmaster of The Doon School in Dehradun. “I attribute it to the curriculum that focuses on content and does not teach you to ask questions and find answers to them on your own,” he says. His solution: Start early. “It is important that academic honesty is enforced upon students in secondary schools saving them from resorting to plagiarism in high school and college.”
Delhi University does not receive many complaints against copied theses and assignments. But it uses software that students and staff can use to check plagiarism, says Deepika Bhaskar, deputy dean of research at the university. Each department has password-protected access to it and it scans all submitted assignments before they are sent for correction. All the papers at post-graduate level come with a certificate stating what percentage of matter is similar to what is already available in the public domain.
“Hence to create awareness about the menace, we have made announcements in all the departments to check all assignments for plagiarism,” says Bhaskar.
Dr Lahana is optimistic about the UGC guidelines. “They will encourage institutes to ensure that a thesis, dissertation, term paper, report, publication or any other documents is free of plagiarism,” he says.
Around the world, schools and colleges have been relying on Turnitin, a programme that crosschecks academic material for plagiarism. Scanned documents show how much of the text, images or research has already appeared elsewhere. At India International School in Bengaluru, Selina Krishnan, director of academics goes a step ahead. “We guide students on how to acknowledge and cite what has been taken from a source they have researched,” she says. “With proper guidelines in place, plagiarism can be avoided.”

Source: Hindustan Times dated October 11, 2017

A Must Read - "My Magical School" by Dr. Abhay Bang

This article is written by Dr. Abhay Bang in which he is sharing his experience studying at Nayee Taleem School set up by Mahatma Gandhi on how he studied mathematics not sitting in class but by constructing a water tank in school's cowshed, how they learnt cooking nutritious food by themselves by cooking in school kitchen in a very limited budget etc.
You will love this article, do read it when you get time.
Dr. Abhay Bang is a social activist and researcher in the field of community health. I am sharing with you the PDF of the article and also the digital copy the booklet.

https://archive.org/details/MyMagicalSchool-English-Dr.AbhayBang


http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/magic-school-eng-drbang.pdf

Information Courtesy: Ms. Navyatha Uchil
Source: http://mylibraryinternshipprogram.blogspot.in/

Celebration of Reading Inspiration Day 2017 - Report

The Library of St. Francis Institute of Technology celebrated 15^th October 2015 as the Reading Inspiration Day for the first time.

The former President of India, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam 's birth anniversary is observed as 'Vaachan Prerna Din' (Reading Inspiration Day) across Maharashtra, every year. The key objective of the initiative is to ensure that students get inspired by the late Dr. Kalam's distinguished life.

About Dr. Kalam:

Born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, specialized in Aeronautical Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Dr. Kalam made significant contribution as Project Director to develop India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and made India an exclusive member of Space Club.
In his literary pursuit four of Dr. Kalam's books - "Wings of Fire", "India 2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "My journey" and "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power within India" have become household names in India and among the Indian nationals abroad. These books have been translated in many Indian languages.

Dr. Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India with the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities and institutions. He has been awarded the coveted civilian awards - Padma Bhushan (1981) and Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the highest civilian award Bharat Ratna (1997). He is a recipient of several other awards and Fellow of many professional institutions.

Dr. Kalam became the 11th President of India on 25th July 2002. His focus is on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.

Reading helps everyone to grow mentally, emotionally & psychologically & open the doors of new knowledge to enlighten the mind. 

As part of the celebrations, the Learning and Information Resource Centre (Central Library) initiated a few activities as outlined below:

1) Take Away of Books

2) Take Away of CDs

3) Book Exhibition

 

1) Book Exhibition: In-House book exhibition was organized on the Theme was Biographies and Autobiographies to make our library users aware of the wide variety of books in this genre. Most of the books authored by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam were borrowed by students on the spot.

 

2) Take Away of Books: 240 books donated by gracious people to our library were kept for Pick and Choose for our enthusiastic readers. 188 books were taken by them.

 

3) Take Away of Book Bank books: 7 out of 8 Book Bank books were taken by students for study purposes.

 

4) Take Away of CDs: 242 CDs out of 251 CDs were taken by students thus making this event a huge success.

 

Chinmayee Bhange

Librarian

Active users of the LIRC - September 2017

ACTIVE USERS OF THE LIRC

(September 1 – 30, 2017)

Sr. No.	Member	No. of Transactions
1	CRASTA RYAN RONALD LEENA	13
2	MISHRA PRIYA VINOD REKHA	12
3	PINTO GLEN JOHNSON LEENA	12
4	GAIKWAD SHREYA SHIVAJI SANGITA	12
5	ANTONY ALEX LEENA	11
6	PINTO RODNEY ROMAN VEENA	11
7	SHANBHAG ANUSHREE ANIL VEENA	10
8	SALUNKE NEHA RAJENDRA SNEHA	10
9	TRIVEDI BINA DINESH NEETA	10
10	SHIVANI ROY	10
11	VISHWAJEET MISHRA	10
12	HRISHIKESH MAHESH TELANG	10
13	SHRUTI SURESHAN RAJANI	10
14	SHAILIN SHAH	10
15	PATIL SHUBHAM SUJAN ASHA	10
16	NIRAJ YADAV	10
17	TARUN YADAV	9
18	VINIT NEOGI	9
19	PEREIRA COLLIN CHRISTOPHER WAVENEY	9
20	RISHABH DUBEY	9
21	NAIK HARSHIKA ARUN HARSHA	9
22	NEVIL JEEVAN	9
23	GUPTA PIYUSH GOVIND SADHANA	9
24	RUTUJA GIRMAL	9
25	PINTO CALVIN CRAIG SAVIO ELAINE	9
26	BISHT SHIVANI MEHARBAN SINGH BISHT BIMLA BISHT	9
27	MORAES ROSHAL SURESH LILLY	9
28	PRASAD KAUSHAL CHHOTELAL MAYA	9
29	MIHIR PARIKH	9
30	TEJASWARARAO MOTAMARRI	9

All the above Active Users are eligible for one extra library card for the month of October 2017.