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.

Campus hires get roles in hot technologies

Campus hires get roles in hot technologies

Shalina Pillai

Bengaluru:





Shortage Of Talent In Fields Like Big Data Forces Cos To Recruit Freshers & Train Them

Campus placements and available job roles for engineering college graduates are going through a big change, given the emergence of a variety of new technologies that are disrupting every industry . The soaring demand for jobs in big data and analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, digital marketing, and mobile and software development, is pushing companies to offer these roles to those coming out of college campuses. These were roles that were earlier offered primarily to midlevel professionals.
There were around 12,000 jobs available for freshers in India in each of these skill sets during the one year ending August 31, according to data collated from job platforms by online education provider Simplilearn. The numbers are almost double that for roles in cloud computing, quality management, and IT services, which were the leading roles previously .
“These numbers are a combination of what we have seen and the data gathered from our own platform and job listing websites like Naukri and Indeed. We looked at skills that industries have been talking about,“ said Kashyap Dalal, chief business officer at Simplilearn. Dalal said the largest employers of these skills are the top players in the IT services and BFSI (banking, financial services & insurance) spaces. But just about every company , which has recognised that these skills are essential to understand and serve customers better, are hiring for these roles. These include the many MNCs with engineering and R&D centres in India, and the slew of new retail MNCs entering to tap into India's engineering talent. “I am seeing companies like Samsung going to colleges like BITS and IITs to hire for these roles,“ said Kaushik Satish, co founder at hiring firm Belong.
Harishankaran K, co-founder and CTO of HackerRank, which conducts recruitment tests on campuses for many product companies, including Adobe and Flipkart, says every single company that they work for, including startups, is trying to hire for these roles.
Companies are forming their own teams even in roles like digital marketing that were earlier outsourced to third parties. Other hot roles are in internet of things (IoT) and design of the user interface and user experience. The move to campuses for these roles is primarily because of the shortage of skills in the general technology ecosystem. The roles require basic knowledge in technology skills like advanced Excel, big data, open source data warehousing software Hive, programming languages Python and Java, search engine optimisation (SEO), and Android. Digital marketing requires people to have a basic knowledge of Google AdWords and SEO.
Some educational institutions teach a few of these skills. But a lot of the main skills are acquired postrecruitment, with in-house training. “Very few colleges have curriculum defined for such roles, so companies look for general problem-solving abilities -like ability to handle data and aptitude for algorithms,“ said Harishankaran.
The salary range for those taken into these roles is in the same Rs 2-4 lakh bracket that other freshers fall in. But the scope to jump to higher salary bands with just a few years of experience is high.
Satish says such disproportionate jumps happened three years ago in product management roles, those who are responsible for the strategy , road map and feature definition of a product or product line. “Many students in the top B-schools were then being hired for product manager roles, especially in e-commerce,“ he says.


To read the detailed article, click here.
Source: The Times of India dated October 2, 2017

GATE 2018 Important Dates for Aspirants

Ref. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2kqrqyN1YIJTlF5Y09NaS1yUms/view

GATE Online Application Processing System (GOAPS) Website Opens	Friday	1st September 2017
Last Date for Submission of (Online) Application (through website)	Thursday	5th October 2017
Last Date for Requesting Change of Examination City (an additional fee will be applicable)	Friday	17th November 2017
Admit card will be available in the Online Application Portal (for printing)	Friday	5th January 2018
GATE 2018 Examination Forenoon: 9.00 am to 12.00 noon Afternoon: 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm	Saturday Sunday Saturday Sunday	3rd February 2018 4th February 2018 10th February 2018 11th February 2018
Announcement of the Results in the Online Application Portal	Saturday	17th March 2018

Retraction Watch Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process Authorship for sale: Some journals willing to add authors to papers they didn’t write

That’s right — some journals are willing to add authors to papers they didn’t write, often for a fee. This realization comes from one of the many sting experiments we’ve witnessed over the years, designed to expose the perils of the publishing industry, in which some journals will claim to peer review and publish any manuscript for a fee — no matter how nonsensical the content. Pravin Bolshete, a medical writer and researcher from India, wanted to explore a different side of predatory publishing — would journals agree to add a fictional author to a manuscript he/she didn’t write? 

Link: http://retractionwatch.com/2017/09/13/authorship-sale-journals-willing-add-authors-papers-didnt-write/

Campus placements at engineering colleges are undergoing a big change

Campus placements and available job roles for engineering college graduates are going through a big change, given the emergence of a variety of new technologies that are disrupting every industry.

The soaring demand for jobs in big data and analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital marketing, and mobile and software development, is pushing companies to offer these roles to those coming out of college campuses.These were roles that were earlier offered primarily to mid-level professionals

Link: http://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/campus-placements-at-engineering-colleges-is-undergoing-a-big-change/articleshow/60879261.cms

Students, faculty will now pay a heavy price for plagiarism

For students, the punishment could range from losing credits to cancellation of their registration.Guilty faculty could face cancellation of registration and no increments.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has come out with draft rules to make it difficult for students, researchers and the faculty at higher education institutes to plagiarise assignments, projects, theses, research work and dissertations.

Link: http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Hans/2017-09-28/Students-faculty-will-now-pay-a-heavy-price-for-plagiarism/329806