LIRC@SFIT

The journal impact factor has numerous flaws, which makes it highly irresponsible for the UGC to rely on it to evaluate a teacher’s research performance and decide whether she gets a job or not. University Grants Commission. Credit: PTI Thomas Manuel The Sciences 18/Apr/2018 Since 2012, nearly 12,000 individuals and 500 organisations have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). This includes India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT). In fact, in their joint Open Access Policy, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the DBT quote the central recommendation of the declaration verbatim, which is that journal-based metrics like the journal impact factor (JIF) should not be used as “a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decision.” And yet this enlightened attitude has only partially filtered down to the ground. T...

 From SCOPUS..... Share these step-by-step instructions on how to improve their Scopus author profiles using the new Author Feedback Wizard with your authors. This new feature helps ensure that the correct papers are associated with the author’s preferred profile name. Source: https://blog.scopus.com/posts/an-improved-way-to-check-your-scopus-author-profile (accessed on April 23, 2018 at 1.30 pm)

Environment protection programmes are as important as the academic curriculum at VIBGYOR High, a school in Goregaon. Keeping in mind various pressing issues related to environment protection, the school has been taking effective steps to facilitate an environmentfriendly campus. They have initiated multiple campaigns like ‘Go Blue’, to save water, ‘Waste Management’, where compost pits have been installed to control school waste and ‘Anti-Plastic’, where students have taken to clean the beaches of Mumbai, to raise awareness among students. As a part of the waste management initiative, VIBGYOR collaborated with non-governmental organisation Daily Dump to install compost pits in their campus that help recycle food waste into manure. This is used as fertiliser in the school garden. These compost pits are situated behind the canteen, where most of the food waste is generated. “Students are...

SELF­IMPROVEMENT Teachers to learn how to use technology in classroom and develop e­content Our routine work revolves around conducting lectures, supervising exams and assessing answer papers. We hardly get enough time to upgrade our knowledge. It is good to know that colleges are noticing this and organising faculty enrichment programmes to help teachers upgrade. ASHWINI MHATRE, teacher MUMBAI: At a time when college teachers are busy supervising University of Mumbai (MU) examinations and assessing answer sheets, college managements are simultaneously planning faculty enrichment programmes for their teaching and non-teaching staff. Workshops on developing e-content, using technology in classrooms and assessment methodology are some of the topics that colleges plan to cover this summer for their staff. Mithibai college, Vile Parle, which recently secured autonomy from University Grants Commission (UGC) had organised a two-day f...