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Detailed minutes of Aug 14th meeting
Posted by: subbu Member of Group STM
Updated: 2006-02-28 22:54:36
Category: IT and Society > Meetings > Minutes
 
Meeting Minutes
Attendees Ward Smith, Kavita Philip, Paul vizhian S., Gurumurthy, K.S., Ramachander K., Subramanya Sastry, Manoj Saranathan, Dinesh, Abhas Abhinav, Priya K., Surekha, Pavan Joshi, Divakar, Muthatha
Date 14-08-2004
Minute Taker (s) Muthatha Ramanathan
Minutes UVCE was represented by three faculty (Paul, Gurumurthy and Ramachander) and two students (Pavan and Divakar, both electronics engineers). Collectively they provided the following basic facts about the student projects:

The final project assignment is introduced in the last-but-one semester. Students then do some research, typically literature reviews. They align themselves with a faculty guide, decide on a topic and present their topics in a seminar. Actual hands on work is done in the last semester. Typically, students contact big public sector, private sector and MNCs for projects and are assigned part of the company's on-going work. There is a prevalent feeling (and hope) among students that these projects will help them get their foot in the door, and then lead onto employment opportunities. Some students also chance upon project ideas while reading through (electronics) magazines, or talking to faculty members. The prevalent opinion was that students take on these final projects because they are mandatory and that many students only have a vague idea about the life / utility of a project after completion. Then there are some students who think of publishing a paper, and the faculty volunteered that about 10-15% of the students post a copy of the project on the web. Faculty talked of the bleak situation in faculty recruitment - they do not have enough teachers since the Govt. ban on recruitment (since 1985?). They try to make do with visiting faculty. So, for the student projects, they rely on the industry-university relation which is good. Once done, the projects mostly lie around. It was suggested that perhaps some of these projects could be put out on the web. There is some awareness of the open-source movement, but this awareness seems to be mainly from within the students.

With regards to students not working on their projects once they get a job (or get admission for M.Tech/MS/PhD), Subbu and Manoj said that the scenario was not very different while they were at IITs, and Manoj said that it is much the same in IISc.

Dinesh thought that the connection between students projects and future employment opportunity in the same company is a bit of a myth. He would like to see some figures and check if indeed there is a correlation.

Manoj: For undergraduate level student projects, it is more important to focus on learning skills than on finding jobs.

Ram highlighted that one of the standard problems is thinking of a paper as the end product of the project. So we need to bridge the gap and perhaps get the students thinking of putting up their projects on sourceforge.

UVCE faculty and students agreed that there was space to link the student projects with non-profit needs, and open-source initiatives.

Present at the meeting were also two representatives from DeepRootLinux - Abhas and Priya. Abhas talked about DeepRootLinux's activies in linking student projects with open source initiatives. They have been working with 200-400 students. Their motivation is 2-fold: 1) to fill in the voids (documentation, bug fixes, etc.) that exist in the free software domain; 2) to give back to community and to ensure that a large student body are familiarised with open source initiatives and will contribute to the movement. They get at least 2 student applications every day from various parts of the country, and prefer to work with motivated students and those who have extra-academic interests. About 40% of the applicants get selected.

DeepRootLinux has given talks in about 20-25 colleges asking students to take up Linux. An office had been set up in the colleges and a lab devoted for student use. DeepRootLinux employees provide guidance and stress that software needs to be useful for the user. However, given the large student body, it has been challenging. They also try to work through the faculty. Given the challenge of working operationally through the colleges, DeepRootLinux has lately been working directly with students outside the college set up. Overall, they have worked with about 200 students across the country.

Examples of student projects: 1) bandwidth usage monitoring. and no tool really exists for this application. DeepRootLinux came up with the idea. 2) changing the user interface of some core accounting packages available for the Linux platform to suit Indian accounting practises / culture.

Discussion shifts to a different topic...

Kavita: What is the purpose of one of the reasons we have come together today, i.e: how are we defining 'relevant' or 'meaningful'? or are we interested in making more efficient people for the IT industry.

In response to this Dinesh refers to his point about the vicious cycle - something he talked about in the first meeting. Here is an excerpt from the minutes of that meeting: To Dinesh this is a clear indication of the state of India's education system. He calls it a type of digital divide - a vicious cycle. There aren't good teachers, and poorly trained students become (worse) teachers. Dinesh went on to provide more examples to explain his frustrations with the IT scenario in general.

He went on to say that 30% of the graduates go on to work for MNCs, and thus get out of local relevance. The remaining 70% - do they have the 'capacity' to help?

Abhas: Yes, students are aware. At DeepRootLinux, we have seen that they do have the capacity to learn on their own.

Dinesh: Often times I feel that a local non-IT educated person can take more interest and provide more to society in terms of meaningful computing. Most often the training in colleges is poor, and we often learn practical things, things to do with actual implementation outside educational establishments.

Abhas (to Dinesh): your critique is one of education per se.

Subbu: I would like to leave the definition open - 'meaningful' could mean different things to different people. With respect to the point Kavita raised about this group providing more efficient workers for the IT industry, it is important to improve IT skills, because in cases of locally relevant projects (say, language-based computing needs) there is greater competence and skill required because these needs are very unique to the Indian setting. So, improving skills and providing exposure to these areas is important.

Kavita: agree with 'open' definition of what is meaningful. Based on 20 years of teaching experience in the sciences, and in science and technology studies sees 3 stages: 1 stage - students need a basic course in ethnography, put students from different disciplines together, get them talking; 2nd stage - students start asking questions; 3rd stage - move beyond looking at the technology as a fixed black box, start looking at the tool itself, realise the need to ask philosophical questions and not just worry about getting a job! The challenge is to integrate the 3rd stage into the first.

Manoj: For me it was a direct question, while I was serving on a thesis committee of a student working on a system for monitoring parking lots. I was struck by the immediate relevance (or lack thereof) of such a project.

Kavita: I would give such a student papers on urban politics - ask him/her to think about the consequences of monitoring parking lots, think critically about surveillance issues.

Manoj: I am not interested in training students to become better programmers. All of us come with different interests to this group and just because there is a social relevance component to a project doesn't mean the project is good!

Dinesh (to Kavita): Coming back to mixing all 3 phases into education, how do you justify such a course? Is it needed?

Kavita: absolutely! Doing it here is much harder. 6 years ago IIT-B was interested but they did not have the resources. IIT-M is most open.

Subbu: we should try to get a list of all projects done in a set of colleges...

Manoj: I get students who come to me and ask me for ideas on relevant projects...what can we do for such students? In my field ..if I am looking for an MRI algorithm for instance, there is a ton of stuff available on the web in downloadable format, in this case how do we create contact between students and the demand for projects?

Abhas: AT DeepRootLinux, we try to motivate students by saying 'do you want to get your name into the credits?'

Dinesh: What's an example of a non-meaningful project?

Abhas: A project done in a shell.. something like designing a simulation Software, simulating something that hardly gets used.

Surekha: when talking of meaningful projects in India, simply translating into local Indian languages can make a project / sw very meaningful.

Subbu: an important angle to this issue is capacity building, cos many a time the required tool is available on the web...but then many people struggle to use it. There is a usability gap that needs to be bridged and is a void that needs work to be filled.

Dinesh (to Kavita): is this kind of discussion relevant in the U.S?

Kavita: increasingly funding agencies like NSF require interdisciplinary work in the sciences... take nanotech for example. NSF is offering a lot of money for research on the social impacts of nanotech. The interesting thing is that in STS, inter-disciplinarians come together, interdisciplinary ideas come together. I think this sort of discussion is much more relevant in India where boundaries are not so water tight, where there is much more of a culture of intellectuals engaging publicly across segments.

For example, Ram with his interest in primary school education, and Abhas should come together and work on a project.

Ram: I am against IT in primary schools.

Kavita: hash it out collaboratively, put Ram, Abhas, few students, a parent, a teacher, and let them discuss it together.. as it brings together differing perspectives on the same problem.

Subbu: any experiences of how IT is used in schools?

Abhas: IT should be used as a tool, not as a name. In Kerala school teachers have gotten together and there is a consensus to not use brand names in computer science classes, so they do not say MS word, they would instead say word processing software, they went on strike to get trained in computer science, that is a promising trend.

Muthu: It is important to think critically about such trends...I think even before we say Ok we need to train the teachers well, we need to ask do we really need IT in schools, at what level, in what form?

Ram: But teachers say, well that is the trend and so each school must at least have one computer.

Muthu: Yes, but why not present these same teachers with some alternative Perspectives and have a critical discussion with them...why not challenge assumptions?

Manoj: I think sometimes technology like IT in schools hampers analytical growth...conceptual understanding is hampered.

Ward: one also needs to be cognizant of how s/w tools are used. Another experience while working with a civil rights advocacy group in Atlanta, Georgia during the Olympics, while the city officials were trying to 'clean' the street .. There was a move to develop databases of homeless people in Atlanta, and coupled with a legislation that bans sleeping outside in the city, these databases could be used to target homeless people and put them in lock-ups. So, they refused to develop such a database, but very likely others did. Another experience ... the group was working on introducing computers in homeless shelters...and they found that several people and children at the shelters took to computers without any formal training.. each of them explored the tool in their own way. On the other hand there is a certain hype about computers.. say if you go to a Non profit organisation and ask them what they want.. they say computers.. but it has to really fit into their structure.. many don't necessarily understand how it fits in and what utility they have.

Dinesh: Yes, at Servelots too we have notice a similar issue.. when our clients come to us ..they ask us to create a computing solution.. and then say using the data generate the 'relevant graphs'...what are these relevant graphs.. we tell them it is not so easy and that we are not the ones to do that.. it is a common misconception that knowing how to use the tool also comes with the special knowledge to be able to create 'information'.

Ram: Lets get back to the student projects...

Abhas: propose two things:
1) have a forum - publicize it - if any one feels they can help you - put out that request...put students, different groups of people on to this list.
2) generate an internal discussion - putting out ideas about this concept.

Ram: We can even make it more concrete by focusing on 4 or 5 selected universities.

Dinesh (to Abhas): Have you done more than a database.. a clearing house for finalised projects? If I put up an idea .. the solution to it may already exist. .so how do we tap into that? What about the Wiki concept?

Kavita: I like Wikis...my students like it . I have used it in my classes.

Dinesh: Suppose we want to offer a course like the one Kavita talked about.. how do we go about it?

Kavita: I have been involved in a meeting of scholars of science relating to India.. about 20 of us.. mostly south Asians living outside ..we get together to discuss issues.. present papers.. etc., Then there are other groups like ALF, and there is the AID model. We could think of an 8 week course.. like an intro to philosophy of science.

Manoj: Who is the audience?

Kavita: interested people .. like this group, or students.. IIT is best..

Abhas: Govt. Schools in Gujarat could be case to look at in terms of IT in primary schools. But, we need to be aware of the ulterior motives of companies giving computers to schools and non profits.

Dinesh: no, its simpler than you think.. its not even that they are trying to create more software engineers...its just that if 1 NGO gets computers, then 10,000 other NGOs will ask for them.

Dinesh: we could post the list (projects) on the collective's website.. we still remain nameless.. the website is currently BangaloreIT.org...

Muthu (to Pavan, UVCE student): Could you share with us your perspective on these initiatives we have been talking about - the list, and STS courses in your university?

Pavan: Yes, they are good ideas.. students would be interested.

Muthu: What would be the best way to get attention of students?

Pavan: Lectures.. have guest lectures.. make it mandatory the first time.. then students will come and get interested.

Pavan has volunteered to get a list of all the student projects completed at UVCE (in the last year) and projects being taken up this year.
 
 
 


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