Monday, December 17, 2012

Ground Rules for Sending Scientific Papers for Publication

A veteran and distinguished Computer Science researcher with decades of experience in academia and industry in India, UK & USA shared with me the ground rules he follows while sending scientific papers for publication. Further, he kindly permitted me to share that below for the benefit of interested readers.

Let me tell you the ground rules under which I send papers for publication.

a. I choose a journal or conference which I think is most appropriate for the subject matter (e.g. because of related publications that have appeared there and/or I trust the editor/program chairperson to be fair).

b. When I receive the referees reports (usually 6-12 months later for a typical journal, 3 months for a conference), I take a deep breath and read them.

c. Usually, they start encouragingly and end by saying things I don't want to hear. I put them aside for a day or two and then re-read them.

d. I make a summary of the changes they have asked for and which the editor agrees with in a general way.

e. I revise the paper to meet the objections and resubmit it to the editor, making a list of the changes asked for and made. If I don't agree with any objection I explain why I have not made corresponding change.

The rule I follow is simple: if I want a paper published in a journal, I must satisfy the editor that my article follows most of the recommendations of the referees. I must do this whether I like it or not. It does not make sense to pick a fight with a referee or to tell the editor he or she does not know their job.

If the paper is accepted and appears I invariably see that the new form of the paper is definitely better than the original submitted version. That is true for every paper I have ever submitted and however strongly I first objected to the referees' comments.

Many (perhaps most) papers are rejected after refereeing: good journals and conferences may accept only one of 5-10 submissions. So everyone experiences the rejection of a paper. Of course it is dispiriting and one begins to question everything from the sanity of the reviewers and the editor to their objectiveness and knowledge. There may occasionally be an unfair rejection but in the overwhelming number of cases a rejection is justified because:

a. The paper is just not good enough;

b. The paper has been submitted to the wrong journal or conference;

c. There are errors or weaknesses that lead the reviewers to question the author's knowledge of the area; it does not matter what you think the paper is about, it's what someone reading it concludes;

d. The same results have been reported earlier. Saying that this is the first time something has been done in India is not a valid argument for it to be worth consideration. Science is universal and it does not matter where the work was done or what language it was reported in.

I discovered that the results from one paper I published in the UK in 1986 were rediscovered by  a researcher in Argentina and by a PhD student in the UK, neither of whom had read my paper. They both graciously accepted that their work, while done independently, was done later. It's the job of the referees to be aware of all work related to a submitted paper but they are human and will sometimes not be aware of everything that is done.

There's not much one can do when a paper is rejected except to grin and bear it. You can revise it and try resubmitting it to another journal or conference. That works sometimes but the paper may well end up with some of the same referees!

There may be things in the paper that can be used elsewhere if they are made part of a bigger piece of work with something genuinely new. Or there may not.

By the way, the paper I refer to above was rejected by one journal before it was resubmitted to and accepted by another (it has since had over 800 citations).

Monday, December 3, 2012

An "educated guess" analysis of Large no. of Seats in Andhra Pradesh (India) Engg. Colleges Going Empty

Last updated on December 5th 2012

Please note that the data for this analysis has been taken from media (news) articles. There is a possibility of some inaccuracies but even if there are inaccuracies I think the data may not be far off from the real situation on the ground. Further this analysis is in the realm of an "educated guess". It could be proved wrong or in need of alteration in the face of more data, especially from reliable sources.

This "educated guess" analysis is presented roughly in the form of a time-line.
  • Union finance minister announces several incentives to provide education loans via nationalized banks in 2004-05, Source: Banks feel the heat of Bad Study loans. From 2005 education loans sector has grown significantly in nationalized banks. As of March 2012, the four South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh (AP), Tamil Nadu (TN), Karnataka and Kerala account for more than 50% of the these education loans provided in the country by nationalized banks, Source: Southern states lead in providing education loans. As per the same source, total education loan disbursed in the country by nationalized banks (public sector banks) as of March 2012 is Rs. 49,069 crore (at Rs. 55 for 1 US $ it is $8.9 billion).
  • As money becomes available to students from nationalized banks, new engineering colleges in states like Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Tamil Nadu (TN) started cropping up at a furious rate. AP's engineering colleges grew from 238 colleges in 2004-05 to 717 colleges now (2012-13) i.e. three fold growth in a span of eight years, Source: No new engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh from next year. As per the same source, the number of engineering seats in AP grew from 82,225 in 2004-05 to 3,44,986 now (2012-13) i.e. over four fold growth in a span of eight years. Most of the new engineering colleges in AP seem to be private (as against central government or state government owned/managed) and possibly created more with a motive of education for profit rather than education as a public service.
  • The quality of education offered in the newly created engineering colleges seems to have been not so great. So graduates from these colleges were finding it difficult to land good paying jobs.
  • In Andhra Pradesh, a scheme to provide fee reimbursement to marginalized sections of society (Backward Class communities and later extended to Economically Backward Classes) was introduced by the state government in 2008, Source: YSR's fee reimbursement scheme hangs in limbo in Andhra Pradesh. It included engineering, MBA and MCA degree courses/programs. Engineering colleges in rural AP seemed to have benefited from this scheme as they could induct students from these marginalized sections of society and claim fee reimbursement from the government. This seems to have contributed to furious growth of engineering colleges in AP. In 2012-13, the AP state government seems to be struggling to handle the financial burden of this fee reimbursement scheme and seems to have not reimbursed fees to some colleges thereby putting such colleges under financial strain. [This issue was pointed out by a friend.]
  • The global financial crisis of 2008, in its aftermath, reduced the number of jobs available for fresh graduates (of all types of educational institutions not just engineering colleges), Source: Banks feel the heat of Bad Study loans. This would have made the situation particularly bad for graduates from those of the newly created engineering colleges which were not imparting good quality education.
  • Indian banks started reporting problems of bad study loans! Some graduates (including management college graduates/post-graduates) were getting stuck with a study loan to repay but not getting a decent job with which to pay back the loan, Source: Banks feel the heat of Bad Study loans.
  • By 2012-13 academic year, students and parents probably got wise to the situation and became very choosy about which engineering college to join. So now around 50 % of the 3,44,986 seats in AP engineering colleges have gone empty, Source: No new engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh from next year! Perhaps students and parents have seen some bad study loan cases and are a lot more careful about taking a study loan. Perhaps banks too have become reluctant to lend to students joining some engineering colleges. So engineering colleges which have not earned a good reputation are perhaps being 'weeded out' by students, parents and the banks (the market).
  • Rural and semi-urban engineering colleges in AP are facing the heat of students and parents avoiding them and so lobbied the AP state government to introduce a cap in intake of number of students per college (420 or 540) to ensure that city based colleges (which probably have earned a good reputation for the education they impart) do not take up most of the students thereby threatening closure of rural and semi-urban colleges in AP, Source: Rural colleges welcome cap on engineering seats, urban colleges question the move.
  • The key regulatory authority to maintain standards of education in these new (and mostly private, it seems) engineering colleges, namely AICTE, a country-wide authority (as against an AP state only authority), seems to have been completely ineffective in its role of maintaining standards of education.
A similar scenario may be getting played out in other states of the country especially other south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Andhra Pradesh (India) Engineering Colleges - Half Empty!

There seems to be a serious crisis in engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh (AP), India according to this recent media article, "No new engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh from next year".

Some specifics:

In 2004-05, AP engg. college students intake was 82,225 in 238 colleges.
Now, AP engg. college students intake has been 3,44,986 in 717 colleges. [Another news media report given later on in this post, mentions AP no. of engg. seats as around 3,50,000. So I think this news media article's word 'intake' may be incorrect.]

In 2010-11, 30 % AP engg. college seats were vacant.
In 2012-13, 40 to 50 % AP engg. college seats are vacant.

Here's a recent media article which speaks about colleges closing down degree programs (referred to as 'course' in the article), "JNTUH flooded with requests for closure of nearly 350 courses".

Some specifics:

"Out of the 17,317 seats only 4,983 students opted for the B.Tech (IT) course leaving 12,334 seats vacant."

"... 21,776 seats out of the 67,518 seats going vacant in MBA and 15,224 seats out of the 23,532 remaining vacant in the MCA stream"

"The MCA courses suffered the worst with not a single student joining in 159 colleges while MBA was better with zero admissions in 29 colleges."

A slightly dated media report, 10th June 2012, "Slowdown hinders campus placements" states that companies have postponed campus placements indefinitely citing “tough global economic conditions”.

Some specifics:

Every year the number of engineering college graduates produced are:
Andhra Pradesh - 2,00,000
Tamil Nadu - 1,80,000
Karnataka - 80,000
Maharashtra - 80,000

Country wide, 12,00,000 B.Tech. seats are available, of which AP has 3,50,000.

Here's another news article, which seems to be very recent, though the article does not show a date, http://www.academics-india.com/Andhra%20update.htm (the content on this page may be transient as it is labeled an update), giving some additional input on the AP engg. college situation.

Some specifics:
AP government has introduced a cap in intake of number of students per college (420 or 540) to ensure that city based colleges do not take up most of the students thereby threatening closure of rural and semi-urban colleges!

Many AP private engg. colleges are facing closure due to few students joining them and so they are working out deals to shift students between them!

In Tamil Nadu (TN), 50 new engg. colleges get added every year. Available seats were around 1,20,000 in 2011-12 and went up to around 1,49,000 in 2012-13. In 2012-13, around 1,04,000 seats were allotted and around 45,000 seats fell vacant.

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Dictatorial Powers of VC in Indian Central Universities

Here's an interesting article by faculty from the University of Delhi (http://www.du.ac.in/index.php?id=4, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Delhi) about the role of Vice Chancellors (VC) in Indian universities today, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/wanted-intellectual-leaders-not-ceos/article4151232.ece. It contends that the typical Indian VC is one of or seen as "1) the CEO of an academic corporation; 2) an academic or bureaucrat with political connections; 3) a person selected by accident, error or compromise; and 4) an intellectual leader" and that the reality is that "these options are arranged in order of their importance in Indian higher education today".

It goes on to cover dictatorial powers of VCs of central universities, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_University,_India, and how exercise of such power by VCs who are impatient to bring about reform, results in a war like situation in the universities.

I presume the situation will be quite similar in state universities in India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_university_%28India%29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_universities_in_India. The other type of universities are private universities and deemed universities which may be receiving limited amount of funding from the state or central government or no funding at all. I presume that the VCs of such universities may typically not have dictatorial powers as the board of management/trustees/visitors of the universities may have direct control over the VC (limited autonomy).

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