[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
Saturday, February 29, 2020
First attempt at simple nature pic front cover page for Indian CS & IT Acad Reform (Past) Activism blog book
[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
The title has come too close to the left edge - that's because of some positioning issues in Pothi.com Cover Page creator. I will fix that in next version.
Friday, February 28, 2020
First Draft of Inner Content of Indian CS & IT Academic Reform (Past) Blog Book is ready!
Here's the first draft of inner content of my in-progress book titled, "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book" and sub-titled "eklavyasai.blogspot.com (main work years: 2011 to 2014)": https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CPE9bG2RAb0-YsIByuIbdZDJLv60eVTv (4.4 MB, 186 pages of A4 size).
It has a Word generated Table of Contents with some manual addition of section headers. Note that the Table of Contents (TOC) entries are clickable (hyperlinked to associated chapters in book) but Google Docs (default viewer for Google Drive for pdf file) does not render that functionality. Downloading the file to computer and then opening in Chrome browser or Foxit Reader program allows user to use the clickable TOC functionality.
I need to proofread this first draft and make any required changes. Then or perhaps in parallel, I need to work on the cover page which I plan to keep as a simple one as I think that the book will interest only a niche audience interested in improving teaching of software development in Indian Computer Science and Information Technology academia. I think this audience will be fine with a simple cover page and will be more interested in having a look at the table of contents to see whether they should invest their time in reading/browsing through parts/whole of the book.
It has a Word generated Table of Contents with some manual addition of section headers. Note that the Table of Contents (TOC) entries are clickable (hyperlinked to associated chapters in book) but Google Docs (default viewer for Google Drive for pdf file) does not render that functionality. Downloading the file to computer and then opening in Chrome browser or Foxit Reader program allows user to use the clickable TOC functionality.
I need to proofread this first draft and make any required changes. Then or perhaps in parallel, I need to work on the cover page which I plan to keep as a simple one as I think that the book will interest only a niche audience interested in improving teaching of software development in Indian Computer Science and Information Technology academia. I think this audience will be fine with a simple cover page and will be more interested in having a look at the table of contents to see whether they should invest their time in reading/browsing through parts/whole of the book.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
About adding appendices to my in-progress Indian CS & IT Acad. Reform (Past) Activism book
I have finished main contents of body of Indian CS & IT Acad. Reform (Past) Activism book. It is publicly available (as in-progress draft version) on Google Drive here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zvfn7zcjLMS2WpMpxiMMW7bdRiOCElKp (145 pages of A4 size). Now I have to do the Appendices and am having to figure out more about appendices. I thought I should share it with readers and also request any comments they might have on appendices.
What is an Appendix Page in a Book? https://www.diggypod.com/blog/appendix-page/ tells us: "An appendix page is a section located at the back of a book that includes any additional or supplementary information on the book’s topic, such as other books on the subject, references, citations, etc."
https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/appendices is in the context of research papers. But I think its info. is useful in the context of a book as well. It says, "An appendix contains supplementary material that is not an essential part of the text itself but which may be helpful in providing a more comprehensive understanding of the research problem or it is information that is too cumbersome to be included in the body of the paper. A separate appendix should be used for each distinct topic or set of data and always have a title descriptive of its contents."
And, yes, the plural of appendix in this context is appendices, and that word is used in above link. E.g. "Appendices are always supplementary to the research paper."
The stuff that I plan to include in the Appendices are as follows:
45. My (software) biodata (last updated March 2012):
https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ravisiyerbiodata.pdf.
46. Ravi S. Iyer's Software Lab. Courses (home page), https://raviiyerteaches.wordpress.com/
47. My software industry work experience (Mar. 1984 to Aug. 2002):
https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/raviiyerindustryworkexperience.pdf.
48. Holistically Elite CS/IT Education vs Technically Elite CS/IT Education, January 2012,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2012/01/holistically-elite-csit-education-vs.html
49. The Without Warranty Wild West Software Industry, March 2013,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-without-warranty-wild-west-software.html
50. A Debate on Warranty for Software, March 2013,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-debate-on-warranty-for-software.html
51. List of some other eklavyasai blog posts including on “How to Teach Programming?”,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/p/table-of-contents.html#HowToTeach.
----
But I think I will club my bio stuff (45 & 47) into one appendix, and also club the software warranty related posts (49 & 50) into another. So I will have 5 appendices which I will name as Appendix A through E and have a suitable title for each appendix. Note that all the stuff mentioned above, in my view, does not fit in the main body of the book. But I felt it is appropriate to share them in the book and so they go to the appendices.
Any comments from readers are welcome.
---------
Some sample appendices can be seen here: https://grad.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/PDFs/Thesis-Sample-Appendices-Straight-Numbering.pdf.
What is an Appendix Page in a Book? https://www.diggypod.com/blog/appendix-page/ tells us: "An appendix page is a section located at the back of a book that includes any additional or supplementary information on the book’s topic, such as other books on the subject, references, citations, etc."
https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/appendices is in the context of research papers. But I think its info. is useful in the context of a book as well. It says, "An appendix contains supplementary material that is not an essential part of the text itself but which may be helpful in providing a more comprehensive understanding of the research problem or it is information that is too cumbersome to be included in the body of the paper. A separate appendix should be used for each distinct topic or set of data and always have a title descriptive of its contents."
And, yes, the plural of appendix in this context is appendices, and that word is used in above link. E.g. "Appendices are always supplementary to the research paper."
The stuff that I plan to include in the Appendices are as follows:
45. My (software) biodata (last updated March 2012):
https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ravisiyerbiodata.pdf.
46. Ravi S. Iyer's Software Lab. Courses (home page), https://raviiyerteaches.wordpress.com/
47. My software industry work experience (Mar. 1984 to Aug. 2002):
https://ravisiyer.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/raviiyerindustryworkexperience.pdf.
48. Holistically Elite CS/IT Education vs Technically Elite CS/IT Education, January 2012,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2012/01/holistically-elite-csit-education-vs.html
49. The Without Warranty Wild West Software Industry, March 2013,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-without-warranty-wild-west-software.html
50. A Debate on Warranty for Software, March 2013,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-debate-on-warranty-for-software.html
51. List of some other eklavyasai blog posts including on “How to Teach Programming?”,
http://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/p/table-of-contents.html#HowToTeach.
----
But I think I will club my bio stuff (45 & 47) into one appendix, and also club the software warranty related posts (49 & 50) into another. So I will have 5 appendices which I will name as Appendix A through E and have a suitable title for each appendix. Note that all the stuff mentioned above, in my view, does not fit in the main body of the book. But I felt it is appropriate to share them in the book and so they go to the appendices.
Any comments from readers are welcome.
---------
Some sample appendices can be seen here: https://grad.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/PDFs/Thesis-Sample-Appendices-Straight-Numbering.pdf.
Monday, February 10, 2020
In-progress Draft version of blogbook on this blog
Thought I should share with readers that current book (a blogbook) that I am working on, is coming along fine. Here are the first 71 pages (A4 size) of the draft version of the book titled "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book" and sub-titled "eklavyasai.blogspot.com (main work years: 2011 to 2014)":
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16V5e8mWBPKbFouSjGTCJGidkHLxfjRuo .
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16V5e8mWBPKbFouSjGTCJGidkHLxfjRuo .
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Draft version of Preface in my in-progress Indian CS&IT Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book; Comments & Suggestions are Welcome
I thought of sharing this draft version of the preface to my in-progress book, "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book". The preface text below is from the latest (4th Feb. 2020) version shared publicly here (pages 8 to 10): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wpRiYem8uYlbU_8Z6k6SrW629L2KIRSM .
Any comments/suggestions are welcome.
This blog book and associated eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog are part of my humble give-back contributions in gratitude to the field of software development where I earned a decent livelihood, helped fulfill my family obligations made possible from my software profession earnings and enjoyed my work most of the time. I was in the software industry from March 1984 to Aug. 2002 joining it as a trainee programmer, progressing over the years to Programmer/Analyst (software developer), Project Leader, Project Manager and Software Manager finally in 1990 (all positions were as employee of software companies). From around March 1993, I became a freelance corporate trainer in software development (programming courses) and later an independent technical consultant (no longer an employee) which lasted till I took commercial retirement from the field in Aug. 2002.
The software development (SD) field enabled me to make great friendships with fellow software developers, and others like support staff and managers in software companies that I worked in or interacted with in India as well as outside India, get exposed to life in USA and Europe over assignment stints there totaling around 3 years, and get interesting exposure to South Korea through a short around 2 month stint there. My SD field work also involved interesting marketing trips to Europe and Singapore. It enabled me to retire from commercial work at 40 years of age to pursue my spiritual aspirations while leading a simple, single (unmarried) spiritual aspirant life.
My logical analysis skills which I had learned in school and college (I am a Physics graduate), were honed by the SD field through analysis of complex programs and large software systems. Software design and architecture to create technically sound software systems were taught to me by the SD field. It taught me that being honest about mistakes made by me, some of which were pointed out by peers and customers, rather than go into arrogant denial, was the way to produce better software designs and code. I learned that in software code and design, arrogant denial does not overcome truth, even if denial may cloud the truth for some time. Eventually it is the truth that triumphs over falsehood including arrogant denial of truth. The computer machine as well as the SD field in general is awesome in how they do not tolerate falsehood and how truth always triumphs on the computer machine and in the SD field in general. I learned to overcome the egoistic discomfort I initially felt when design reviewers pointed out flaws and suggested improvements in my designs, and matured as a software designer to the stage where I humbly and wholeheartedly welcomed and indeed, craved, for suggestions for improvement as well as flaws being pointed out, in my designs by peers.
Handling people, understanding their interests and views, motivating them, giving them reasonable freedom in their work, and cherishing and celebrating team achievements were taught to me both by my SD field management work and also by learning how managers that I reported to, and my peers handled me and my many human flaws. The great amount of literature and documentation that I read while in the SD field on technical as well as management and business related matters played a vital role in significantly expanding the horizons of my mind. It is the SD field that made me grow as a person from a Physics graduate job-seeker to a well settled and confident man who knew his limitations and worked within those limitations to deliver on SD field work, and later in life, positioned me to seriously look at and write on larger challenges of understanding ethical/moral norms as well as existential reality of life from an individual perspective and from a larger community perspective, and the role of spirituality & religion as well as rule of law (of the state/country) in those areas, in our times and also in the past.
My bio-data and software industry work experience are given in Appendix x & y of this book. My self-published book titled, “Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1” and sub-titled "Covers Mumbai & Dombivli based life with some foreign stints, till 2002 (age 40)" covers my software industry work period in a hastily written manner (due to lack of time; my apologies to readers). https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/autobiography-of-indian-software-techie.html [short link: http://bit.ly/2GVctBG ] has the links for free download of ebook version of above (part autobiography) book as well as paperback sale page links.
I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to all the individuals, groups of individuals, companies and organizations including educational & research institutions that created, sustained and developed the software development field. This includes computer scientists, technologists (architects, designers, developers, quality assurance engineers etc.), teachers (including corporate trainers), (business) entrepreneurs, investors and, last but not the least, users.
Another aspect of my humble give-back contributions to the software development field was my stint in a Department of Mathematics & Computer Science in a deemed university in South India, where as free service rendered as a spiritual offering, I taught software lab. courses (software development/programming courses) mainly to Masters students in Mathematics and Computer Science fields, and guided student project work related to software development at Masters level (M.Sc. Mathematics and M.Tech. Computer Science) for around 9 years from Jan. 2003 to Mar. 2012. During this period I had designations of Honorary Staff, Honorary Faculty and Visiting Faculty. I also additionally played a partial Lab. Manager role from Jan. 2003 to around Jan. 2008. I should also mention that I have taught a few software lab. courses to Physics Masters students in this deemed university.
Appendix x in this book gives details of the software lab. courses I taught in this deemed university.
The eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog grew out of my exposure to the challenges faced in Indian Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) academia in teaching software development well to its students.
A few friends have made significant contributions to the eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog which is the basis for this book. Thanks guys. The eklavyasai blog lists the contributors here: https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/p/contributors.html.
The contributors/friends who agreed to have their pen-name/name mentioned in this book are:
The pen name contributors typically do not have their pen name mentioned in the blog posts and associated parts of this book. Instead they are usually referred to as simply, friend.
Besides the above mentioned contributors, some other email correspondents, which include some leading international Computer Science academics & industry figures, have also contributed to the eklavyasai blog by agreeing to me sharing some of their email responses on this blog. However, I have not included their comments in this book. But I will be referring to those comments in the book.
One particular international software industry as well as Computer Science academic person, spent a lot of his valuable time in sharing his views on the matters raised in eklavysai blog, and gave great encouragement to me to do that work. He prefers to be anonymous and so I am not mentioning his name here. I thank him profusely for the views he shared with on eklavyasai blog posts and related matters, and for the encouragement he gave me.
Readers are free to disagree with the views expressed in this book and associated blog. I and other contributors have expressed our views (at that time). If some of those views are helpful, or in future become helpful to some readers then the effort put in by me on the blog as well as this book would have had positive impact. However, even if that does not happen, that’s fine by me. I am very satisfied that I have shared my views and thoughts and suggestions, along with those of other contributors, to the important issue of improving the teaching & practice of software development in Indian Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) academia/higher education, and through that I feel as if I have done my duty to my beloved field of software development which played a big role in making me what I am today. Note that some of the views, thoughts and suggestions in this book may apply to other countries’ CS & IT academia/higher education.
Any comments/suggestions are welcome.
Preface
This blog book and associated eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog are part of my humble give-back contributions in gratitude to the field of software development where I earned a decent livelihood, helped fulfill my family obligations made possible from my software profession earnings and enjoyed my work most of the time. I was in the software industry from March 1984 to Aug. 2002 joining it as a trainee programmer, progressing over the years to Programmer/Analyst (software developer), Project Leader, Project Manager and Software Manager finally in 1990 (all positions were as employee of software companies). From around March 1993, I became a freelance corporate trainer in software development (programming courses) and later an independent technical consultant (no longer an employee) which lasted till I took commercial retirement from the field in Aug. 2002.
The software development (SD) field enabled me to make great friendships with fellow software developers, and others like support staff and managers in software companies that I worked in or interacted with in India as well as outside India, get exposed to life in USA and Europe over assignment stints there totaling around 3 years, and get interesting exposure to South Korea through a short around 2 month stint there. My SD field work also involved interesting marketing trips to Europe and Singapore. It enabled me to retire from commercial work at 40 years of age to pursue my spiritual aspirations while leading a simple, single (unmarried) spiritual aspirant life.
My logical analysis skills which I had learned in school and college (I am a Physics graduate), were honed by the SD field through analysis of complex programs and large software systems. Software design and architecture to create technically sound software systems were taught to me by the SD field. It taught me that being honest about mistakes made by me, some of which were pointed out by peers and customers, rather than go into arrogant denial, was the way to produce better software designs and code. I learned that in software code and design, arrogant denial does not overcome truth, even if denial may cloud the truth for some time. Eventually it is the truth that triumphs over falsehood including arrogant denial of truth. The computer machine as well as the SD field in general is awesome in how they do not tolerate falsehood and how truth always triumphs on the computer machine and in the SD field in general. I learned to overcome the egoistic discomfort I initially felt when design reviewers pointed out flaws and suggested improvements in my designs, and matured as a software designer to the stage where I humbly and wholeheartedly welcomed and indeed, craved, for suggestions for improvement as well as flaws being pointed out, in my designs by peers.
Handling people, understanding their interests and views, motivating them, giving them reasonable freedom in their work, and cherishing and celebrating team achievements were taught to me both by my SD field management work and also by learning how managers that I reported to, and my peers handled me and my many human flaws. The great amount of literature and documentation that I read while in the SD field on technical as well as management and business related matters played a vital role in significantly expanding the horizons of my mind. It is the SD field that made me grow as a person from a Physics graduate job-seeker to a well settled and confident man who knew his limitations and worked within those limitations to deliver on SD field work, and later in life, positioned me to seriously look at and write on larger challenges of understanding ethical/moral norms as well as existential reality of life from an individual perspective and from a larger community perspective, and the role of spirituality & religion as well as rule of law (of the state/country) in those areas, in our times and also in the past.
My bio-data and software industry work experience are given in Appendix x & y of this book. My self-published book titled, “Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1” and sub-titled "Covers Mumbai & Dombivli based life with some foreign stints, till 2002 (age 40)" covers my software industry work period in a hastily written manner (due to lack of time; my apologies to readers). https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/autobiography-of-indian-software-techie.html [short link: http://bit.ly/2GVctBG ] has the links for free download of ebook version of above (part autobiography) book as well as paperback sale page links.
I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to all the individuals, groups of individuals, companies and organizations including educational & research institutions that created, sustained and developed the software development field. This includes computer scientists, technologists (architects, designers, developers, quality assurance engineers etc.), teachers (including corporate trainers), (business) entrepreneurs, investors and, last but not the least, users.
Another aspect of my humble give-back contributions to the software development field was my stint in a Department of Mathematics & Computer Science in a deemed university in South India, where as free service rendered as a spiritual offering, I taught software lab. courses (software development/programming courses) mainly to Masters students in Mathematics and Computer Science fields, and guided student project work related to software development at Masters level (M.Sc. Mathematics and M.Tech. Computer Science) for around 9 years from Jan. 2003 to Mar. 2012. During this period I had designations of Honorary Staff, Honorary Faculty and Visiting Faculty. I also additionally played a partial Lab. Manager role from Jan. 2003 to around Jan. 2008. I should also mention that I have taught a few software lab. courses to Physics Masters students in this deemed university.
Appendix x in this book gives details of the software lab. courses I taught in this deemed university.
The eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog grew out of my exposure to the challenges faced in Indian Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) academia in teaching software development well to its students.
A few friends have made significant contributions to the eklavyasai.blogspot.com blog which is the basis for this book. Thanks guys. The eklavyasai blog lists the contributors here: https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/p/contributors.html.
The contributors/friends who agreed to have their pen-name/name mentioned in this book are:
- Anakin (pen name)
- Vaddadi Kartick – (pen name used in eklavyasai blog: Picard)
The pen name contributors typically do not have their pen name mentioned in the blog posts and associated parts of this book. Instead they are usually referred to as simply, friend.
Besides the above mentioned contributors, some other email correspondents, which include some leading international Computer Science academics & industry figures, have also contributed to the eklavyasai blog by agreeing to me sharing some of their email responses on this blog. However, I have not included their comments in this book. But I will be referring to those comments in the book.
One particular international software industry as well as Computer Science academic person, spent a lot of his valuable time in sharing his views on the matters raised in eklavysai blog, and gave great encouragement to me to do that work. He prefers to be anonymous and so I am not mentioning his name here. I thank him profusely for the views he shared with on eklavyasai blog posts and related matters, and for the encouragement he gave me.
Readers are free to disagree with the views expressed in this book and associated blog. I and other contributors have expressed our views (at that time). If some of those views are helpful, or in future become helpful to some readers then the effort put in by me on the blog as well as this book would have had positive impact. However, even if that does not happen, that’s fine by me. I am very satisfied that I have shared my views and thoughts and suggestions, along with those of other contributors, to the important issue of improving the teaching & practice of software development in Indian Computer Science (CS) and Information Technology (IT) academia/higher education, and through that I feel as if I have done my duty to my beloved field of software development which played a big role in making me what I am today. Note that some of the views, thoughts and suggestions in this book may apply to other countries’ CS & IT academia/higher education.
Monday, February 3, 2020
In-progress skeleton version of Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book shared publicly on Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1APrnAqH0ESt0D9bBeyfJHkDgzXCdih88 is the link to a skeleton version of "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book" pdf. The filename is "20200203-DraftVer-A4-Indian-CS-IT-Acad-Reform-Blogbook.pdf", runs into 35 pages and is of 1.76 MB size.
This skeleton version has the basic outline of the book, and some initial content.
I intend to share updated versions of this document in the same Google Drive shared folder where this pdf is placed. That shared folder link is: https://drive.google.com/open?id=18ClhLZSn-PApkk4VUeMGVcG6yWtpcol- . This folder currently also has the Word document "20200203-DraftVer-A4-Indian-CS-IT-Acad-Reform-Blogbook.docx" from which the above mentioned pdf file was generated.
This skeleton version has the basic outline of the book, and some initial content.
I intend to share updated versions of this document in the same Google Drive shared folder where this pdf is placed. That shared folder link is: https://drive.google.com/open?id=18ClhLZSn-PApkk4VUeMGVcG6yWtpcol- . This folder currently also has the Word document "20200203-DraftVer-A4-Indian-CS-IT-Acad-Reform-Blogbook.docx" from which the above mentioned pdf file was generated.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Google Scholar search too on: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS academia, and similar terms gives my Dec. 2012 paper within top few results
Last updated on 5th Feb. 2020
The Dec. 2012 paper referenced in the post title is:
Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia by Ravi S. Iyer. Abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1715 , PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715 .
This post follows up on two recent posts of mine:
1) Internet search on: how to improve software development skills in Indian CS IT academia, gives my Dec. 2012 paper within top three results even now in Jan 2020, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2020/01/internet-search-on-how-to-improve.html.
2) Quite amazed that Internet search on: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, gives my Dec. 2012 paper as 1st or 2nd result even now in Jan 2020, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2020/01/quite-amazed-that-internet-search-on.html.
Firstly I think some readers may have the following questions which I should address: What is Google Scholar search? How is it different from Google search and other Internet search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Scholar, "Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines."
Small extracts from Google vs Google Scholar: which one do I use?, https://library.royalroads.ca/infoquest-tutorials/internet-searching/google-vs-google-scholar-which-one-do-i-use :
The difference between Google and Google Scholar is that Google Scholar focuses on the scholarly literature available on the Internet. This includes, articles, theses, books, abstracts, U.S. court opinions, and patents, found on the websites of academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and more.
...
Google, on the other hand, has a broader scope, and retrieves resources regardless of where online they come from.
--- end small extracts from Google vs Google Scholar ---
Now my Dec. 2012 paper mentioned above is a preprint paper which has not been published in a peer-reviewed academic publication. However, I have truthfully recorded the rejection comments from a noted international Computer Science education academic publication, which I received when I had submitted it to them for review (2nd round, if I recall correctly). I have also given my responses to the rejection comments.
At that time, if I recall correctly, I felt that I should not modify my paper to suit what I considered to be narrow academic viewpoints of the academic reviewers. I thought that would result in significant loss in the key suggestions and thoughts I had espoused in the paper. So I simply froze the paper in Dec. 2012 as a preprint in arxiv.org and did not make any further submissions of the paper to any academic publication.
What I had not anticipated was that an earlier version of that paper (also available on arxiv.org) would get cited by one published paper (see Ref-1 at bottom of post) and that the Dec. 2012 version (frozen/final version) would get cited by a PhD thesis (see Ref-2 at bottom of post).
But it is still quite a surprise to me to see the top search ranking given to my paper in Google Scholar search for terms related to: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS academia.
Let the Google Scholar search terms and screenshots below, taken today on 1st Feb. 2020, tell the story.
[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]
Result rank: 1
2) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian CS academia
Result rank: 1
3) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian Computer Science academia
Result rank: 2
4) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian Computer Science academia
Result rank: 3
5) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian Computer Science academia
Result rank: 2
6) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian Information Technology academia
Result rank: 3
7) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian Information Technology academia
Result rank: 3
8) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian Information Technology academia
Result rank: 3
------------
Changing academia to higher education for above search terms gives my paper as a result for some search terms with a top ten rank and for some terms with a significantly lesser rank (20s) but for some terms my paper is not listed in the first 40 results of Google Scholar.
9) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS higher education
Result rank: 1
10) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian CS higher education
Result rank: 1
11) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian CS higher education
Result rank: 1
12) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian Computer Science higher education
Result rank: 22
13) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian Computer Science higher education
Result rank: 7
14) Search term: improve practice software development Indian Computer Science higher education
Result rank: 7
15) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian IT higher education
Result rank: 24
16) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian IT higher education
Result rank: Not found in first 40 results
17) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian IT higher education
Result rank: 19
18) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian Information Technology higher education
Result rank: Not found in first 40 results
19) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian Information Technology higher education
Result rank: Not found in first 40 results
20) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian Information Technology higher education
Result rank: 15
-------------------
I tried some searches on Indian higher education (without CS or IT).
21) Search term: improve teaching of software development in Indian higher education
Result rank: 35
22) Search term: improve software development skills in Indian higher education
Result rank: 17
23) Search term: improve practice of software development in Indian higher education
Result rank: 12
------------
Removing Indian word but keeping CS academia or higher education in the search term was an interesting variation that I could not resist trying.
24) Search term: improve practice of software development in CS academia
Result rank: 3 [2nd result was a previous version of the paper which was not specific to India]
25) Search term: improve teaching of software development in CS academia
Result rank: 2
26) Search term: improve software development skills in CS academia
Result rank: 1
27) Search term: improve practice of software development in CS higher education
Result rank: 4
28) Search term: improve teaching of software development in CS higher education
Result rank: 15
References
Ref-1. Ahmed Saleem Abbas et. al, "A literature review and classification of selected software engineering researches", International Journal of Engineering and Technology (IJET) – Volume 2 No. 7, July, 2012, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wilson_Jeberson/publication/265886949_A_Literature_Review_and_Classification_of_Selected_Software_Engineering_Researches/links/560f943e08ae48337517e1a8/A-Literature-Review-and-Classification-of-Selected-Software-Engineering-Researches.pdf.
Ref-2. Ashutosh Madhukar Kulkarni, MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE (ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECT) IN CAREER PLANNING OF STUDENTS DURING 2007-2013 WITH REFERENCE TO SELECTED MCA INSTITUTES IN PUNE REGION, Ph.D. Thesis, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune (Maharashtra, India), April 2015, http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10603/86727.
================
5th Feb. 2020 update
Added a few more searches, most using software engineering term instead of software development.
29) Search term: poor software engineering skills of Indian Computer Science graduates
Result rank: 3
30) Search term: poor software development skills of Indian Computer Science graduates
Result rank: 2
31) Search term: improve software engineering skills of Indian Computer Science graduates
Result rank: 10
32) Search term: improve teaching of software engineering in Indian CS academia
Result rank: 1
33) Search term: improve software engineering in Indian CS academia
Result rank: 1
34) Search term: improve software engineering in Indian Computer Science academia
Result rank: 3
35) Search term: improve software engineering education in Indian Computer Science academia
Result rank: 4
36) Search term: improve software engineering education in Indian Computer Science higher education
Result rank: 33
37) Search term: improve software engineering in Indian CS higher education
Result rank: 1
38) Search term: improve software engineering in Indian Computer Science higher education
Result rank: 15
Removing Indian from search term:
39) Search term: improve software engineering in Computer Science higher education
Result rank: Not listed in first 40 results
40) Search term: improve software engineering in CS higher education
Result rank: 33
41) Search term: improve software engineering in CS academia
Result rank: 12
42) Search term: improve software engineering in Computer Science academia
Result rank: Not listed in first 40 results
[I thank Wikipedia and library.royalroads.ca, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above small extract(s) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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