Ravi S. Iyer
Introduction 9
Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by Having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia 12
Ten Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) higher education policy changes to improve practice of software development in India 34
Wrote to Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, on improving practice of software development in Indian CS & IT academia 36
Suggestions to Improve CS & IT Education in India sent to Think India - A Public Policy Advocacy Think-Tank 37
Poor software development skills Indian CS graduates - Google Search Results 39
Comments on Software Development Career Track Paper 43
Concrete Suggestions for Measuring Teaching Quality in Practice-Oriented Computer Science/Information Technology streams 45
CS & IT Academia: Serious Systemic Problems? 51
CS & IT Academia: How To Relieve Suffering of Students, Parents and Employers 61
CS & IT Academia: Inform Students About Software Contribution Record of Faculty 64
Publicly Funded Higher Education Institutions should put up Detailed Course contents on the Internet 68
Holistically Elite CS/IT Education vs. Technically Elite CS/IT Education 70
The Software Development Professor! 73
Is (Seoul Accord) Accreditation using Outcome Based Assessment methods the way forward to improve teaching standards in Indian CS & IT academia? 77
NBA India: World Summit on Accreditation - Themes include Bridging Academia & Industry and Outcome Assessment Tools 83
Discussion on Concrete Suggestions for Measuring Teaching Quality ... 85
CS & IT Academia: Profs. May Not Like Idea of Software Contribution Record 89
Prof. Stroustrup: Software development is a potentially noble profession like medicine or classical engg. disciplines but long way to go 91
US CS PhD student's Comparative View of US and Indian Academia 92
A Tough View of US & UK CS Academia 99
Education and IT related parts of President Mukherjee's address to Parliament 102
Education and IT related excerpts from PM Narendra Modi speech in Lok Sabha on June 11th 2014 105
Education Related Parts of US President Obama's State of the Union 2014 Speech 110
USA - Student Right to Know Before You Go Act 113
Judge me by my work - Terrific response by new non-graduate HRD minister, Smriti Irani 115
Indian HRD Minister of State, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Writes Newspaper Article on Indian Academic Controversy 118
First Question in 2nd US Presidential debate: Student asks about employment after graduation! 120
Transparency is the way to differentiate between good and bad deemed universities 123
For-profit Corinthian Colleges goes for orderly dissolution of company; One of the largest USA higher education closures; Lessons for India 126
Prof. Yashpal Committee: Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education Report (2009) - Extracts related to private higher ed. providers and capitation fee 129
Private study (informal data): (Illegal) Donation/Capitation fees in India from KG to PG of Rs. 48,400 crores (US $ 8 Billion) per year 134
Is Brazil blazing a new path for low-cost and high-capacity higher education that countries like India can follow? 135
Tough talking articles about USA Higher Education's 1200+ percent tuition fees increase over past 30 years and Student Debt Trap 142
Two Hindu articles on Radically reforming higher education, Student loan procedures and concerns; Aspiring Minds employment linkage to edX MOOC courses 144
Recent articles in The Hindu arguing for and against privatisation of (professional) higher education (in India) 148
Flip-Flop Trauma for 44 Deemed Universities and Lakhs of students, parents, faculty and others associated with them 152
Private Deemed Universities - A model for excellence in Indian technical education? But what about its high costs to students, and so, social impact? 156
USA Higher Education Bubble? What about Indian Higher Education Bubble? 168
2013 Milken Institute Panel Discussion - The Future of Higher Education in America 179
Decline in USA Higher Education - PBS Documentary dated 2005; What about Indian Higher Education? 181
Think India Education Debate on Indian National English TV Channel 191
For-profit college in California, USA, faces lawsuit from Attorney General for Systematic Deception of Students 196
Some Serious Dangers of For-Profit Education Schools (Colleges) For Poor and Naive Students 198
How Online Education challenge is shaking up US academia 200
Napster, mp3 music industry disruption and MOOC 204
Tough Times for US Academia; Lessons for India? 206
Nature News, April 2011, Articles on PhD System Challenges 208
USA: The Student Loan Debt Disaster! Update: Income Based Repayment Plan Seems to be a Superb Solution 210
Affordable Subject-Wise Certification from Govt. Recognized Academia 214
NPTEL - IIT Madras - offers online course and certification in Programming, Data Structures & Algorithms 217
Georgia Tech, Udacity and AT&T offer Online MS degree in CS under $7000 220
CS & IT: Internet Based Learning 224
Wall Street Journal article on "Higher Education's Online Revolution" 228
NYT article on Massively Open Online Courses 231
Prof. Sebastain Thrun's experience of teaching 160,000 students AI for free! 233
A Princeton Sociology Professor's Online Teaching Experience 239
CS & IT Academia: Use Stanford Engineering Everywhere to Teach Programming 240
Online Programming Courses: Use MIT's OCW or IIT's NPTEL or Stanford's SEE 243
The Brains Behind Aakash, the Rs. 3000 (aka $35) Tablet 247
CS & IT Academia: The PhD Glass Ceiling 252
CS & IT Academia: A Bureaucratic POWER structure 255
The very strange case of 20th century era Department(s) of Mathematics and Computer Science in Indian academia in today's early 21st century world 258
Mainstream Indian newspaper article on Delhi University's Academic Council - "Everyone is terrified ..." 259
Delhi University Four Year Degree Program Mess! Do Indian university administration mechanisms promote dictatorial tendencies? 263
Dictatorial Powers of VC in Indian Central Universities 268
UGC scraps Research-linked appraisal for appointments! 269
Supreme Court rules that AICTE can only advise but not impose sanctions on universities/colleges 271
Indian Engineering Colleges: General Info. and Graduate Employability 273
Private study claims: Less than 9% of Indian engineering students have required programming and algorithm skills for IT product company jobs 274
GATE and UGC NET CS & IT exams can be employability measures if they include practical knowledge assessment 278
The Hindu's higher education student guidebook - thenxt.step 2013 - CS & IT picture 279
2014 National (India) Employability report - Poor Employability of Andhra Pradesh Engineering Graduates 284
Andhra Pradesh (India) Engineering Colleges - Half Empty! 286
An "educated guess" analysis of Large no. of Seats in Andhra Pradesh (India) Engg. Colleges Going Empty 288
Programming: Practical Solution Mindset vs. Scientific Mindset 292
Does a Teacher of Programming Need to Know Turing Machine? 300
Comments on Stroustrup's paper, "Software Development for Infrastructure" in IEEE Computer, Jan. 2012 302
Texas A&M University's Approach to Teaching Programming in (US) CS Academia 308
CS & IT Academia: How to Teach Programming? 310
CS & IT Academia: Some Comments on Teaching Programming 321
US CS & IT Academia: Usually TAs/RAs Teach Programming 327
CS & IT Academia: Should 'Customize' Instead of 'Build' be Taught? 329
Improving Indian Academic Research and Teaching: Have Separate Research-Intensive Universities and Teaching-Intensive Universities 333
Is Academic Research Grant Money Corrupting Academic Teaching Ideals? 337
CS & IT Academia: Is Teaching Excellence Important? 341
Is a PhD in CS/IT Necessarily a Good Teacher? 344
Suggestion of Separate University Rankings for Research Excellence and Teaching Excellence 349
CS & IT Academia: Research vs. Teaching 353
A Defense of The CS/IT PhD Teacher 358
Nature and Science 2011 Articles on Lack of Importance Given to Teaching Nowadays 362
Suggestion of Separate Tracks for Teaching and Research by US Academics 363
India (and Other Emerging/Developing Countries) Should Not Obsess about Higher Education Rankings 364
Should M.Tech.(CS) Project be CS Research Oriented Or Software Engineering Project Oriented? 367
Pursuing CS/IT Research Individually - Ph.D. Possibility? 382
CS & IT: Pure vs. Applied Reseach 386
Google's Hybrid Research + Development Model 389
Prof. David Parnas' views on Corruption of (Academic) Computer Science Researchers/Scientists by Publication Counts 392
Oct. 2013 Economist article on Problems with scientific research - How science goes wrong 395
Ground Rules for Sending Scientific Papers for Publication 398
Grad-Student. What does it really mean? 400
Open Access Journal Scams 402
Off-Campus PhD Degrees - Assam State Government to reduce pay of teachers with such degrees! 404
UGC seeks details on Ph.D. candidates in state universities 407
Great article about Fields Medal winner Manjul Bhargava and his blend of Maths, music & poetry (incl. Sanskrit poems) interests 409
Nature April 2014 article - Policy: Free Indian science by Dr. Mathai Joseph et al. 412
Jayant Narlikar, famous Indian astrophysicist, on Dr. Joseph's Nature article about Indian science policy problems 416
A Hard Look at the Indian Scientific Establishment 419
Whistle-blowing on the Internet - Solution for problem of Science Fraud? 421
Suspended jail sentence for scientific fraud for South Korean scientist 422
The Without Warranty Wild West Software Industry 428
A Debate on Warranty for Software 434
Miscellaneous 444
Illegal wealth case registered by CBI against former Vice-Chancellor of an Indian university 445
Mumbai college principal arrested over charge of demanding donation for admission to XIth standard Science class 447
Information Technology - Products vs. Services 449
Srinvasan Ramani - First Indian perhaps in Internet Hall of Fame; Not Agriculture vs. IT but both Agriculture and IT 451
Dr. Ramani's blogpost about students not formally complaining about illegal fees and Dr. Joseph's Hindu article (mainly) on R&D in Indian software service companies 454
Content of Programming Courses shared on Blog For Free Access To Anybody 457
Will HealthCare.gov wake up the world to the urgent need for professionalism and accountability in software development? 460
Book Summary: Digital Republic, India’s Rise to IT Power by Mathai Joseph 462
Ethics Policy for Sharing Content of Mail Exchanges on This Blog 474
Truth Telling - A Tough Job 476
Free Coaching for CSIR-UGC-NET Exam in AP University 477
Safe Path for Budding Academics in India 479
Steve Jobs: One of The Greatest Tech. Revolutionaries of Our Times 482
Steve Jobs: The iPhone Introduction (2007) 489
Steve Jobs: Some Criticism and Some Defense 498
Dennis Ritchie, a Truly Great Software Guy 503
IT Finishing Schools 506
More on IT Finishing Schools 509
Pageviews of this blog cross 10,000 over nearly 3 years; Top ten audience countries & posts 512
Eminent Indian computer scientist-cum-administrator Dr. S. Ramani writes: this Indian CS & IT academic reform activism blog is interesting 515
Contributors 516
About Me 517
God is One 519
The posts on this blog (document) have been categorized as follows (you may click on the category to jump to the list of posts in that category):