Kizuna Project: the grand Japanese plan to revitalise the economy of 2011 tsunami affected area

We were invited by the Japanese government to visit the area affected by tsunami in March 2011 under the banner of Kizuna Project. It is the Japanese version of rural employment guarantee scheme: to bring in about 10000 international visitors to visit the tsunami ravaged area, pumping in money in the aviation sector, hotel/hospitality sector, and boost tourism and help revive local economy from the sale of local souvenirs to the visitors and at the same time to convey the message to international community that it is safe to visit these areas - the Fukushima disaster notwithstanding. Ours was the third batch from India comprising of students and faculty supervisors from IITs to visit Sendai, Onagawa and Minamisanriku during Feb. 4-13, 2013.

Apart from other obvious take aways, one lasting impression is that of taking due diligence to the extreme - the Japanese go into minute details on everything they do whether it is planning an excursion or going out to dinner! I post some of the pictures from the visit here. I'll add my notes as and when I can - have been postponing this post for that very reason!

Yukata - the Japanese night dress

Prevention is better than cure! Most of the Japanese can be seen with such masks in public places.

Bullet train station at Tokyo

The bullet train

Bullet train station at Tokyo

The bullet train

Snow fall at Sendai

Snow fall at Sendai

In search of Shrikhande family roots: A trip to a remote village in Goa

One of the most enduring memories of my childhood is the story behind our family name: Shrikhande. I was told that the Shrikhande family tree had roots in Korgaon, a small village near Mapusa, North Goa. Our ancestor was a priest in the temple of Shri Kamleshwar Maharudra. It is said that this priest led the protest against proselytisation by Christian missionaries under Portuguese occupation and was beheaded for his resistance. His family took refuge in Kolhapur/Satara and subsequently the title of Shrikhande was conferred on them (Shrikhande = Shir + Khande = the beheaded).

We had an opportunity to visit the temple and site where the beheading had supposedly taken place and it is my pleasure to share the pictures from that visit (29 March 2013).

The PhD quality

I am told that IIT Roorkee is going to award about 235 Ph.D. degrees in the forthcoming convocation on October 03, 2015. This marks an increase of almost 100% on YoY basis. This upward trend of producing PhDs is going to continue in foreseeable future, if the thinking of the apex advisory council is of any guidance. The 100% rise is indeed eye popping even if we take into account the fact that PhD is not exactly a time bound programme. This increase in the PhDs can not be attributed to the increased faculty strength in recent times as they have not been around long enough, as yet. Since the good candidates are not exactly queueing up to join our PhD programme, this extra-ordinary increase in the PhDs produced calls for discussions and to re-examine our system of checks and balances to maintain quality of our output and to assure that it is not being compromised.

How should one define the quality of students (doctorates, in particular, since there is no grading) that we graduate? The process of the making of a doctorate is akin to the manufacturing process wherein raw material is processed to produce a finished product. So, the definition of quality from manufacturing industry should be a good guidance:

''In manufacturing, a measure of excellence or a state of being free from defects, deficiencies and significant variations. It is brought about by strict and consistent commitment to certain standards that achieve uniformity of a product in order to satisfy specific customer or user requirements. ISO 8402-1986 standard defines quality as "the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs." If an automobile company finds a defect in one of their cars and makes a product recall, customer reliability and therefore production will decrease because trust will be lost in the car's quality.'' Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality.html#ixzz3mG9zEJIP 

Every milestone in the formal educational set-up is associated with the development of well-defined set of skills. The undergraduate programmes are aimed at "How to" skills whereas the post-graduate programmes should aim at "Why" to encourage and develop critical thinking. In an ideal situation, this would be construed to have been achieved if the candidate gets a couple of peer reviewed publications under his/her belt by the time of graduation. But it is not a fool proof system. The scholarly journals are only interested to see the novelty in the submission and have no mechanism to check how the work was actually carried out and reported. It is quite possible that the candidate worked like a robot carrying on the detailed instructions of the supervisor to produce the results and the supervisor wrote the majority of the manuscript with very little input coming from the student. Obviously, the candidate gets the credits in authorship but has learned little to progress on the path to developing an attitude of critical enquiry. Ideally, the candidate becomes eligible to be conferred a doctorate degree when he/she develops the faculty of critical enquiry to the extent that he/she can take up an independent career in research and to supervise/train other candidates in this process. There is, unfortunately, no way to gauge/ascertain this capability other than an honest assessment of the supervisor. If the supervisor, for whatever reasons, fails to perform this basic screening then it is a rather remote possibility that the candidate may not get the license to philosophize and supervise independent research and produce questionable PhDs in the process.  It is not without reason that PhD is such a valued and respected academic accomplishment and it is our solemn duty to maintain its high esteem. I quote a paragraph in this context:

"PhD is hard. It is meant to be hard not because inflicting pain is necessarily fun, nor because some scientists are 'dementors', and not because your PhD is expected to solve the mysteries of the universe. It’s hard because it is an apprenticeship in science: a frustrating, triumphant, exhausting, and ultimately Darwinian career that will require everything you can muster. A PhD is essentially a test. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you pass this test by passing your PhD. Wrong. The fact is that passing a PhD is like getting a certificate of participation. Why? Because almost everyone who starts a PhD and sticks around long enough ends up getting one. No, the real test is what happens after your PhD. That’s when you’ll know whether you’ve really passed. Do well and it will open the door to a career of unparalleled intellectual freedom." [from Tough love: An insensitive guide to thriving in your PhD]

Recently, I had a chance to go through a PhD thesis on analytical modelling of vibration of plates. I was quite amused to note that the main argument of the thesis was in finding virtue in an approximate numerical solution scheme that affects the computed frequency parameter in fourth or fifth place of decimal in comparison with the benchmark case computed using a different numerical approximation. As a practitioner of the vibration theory, I can swear on oath that I would be more than happy to get a reliable estimate of the natural frequency to unit's place or at most one decimal place. Moreover, I wonder if it ever occurred to the candidate that for all his singing praises for the adopted numerical scheme, the difference could probably have been caused by the standardization of the floating point operation since late 1980s (because the benchmark result dates back to the time before the advent of floating-point standard and hence the coding and platform of computing made a lot of difference in the accuracy of numerical computations). Probably, the candidate has never heard the golden advice, "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers!" This lack of appreciation of insight into the basic mechanics of the problem is the biggest failing of our training process that is called PhD and is worrisome. This fresh PhD now has the license to supervise a PhD and will have a cascading effect on this academic lineage of PhDs.

While we are discussing the PhD students and their work, another issue that is worth debating is the authorship of the publications. Should the supervisor be a co-author? If he is a co-author of the research papers published prior to submission of thesis, then is it not a case of conflict of interest when the supervisor examines the PhD thesis of the candidate? In this scenario, will it be a better proposition to insist on at least one single author journal publication by the candidate before the thesis is submitted? This sole authorship in a journal article will also go a long way in helping the academic career of the student while ensuring that the candidate owns 100% responsibility for at least part of the work being examined.

I am sure that I have done enough to stir the hornets' nest and welcome a healthy discussion/debate on this issue. Having said that I am also sure that we all have some interesting anecdotes to share about our days as graduate students that it'll make for an interesting discussion. Let me share something that I had conjured up on the basis of an empirical analysis of available data:

The Supervisor's Law of Inertia:

"A supervisor tends to produce graduate students who are his/her academic replicas, unless influenced by some external factors."

A few links to recommend to your PhD students about the PhD process: 

Tough love: An insensitive guide to thriving in your PhD

Some Important Things Most Students Never Ask About Graduate School 

The technical content of technical festival: The case of Cognizance

The current Cognizance season allows me to put things in perspective (my point of view, in any case). You may or may not choose to look at the same perspective view. Two years back when I was part of the coordinating team for Cognizance, I was rather peeved at the repeated approvals being sought by the students for purchase of ply boards for erection of arenas for robotics events. The students were going by the estimate provided by the carpenter and used to revise the estimates for boards almost every alternate day. Since the same arenas are constructed year after year for the same set of robotics events, I asked them to prepare proper drawings of these arenas and estimate the required quantity precisely. This could also be kept as a formal record for use as guidelines for future. The entire event passed by but not a single piece of drawing could be produced by the students -- and the team of students involved in Cognizance are above average students with respect to CGPA. Whenever I used to ask them about the drawings, they used to look at me as if I had descended from Mars!

Another episode relates to the matter of quality checks for the T-shirts that had been ordered for distribution to participants. More than 2000 T-shirts were ordered and the terms of purchase included one line about random checks for ensuring quality. I asked one student (who was pursuing B.Tech. Industrial Engineering) about the plan of random checks. How many samples should drawn out for random checks and how do we decide if the lot is acceptable or should be rejected. Again, a complete blank!! It seemed that it had never occurred to him that whatever was taught in Statistical Quality Control would be expected to be applied in some real situation. So much for the technical competence of our bright students.

The other issue that bothered me was the propensity of everyone to be involved in the "organization" of the event and not actually participate in technical events. Very few of IITR students actually participated in the technical competitive events taking the plea that being part of management team, they are not allowed to participate. I wonder of what use is the organization of technical festival in campus if the students are not going to take part? In the same vein, I am kind of perplexed about how are song and dance events in tune with the aims and objectives of the "technical festival" Cognizance? It seems to be just one more opportunity for the students to vent off -- notwithstanding the fact that they are not under any great academic pressure any way.

I hardly notice any intellectually challenging activity taking place which could give some new ideas and directions to the students outside of the classroom. Considering that the budget of this event is about Rs. 70-80 Lakhs and we have been hosting this for more than 10 years: what is the tangible gain from an input of Rs. 7-8 Crore? Sooner or later as this sum accumulates, questions will be asked and we better be prepared with an answer.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to turn this annual event into a sort of annual problem solving challenge with a decent prize money for proposing solutions to one or two challenging problems identified by the faculty members of one or two departments (on rotation basis) and invite the short-listed proposals to make a presentation on the campus. Who knows, this kind of crowd sourcing may indeed throw up interesting ideas and leads worth pursuing. After all, the scientific community got the powerful technique of Fourier series through this kind of problem solving challenge. 

Multitude of M.Tech. programmes: a question of relevance!

The recent turf war between UGC and IIT has grabbed quite a few eyeballs and commentaries. While the power game is being played out at the upper echelons of the administrative set up governing higher education in India, it is worthwhile to have an inward view for a little introspection. Much has been said about the functional autonomy for IITs as being one of the prime reasons for the success of the IIT experiment --- one of the few success stories in independent India. The unstated assumption in this process is that the administrative setup within an IIT will have an objective assessment of the prevailing conditions and evolve suitably to address the needs. Of course, this freedom (or, autonomy) for self regulation comes with the rider that we act responsibly and do not abuse the trust reposed in the collective wisdom of the Senate.

I have so far attended only a few meetings of the Senate and I am aghast, to put it mildly, at how casually the business is actually conducted there. There is hardly any meaningful discussion on the agenda and the resolutions are adopted almost as proposed --- more or less in the same way as the bills are being passed in Lok Sabha these days without any discussions (the passage of bill for creation of Telngana state was the high point of this trend). Often we shy away from honest discussions and airing a divergent view on an issue for the fear of offending the sensibilities of our colleague(s) who had moved the proposal. The obvious problem is the inability to differentiate a professional matter from a personal one. This is a very alarming trend and without proper discussions the indifferent Senate risks the grave danger giving a shortchange to the objective assessment of an issue. Why is this trend worrisome? Sooner or later, if we don't put our house in order, our incapability (or, unwillingness) to do so will become apparent and then the day will not be far when an external regulator will be imposed as we had shown a lack of capacity (or, will) to regulate ourselves.

Since the recent ongoing tussle between UGC and IIT is related to the starting of various academic programmes in IIT, I wish to highlight the issue of proliferation of M.Tech. programmes in recent times. Several new M.Tech. programmes have been started in last couple of years which take in engineering graduates (or science post-graduates) from almost any discipline in the name of an inter-disciplinary programme. Subsequently, the courses are taught by faculty members drawn from four or five (or, even more!) different disciplines --- again in the name of inter-disciplinary programme. Sometimes a single course in a semester is taught by four or five different people from different specializations --- again in the name of inter-disciplinary programme. In order to put the issue in proper perspective, we have graduates in Electronics Engineering registering for a course on Repair and Retrofitting of Structures! Needless to say that the student will be unable to make any head and tail of the proceedings in the classroom, and yet, the student miraculously passes the course and earns the requisite credits for core course. The quality and technical competence of these poor students after completing the inter-disciplinary programme is anybody's guess. Obviously, in such a scenario it is rather difficult to have a common thread weaving through the courses of study to develop a broad vision of the field of study to see and critically analyse the big picture. We all know how effective is the teaching in short-term refresher certificate courses conducted in Continuing Education Center where a reasonably good amount of information is disseminated by a number of persons often without any obvious link between different lectures. So effectively, we have reduced our post-graduate M.Tech. education to the level of extended short-term certificate programmes! I wonder what the Senators were doing when they approved such programmes in the first place. Obviously, nobody thought it through the entire process and the decisions were taken just on the basis of some absurd way to justify an absurd diktat from the MHRD mandarins about the faculty-student ratio! Some M.Tech. programmes exist only to keep the faculty-student ratio within the prescribed norms. This is yet another number game and much has been debated about the pitfalls of number games. The administrators love to have an easily quantifiable number (index) to assess the quality. Little do they realize that such an index has to be an unbiased one if it is to be used as a decision variable. And then we run into the biggest paradoxes of all times -- it is impossible to measure anything! One can't measure anything without observing it first with the help of a suitable probe. The moment a probe is deployed, the system is not the same as the one we were interested in measuring! A performance indicator ceases to be a valid measure of performance as soon as it is defined because everyone begins to target it and in the process the measure becomes a biased one and hence unsuitable for use as a performance indicator!

It is high time that we took a rational view of the utility of so many M.Tech. programmes in the institute and not dilute the premium attached to the training received at an IIT. 

Student Evaluations and Statistical Hypothesis Testing

I had been thinking about the impact of increase in class strengths in higher education on the quality of performance evaluations and eventually award of grade to a student in a course --- an important exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff --- which assumes greater significance in our attempt to stretch the bottom threshold just to fill the available seats in our academic programmes. At a first glance, it appears that we have decreased the rigour in evaluations (both in taught courses and also dissertations).  Let us first talk about the taught courses, we shall take up the evaluation of dissertations later.

The 50% across the board increase in student intake in all academic institutions has necessitated accommodating a large number of candidates with questionable academic preparation in our post-graduate courses. Some of these students find it extremely difficult to cope with the (somewhat watered down) rigours of the academic programme and perform rather poorly in some courses. However, it is surprising to find same candidates performing at "Above Average" level in other courses and also at times managing an "Excellent" grading in dissertation. This, despite a common refrain from all during tea-time discussions about the decreasing level of aptitude and commitment of the graduate students. I find it rather difficult to reconcile the two assessments: the informal assessment is very poor quality of work and yet the formal assessment on the grade sheet reflects an "Excellent" grade for the dissertation!

The process of award of grade to a student is an exercise in making a decision whether a student has understood the subject, and if the answer is yes, then to what extent.  The performance of the student is tracked through a variety of assessments throughout the semester leading to a final score for the award of a grade. This final score is referred to as "the test-statistic" in the parlance of statistical hypothesis testing: a standard tool of decision making based on statistical inference. In its simplest form, the test involves formulating a "Null Hypothesis" (H0), which is considered to be the working rule until it can be established by way of some evidence that it is not true and should be abandoned in favour of the "Alternate Hypothesis", typically denoted by H1. The formulation of an appropriate null hypothesis is the most crucial part of the test and it is stated in a form which makes it easier to test for its falsity.  The process of student's evaluation can be stated as:

The null hypothesis, H0: the student knows the subject and deserves a passing grade, 

and

The alternate hypothesis, H1: the student does not know the subject and consequently does not deserve a passing grade.

So the process of evaluation begins with the assumption that the student knows the subject unless it can be proved to be otherwise. The variety of assessments are then aimed at trying to falsify this assumption. This has an important bearing on the way the examinations are set up --- it is important that the student's are examined thoroughly about the subject and the tests should be designed to falsify the null hypothesis. Since nothing in this world is perfect, the hypothesis testing too has its fair share of flaws and two types of errors are possible:

1. Type I error: reject the null hypothesis H0 when it is true --- the false alarm, and 
2. Type II error: do not reject the null hypothesis H0 when it is false --- the missed alarm. 

The probability of Type I error is related to the "significance level" of the test while the "power" of test refers to the probability of not committing Type II error. Obviously, eliminating both types of errors is impossible.  The chances of Type I error can be reduced by expanding the range of  "acceptable range" of the test-statistic but that increases the chances of Type-II error where the null hypothesis might not be rejected even when it is not true. The significance level, i.e., the probability of Type I error is decided beforehand and is kept at the largest tolerable level (typically 0.1, 0.05, or 0.01) consequently the "acceptable range" of test-statistic is established (larger the probability of Type I error smaller is the acceptable range for test-statistic and hence smaller chances of Type II error) . In the context of student evaluation this translates into designing an examination that is consistent with the choice of the probability of Type I error. An easy examination along with a small probability of Type I error, say, 0.01, makes it almost impossible to reject the null hypothesis of all students knowing the subject and thereby increase the probability of Type II error of a student getting a passing grade even if (s)he may not have a passing understanding of the subject. A study of the patterns of grades awarded in recent times indicates that we might have been committing Type II errors (missed alarm) in several cases by awarding passing grades to the undeserving candidates while trying to minimize the Type I errors (false alarm). While a possibility of Type I error might result in a temporary setback for a few candidates, it is good for the academic programme of the institute if it prevents a Type II error of awarding degrees to the undeserving which might have long term implications in hurting the academic standing of the institute. If we do not take care in minimizing Type II errors (even if it is at the cost of slightly increased chances of Type I error) then the doomsday may not be far off when the industry would cease to recognize the premium of an IIT degree. 

There has been a steady decline in the quality of M.Tech. dissertations with very few leading to scholarly publications which was the primary objective of increasing the duration of dissertation from one semester to two semesters. Year after year, we have a horde of students graduating with "Excellent" grade for their dissertations but not leading to any scholarly publication. This begs a little introspection --- probably there is a need to recalibrate our scales of grade and be a little more objective about these evaluations. It appears that quite a few of these students with "Excellent" grades in dissertations do not have a CGPA more than 7.0-7.5 after the two semesters of course work --- roughly mapping to "Average" performance. I agree that there could be some exceptional cases where the effort put in dissertation work might outshine that in a regular course work --- but such cases are rare and for all that it is worth, the CGPA at the end of two semesters of course work gives a fairly well indication of the student's potential at present. The "Excellent" grade in dissertation leads to artificial inflation of the CGPA at the end of the academic programme. It may be better to switch to a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading of dissertation to retain some objectivity of CGPA as a measure of students' academic performance.

Declining Morals and Ethics in Higher Education

Recently, one case of impersonation has been reported in the recently concluded final examinations of the Spring Semester, 2013. Apparently, a student of B.Tech. I Yr. had arranged to have someone else write the examination of EC-101A Computer Systems and Programming on his behalf. The person who actually took the examination had forged the candidate's signatures on the attendance sheet. The matter was brought to light by some students raising questions about the sanctity of the examination and evaluation system. Some students have also alleged that the impersonation was not limited to this single case rather there were multiple instances of impersonation in the final examination of at least two more courses this semester. This kind of lack of oversight and supervisory control in the conduct of academic affairs is a direct fall-out of the steep increase in the student intake in recent years. It is now impossible to have a personal one-to-one interaction with the students which goes a long way in forging a teacher-student bond and encourage more engaging discussions in the classrooms. This was, probably, what Late Prof. P.V. Indiresan (formerly of University of Roorkee, and later Director IIT Madras) had in mind when he had filed a PIL in Supreme Court against the Ministry's decision to increase the student intake by 54%.  It is an alarming disregard for the rule of the land that these students have shown. Impersonation is a criminal offense for cheating, forgery and fraud, punishable with 7 year jail term,  under Indian Penal Code of 1860. It should make us all halt in our tracks and ponder about the purpose of education being imparted in our institutions of higher learning. Are we helping create a generation of cheats and slackers?

It may be very easy and probably more convenient to brush this issue aside calling it an aberration. However, the long-term implications of such ostrich-like attitude are horrifying, to put it mildly.  First, the concept of level-playing field for all can be thrown away. Students with strong management skills can always manage to get other to write their examinations for some professional appearance fees! In any case, we are producing more of managers than engineers/technocrats if the level and kind of participation of our students in the Technical Festival - Cognizance is any indication. We might as well forego evaluation of students' performance in examinations. The grades for the course can possibly be awarded on the basis of some demonstrable quality of "managing" examinations. After all, is that not what the managers are supposed to do and judged for --- the skill in getting the work done? Whatever may be means adopted for the purpose --- the ends always justify the means! Scoring well in examinations is just another kind of work which can be possibly outsourced to someone with real technical skill but probably lacking in management skills!  Does it make any sense to evaluate the answer scripts of students which had been outsourced? Who is getting the reward (Grades) and for whose efforts? The entire edifice of higher education will crumble if this case is allowed to fall through the cracks within the system. Imagine, how convenient would be our life as course instructor if we did not have to bother about evaluating tutorials, answer scripts, etc. Even the classroom lectures can be dispensed with and a live streaming of recorded lectures can be fed into students' halls. The faculty members can then devote their time and energy to more quantifiable metrics of research projects and publications.

I presume that most of us will agree that the scenario presented above can not be the way forward if we are serious about building our reputation as a force to reckon with in the field of technical education on the world stage. Therefore, this malaise has to be nipped in the bud. The first thing that we should do is to explore the possibility of roping in a Forensic Laboratory to collect random handwriting samples of all B.Tech. I Yr. students and have it cross-checked with the writing on the answer scripts of the final examination. This may be the only way to nab the culprits whose identities are not known. The culprits when caught should be handed an exemplary punishment including filing  a formal police complaint for cheating, fraud and forgery so that no student in future will dare to cross the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable. Further, the students should be asked to put their thumb impressions in the attendance sheet as well as on the answer script. It should then be possible to cross check the authenticity of the candidate at a later date by using the thumb impression database available with JEE during admissions. These small measures will go a long way in preventing such acts of cheating and ensure better compliance.