PICK A LEADER NOT A BOSS

Once upon a time there was a king called ‘Sugriva’. Sugriva was ruling the kingdom of ‘Kiskindha'(Kingdom of ‘vanars’). ‘Hanuman’ was not only a faithful servant but was also a true disciple of ‘Sugriva’. Owing to some misunderstanding ‘Sugriva’s’ brother Bali turned his foe. ‘Bali was’ stronger between the two brothers. Bali took wife ‘Ruma’ and Kingdom of ‘Sugriva’ forcefully & ostracised ‘Sugriva’ from the kingdom. Hanuman also followed ‘Sugriva’ and left the Kingdom along with him. ‘Sugriva’ made several attempts to take his kingdom back and challenged ‘Bali’ to fight, but Bali seems to be unbeaten. Every-time ‘Sugriva’ used to fight Bali ‘Hanuman’ was hiding behind the rocks and would see his master getting beaten badly by his brother.

Lord Ram was, in the meanwhile, rambling in the forest in quest of Mata Seeta. Eventually, he came in contact with ‘Sugriva’ and helped him in conquering ‘Bali’. Hanuman on the other hand got influenced so much by the aura of Lord Ram that he became ardent devotee of Lord Ram.

The Moment the leadership changed, ‘Hanuman’ began to grow vigorously in his skills, abilities, strength and performance. He turned in from inapt to a consummate performer. It’s evident that same ‘Hanuman’ who used to hid behind the bush when ‘Bali’ used to beat his master, killed deadliest monsters which were stronger than ‘Bali’, saved life of ‘Laxman’ by lifting a whole mountain and played a vital role in winning battle of ‘Sri Lanka’. Consequently, he achieved the status of ‘GOD’.

‘Hanuman’ the GOD; was same person who used to work under the command of ‘Sugriva’ and Lord Ram. The only change which gave him the status of GOD is; His decision to work with a Leader, than to work under a Boss.

Lord Ram was a leader, while ‘Sugriva’ was a Boss.

 Hence, follow a Leader not a Boss. Further you can choose to be a Boss or a Leader.

Dr. B.K Som

Associate Professor

JIMS Rohini Sec - 5 

CUT COPY PASTE-MOVING TO FAKE INTELLIGENCE

With the developement of internet as a perfect source of any information and database, the creativity seems to have lost its ground. Its a big bad world of pressures and deadlines out there. To address their daily needs, youngsters have now stopped thinking and far from pondering and contemplating on the topics or issues they want to write, create or induldge in any other form. Google baba comes handy to them as a solution for all their assignments and problems. In depth studies to make the most of the existing resource to propose a new one has given in for plaguerism.

Is it the paucity of time, lack of interest or capability which is leading to this? Students feel that if we only have to convey whatever is available on the net then assignments are just a waste of time.The seed of plaguerism has travelled to corporates, communication industry, fashion industry in a large way. The importance of propounding something new and absolutely original seems to have been left to handful experts while a common acdemician, student and researcher finds it easy to tread way by beg, borrow, steal policy! This is an alarming situation where we are moving from Artificial intelligence actually created by some intellects to fake intelligence where brains may go for a long snooze and the longer the gap the harder will be the effort for us to wake them .

If this continues, believe you me, we are heading towards an era of distorted academia and research and developing people with low or no analytical ability.

So, heres a Wake up call. One may begin with patch writing, i.e. changing things here and there, ands move to finally turn to paraphrasing. To fill your writing or thought gaps, quote lifting may help. In case if there are people who lack the opinon approach, Content curation is a great idea as it helps to aggregate multiple thoughts in one space. However while content curation, its important that you attribute the credit the right way to the deserving one. There is nothing more infurating than people who take credit of someone else’s work. So understand that you can’t change a byline in somenone’s article and call it day. So before you blog or write or develop anything again, Ask yourself a Question “Are you a good contributor or just a good googler?”

Mansi Arora Madan

Asst. Professor-Management

JIMS ROHINI SEC - 5

Well, many of you must be wondering as to what topic is all about and how does it fit in the realm of an IT faculty, who earlier had done her BCA program, Masters Program and is now trying to understand the various issues and nuances that prompt the students to bunk classes, generate innovative excuses which they hope will justify the reason for arriving  late in the  class and of course to make sincere and ardent  attempt in influencing the teacher to “adjust” the attendance lest they will be debarred in internal examination.   

The genesis of this topic goes to Mr. Ratan Tata, who led TCS, an IT company to make a mark in the world. Actually, the topic is related to an incident which Mr. Ratan Tata, faced in Germany. He, along with his friends were having dinner in restaurant. In the end, they failed to consume the entire food which they had and hence there was leftover food on their plates. They paid the bill for the food and were about to leave the restaurant when they were confronted with the officers from Social Security Organization. Someone from the audience had called in the Social Security organization with the message that visitors to restaurant have left some food on their plates. In other words, they had ordered more food than they could consume. MR. Ratan Tata and his friends, argued vehemently and protested that they had paid for the food but the officers were unperturbed. They kept on repeating,the money is yours but the resources belong to the society. Hence, the food which they had left and for which they had already paid could have been eaten by members of the society who fail to get even one time meal. Hence a fine of 50 Euros to enlighten them to order only what you can finish. This was a lesson and believe me this episode has gone viral. For, I too, have received it on my WhatsApp.

Anyway, pondering over this message, I began to contemplate as to how this episode aptly fits in our education system and how the students can be made to realize that they are wasting the resources meant for the society (i.e. the teacher) even though they are paying the fee i.e. the money which belongs to their parents. For, instance, when a student bunks a class and then comes back to the teacher, before the exam that a particular portion of the syllabus is not clear to him or as it happens most of the time he makes an ardent attempt to wriggle out some important questions which are likely to come in the forthcoming internal examination. The teacher, on the other hand, spends his  time in trying to announce and convince them that whatever is  taught in the class will come in the examination. So, the valuable time of the teacher, which can be utilized in some other productive manner is wasted.

Can we, the teachers, work out a strategy like imposing a hefty fine which may not be in monetary terms, every time when the student wastes the resources such as chatting on face book in the computer lab class or coming up with excuses such as they are participants in an event and hence they are required to practice and so  their attendance be marked accordingly but later on  these students are found to be loitering in canteen or outside the campus?  

Well I am sure something can definitely be worked out to inculcate the feeling  that they are paying the fees but they are wasting the resources meant for the society.

Natasha Narang

Asst. Professor

JIMS Rohini Sec - 5

PRODIGY OF ONLINE STUDIES- MOOCS

PRODIGY OF ONLINE STUDIES- MOOCs

Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) are the natural evolution of Open Course Ware, first created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001.

It is an online course which aims at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In includes all the course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants .

MOOCs are a recent development in distance education. It includes quizzes and exams to assess the knowledge of the students. Also there is some interaction between students and teachers in every possible manner.

MOOCs Open: The course should be openly accessible to everyone and there should not be any constraint such as possession of a qualification and should also allow mixing of resources. On the other hand, the accessibility to all the educational resources (videos, lecture notes) should be free of cost whereas certain other things, like asking direct questions to the teacher, the correction of the activities, or obtaining a certificate at the end of the course may have an decent economic cost.

Massive: This online course should allow access to a very large number of students, much larger than a face-to-face class, or a traditional online course.

Classification of MOOCs

At the beginning, the MOOCs had a strong and deep collaborative philosophy (cMOOCs), but this philosophy has evolved to a commercial sense (xMOOCs).

cMOOC

A cMOOC basically emphasizes on the connectivist philosophy: it is considered as a social platform for sharing and constructing knowledge within a group of people. cMOOCs are based on principles from connectivist philosophy which indicate that the material should be aggregated rather than pre-selected, cMOOC also attempts to connect learners from all the corners of the world to each other and answers the questions and also further collaborate their projects with joint efforts.

xMOOC

An xMOOC is more reliable than cMOOC and follows a more traditional model of education that is based on lectures and videos and is well financed. xMOOCs have a much more traditional course structure typically with a clearly specified syllabus of recorded lectures and self-test problems. They employ elements of the original MOOC, but are, in effect, branded IT platforms that offer content distribution partnerships to institutions. The instructor is the expert provider of knowledge, and student interactions are usually limited to asking for assistance and advising each other on difficult points.

Ankita sharma

Asst. Professor
JIMS Rohini Sec - 5

CRAFTING INDUSTRIAL VISITS

More or less every management institute organizes industrial visits for management students. The visits limit themselves to plant visits in most of the cases. A routine process is followed where students attend a power point presentation primarily by human resource department of the particular company and then visit the manufacturing plant. Given the busy schedule, academic institutes should be thankful to industry for this additional of time. These visits add bare minimum to industry in terms of advertisement and branding. Most of the companies consider these visits under their Corporate Social Responsibility Program. They treat it as a gap bridging exercise between corporate and academia. Under the constraint of time, we as academicians should strategically craft these visits for maximum benefit of the students. Five key inputs in strategically organizing industrial visit can be;

• Visit should be with a small group of students (not more than 20). A smaller group provides high learning opportunity with administrative convenience and individual attention. Small number also ensures sensible interaction.
• One exercise eventually is to make students do a lot of groundwork before they go to visit about the particular industry. By doing so the PowerPoint presentation session can be converted in to interactive session where management students can ask questions related to marketing strategies, supply chain mechanism, HR policies and operational strategies.
• A pre visit session should be conducted to observe students’ preparation. Faculty can guide the students about ways to explore more about the particular industry.
• After completion of visit a session should always be conducted by faculty expert in order to ensure learnings from the visit.
• Every visit should end up with a learning outcome presentation. Students should be asked to present key learnings in the group.

If the industry visit is crafted with the help of these heads, the outcome of the visit will always add to students’ knowledge. These organized visits can definitely bridge the gap between theory and practice.

DR B K SOM

Associate Professor

JIMS ROHINI SEC - 5 

THE IMMIGRANTS OF BANGLADESH BANGLADESHI HINDU

We are a nation of more than 125 cr. Issues like unemployment, poverty, crime are a big challenge. While the government is fighting to make life easy for residents of the nation, another problem eclipsed of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This problem is mounting up on a very serious note. As expected government seems to keep sleeping on the issue until it becomes big enough to be politicized. The bigger problem is that these illegal immigrants are not restricted to border areas anymore. In fact they spread deeper in to lengths and breadths of the country. Due to our corrupt system they get basic documentation like ADHAR CARD and VOTER ID easily. I don’t understand why government is in such a rush to issue ADHAR CARD to everyone without even knowing basic details. At-least one should have a domicile to get ADHAR CARD or Voter ID. In  order to survive, these immigrants start working as house servants/maids, labors or start begging at signals. A good number of them involve themselves in to crimes  such as chain snatching, rod-hold up’s, theft, signal picks, pocket picks, molestation and rapes. The crime rate has gone up due to these immigrants. The problem in front of police is that they find them hard or impossible to track, due to non existence of domiciles. Police ends up chasing a ghost. We can not blame police directly for that. Politicians for their short term benefits help them in getting all illegal things like colonizing and basic documentation. So that they can create their own vote bank. They miss the long term impacts on nation and INDIAN Citizens. As a citizen the matter seems to be beyond my control and protest. I don’t know what to do other than writing. Probably it should be addressed to prime-minister or home minister. But the frustration is that they are politicians too. Sometimes i feel like, yes every country has problems but they have leader with huge patriotism, vision and zeal to serve society. I agree the leaders of that kind are also here but the number is like salt in dough.

Most we can do is to take precaution. Take a pain and get documents submitted to police station before hiring someone for sensitive jobs like house servants /maids or putting a regular auto-rickshaw or cab for kids & females. Please ask for domiciles and inquire all about geographical belonging before hiring.

Keep your families safe and make this country a safer place.

DR B K SOM

Associate Professor

JIMS ROHINI 

TRANSITION FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING TO KNOWLEDGE NETWORKING

A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. In the world of e-learning, the closest thing to a social network is a community of practice, which is characterized by “a shared domain of interest” where “members interact and learn together” and “develop a shared repertoire of resources.” Knowledge networking is an effective way of combining individuals’ knowledge and skills in the pursuit of personal and organizational objectives. Knowledge networking is a rich and dynamic phenomenon in which knowledge is shared, developed and evolved. It is more than access to information, because it also delves into the unknown. It is more than using the rules and inferences of expert systems, because it is about knowledge that is evolving. Although it verges on simplification it is the computer augmentation (typically through groupware) of person-to-person communications resulting in the development of new knowledge.

By relaxing our grip on the technology of learning we can utilize the power of “Web 2.0″, a blanket term which refers to a second generation of web-based communities and online services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, and social bookmarking and indexing sites, which enable creativity, collaboration and sharing between users.  This approach changes e-learning resources from isolated information silos to interlinked platforms.  Most importantly, Web 2.0 also includes a social element where the users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use, and allows the user to do more than just download information.  Users “own” and exercise control over the data on a Web 2.0 site.  Web 2.0 sites have architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the site as they use it, and usually feature a rich, user-friendly interface and may also have social-networking features.

As an academician, I have closely examined this transition from social networking to knowledge networking. Knowledge networking has given birth to the concept of lifelong learning where learning is not limited to four or six year degree courses but extends throughout the lifetime of an individual. A method that is increasingly used to promote both lifelong learning and professional knowledge is learning networks. In these communities learners participate, actively creating and sharing activities, learning plans resources and experiences with peers and institutions. One of the key requirements (and strengths) of a learning network is a wide cross-section of participants which gives the network a healthy diversity of opinion. The participants can be learners, instructors, industry affiliates, tutors, managers or anyone seeking to benefit from the activities, resources and experience made available by the learning network. An important point to note is that different on-line places have different characteristics – each forum, discussion list or departmental network has a different often uncodified way of working and interacting with each other. Therefore its newcomers must take time to understand the specific protocols and culture of the network they are joining.

Mrs. Deepshikha Aggarwal

Associate Professor

JIMS Rohini Sector - 5

EMERGENCE OF MOOCS

The idea to learn without physical presence is not new. It dates back to 1840 when Sir Isaac Pitman established a course on shorthand learning through weekly tutorials on postcards. Certainly world of distance education has changed a lot in past few years. The journey which started from correspondence course and distance education, travelled across e-learning, and has now entered into a world of online courses commonly known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). With an initial slow start, now MOOCs have gained momentum with elite and trendsetting Universities launching these courses. Harvard, MIT, University of Virginia, University of Phoenix, Stanford, Yale IITB and IIMB are just to name a few. These courses are available for free or for a minor commercial value dependent upon the number of resources it uses. Some of the more popular portals providing Moocs like Coursera, Edx, Udacity and NPTEL offer courses which cross all language barriers and provide a new learning platform.

When 2012 was declared as “year of MOOC” by The New York Times, it started the online learning revolution with many well-financed service providers teaming up with best universities to offer courses which received enrolment as large as 160,000 students in one year. Many of these portals are funded by non-profit organizations like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the McArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation etc. Till date more than a million participants have successfully completed and have been awarded certificates. EDX alone has courses in subjects ranging from Maths, Computers, Ethics, Art and Culture, Economics & Finance, Food and Nutrition, Medicine, Physics and what not.

In a common observation it is said that ‘what Internet did to print media, is what Moocs will be doing to higher education’. It is a kind of what happened in every other industry i.e. Labour replaced by technology. While we cannot have an expert teacher teach a whole lot of students, besides managing his work load and research, we can have a whole lot of students study from the best brain in whole of University, and why not a Nobel laureate. Recent studies show that students find these courses more interesting and ‘intimate’. Its a virtual classroom environment with video lectures, open forums, assignments and reviews. It gives flexibility to student to learn at his own pace. It doesn’t have to be a continuous 2-3 hours session, its not time bound and doesn’t even need a dress code. Learning becomes fun when you overcome your language barrier and make your trainer talk to you alone for hours, solving all your doubts.

As is the case with all technologies, Moocs also have certain shortcomings. Though it gets the curiosity levels high which is reflected in the number of enrolments, not many participants actually complete these courses. Moreover it’s still a tough job convincing employers about the proficiency of a person having certificate of Moocs. Judging the performance by what it has already achieved may not indicate the true potential of this teaching pedagogy. It’s a long way to go and the journey has just started.

References:

http://mfeldstein.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304019404577416631206583286

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/brooks-the-campus-tsunami.html?_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

http://www.moneycrashers.com/massive-open-online-courses-distance-learning-education/

Mr. Devesh Lowe

Asst. Professor
JIMS ROHINI SEC - 5 

E-LEARNING VS CLASS ROOM LEARNING

Even the world’s largest army cannot stop an idea whose time has come goes a popular quote.

Distance learning was an idea whose time was long overdue. Though distance learning is not a new idea, its time has really come now aided by technological advancement, in its new avatar as E-learning.

Whether E-learning will eventually replace conventional class room learning, only time will tell. But should it?

E-learning aims to reach students at their home through the electronic media. It uses various cyber tools at its disposal to reach out to their students. In E-learning one has access to a wide variety of books, learning materials, online tutorials and virtual class rooms.

E-learning is a boon for people, who wish to study further while working, without having to compromise their work hours. It saves time and money, avoids travel and offers excellent flexibility to learn at one’s own pace, topics of varying difficulties.

Universities now conduct on line evaluation of students, to assess their performance in an effort to make learning more effective and the degrees more credible and acceptable at par with class room learning.

However E-learning lacks the following advantages of contact or class room learning.

Let’s give it to our teachers. The world’s most boring topics turn interesting in the hands of a skilled teachers and dreaded subjects become dream subjects in the hands of great teachers.

E-learning, in spite of all its advantages cannot replace the teaching techniques, knowledge sharing skills and above all the ability to turn a good student into a brilliant one, by his inspiring ways.E-learning is learning in isolation. You miss a peer group of similar minds that help in informal exchange of ideas, debating and understanding the concepts.Class room learning is important to develop the extra-curricular, social and life skills for students.

To conclude, E-learning is definitely welcome for people, who wish to add on to their academic knowledge, keep themselves abreast of the new areas of developments in their profession. It is also a good opportunity for people, who could not access higher education immediately after their schooling for various reasons.

Class room learning lays the foundation for academic brilliance, as well as social learning during ones formative years, under the guidance of able teachers.

This is the nursery where future generations bloom.

C.Komalavalli

Assoc.Prof(IT)

JIMS ROHINI SEC - 5

SANS FORMALITY

Webster’s New World Hacker Dictionary by Bernadette Schell and Clemens Martin defines protocol as – “a set of rules governing how communications between two programs have to take place to be considered valid. It describes various ways of achieving and operating compatibility.” If there is anything like ‘academic protocol,’ undoubtedly it is undergoing dilution.

The degree of formality built in the education system with specific reference to the relation between the teacher and the student is changing and the changes are not subtle but sharp and at times startling. An illustration: An email I received from a student who had completed her Summer Internship and was in the process of report writing – Hi Mam J please read the attached report. Go thru (sic) it. You can make corrections. Or let me know the changes. Feel free to do that. Bye J

This email made me realize we are all equals! How could I forget that? Students greet you with a hi and bye; wish to be friends with you on Facebook; want your personal phone number; will send a message via Whatsapp to let you know that they’ll be late for the class; will tell you that cool colours suit you the best; will not hesitate to ask for hints or get a sneak preview of the exam questions.  The British era type of formality of Good Morning and Yours sincerely is fast shrinking.

We sure are equals but the lack of formality renders the communication a very casual dimension that robs off the essence of knowledge transmission via the student-teacher relation. This casual approach is most likely to continue in future too. What goes as okay or acceptable to a small degree gets magnified with the passage of time and turns troublesome. This may mean reaching a stage where corrections become nearly impossible.

What lies at the background of this casual communication is a nonchalant attitude towards formal learning and therefore towards all the stakeholders in the formal learning setup. The rigid formality and the accompanying anxiety is not being hailed, but we must not let the dilution of seriousness towards learning and ensure due respect to the guides and knowledge providers.

Ms. Deepti Kakar

Associate Professor

JIMS Rohini Sec - 5

THE EVOLVED TEACHING PEDAGOGY

As time has progressed, the world around us has undergone umpteen changes. Teaching pedagogy too, has evolved. In the days when we did our schooling and pursued higher education, the use of technology was minimal. The so called ‘chalk and talk’ method was followed for every discipline. Our friends and co-learners in the science stream of studies, in addition to this were exposed to the practical view of the theory via laboratory experiments. We were at best, given a glimpse of the application of the theoretical constructs with the help of examples and illustrations. However, the pedagogy never compromised on the quality of education and its rendition. The use of technology driven aids has now supplemented the ‘chalk and talk’ method and in many cases completely replaced it.

For a number of disciplines, the instructors are making use of MS PowerPoint presentations, smart boards, videos, simulations etc. It is believed that this assistance has certain advantages over the traditional pedagogy – both for the instructor and the learner. Upholding the belief of moving with changing times, the teaching pedagogy at JIMS, Rohini too involves the use of the aforementioned aids in addition to the traditional method. The PGDM program at JIMS, Rohini has a uniquely balanced course design and the concurrent well balanced teaching pedagogy enables the students to gain a wholesome understanding of the management discipline and the delivery mechanism exposes them to both the theoretical fundamentals and decisional realities.

Innovative improvements in the pedagogy are a result of the experiential learning of the faculty at JIMS, Rohini – this being a combination of self-learning and learning from that of the others. The prevalent teaching pedagogy revolves around an assortment of lecturing, conducting group discussions, assigning written and oral presentations, case study review and development, article analysis,  role plays, team plays, challenging activities, simulations, industrial visits, live projects and corporate internships.

Ms. Deepti Kakar

Associate Professor

JIMS Rohini Sec-5

THE FOREVER ALUMNI- INSTITUTE CONNECT

Walking down the corridors of the college is like walking the lane of cherished memories. Quality education is of utmost importance and JIMS has a pool of learned professors and industry experts to build a strong foundation for every student to succeed. The Alumni of JIMS have shined in their professional circuits. Their clarity of concepts and structures of the business world transform them into successful entrepreneurs/ working corporate professionals.

Mentoring and guidance are essential aspects to create confident successful individuals and the JIMS alumni are a perfect example of how stumbling steps of freshly out-of-school graduate become assured walks of experienced and educated professionals to the path of success. JIMS provides its students with all the guidance and encouragement they need from time to time and constantly works to build a strong bond with the alumni.

Waking up every day to be in JIMS is extraordinary. To attend classes not only means having a new learning experience each day but also means catching up with friends for that pending dose of conversations.

Breaks at JIMS mean a great cup of coffee with Chinese samosa and other delicacies offered in the canteen. Alumni of JIMS take with them cherished memories of joyous times spent at the institute that remain embedded in their hearts forever. The life lessons educators inculcate in students and the values they teach empower all students to face life’s challenges heads-on. The support JIMS provides to the alumni at all times smoothens their journey through life’s thick and thin to make them motivational figures professionally as well as personally.

Varnika Nayyar

Content Writer

Every men is a potential industry in himself apparently. Eventual function of an Industry is to either produce money or to work for social responsibility without seeking monitory benefits. Both types of industries are equally important. In-fact both of them work as wheels of cart of development for any country. Same way; working men and women are money making industries, while housewives and care takers can be considered as non-profit making organizations. Both the stake holders play equally important role in making & running of a family. Some of the companies do not deviate from ethical practices even if they have to compromise on profit while some of them follow unethical practices to grow, so do men.

Four major management components of an industry: Marketing, HR, Finance and Operations are applied to men exactly same way, as they do for any industry. Marketing is, to sell yourself, to present yourself in the best possible way, to brand yourself and to establish long term relationship (social and professional networking). All of this has to meet the changing dimensions of economy and environment else you are bad at your own marketing and that leads you to under-draw desired or even deserved value. Human Resource Management is all about keeping work-life balance, getting self-motivated, getting yourself trained for upcoming challenges, apprising yourself and entreating yourself for improving productivity. Finance is all about managing funds of your own account, planning taxes, arranging funds, pushing up credit value, auditing accounts, squeezing expenses and cutting costs. Operations is all about increasing efficiency, optimizing efforts and getting maximum throughput but minimum efforts which we call smart work. Research and development is all about, correcting yourself by learning from past mistakes, eying new opportunities and creating a distinguish skill in yourself for sustainability.

Hence, a Man can understand himself an industry. Small-scale, medium-scale or large scale depending of the output one produces or on tangible / intangible wealth one possesses. By doing so one can find the solutions to the problems of profession like industries do. All I mean to say is that industry solutions can be good reference points to the problems which a men faces in his career, as Men is also an Industry. But, one must map industry recommendations to human perspectives by careful scaling before implementation.

And Off-course business is governed by company laws and men are governed by constitution.

DR B K SOM, Associate Professor – JIMS Rohini
Visit website http://www.jimsindia.org/

PURSING KNOWLEDGE FOR ITS OWN SAKE

Though education has always been given due respect and importance, the pursuit of education for the sake of knowledge has been overpowered by the pursuit of education for gainful employment or career development. Students and learners often fall in the myopic trap of learning for achieving success for the forthcoming examinations or career advancement.

John Henry Newman in his ‘Idea of a University’ has put forth his views that “Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.” Thus pursuit of knowledge is a journey and capable of being a complete destination in itself.

It is extremely significant that knowledge be explored, researched and enhanced. Stretching the boundaries of existing awareness to reach out to the never-known-before facts and concepts can help discover solutions that may simplify the existing operations or remove the unshakable barriers. These barriers may exist not only in the economic activities but may be in the physiological or psychological realm of human life. Research is a route to innovation. Research in the field of medical science has been significant in understanding and discovering the nature, causes and remedies for the problematic issues in human life. This clearly illustrates the vital application of the ‘pursuit of knowledge.’

Similarly, researchers in the field of management studies have helped to comprehend man-machine-process inter-linkage and streamline it to effect achievement of economic and other goals. Innovations in management have occurred across the functional areas of production, marketing, finance, and human resources. There is ample evidence that application of these innovations have brought about greater profits, improved the quality of output/services, improved competencies, and created happier workforce and a satisfied customer base. Thus education/research/knowledge pursued for its own sake also culminates in measurable gains.

Ms. Deepti Kakar

Associate Professor
JIMS Rohini Sector-5  

IS ONLINE LEARNING THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION?

#ElliotMasie once said- “We need to bring Learning to People instead of people to learning.”  Online learning in recent years has taken a new ladder to success. Almost every person be it a professional, an academician a trainer, a student or even a kid have embraced the super power of the internet to create an online education industry. This industry is flourishing in the new high speeds in this multi- device world. Learning and education have crossed all the barriers today and is simply unstoppable. Be it any medium learning, education, innovation is traveling miles. They are not restricted by any locality, time, generation or prominence.

Earlier getting a qualification or even to learn something new was a tedious and time-consuming task. We would have to physically enroll ourselves into an institute, pay for that course, go and attend classes and get the certification or degree after completion of that course. But since the massive Online Learning Revolution has started we have started learning things at a much higher rate.

Through internet MOOCs, also known as Massive Open Online Courses is the best open platform through which a course or study is made available over the internet to the capacoius number of people.

Basically, MOOCs originated from the Open Education souRces (OER) movement. This term MOOCs was given by Dave Cormier in the year 2008. Traditional methodology of learning from books,notes, handouts, course materials, presentations, problem set have simply transformed into online videos, lectures, lectures through video conferencing online courses, online certifications and what not. Today in this fast moving world the biggest drawback is the shortage of time, money and resources. Still, most of the  population is unable to invest money in learning. Online courses and Online learning education system have helped all these people be rich or poor lacking in time, money or resources to come on a common platform INTERNET and “learn.”

This OER movement allows online learning to be right at the forefront of teaching, which is constantly being updated, the refined and improved method of learning.  If we sit and analyze the benefits of Online education they are almost uncountable. The most important feature is it is live hence the look and feel of a real-time teaching and learning for a learner is always there. It is dynamic the methodology of learning changes; moreover, there is not only one single learning source or data, there are different videos available for learning on one single topic hence it is also diversified. Since it is platform independent and free of cost it is reachable to masses without any barriers and fences. With dynamically changing technology the things get more refined so do this online education system is also getting refined.Another important aspect is of cost, mostly its freely available but even some courses which are chargeable are worth a shot giving for learning. Many online certification courses are chargeable and are worth doing. Its reachability to the masses is huge and at the same time is accessed from different locations, different countries. It is highly flexible and practical. The ideas of learning taught through this modern era of digitization are magnificently innovative and interactive.

We have actually moved from chalkboards to white boards to smart boards to No boards at all.  These new inventions have actually made learning a child’s play. From no access to Easy access to learning, we can say that online learning is the future of education.

Aakanksha Chopra

Assistant Professor (IT)

JIMS Rohini Website - http://www.jimsindia.org/

Digital Learning – Getting skilled without classrooms

Learning in the comfort of home or office environment may have been the fantasy earlier, but is now a realty for those who can’t join the regular classrooms. Thanks to the e-learning modules provided by many reputed universities and institutions, thousands of people are making use of them cutting across the geographical boundaries.

E-learning refers to teaching or training online through internet thereby providing flexibility of access through laptop, tablet or mobile. Though there are numerous advantages of acquiring knowledge through online mode, there are certain limitations too. Some of these are discussed as follows;

Benefits:

1. Distance does not matter – A trainer need not be from the same town or country yet she can easily connect online for imparting knowledge
2. Flexibility of time and location – Most of the online lectures can be accessed directly from the web portal of the institution. This provides flexibility of learning as per the convenient time or location. A person can access the portal while at home or travelling
3. Cost Saving – Since no infrastructure of classrooms, electricity, furniture, etc. are involved, it provides immense savings in costs to the training organization. This results into lower cost of learning to the student or trainee
4. Technological aids – With advancements in technology such as 4G, broadband, fast processor speed and large storage capacities, lectures are now supported by audio-visuals and 3D images for better understanding of the subject
5. Customization – Learning modules can be customized as per the requirements. With availability of options, a person can choose the number of hours to be devoted to each topic

Challenges:

1. Lack of motivation – In the absence of classroom, a learner is unable to feel the environment of competitiveness and may lose interest after some time
2. Time Management – As there is not time control, learning may stretch to longer hours. However, this may not happen where online lectures are held as per the given time schedules
3. Technological glitches – Internet speed and mobile connectivity is a major issue as most of the tier-II / III cities as well as rural India do not have robust telecommunication infrastructure
4. Lack of practical exposure – Practical laboratory exposure cannot be provided through e-learning mode and thus an important drawback in some courses
5. Certification approval from competent authorities – Those courses which are imparted only through online mode without any additional classroom teaching, are generally not recognized by the competent regulatory authorities such as UGC, etc.

Despite some of the shortcomings, which can be overcome over a period of time, e-learning provides immense scope for countries like India where still three-fourth of the population is deprived of higher education. It can help the rural population especially the women in acquiring skills that can help in improving their standard of living. Through online mode, companies can also upgrade their employees on new developments, in a cost effective manner.

Realizing the importance of e-learning, Ministry of HRD, Government of India in October, 2014 launched ‘SWAYAM’, a Web portal where MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Courses) would be made available to the students on different subject areas. HRD ministry also plans to create online digital library called as ‘National E-Library’ that will have resources from top universities and institutes. SWAYAM shall specifically help the students from far off places, working professionals or college dropouts. They will get ‘Verified Certificate’ after successfull completion of courses.

Most of the older IITs and IIMs are now offering various short term online programmes. A few universities such as IGNOU, Pondicherry University, Sikkim Manipal University and Amity University also offer programmes through e-learning mode. However, a person undergoing such courses must be careful in ensuring their accreditation status, for the purpose of employment or higher education. 

JIMS Rohini Website - http://www.jimsindia.org/

Dr.Sumesh Raizada 

(Professor)
JIMS Rohini Sector-5