Monday, June 29, 2015

Admissions 2015

Every year, I used to post on the status of admissions to our B.Sc (Research), M.E and research programs. Due to this, I am getting several emails this year also. I am not in the UG/PG admissions committees effective Jan 2015. This is a personal decision so that I could concentrate on certain research problems that require undivided attention. On an aside (as I am frequently asked this question), I am also not on the committee that will advise the director so that IISc will become a top 50 university within the next five years. I am, therefore, sorry that I am unable to respond to the emails or provide updates on admissions or my opinion on rankings.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just like you have left the committees, why don't you also leave the chemical engineering department of IISc? You have spoilt its unique culture by publishing a lot and graduating many students.

G Sivalingam said...

I hope the anonymous person was Sarcastic!! Unfortunately, the department used to live in a shell with unreasonable perception that external influences does not affect them. This has been changing over last decade in the department and respond well to the stimulus and let us welcome it!! Let us produce engineers/scientist who can face the real world rather than beating around the bush saying that we are best when the data show other way around.

Anonymous said...

What data shows the other way around? Faculty in chemical engineering of IISc used to publish 1-2 good papers a year and not more than that. People like Giridhar came and spoil this culture..what is sarcastic about this?

Like you, I am also an alumni of the department. You may be proud that you published 15 papers in 2 years but this is not the culture of IISc or department. Do good and torough work and not just numbers

Anonymous said...

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/iisc-bangalore-ranked-5th-among-brics-universities-1017744.html

Please pay attention to just one line. "Setting itself up as a worthy rival for China in terms of research production, the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore submitted ranking data for the first time this year - entering the BRICS rankings in fifth place, with the largest number of papers published per faculty member and strong scores across other indicators,"

Thank GM (and a handful of others) for that, if not for his service.

Anonymous said...

@July 7, 9.58pm Anon: Learn to not write a "torough" but thorough comment first, then think about writing 15 papers in 2 years. LOL !

Anonymous said...

July 8, 2015 at 11:43 PM:

As you point out, there are only a few like GM. By saying he is one among the handful, you indirectly admit that he is not following the culture of the department. Why is he among the handful who publishes ? Because other faculty do not believe in rankings and how the rankings are dependent on citations and publications. These parameters are just developed by ranking agencies to make money. The key is quality of science.

Does Caltech worry about citations ? Did Einstein worry about citations?

Anonymous said...

"Does Caltech worry about citations ? Did Einstein worry about citations?"

Bill Gates does not need to worry about his next 12 paychecks. But we need to.

Anonymous said...

The number of publications may not matter to evaluate a persons performance. But for sure it will validate your research in an open science/research community. If your paper is being cited, it would obviously mean that others are at least following and getting inputs from your work. And the choice of the vastness of research is solely dependent on the individual who has the right to choose and pursue. So, there is no point in criticizing someones efforts for doing good.

Ofcourse, IISc need not be compared to other good reputed universities abroad. Then why do the faculty of chemical engineering try to send their masters or PhD students to MIT, stanford, Illinois, etc. for higher studies? They could have been satisfied with IISc. Even the researchers who are being called for giving seminars or talks for selecting them to a faculty position, are selected from the worlds highly rated universities in the rankings. If rankings, publications and citations did not matter, then what actually could have mattered for those universities to be rated higher? Is it the potential to conduct research? If your publication is not the criteria to see the potential of research you have done, what else could it be? It is ok/good to write 2 good research papers per year. But it not wrong to write 20 good research papers even though it seems alarmingly high. Ultimately it only shows the researchers dedication towards his research.

If your training can inculcate the passion for research among the younger generations, it will have only the positive impact of doing good for the society. So, there is no harm in publishing your research and talking about it. Einstein didnt have the opportunity to use internet. If he had, he would surely have had a google scholar profile! Not because he is interested in the number of citations, but at least find if others are accepting/validating/criticizing his theories...

Even today Bill Gates counts every penny of his money earned. He himself mentioned in an interview. It is because he knows the effort required to earn it.

Therefore, every effort, either scientific/monetary/social will have appropriate result in the end.

Anonymous said...

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qc6CJjYAAAAJ&hl=en

Anonymous said...

May GOD get us rid of these short-sighted and narrow-minded people who publish a lot and spoil the culture of the department and IISc

Anonymous said...

If some one is performing in India, others tend to pull her/him down. Remember 'Frogs in the well' story. Comments from some Anonys seems to be related to some of the under performing/ non-performing or simply alarmed components of the department.

Canonically, top-reputed (0.1%) Profs are known to produce one paper a month as a senior author and several other authored papers. GM produces much more than that. For non-related scientists this is alarming but may be people from the field can shed light. We cannot crucify him for publishing multiple papers. If they are genuine and well-cited by others (not just self citations), it is a remarkable achievement for a Prof (whether Indian or outside India). My apprehension is the way GM has advertised impact factors, citations and all those 'librarical' numbers to self-advertise. The best example is some one wondered how many citation Einstein will have and other person gave a link. Let the work/others speak about you.

The work culture in the department is not spoiled by high performing by Profs but by mediocrity and those groups will certainly have problems with GM. I admire him for his openness about discussing anything under his blogs. His blog for the new faculty is the best resource page globally. His forum talks about everything in India. He takes time to respond to questions by young aspiring faculty. End of the day he is a homo sapien and tend to make mistakes just like everyone else so let him do the good work please.

Anonymous said...

Yes, he has self -advertise.

In his website, he says he has won Bhatnagar, Swarnajayanthi, IISc award and J.C. Bose award. Why should he say he has won awards.

Look at the student page, he mentions all students, says many of his students are faculty in IIT and big managers in industry. Which other faculty does this?

One should not even have a website indicating accomplishments or even what one is teaching etc. Do other faculty in iisc have this ? NO.

Anonymous said...

It is sorry to see that people feel that faculty should not put their publications, citations or h-index or accomplishments of their students on their web page. In the blog for prospective faculty, there is no mention of any of his accomplishments. Even in this blog (which I assume is his personal blog), he mentions only citations and not h-index or publications (at least not frequently) or awards obtained.

I am glad that he can be "forgiven" for being a human being who is proud of his students !!
https://sites.google.com/site/giridharmadras/bio-html

Anonymous said...

I believe Prof. Giri used to be library in charge for several years and also served on the national committee indest. That is the reason he writes on impact factors, citations, open access etc,

His total citations according to google scholar is close to 10500 and without self-citations is 9000. 9000 is a very large number for chemical engineers but there are many faculty whose citation numbers are greater than 25000 ! I am sure he is not even in the top 100 chemical engineering (but he has never claimed this either !)

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=chemical+engineering

Anonymous said...

GM is only around 50. So wait a little while before he breaks into the > 25000 club.
GM-bashers: its high time you hold your vitriol into yourself. Else, "janta maaf nahi karegi"

Anonymous said...

According to the insa website, he is only 46 years only ! Not 50.

There are very few engineers in India who have more than 10000 and no one with more than 2000 citations..what is this 25000 club?