YOU, YOUR RESEARCH &
CONFERENCE
By
Prof. B. D. Chaudhary
Computer Science and Engineering Department
Motilal Nehru National Institute Of Technology Allahabad,
ALLAHABAD – 211004, INDIA
I, on behalf of the institute, department and on my personal behalf
welcome you all in 4th edition of IEEE International Conference on
Computer and Communication Technology (ICCCT-2013). I have
participated in all three earlier edition of this conference. I must
congratulate my colleagues for sustaining this important activity and
also for sustaining the interests of participants. In recent years, I
had opportunity to attend few conferences both inside and outside
India. It was heartening to note that majority of participants were
very young, in the age group of 25-35. Very few were 50+ or 60+. At
international venues, these young participants were mostly research
graduate students. On the other hand, in conferences held in India,
most of the participants are teachers working in technical
institutions offering dominantly undergraduate courses. Many of these
institutions do not have research infrastructure and lack
appreciation of role of research in education. But they do organize
National/International conferences on regular basis and expect their
young teachers to be productive as researchers.
Conferences provide platform for people to exchange and share their
achievements, thoughts and doubts. It comes in many shades such as
Symposium, Workshops, colloquium, etc. There are three stake holders
in this activity: Organizers, Participants and Others Question one
need to ask "Why any one should organise a conference or
participate in it?" Answer to this question begs other questions
"Why one should do Research? What is extent of coupling
between teaching, research and conference?"
Many of us did not accept teaching profession as a matter of choice
but more under economic and social compulsions. This role envisages
that we teach students to help them removing their ignorance about
world realities. But how do we remove our own ignorance. The first
step in removing our ignorance is to know that I am ignorant. The act
of informing oneself about what one does not know is research.
Generally, we realize about our ignorance by reading books and
journals and/or by interacting with people who may implicitly or
explicitly make us conscious about them. These interactions consist
of either talking or listening or both. Extent of learning from
listening and speaking far exceeds that by way of reading books and
journals. But I must admit that speaking is far easier than
listening. To substantiate my own experience, I quote from one of the
article which I read.
"Peter Medawar, who
got a Nobel Prize in medicine for his studies on organ
transplantation, writes in one of his essays that the most refreshing
sleep he ever gets is during lectures. I have the same experience –
give me a five-star hotel room, the most comfortable bed, and a long
night of sleep, and I would still wake up feeling slightly tired. But
if I could go to sleep for a few minutes during a lecture, then
invariably I wake up feeling completely refreshed."
Another evidence of hardships faced in listening to others is that
most of the technical sessions of conference have very thin
attendance, some time limited only to presenters, Chairman of the
session and volunteers who are there to help in operating presentation equipments.
This brings us to questions:
- Why do organizers / institutions organize conferences when they do not appreciate and invest in research? What purpose doest it serve to them?
- Why should one participate in a conference?
These questions are being deliberated both at individual and
organizational level but have not resulted in a comprehensive list of
possible outputs either qualitatively or quantitatively.
Consequently, we are unable to evaluate quality and quantity of
output of a conference. Many times, I feel the benefits go to others
like airlines, hotels, etc.
At individual level, we need to answer this question specially in
role of teacher. Many times we organize and participate in conference
because they are required as part of our job. We are required to
publish in conferences and journals with impact factors more than
some arbitrary threshold. We are required to provide G and H index of
our publications. These indices are indicators of quantity as well as
quality of our research efforts.
Are these efforts have made one better human being, a better
teacher, or a better researcher. My own experiences have not been
rewarding. Reality is that many of us participate in these
activities as they are required to keep our job even in absence of
required infrastructure and of motivation. This situation has led to
academic dishonesty in the form of Plagiarism. This
is some thing like cancer in our academic life.
Many of us confuse plagiarism with copying. It is not limited to
copying. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to
"plagiarize" means
- to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
- to use (another's production) without crediting the source to commit literary theft
- to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both
stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.All of the following are considered plagiarism:
- turning in someone else's work as your own
- copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
- failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
- giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
- changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
- copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing
sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been
borrowed and providing your audience with the information necessary
to find that source is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.
It is in our
interest to abstain from this cancerous act. It will make us a better
human being and we shall undertake research only to remove our own
ignorance.
If I have disappointed you by highlighting our own weaknesses, I
seek your kindness to forgive me. I do hope that some of you will
become torch bearer for improving the quality of conference both for
organizers and for participants.
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