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MIT Students Get an Education in Software Development
John Valenti writes "Philip Greenspun's Blog had an interesting entry for December 1: 'It turns out that most of the content editing and all of the programming work for OpenCourseware was done in India...'"
because it looks like MIT chose a) the vendor and technology and b) the contractor to do with work with little investigation.
a) Speaks to their inability to even attempt to investigate various options WRT technology. Not encouraging from a place of learning.
b) Speaks to their inability to even attempt to use a neccessary IT project as something that could benefit their students and serve as a learning experience for the school and it's customers (the students).
I expect brainless, off-the-cuff, short-sighted decisions like this from PHB's, not from a center of learning.
Which is training Americans to be software developers...
A bastion of American software development is acting in a way that furthers neither America nor software development. No further criticism or comment is needed. In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, res ipsa loquitur.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
As an economy (such as that of the US) grows, the quality of life and jobs of the population increases/improves.
The quality of jobs necessarily means the type of work that the population is willing to do. Jobs which were considered white-collar, and high quality slowly sink, and are no longer considered so as people get wealthier (I am talking about the entire population here--the average).
The country then looks to exporting those jobs, so that it's population can work on something better...maybe higher level jobs.
That is what happened to manufacturing...it was considered a menial process, and shipped out to China, while the higher quality jobs (management, etc) were retained in the US of A.
That is what is happening to software/IT now. I thought it was an interesting take on the issue, in which case, it is just one of the pitfalls in the process of economic evolution of the industry.
And yes, I am not an economist.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Its already happening. Indians are now viewed as expensive since they think they deserve up to 10k a year. But that nerve!
In Russia, you could hire a Russian to do it for 7k a year. Where does it end?
When it comes to cheap labor, there is no bottom. Only a constantly falling top price.
Oddly when it comes to upper management and CEO's, there is always a bottom and no top in terms of compensation. Hmmm why is that?
That means exploitation. Hey, I would have no problem if CEO's had salary caps and could compete with cheaper foriegn CEO's but this is quite unfair for the rest of us.
http://saveie6.com/
NCompass was bought by Microsoft awhile ago. In fact, NCompass Resolution is basically Microsoft Content Mangement System.
Go to ncompass.com yourself...
actually, U.S. corporations are starting to have second thoughts about all the outsourced jobs:
1. Much greater overhead to manage an oversees project, such that the savings is really 2. Huge assumed risks - confidentiality of data, true abilities and qualifications of remote people questionable, political instability & nearness & greater accessibility by terrorists in region, lack of legal venue when things go wrong
3. faking of true status/costs/issues of projects by those who strongly reccommended outsourcing, to save face
4. Communication problems, lack of cultural context & "common sense [by whatever definition]" knowledge
I am somewhat surprised that what MIT needed did not already exist as commercial off the shelf code. Their requirements are hardly very unusual, in fact since the content is not going to change much once it is put up there is not a great deal of difference between this site and any other web zine.
What this looks like to me is a boondoggle. $2 million is pretty easy to spend on software if you go bespoke. That is the main reason why most of the open source arguments you see on slashdot are bogus. If you can pay $100K for a product that is 90% complete you are one heck of a lot better off than you are paying $0 for a product that is 70% complete, maybe on a good day.
Open source is great provided it does exactly what you need if you have to do extensive programming then Gartner are completely right.
Building a system around Microsoft CMS is one heck of a lot better than mucking arround trying to make CVS do this type of thing. I don't have an issue with that part. But $2 million to customize it...
Incidentally MIT students are hideously expensive. The student may not get paid much, but the overhead charged by MIT is horrendous and the results can be 'variable' to say the least.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I am somewhat surprised that what MIT needed did not already exist as commercial off the shelf code. Their requirements are hardly very unusual, in fact since the content is not going to change much once it is put up there is not a great deal of difference between this site and any other web zine.
Being a senior IT guy at the University of Michigan, being an Ars Digita alumni, and knowing intimately how Universities work, I can answer this question:
Academic institutions LOVE to think that they are somehow different, special, gifted, unique, and dare I say it - divine.
We like to think that no one else can know our problems and only we can solve them, and refuse to acknowledge that there are only so many different solutions to the same problem. Academic computing boils down to these areas:
1) Registration/ student records management
2) HR/Payroll management
3) Content/presence management for publicity
4) Online learning systems
5) Security/signon infrastructure
5) Coordination of back office components between the other five
You can argue that there is a need for one more area:
6) Research computing
but that normally is a separate group from ACADEMICS.
I am constantly amazed at how much universities spend on their systems, and how much customization they do - to the tune of MILLIONS of dollars a year. And then, on top of that, when one department decides to go another route, THEY spend alot of money, and then the institution has to eventually roll that structure back into the overall schema, costing even MORE money.
The bottom line is that university IT systems need to be run more and more like corporate IT, and the same amount of planning, forethought, and most of all INTELLIGENCE needs to be applied.
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel. -
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Cost of living in India is vastly lower than it is in the U.S. There is no possible way that I can compete with an Indian programmer on the basis of pay, unless I emigrate.
Being forced to compete with others on a completely unequal scale is a downside. That's why the U.S. is being threatened with sanctions over its steel tariffs. It makes it really hard for foreign nations to compete. Ya dig?
That's the fundamental problem. We have an unequal playing field, and in an environment where cost is valued over all else it isn't a competition, it's a blowout.
I really, really hope that globalization can help India and other countries boost their economies and develop themselves into the "1st World" nations they can be*. I just wonder what damage it will do to our economy in the meantime.
* Since outsourcing is only one half of the coin, the other half being U.S. companies sucking money out of developing nations, I don't think this is certain at all.
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