Degrees on Demand

Would you like a PhD with that?

Whether it is online degrees or “affiliated universities”, the issue of fake degrees keeps popping up. Besides the bricks-and-mortar rackets all over the country that claim affiliation with foreign universities, there are also point-and-click scams that unsuspecting fall prey to. While the internet has enabled easy access to educational resources such as open courseware for those interested in learning, it has also opened up a Pandora’s box of education frauds, bogus online universities, and diploma mills promising authentic-looking fake degrees for a handsome amount of money.

Although there are legitimate online universities that provide the convenience of proxy learning, there are also diploma mills that advertise heavily in the press and on the internet. These scam institutes often even sport impressive websites and happily prey on people’s ignorance about accreditation to acquire enormous sums of money. Most of these diplomas are not actually accredited or valid, and if they are, it is usually by unrecognised or bogus agencies. Most “affiliated” universities have familiar sounding names and offer degrees in just a few months or promise several degrees in one year, have little or no degree pre-requisites, don’t require attending classes, and require a minimal amount of academic work.

In a country where every foreign-sounding university degree is considered a ticket to job heaven, getting degrees online is relatively cheap, takes less time, and doesn’t require much in the way of effort: simply place your order online. Some say that the only possible way for people to gain degrees in their spare time is through mail and internet courses. Online degrees are the fastest route to a diploma in terms of both time and money, but are they worth the paper they are printed on? While nobody disputes the importance of higher education, those who enrol in such courses to enhance their resumes, find the move backfires when prospective employers question the credibility of degrees and start investigating their academic credentials.

What people need to understand is that getting an online degree or a diploma is not the same as attending a convenient tuition centre. For academic qualifications to have any value in the market they must be recognised. If, however, one’s main goal is self-education, then the course outlines and online resources available are the best options and don’t require spending a lot of money.

E-mail boxes have been swamped with spam by these diploma mills. Their advertisements are carried in even the most prestigious of journals, and billboards, banners and “campuses” spring up in every nook and cranny of the city. The fact that this racket is going on so blatantly does not, however, legitimise it in any way. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise that there is no possible way to get a genuine bachelor’s, master’s or PhD degree “in five days or less, or your money back!” Yet many individuals, even with substantial work experience, willingly succumb to the temptation of a cheap, fast degree, dishing out sums of money to boost their egos and impress their friends.

In a recent incident, a lawyer applied for a bachelor’s degree for her cat based on its work experience, which included baby-sitting, from an online university. Trinity Southern University in Texas not only considered Colby the cat to be qualified for an MBA, they gave it a 3.5 GPA for just 299 dollars.

According to International Data Corp, online enrolments are growing by approximately 33 per cent each year. With these statistics, the scams are a serious cause for concern and something the authorities need to take notice of. There is an urgent need to clearly distinguish who is legitimate and who isn’t? Unfortunately, in December 2004, state lawmakers in the U.S. abandoned a bill that would have required private schools to gain proper accreditation by 2010. According to a report published by the Associated Press, the reason for more and more online universities popping up in Wyoming than anywhere else is the absence of strict requirements by the state, allowing just about anyone to establish an online university. Wyoming alone houses 11 online universities, including Preston University. The article claims that the move to drop the accreditation bill came after two state senators were taken on an all-expense-paid trip to Preston campuses in Pakistan and Dubai. Interestingly, the website for the Higher Education Commission no longer includes Preston on its list of sub-standard private universities.

In January, officials in the U.S. launched the website for the “Office of Post Secondary Education”. The site is aimed to help determine whether a degree comes from a bogus “diploma mill” or a genuine school of higher education. But until authorities actually intervene and sanity prevails, domains such as “BogusPhd.com” and “get-degree-in-5-days.com” will continue to operate, spam, loot and plunder the public.

//By Zen Spider March 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P2P: Get into the Groove

by: Zen

Private P2Ps that incorporate social networks are on the rise

“The darknet will never die. Adversaries will send out their digital agents to hunt down its disciples. But the darknet will go further underground, finding new ways to escape the reach of these electronic attackers. The faithful will find safety by banding together in small groups, beyond the reach of the oppressors… the darknet is already here: it is the unofficial side of the internet. And its resilience guarantees that it will remain a thorn in the side of the music and movie industries…” — Richard Waters, “No respite from the forces of darknet”, Financial Times, July 29, 2003

Darknet, also known as the “shadow internet”, refers to the collection of networks and other technologies that enable people to illegally share copyrighted digital files with little or no fear of detection. While Pakistanis are so used to witnessing rampant piracy that this probably doesn’t even raise an eyebrow locally, elsewhere in the world, darknets are a major cause for concern.

The whole process starts with one stolen released or pre-released copy of a movie or music, which within minutes, gets put up on darknets such as Anathema, and snowballs all over the World Wide Web. Anathema, true to its name, is just one of the sites for over 30 “underground” servers sharing pirated digital media. On the local front we have DC++ hubs sharing gigabytes of data, and the ISPs and cable internet providers have quite a substantial amount of data available for download on their in-house FTP servers. Like gangs and other underground groups, darknets are, for the most part, resilient to anti-piracy crackdowns. While darknets are predicted to continue operating undeterred, we are witnessing the evolution of more mainstream P2P applications.

Instead of large public networks and hubs with terabytes of data, P2P applications are now shifting towards smaller, more focused “socially networked” groups. Orkut, Friendster, Wallop and 43 Things, and even services such as MSN, AOL, ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger come under the realm of social networking groups. The next generation of file sharing networks should see a hybridisation of P2P clients and such social networking services. There are already many applications that enable peers to message each other as well as share files but the focus now is on mimicking people’s real world social networking traits.

Conventional P2P applications these days employ a brute-search approach by flooding every peer with search requests, or inventorying the contents of the peers at a centralised location. The main problem with “discovery-based” P2P applications (discussed in “Six Degrees of Separation” Spider, January, 2005) is that all the shared media is broadcast in the discovery server listing. The same problem hampers the dissemination of BitTorrent files, as the torrents have to be listed and thus vulnerable to anti-piracy police. On the other hand, systems based on the Gnutella protocol send their search queries to unconcerned nodes.

The real-world situation is quite different. We don’t share everything with everyone, the way most P2P applications assume. There are some files, such as family photos or a class assignment, which you’d rather not share with the rest of the world. At the same time, you may know the demographics of the peers who have the files you are looking for, so you can optimise your search by making it more focused. In the real world, the most practical way of searching for something is to ask friends, or people whom we believe might possibly have it. If that fails, we ask them to spread the word. When users reach out, they definitely prefer reaching out to friends of friends, rather than to random people. Since they know where the data is coming from, they have an idea as to whether the content is trustworthy. You can think of social networking P2P or private P2Ps as hybrids between P2P applications, instant messengers (IMs) and e-groups/social networks. The basic concept of private P2P is essentially the same as that of programs such as Hello, which allows P2P sharing of photographs with your friends, family or anyone else that you choose. Social networking P2P applications such as Groove cater to the file sharing needs of small and medium-sized businesses and charge a fee for their services. A major advantage for such services is that if the peer with the requested file is offline, the program can still retrieve the replicated file from other group members. Other social network P2P applications such as Qnext, Grouper and ShareDirect remain at a disadvantage, as they don’t offer the ability to retrieve files from users that are offline.

Currently, a community-based website by Microsoft called Wallop allows pictures and MP3s to be uploaded but searching and downloading options are unavailable. Who knows, if social networking P2P applications catch on, we just may find Google morphing Orkut from a social networking site to a P2P client. Users would then be able to share and search for files, chat, use calendars, whiteboards and utilise discussion forums. Sounds like Big Brother’s dream come true.

//This article appeared in Spider’s March 2005 issue

Looming Ahead

by Zen

ERP is what the doctor recommends for the local textile industry.

65% of Pakistan’s revenue comes from the textile sector, which is more than the rest of the sectors combined. By the end of 2005, the local textile industry will face tough competition because of the WTO. Hence, the government and textile industries are trying to get on par with the international standards. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is just what the doctor recommends.

The implications of the WTO Agreement, that come into effect in 2005, present an ever looming threat to the local textile industry as they face tough competition not just from the international market but from within the country as well. It has become imperative and a matter of survival for the local industries to come up to international standards. For this purpose, they not only need to upgrade their machinery, as suggested in the Textile Vision 2005 document presented by the Government of Pakistan; but also need to increase their productivity, adopt industry standard best practices and optimize their performance in all aspects starting from Supply Chain Management to Production Planning and Customer Relations. In order to do this, ERP is just what they need.

Needless to say, the benefits of implementing ERP are immense. Not only would the industry’s best practices be implemented but their processes would be streamlined, domains which were previously working independently would be integrated and data would be made available to them, so that they would be able to plan their operations in a better manner, and thus work to the optimum.

 

ERP Costs

In spite of all these benefits, not many textile companies are considering the implementation of ERP. The most common reason cited for this is that the ‘Seths’ running the industries are reluctant to ‘waste’ money on huge IT initiatives. ERP usually does burn a hole in the finances of the company especially when going for proven, off-the-shelf ERP packages such as SAP R3. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, as many of the local ERP vendors promise ERP products especially customized for the textile and apparel industry at a fraction of the cost. Plus, there are free Open Source Solutions, such as Compiere, though not textile industry specific, provides integration across processes and the Customers relationship management (CRM) module, to get the basics running. The key is to finding the product that works for you whether it is local or branded/off-the-shelf. Even if the initial investment is huge, most successful ERP implementations show a Return of Investment (ROI) within 1.5 years, justifying the initial cost.

According to Razzak Paracha of Universal Textile Mills, “Cost is the prime factor for not opting for renowned ERP packages. The textile and apparel sector is no different than any other manufacturing process. It is different based on the processing requirements, but the apparel industry of China/Thailand is no different than that of Pakistan. If Thailand can opt of ERP for the entire textile industry, then Pakistani companies should at least think of doing so on a company basis.”

The main problem seems to be the lack of awareness. There are no major success stories doing rounds in the industry either, which would encourage other companies to follow suit.

ERP Consultation

Technical issues such as choosing the right ERP product confound even those companies that realize the importance of ERP and are risking being the first to venture into it. For this purpose, they require the expertise of ERP Consultants. ACCPAC, Accrologix, SAP/Siemens, Oracle/Techlogix, Algorithm Consulting, ClaruSoft and KalSoft are some of the local ERP vendors.

Unfortunately, there is a dearth of impartial ERP Consultation Firms, as most of the consultants are in one way or another endorsing some ERP product. Siemens, for example, are the authorized vendors of SAP. Similarly, most consultation firms have their own ERP products. In most cases, ERP vendors themselves carry out the requirements elicitation exercise and do everything from consultation to implementation, deployment, testing and training.

Not undermining the credibility of the consultants, in such cases, as has become an industry norm, it becomes hard for the companies opting for ERP to get a balanced and objective opinion. Getting the right ERP is critical to the success of the project. However, the company owners are not technically qualified to judge this and with no other reliable consultants to turn to, the fate of the project remains in doldrums. Internationally, consultation takes a major chunk of finances in ERP implementation with the ratio of licensing cost to the cost of consultation being 1:5, yet here we found no major companies specializing in consultation.

 

Branded Off-the-shelf ERP

SAP R3 is the first choice for ERP as it has a brilliant track record and has its own comprehensive application development workbench that can satisfy the requirements through custom developments, which is very easy and produces more accurate and suitable results. Unlike the local ERP solutions, it is not a pre-configured solution.

But as far as the textile industry is concerned none of SAP/Siemens projects have been in this sector. SAP/Siemens has success stories in ICI Pakistan, Pakistan State Oil, Pakistan Petroleum and Pak Refinery, etc, but none whatsoever in the textile and apparel industry.

Fortunately, we found two SAP success stories in the textile industry not far from home. In Tripur, India, two garment export companies, Jupiter Knitting Company and Network Clothing Company, successfully completed the deployment of SAP 4.7 in March 2004. The basic aim of shifting over to SAP was to automate their supply chain, integrate various processes and improvise their inventory management system. Since garment export companies have a small planning horizon and the delivery dates are quicker and made to order; they thought it best to deploy SAP, given its prow-ness in planning and integration.

The same can be true for Pakistani textile companies. If they want to go international, the availability of information becomes a major issue along with handling complex business processes on a real time basis, communicating faster, manufacturing the products on time and procuring raw materials on just-in-time basis, making vendor payments, balancing the finance sheet and production planning. If SAP can work in India, then why not here?

Local ERP Products

In the last five years, we have seen a shift in the local software industry from e-commerce solutions to full-scale enterprise solutions, with some companies entering into partnerships with established giants like Oracle and SAP or developing their own ERP to beat their foreign counterparts on cost such as Abacus Consulting, Algorithm Consulting, Clarusoft and KalSoft.

The most common argument used by some of these companies is that textile manufacturing is integrated with a wide range of manufacturing processes and management requirements; thus generic ERP products are unable to cater to the intricacies involved. According to this philosophy, generic branded ERP such as SAP is developed considering the dynamics of a typical manufacturing industry model. The raw material scenario and other processes in the textile industry are strikingly different, as a single piece of yarn can be used to manufacture a wide range of products whereas Textile ERP have standard processing formulas hard coded and parameters that can be changed. This makes such ERP easier to use and maintain.

Some others argue that textile industry is no different from any other manufacturing industry and that its processes can easily be accommodated by the branded ERP.

A true ERP

There are arguments and counter arguments as to what actually constitutes an ERP. According to the basic definition, the basic purpose of an ERP is the integration and implementation of the industry’s best practices.

According to a general opinion held by industry insiders, the local ERP companies are relatively new and their products are premature. What they are churning out in the name of ERP are just sub-sets of an actual ERP. They replicate the processes already in place instead of emphasizing on business process re-engineering to adopt the best practices.

Usually ERP developers are successful in getting projects because they schedule a flexible implementation timeline, as compared to the major players of the industry. Furthermore, they don’t make incessant demands on user involvement, which seasoned companies wisely stress on. This sort of implementation requires a firm grip on change management on part of the vendors because the customer does not want to waste its critical and indispensable human resources’ time with the ERP Company but at the same time demands a fully customized solution. This leads to the creation of generic solutions without keeping the customer’s requirement attributes in mind. Mostly, ERP vendors start with the deployment of the Finance Module not just because finance is the main focus of the company, but also because accounting is generic for all businesses and can be re-used with other companies with only slight changes in system parameters. More difficult modules such as Production Planning and Order Planning, which require high levels of integration, are usually left as promises.

If an ERP consists of stand-alone modules and covers if not all, then most of the business processes; it is not considered a true ERP. Although local ERP developers are able to build ERP packages to answer the generic activities of business processes, they are usually unable to cater to industry specific requirements that call for good expertise in the domain. While branded ERP products have a wider vision to accommodate changes in technology and business process requirements and can overcome geographical barriers; local developers find it very difficult to cope up in these areas. Building an ERP package does not just require programming expertise and diligent coders, which in comparison is easier to get; but domain knowledge in textile business.

 

Specialized ERP Products

One ERP product, which claims to cater to the textile industry specific demands and has a good track record in over 380 countries, is Textile Integrated Manufacturing (TIM). TIM is the product of a Swiss based company Datatex, which ‘understands’ the need of the industry and at the same time has domain knowledge, technical expertise as well the capability to parameterize and customize the ERP as per clients needs and furthermore. It also has enough breathing space to accommodate any unforeseeable hierarchical and organizational changes, which might incur in the future. According to Mr. Barry Edwards, the CEO of Datatex who visited Pakistan last year; they don’t have any success stories in Pakistan as yet, but have prospective clients lined up who are interested in implementing TIM.

 

PSEB’s ERP Initiatives

Last December PSEB invited companies for starting work on the automation of four industries, three of which are directly or indirectly related to the Textile Industry. Project Facilitation Committee is overlooking All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (APTPMA), Pakistan Readymade Garments and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) and Pakistan Hosiery Mills Association (PHMA).

The selected companies, NetSol Lahore for APTPMA and PrisLogix for PRGMEA & PHMA have started gathering the Software Requirement Specifications (SRS) from January 2005 and would be working on it till March 2005. According to the Project Manager (Bridge-OS) Kamran Kamal, “The main objective of separating development of SRS document is to address the negligence of SRS phase of software development in our local software industry. Requirement specifications are usually omitted during the software development due to lack of funds or time. Software developed without requirement specifications often result in increased operational problems, lost code and nothing upon which to base user training.”

Furthermore, once the final SRS document is accepted, these IT consulting companies will be relieved of the major task assigned to them, however, they would be responsible for the final Quality Assurance (QA) testing of the developed and deployed software before their final payment and performance bond can be released.

The project plan marks the selection software companies for development through open bidding by June 2005 and it is expected that by February 2006, software will be developed and deployed in 10-15 model SME units within each selected industrial sector. They will be distributed freely to the interested SME units with help of the concerned trade union, and the code would be freely available. However the SME unit will have to provide the required hardware support as well as bear the implementation and training costs.

However, Mr. Kamal concedes that the usage, utilization and adherence to the software and its guidelines by SME units, cannot be ensured and monitored by PSEB. “We expect the industrial sectors to make the best use of this opportunity to promote the culture of automated administration and integrate the new system into the mainstream industrial processes. The successful outcome of the project is hence moderately dependant on the target industrial sectors and their reaction to the proposed solutions.”

PSEB is a little late with the ERP initiative since the WTO quotas kick off in 2005, and ERP projects take a long time for development, let alone deployment, but as they say, it’s better late than never.

 

//This article appeared in SPIDER Magazine’s February issue

The Sites

Abacus Consulting www.abacus-global.com/news_events.asp

Algorithm Consulting www.algorithm.com.pk

Acrologix www.acrologix.com

All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) www.aptma.org.pk

Clarusoft www.clarusoft.com.pk

CXO Today www.cxotoday.com

Compiere www.compiere.org

Datatex www.datatex-tim.com

Kalsoft www.kalsoft.com.pk

Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association www.pcga.org

Siemens www.siemens.com

Sidat Hyder www.sidathyder.com.pk

Time Online- Hanging by the Threads

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041213-880289,00.html