Productivity Through It Skills

PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH IT SKILLS BY: DHEERAJ MEHROTRA (NATIONAL AWARDEE) TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT, CITY MONTESSORI SCHOOL & DEGREE COLLEGE LUCKNOW (INDIA) [email protected] www.computerscienceexpertise.com http://dheerajmehrotra.tripod.com

ABSTRACT: With the accelerating phase of the advent of Information Technology there is an emergence of a new social order. This has made the need for computer literacy among the masses indispensable. Rapid progress in the area of electronics and space technology have contributed substantially to this phenomena.

The culture today offers IT expertise as the need of the hour. Every individual if not an IT literate is regarded well as a NUT of no use and information and repute. What lies our interest in view is to promote the art and culture of IT Literacy and Usage at large to upload our dependence on existence today with the launch of e-tickets, credit cards, on-line payments and transactions today.

A digital computer is an electronic machine and a very powerful tool in information processing. The computer can well store, retrieve, analyse and

synthesise data or raw information received from various sources to produce meaningful information necessary in making decisions and solving problems. It has become easy to obtain information about our bank and insurance accounts, train and airline reservations through computerised systems. Several special effects are created in electronic music and watch television programmes. Computerised zerox machines, washing machines, digital watches and the like are familiar to nearly all of us. We are also aware of all of the factories in which computer controlled robots perform various mechanical operations and space programmes which are heavily dependent on the new technologies. These are just a few examples of the kind of changes which have offered in our society in recent years and the rate of change is only going to rise in the years to come. To match the new realities of today’s sophisticated technology, there is a pressing need to develop new skills to make the most of the new technology that is available to us. The costs of introducing and using these new techniques, providing the necessary equipment, and training people in their use have to be set against the old methods of operation and the social consequences of making the changes. The children in our schools were born in this era of change. They cannot see anything strange in these novel approaches. The curriculum for all pupils in schools will have to place emphasis on technological change and its implications. Such a curriculum should ensure that all students are able to use technology to communicate effectively with and through the computer as well as appreciate its role.

INTRODUCTION

The interface of life and its existence is digitalised with the launch of the MOBILE Technology and usage of SMART handsets today. The information revolution of the twentieth century which has been brought about by advances in the computer technology has created an information society in which a majority of the labour force is expected to hold information-related jobs. Ignorance about computers will rather render people functionally illiterate as does ignorance of reading, writing and arithmetic. This means that our society will depend heavily on information technology in many areas of work and personal life. Hence, the new task of our schools is to familiarise pupils with applications of computers. A computer literate has an aid to problem solving

in a variety of disciplines. This familiarity

essentially involves an understanding of the use of facilities such as word processing, screen reading and the effective usage of files and data. It also demands a limited comprehension of keyboard skills.

EMAIL Communication: The need today In this age of IT literacy as indispensable, one ought to have it as a preface and the Email ID of an individual must be as remembered as the Mobile Numbers these days. As with all written communications, your emails should be clear and concise. Sentences should be kept short and to the point.This starts with the email’s subject line. Use the subject line to inform the receiver of EXACTLY what the email is about. Keep in mind, the subject line should offer a short summary of the email and allows for just a few words. Because everyone gets emails they do not want (SPAM, etc.), appropriate use of the subject line increases the chances

your email will be read and not discarded into the deleted email file without so much as a glance. Because emails have the date and time they were sent, it is not necessary to include this information in your email correspondences. However, the writing used in the email should liken that used is other business writings. The email should be clear and concise, with the purpose of the email detailed in the very first paragraph. The body of the email should contain all pertinent information and should be direct and informative. Make sure to include any call to action you desire, such as a phone call or followup appointment. Then, make sure you include your contact information, including your name, title, phone and fax numbers, as well as snail-mail address. If you have additional email addresses, you may want to include these, as well. If you regularly correspond using email, make sure to clean out your email inbox at least once each day. Of course, the exception here may be on days you do not work, such as weekends and holidays. Make sure you return emails in a timely manner. This is a simple act of courtesy and will also serve to encourage senders to return your emails in a timely manner. Internal email, I mean the mails of your networking, within offices/ departments should be treated as regular email. These should be checked regularly throughout the working day and returned in a much quicker manner as much of these detail timely projects, immediate updates, meeting notes, etc. Nonetheless, internal emails, just like emails, should not be informal. Remember, these are written forms of communication that can be printed out and viewed by others than those originally intended for.

The interactive nature of computer based learning and the facility to individualise the learning experience, the needs of the learner are the two most important aspects of computer assisted learning. The capacity of the computer functions somewhat like a traditional teacher through the use of a suitable educational software. In this mode, the computer can be used to teach the learner through

tutorials, drill and practice, games, simulations or a combination of any of these strategies. Besides the computer can be programmed in such a way that tutorial lessons can be given to the pupils. With this, students will be able to learn at their own performance independent of the teacher. Using quality educational software packages, good learning environment can be created in schools. As such, it is necessary for all citizens to understand what computers are capable of. Students should be aware of the many uses of computers, such as their use in teaching-learning, information storage and retrieval. Any country’s social and economic well-being depends entirely on how well equipped its people are for a literacy-intensive technology in order to promote overall quality oriented academic excellence. If computers can assist us in the teaching process then there is a good reason to welcome their appearance. Hence, it is absolutely essential for all those involved in education to become computer literate.

With the irritation of leakage of question papers of academic arena, there appears a tough tasks to exist for the academicians. Accordingly, there appears to be a great phobia of the mass designing of the question papers of N sets manually.

The advent of the intelligent machine has led to the specific indispensable importance of computers in this regard. The question paper setting assumes prime importance of computers in this regard. The question paper setting

assumes prime importance in the present education system. Keeping this concept in regard, there has been a recent development in order to pace the usage of computers, through the concepts of CAPES and QUEPS.

CAPES, the Computer aided paperless examination system, offers firing of the multiple questions on the terminal to the candidate on a particular subject, with the questions having been already fed into the machine by the authority concerned for the conduct of the examination. This system allows no cheating as the probability of flashing out a similar question to a set of two candidates is one in every hundred. Here the candidate is not at all required to have any working knowledge of computers, simply he/ she has to press the right alternative key on the keypad. With this, there is no need of the office/ stationary/ Invigilators etc. The usage of this system has revealed great success by the concerned authorities. The results are much more reliable and speedy as compared with the traditional type of examination.

On the other hand, the recent development in this regard is the QUEPS, which is a prototype knowledge based system, for question paper setting. This system also aims at modelling the human expertise, which is perishable, is affected by fatigue and prejudices and lacks ability to duplicate with ease. Perhaps, in the domain of question paper setting, deep knowledge may be available in the form of question bank containing different types of questions framed on a particular subject where they are made available in the form of units featuring essays, short

type questions and the objective questions. The QUEPS and CAPES offer the usage of objective questions in terms of framing and designing items for testing.

The questions are stored in a dynamic database, where each question is stored as a predicate containing unit number, question number and the corresponding attribute list. The attributes are stored as elements of a list. List handling predicates are used while comparing the attributes as also while updating the lists of each question given out once. This is in accordance with the view that questions are never stored in the memory but are addressed or referred only through question numbers.

It may sound farfetched but the tests have revealed that it is more or less the true explanation that these systems offer plenty of scope for expansion in terms of the expertise contained in it, as also using more sophisticated mechanism to incorporate advanced concepts such as machine learning. Also in this domain the level of complexity of the system has risen up to the advanced levels of testing.

A point which come to ponder over the introduction of this HI-TECH concept in the field of academics, is of the limitation of its’ being to the objective system only. This again becomes tiresome for the subjective brand of system where every level of the answer is ranked in a different manner independent of any particular answer, which can be fed into the machine.

The quality in this direction is highlighted with the quick declaration of results, regularization of sessions and all in all bringing out overall satisfaction of the students and the parents. This further brings the profitable aspect of the organisation in long run as more and more fame is gathered for the same and the rush of admissions produce more revenue monetarily bringing boon the education industry at large.

The capacity of any institution entirely depends upon the efficiency of the office staff working in within. Keeping this view in regard, it is one of the concerns of the management to give prime importance at times. In any organisation, the quality of work undertaken entirely depends upon the speedy conduct with the strong guiding motivation of the BOSS. But unfortunately, this has lagged far behind due to the increasing level of work load over the years to be conducted through the old tools like carbon, pencil, ruler and the hard key typewriters.

Now, with the march of time, the very business environment has changed faster than ever before. The increased competition among organisations has led to the reappraisal of accepted business practices for higher efficiency. The attempts are being made to meet the competitive threat by reducing cost by rationalizing production,

shedding

labour

and

restructuring

business.

These

are

complemented with investment in technology to improve productivity. But the huge bulk of commercial documents generated by companies in the trading cycle still remain locked in slow, antiquated paperbound processes. Documents produced by one computer are printed and posted, only to be entered into the recipient’s computer - a time consuming, error prone and costly experience of exercise, estimated between 4% AND 7% of the value of the goods traded.

In a complex web of trading relationship in which each organisation is a customer of another, we can see what paper work all too easily becomes a barrier to the trade it was designed to support. Under the novel scheme of hi-tech system within an organisation of academic nature, for example, a small local area network within the office, the principal’s room, different other subjected related departments if required, are linked through connected computers having an access of each other universally. This certainly reduces the circular work from one desk to the other. Accordingly, there is a paperless workplace having a direct line from one computer system to the computers of all the probable customers and suppliers. With this, every transaction could be electronic, sales returns could be analyzed and fed into ordering process, orders could be raised to reflect both demand and the known stock process, orders could be raised to reflect both demand and the known stock available in any commodity related business environment. Similarly, under the economic activity pertaining to the services as the product, like Banks and educational institutions, the on-line result display on the terminals, interactive teaching etc. are the promotional qualitative services

which can be adopted through this machine, belonging to information technology. Apart from this, the official work load of sending of instruction etc., could be sent to the distributors in tandem with the order to ensure fast delivery. Carriage by road, rail, sea or air could be booked simultaneously. Customer clearance and documentation could be available in advance

of the goods arriving, thus

avoiding hold ups. Even payment instructions could be issued to banks to ensure prompt payment without the mountain of paper work involved in the present day business transaction. This very transmissions of information to the trading partners computers for processing is known as Electronic

Data Interchange

(EDI). It replaces conventional paper documents with formatted and standardized business documents, transmitted as electronic transmission of business data from computer to computer, of independent organisations, using an agreed standard to structure the transaction, which is accomplished without human intervention. Presentation Tips for excellence: A powerpoint file wide known as a PPT file is now our next asset towards our profile. Keep your presentation short and simple. Your audience will not remember every point of your presentation, so highlight the most important parts. The longer the presentation, the higher the risk of boredom. Consider the use of visual aids. Slide projectors, data projectors, video machines and computers should be tested out beforehand to make sure they are operating correctly and that you know how to use them. Avoid too many statistics and confusing information in your presentation. Instead, put this information in a handout for participants to refer to at a later date. If you forget your words, pause for a moment and remember your objective. While the words may not come right back to you, this will help keep you on track

and may even help you to think of additional thoughts and ideas your audience will benefit from hearing. If you are speaking clearly and concisely, your listeners: respond warmly and attentively throughout the conversation or presentation: their eyebrows are raised, their eyes are rounded, and they lean forward while you are talking. give you more eye contact. follow your directions more accurately. ask you fewer questions for clarification. appear more relaxed: smiling, shoulders down, hands relaxed. Visualize yourself succeeding. Begin by breathing. Before the presentation, focus on the needs of the audience. Enjoy yourself. The audience will be on your side and want to hear what you have to say! The day is not far off, when this very technology would create the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), applicable to nearly all small scale business arenas as well. The write-ups on Quality In Academics is available at my website, www.computerscienceexpertise.com I welcome visits at this site for information.

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