MBA students outsourcing project works

[ross18]

MBA students outsourcing project works

This is the Head Lines of Hindustan Times of March 13 2008

All the dazzling young people whom parents cite as academic role models and who walk out of business schools with fancy salaries may not be working as hard as you imagine.

Many management students have started ‘outsourcing’ their project work. A new breed of faceless entrepreneurs who have caught the pulse of a growing demand in India’s rapidly proliferating management institutes — which mass-produce managers for the burgeoning Indian economy — are providing students with readymade classroom projects for a fee.


Just place an order for a project over the phone. When this Hindustan Times reporter posed as a student and called up Mahasagar Publications, a young woman who identified herself as Mahalakshmi said: “You can send us an e-mail on the project topic, mention the number of pages needed and send a scanned copy of the guidelines framed by your college. A 50-page project will take 10 days and cost Rs 4,000.”


Veena Ravishankar of Mahasagar Publications said they get 150-200 calls a month from students. There is a shortcut for students who do not believe in exclusivity of project matter or do not want to shell out money. They simply get on to the Internet and download projects. It may be the one a senior in college has posted.


The trick, however, is that students must be willing to share their own work and first upload their projects.


Rima Sharma (name changed) had to first “contribute” her work on insurance on www.managementparadise.com before downloading a project on stock markets. The website has a ‘project helpline’ where students put forth their request and a ‘project hub’ from which projects can be downloaded.


“There is no time to pore over big fat books. I don’t mind downloading and sharing projects as long as I get in-depth information, one that I can copy-paste and submit in class,” said Sharma, who is pursuing financial management from NMIMS University.


But the vice-chancellor of the university, NM Kondap, termed it “outright unethical”. He said: “The purpose of the project is a value-addition to the existing knowledge and it is a learning process. These students are damaging their own careers in the long term. Even during campus placements, companies will seriously interrogate students about the projects.”


He said his college had not encountered such practices. “Every college must take action according to its own guidelines,” he added. With 1,136 registered members, Share Term Papers - Index | Download Placement Papers | Online Project Making Help (STP) launched in November 2007, seems to be another hit with people downloading research projects and case studies to even dissertations and theses. A project on mutual funds was downloaded 11 times while a dissertation on ‘customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and profitability’ saw 72 downloads.


Stating that the site aims to provide a “single platform” for information sharing and helping one another make projects, STP’s global moderator Anurag Mehta, in an e-mail interview, told Hindustan Times: “Students are a little inclined towards referring to other’s projects because they provide actual practical facts and secondary data, which books can’t. Mostly, books limit students to only theoretical knowledge.” Mehta said he did not feel it was unethical to use these kinds of websites. “A student should utilise all the resources he/she can refer to make his/her projects. Calling information-sharing websites unethical is like calling Wikipedia unethical,” he said.


Juggling with work during the day and a part-time MBA in the evening, Nagesh Patil (name changed) was introduced to www.managementparadise.com when he began to feel the deadline pressure for project submission. “You get project material according to your requirement. It saves a lot of time. On search engines, one has to sift through a lot of irrelevant information. The website is like a good friend,” said the marketing student of KJ Somaiya College of Management.

Source :- MBA students outsourcing project works- Hindustan Times!


So what is your Take on It ??

Do you guys feel that these Websites do Help us gaining Knowledge or they are an Obstacle for us to Gain Knowledge ???

[A.J.]

http://www.managementparadise.com/fo...tml#post100168

Tell us what you feel about it

[futuremanager]

i think the site should be used just as a reference and not for complete cut copy paste...definitely value addition should happen...so one should be wise enough about where to draw the line...

[pushpraj23]

why not this project will really work this is an innovative idea and this will give additional way to cost reduction and also employment.

[sachinkothari00707]

Yes and the other reason is they are very tired after the class

[DRISHYA]

well reading others' projects help a lot to know abt various ideas. Even search engines are a gud way to collect information. but its upon an individual to understand that wat his/her limitations are. Just by copyng d whole project they r just fooling themselves.

[sai_kiranreddy3]

Its not Fare copying others projects, but they can be used for refferences,
and college authorites should take necessary steps to stop their students from using fake projects,
they can assign a person from their college to help their students in getting projects and help them providing some refferences

[nkmomin]

ya its true that student does cut copy past of the project, but i think that this site help us lot in getting reffernce and every coin had two side.

in same way some utilized it for good and some for their comfort. so it depends from student to student.

By copying some one else project you just can get marks in exam what about the knowledge. MBA is not Graduate level study where marks matter, what matter is your knowledge becouse no one will help you in you campus or life interview.

So please those who use this site for thier comfort please do think about the money which you are paying to get knowledge and about your parents who have great trust on you.

[hansmenz]

I agree with all of you....all are making valid points

[amit_studies]

Hii,

I feel it all depends on the student and his intentions.. I' a hard working person.. i've worked on over 30 projects and yes, i've downloaded over 50 projects.. but this does not mean im cheating im just using projects of my seniors just to make sure im covering all the important topics and staying upto expectaiotns of the projects...

Amit.