The Questions Unanswered

After all the brain wrecking done in making your time table, getting acquainted with the exam system, understanding the grading procedure, etc. a lot of questions arise in our minds regarding FFCS. Many of which are still unanswered. This article is not only for the freshers to read. Every VITian should read this. FFCS since its inception has faced many difficulties, it is fired with many question by the students; not only questions but also abuses. Fully F**ked up Crediting System has become a pet name of FFCS amongst those who have seen the dark side of it. Here are some of the discrepancies of FFCS which need to be corrected.

Lucky Strike

As discussed earlier, the registration of courses runs for 2 days for a particular badge. All the students are equally and randomly divided into different groups. Starting on 1^st day morning from 8:00 to evening 8:00, and the same timing on 2^nd day, each group is given a 2 hour slot. This is done since the university doesn’t have a server that can cater 3500 people simultaneously. Thus your registrations can be on 1^st day early in the morning if you are lucky enough and can even be on last day night if you are so low on luck. The thing that happens is if you have an early time, more seats are left in your desired subjects and you get a wide range of subjects to choose from. If you have the registrations late, hardly any seats are available in the slot preferred by you for that subject; worst case scenario: the subject is not at all available as all the slots are full.

The point to question is that what method are they adopting when it comes to dividing the students amongst these 2 days? Sometimes, this method can get very unfair on the students part. Although VIT has made 1 change that the preference will be given as per seniority in year. The registrations for Winter Sem 2011-12 were thus executed in some better way. 4^th year students were allowed to do it 1^st followed by 3^rd and 2^nd years and lastly the 1^st years. It ensured a bit smoother functioning. But nothing much was done on the method of giving preference amongst the same year.

It so happened in Fall Sem 2011-12 that many 3^rd years had their registrations before 4^th years. These people ended up taking those subjects that are ideally meant for 4th years. End result: the 4^th years didn’t get their subjects, perhaps the only subjects that were left for them to finish. This created a huge crisis situation when the semester started. Although it was soon solved during the add/drop period. But good thing is that the university learnt from its mistake and avoided such a crisis in winter.

The only suggestion to make the system better in this aspect is to make the server capable enough to cater 4000 people together logging in for registrations.

Running around the campus

The campus is as big as 350 acres. With the walking distance between some buildings being more than 10 minutes, the 1^st years face a lot of problems with this. They end up making a time table where they have to run 600 to 1000 meters in no time. Also, in most cases, teachers hoist the banner of punctuality and do not co operate with the students. Running a kilometer with heart rate being 160 bpm, the last thing you would like to hear when you enter the class is, “You are late, GET LOST!!!” Teachers recommend using a bicycle, but it often gets stolen. The other solution is to use the bus facility offered by the campus. Personally speaking, it is very unreliable. And that is what every senior would tell. The only worthy solution is that teachers should provide at least 10-15 minutes of buffer time to the students. Some teachers have also adopted this method, but most of them instead of excusing us, ask us, “why did you select such a slot???”

Well this remains to be a hot topic in the Student-Teacher Conflict; an issue which is discussed with an enthusiasm at VIT equvivalent to that given to the Human Wildlife conflict in the outer world.

While the seniors don’t fall in such a problem, a 1^st year is bound to get into this problem as he is unfamiliar with the campus.

Absolute Grading in Relative System

Although, as discussed previously, the whole system is relative, there are some things that are still absolute. Absolute grading is used for all the lab only courses. Why so? Another question – unanswered. For lab only courses, 90-100 marks gives you an S grade, 80-90 gives you an A, so on till 60, a D for 55-60, E for 50-55 and F for under 50. The problem here is that if it is a strict teacher, you are in some trouble, and if it is a lenient teacher, it’s party time.

What if an average student get 85 in a lab only course under his faculty and the topper of the class under some other faculty is stuck at 76, is it fair to give Mr. Topper B grade when Mr. Average will get A? Another one – unanswered.

 Although such a problem never arise in theory only subject, it surprisingly traps in the embedded subjects as well. The total marks of student in embedded subjects are decided by

total marks = (theory marks * theory credits + lab marks * lab credits) / total credits

In a theory class of 65, definitely the students will be in different lab classes. The problem with the lab only courses’ absolute grading also arises here and may affect the total marks of the students in positive or negative way. This is a very serious and delicate matter which should be dealt with proper understanding.

Biodiversity amongst the teachers

Each person thinks differently, each teacher has a different outlook in teaching. Some believe in strict correction, others in lenient. Some are skilled enough to put every thing into the students’ heads; some are dumb enough to put the students to sleep in their lecture. This becomes one of the major drawbacks of FFCS. You don’t know which teacher suits your learning style. An unskillful teacher can ruin your knowledge of entire subject. It is believed that a skilled teacher checks his papers a bit more strictly whereas an unskilled teacher tries covering himself with showering marks. This may be very favorable in the absolute grading system but it’s not at all helpful in relative grading. Remember, if you get high marks, everyone else will also get high marks resulting your grade to be around the average since average is very high. Thus an unskilled teacher is a liability to both, the university and the students. A skilled teacher on the other hand not only awards you deserving marks, but also strengthens your knowledge about the subject. Seniors always recommend their juniors to choose those teachers that shower marks. But that is not the case, I advise you to choose such a teacher who can make you capable enough to pull out good marks even in the toughest condition.

The question arises that how to find out which teacher is better on the day of registrations? That is again one of the questions unanswered.

Well these are just 4 of the many unanswered questions, the biggest being “Did they make a right choice by putting FF before CS…?”

Personally, what I think is that it is a brilliant system but not at all recommendable for the 1^st years. At least not in the 1^st sem. That is a better than all if not ideal solution that my experience can provide.

The system still is a very good one. Although it is still in its cradle, when it will become a fully grown system surely many colleges and universities will be inspired by it and will adopt it. This will leave the name of VIT Universities in the history of smart education as one of the Pioneers of a System that gives its students THE POWER OF CHOICE.

I hope you enjoyed and learned something from the blog, do comment your questions and queries. Thank you very much for following the blog.

Exam Pattern and Grading System

Once that you have made an efficient time table, there are lot many advantages in it. Also the exam pattern and the grading system at VIT completely depend on the time table that you make. This article will explain you about the exam pattern, marking system and grading system at VIT.

Exam Schedule

There are 3 types of theory exams:

The Quiz

The CAT (Continuous Assessment Test)

The TEE (Term End Exam)

Distributed among the whole semester, there are 6 exams altogether – 3 quizes, 2 CATs, 1 TEE. Generally, every course is divided into 5 units (5 chapters). By the time your professors complete the 1^st lesson, the quiz dates approach. The 1^st quiz is generally within 3-4 weeks of the commencement of a semester. It is been conducted throughout a given week. It is a class test and unanimously decided by the students and teacher that on which day of the week will the test be conducted. The portion is normally the 1^st unit.

The 1^st CAT usually comes 2 weeks after the 1^st quiz. This exam is big friends, stretched through all 7 days of the given week; it has a proper exam like environment with seating arrangement and proper exam timetable. The portion is generally both the 1^st and 2^nd units. We have 7 days for 7 slots. It starts from Sunday when the exam for A1 slot is in morning and A2 is in evening. Similar is the process for the remaining days. Whichever subject of yours is in that slot will have its exam in the same slot. I hope you now realize why not to choose a combination of morning and evening slots. You will end up having 2 exams on a single day.

After CAT 2, within couple of weeks is the Quiz 2, generally 3^rd unit being in the portion.

2-3 weeks more and it’s time for CAT 2, with 3^rd and 4^th units in the portion. If it is the odd semester, then ideally a diwali vacation come within a week after CAT. Go home for a week and you are welcomed back to VIT with Quiz 3. Quiz 3 has the 5^th unit in portion and is ideally 3 weeks after the CAT 2.

In another 2 weeks time, you will have all your term end lab exams. This marks the beginning of the END. The last 2 instructional weeks of a semester are for term end lab exam. This is followed by the TEE.

TEE is 2 week long final exam of the term. It covers the whole syllabus. Perhaps those are the last 2 weeks of your semester and at the end of it a month long vacation awaits. TEE starts with A1 on the 1^st day followed by A2 on 2^nd day, B1 on 3^rd and so on till G2 on last day.

Thus the advantage of making a complete morning or evening time table is that you will have sufficient time to prepare for all your subjects. The best part is an early finish. If your last slot alphabetically is E1, you will finish your TEE in the first 9 days and can have a 5 day extra vacations. But don’t make a fool out of yourself by choosing 5 subjects in A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 just to finish your exams at the earliest.

The marking system

There are so many exams to write in, then definitely there would be a lot of marks to play for. Well that’s not the case at VIT. Because your total marks for a subject at the end of the semester will just be from 100!!! Here is the break up

• Quiz:
  5 marks each; MCQ type questions; total= 3 x 5 = 15 marks
• 1 assignment = 5 marks
• CAT
  50 marks subjective paper; 1.5 hours to write; 50 marks are reduced to 15; total= 50 x 0.3 x 2= 30
• These are your internals; total = 50
• TEE
  100 marks 3 hours subjective paper; 3 hours; 100 reduced to 50; total = 50
• Grand Total = 100

As you see the semester long efforts are paid very cheaply. Also the funny thing is that some kind of exam is going on in VIT at any given point of time.

But the policy of VIT is different. It’s not about scoring heavily in your paper, it’s about scoring sufficiently enough when others can’t score. VIT uses the very famous Relative Grading System for judging the students.

Relative Grading System

In the new competitive world, it is not important to be perfect. All you need is to be better than the rest. This forms the basis of the relative grading system. Fasten your seatbelts fellows as things are going to get a little mathematical now.

Your grades are allotted to you by dividing the 100 marks into 7 slabs. These slabs are named S, A, B, C, D, E and for those who have failed it is F.

S is for an extra ordinary performance

• A for a good score
• B for an above average score
• C for an under average score
• D for a bad score
• E for a close shave
• F for failed.

Continue reading for the mathematical analysis of these grades.

Well so these grades have certain numeric value

• S = 10
• A = 9
• B = 8
• C = 7
• D = 6
• E = 5
• F = fail (0)

Say u get a A in 1 subject, a B in 2^nd, s in 3^rd, etc. then the grade points of a subject is given by

Grade point GP= Grade x No. of credits

The total no. of grade points are the sum of grade points in every subject of that semester.

These are averaged out by the total number of credits to give a Grade Point Average

GPA = total Grade points / total credits

This will give you a factor out of 10 and that’s your score to boast/cry about at the end of semester.

There is also a term called as CGPA (Cumulative GPA)

CGPA= GPA of sem1 x credits + GPA of sem2 x credits… / total no. of credits completed.

The CGPA of all 8 semester is what that matters in the world. Try maintaining it at least above 8 if not more.

The math behind the grades

Amongst every class, that is, under every faculty, there are 65 students. The average (µ) of these students is taken. Say it turns out to be 72/100. Also another factor the standard deviation (σ) is calculated. Say it turns out to be 15. The grades are awarded as

• S: marks > µ + 1.5σ (with min 90)
• A: µ + 1.5σ >marks > µ + 0.5σ
• B: µ + 0.5σ >marks > µ
• C: µ >marks > µ-0.5
• D: µ-0.5 >marks > µ - σ
• E: µ - σ >marks > µ- 1.5σ
• F: marks < µ - 1.5σ

This is the amount of math that goes into the relative grading system. It is a really fantastic system; remember “even if you a Squint amongst the blinds, you are still the KING.”

Do join us for the post on the much awaited critical review

-Post Courtesy

Shaun Periera

TIPS to an efficient Time Table

All of you will now be familiar with basic functioning of FFCS registrations. Well this post describes the starting procedure and preparations an also gives you some really useful tips on planning the time table to give you that extra edge.

Gearing up to the big day

The freshers reading this will be wondering about how to get into the SYSTEM mentioned in previous post?

On your orientation day, lots of important documents, instruction manuals and oral instruction will be provided to you. Note them down even if you don’t understand. You will be provided with a password. This is the password to access your account on the VIT intranet system, the user id being your registration no. log on to the intranet and login with your registration number and your password. First of all, change your password to a desired password of your choice. And then you can access you can access your account. This is the very account to log in on the day of registrations. Also in future, when the faculties upload their notes (in pdf, doc, ppt formats) on their intranet id, you can download from your id for reference and studying. Yes fellows VIT is very much advanced in this technology.. and so are most of the faculties

Judgment day

The day and the time when you have to do the registration is allotted to randomly by the system. Registration for students of every year separately stretches for 2 days, thus making it almost a week long process (8days). This done to avoid domain overloading. Be ready on that day at that time in front of a computer. Log on to this link

academics.vit.ac.in

click on students login, enter your registration number and password, and click on Course Registerartion link. Re-enter the details and your registrations began.

The website has its own clock, follow it since each student is provided only 2 hours

Final formalities and Important tips

•  Once you have made a your time table, do take a snapshot of it
• All the changes that you make are automatically saved and will be saved after you log out
• After the commencement of new semester, Add/Drop facility will be provided for 1 week where you can change your time table if you EXPERIENCE inconvenience after trying it out in that week.
• Although there wouldn’t be any changes after the add and drop and hardly any seats are left when you go in for add drop
• You have to gamble on the fact that someone will leave the lecture of your convenience and that you will get his seat
• The add/drop is just like sitting on Bolt at BSE, there we buy and sell shares, here we do that for seats.
• The rule book says that 1^st year students will be provided with a faculty advisor who will guide them which faculty to choose and which not. Please take his advice if you MANAGE TO FIND HIM.
•    Frankly speaking, do not rely on such gimmicks, always consult your on which faculty to choose for subjects. Don’t be shy of your seniors, they are really very helpful.
•   The seniors provide you with a wide variety of teachers, those who donate marks, those who eat up your marks, those who teach well and those who don’t.
•   Ideally for the 1^st years, the lectures are in Main Building, Technology Tower and Silver Jubilee Tower. The slots are so beautifully adjusted that you can easily manage to get all your subjects in 1 building. Do not end up taking slots where in you have to run from MB to SJT almost 1.3 km in just 5 minutes.
• Sometimes sacrifice the faculty choice when it comes to venue and time choice.
•  It also depends on luck; if you have your registrations on the 1^st day in morning, you will have all the choice in the world
  but if you get it on 2^nd day, then the choices will be reducedThat’s the topic of discussion in critical review.
•  TRY AVOIDING A COMBINATION OF BOTH MORNING AND EVENING THEORY SLOTS.
• Lastly don’t be under pressure when you go for registrations, choose your slots smartly

Have faith in yourselves and the seniors who advice you. Stay connected to know more about the grading and exam system at VIT.


Check this out...
a smart time table..

and an unlucky time table..

-Post Courtesy

Hardh Mehta

The Basics of Time Table Designing

In the previous post we discussed about the crediting system and how it works at VIT. Most of must be wondering what this FF is in the Crediting system..? Isn’t it complicated enough to prefix it with FF..? Well things get simpler as you understand and fascinating once you use it.. The FF stands for FULLY FLEXIBLE, making the whole name Fully Flexible Crediting System “FFCS”. Each word has a significant meaning hidden in it. All of you are now familiar with CS, let me explain you “Flexible”

As the word says, our crediting system is flexible; it can adjust in the way you want. What does adjust..? The answer is TIME TABLE. In this system, you decide which subject you want to study, at what point of time in your course, under which faculty, in which class room of the campus and at which time? That is why I call it power of choice. Here is an in depth detail of the things function at VIT.

First of all, the word “FULLY” is a bit controversial when it comes to FFCS at VIT. It shall be discussed in future articles.

Draft Time Table

More famously known as the slot time table, it is a default time table for every student at VIT.

And there are only 2 reactions when you look at this time table for 1^st time without knowing anything

1. Why is it an alpha-numeric table and where are the subjects..!!
2. Morning 8:00 to evening 7:30… are u kidding me..!!!!

Not to worry followers, the actual time table is less than half the size of the slot time table.

As you see, the time table (tt) is divided in 14 theory slots; A1, B1... G1 and likewise A2, B2… G2. The 1s are for morning and the 2s are for evening. There are 3 lectures of subject A, B & G and 4 lectures of subjects C, D, E & F throughout the week. 1 of each lecture in every subject is prefixed with a ‘T’.

Also under the theory slots are the lab slots. L1 to L60. These for the labs.

The basic thing is to append the subject you want to choose to these slots.

Choosing and appending

The system is completely computerized. When you sit to choose the courses, you will have a wide range of choices to choose from. Everyone will be provided with a copy that mentions the courses that are to be chosen ideally according to your semester. Search the subject you want in the search bar. You can search either by the name or by the course code or even by the school (that offers the subject)

For example, School of advance sciences offers Multivariable Calculus in the 1^st sem. You can search by the following ways:

1. In search by school, select SAS.
2. In search by name, write Multivariable calculus.
3. In search by course code, write MAT101 (the code will be given in the copy)

The search results will be displayed in a tabular form with columns for the name, code, L, T, P, C, a VIEW button and a REGISTER button. The moment you spot your subject, click on register. The next screen is again a table that has columns for the slot, the faculty name, the room no. where the lectures are going to take place, the total number of seats in that particular class, the number of seats that are gone and the number of seats that are left. Select the slot by considering the faculty available and the room and building where you will have to go for the lectures.

Example

For Modern Physics PHY101

slot	faculty	Room	Seats total	Seats registered	Seats left
B1	Prof. XYZ	MB102	65	32	33
B1	Prof. ABC	MB103	65	21	44
D1	Prof. DEF	SJT203	65	10	55

If you think this slot and venue suits you, select it.

For embedded subjects in the same screen you will have to choose your lab slot. These options are given under the table of theory slots in similar fashion. The moment you select your class, and press the final register button, you will be taken back to your home screen where a similar kind of table read as registered courses will display all the details about your subject with a delete button. This is for deleting the course if you think that you have done a mistake by putting this subject in this place.To rectify it, delete the course and re-register just as before.

The home screen will also display your time table thus far. It will be a blank time table and only those slots will be filled where you have chosen the subjects. Since it is a computerized system, no lectures can over lap each other. If you choose some theory slot and then try putting a practical slot at the same time when there is 1 of your theory slots, the system will reject it.

And thus by searching, researching and a bit of gambling, you register and append your subjects to the given slot.

This is the basic functioning of FFCS registrations, this is how you have to make your own time table, this your POWER of CHOICE!!!

Stay tuned for upcoming posts on special tips regarding the registrations and of course the much awaited critical review.

-Post Courtesy

Ronak Pramod

What is FFCS about

Often you would have dreamt of an academic system where you can make your own time table, an academic system where you choose the subject you want to study in a particular system. Well.. Here’s the answer to it.. The FFCS..  An academic system that gives you the power to make your own time table. But before explaining FFCS.. I would like to explain what is credit system, what are credits, and how does all the autonomous engineering universities function around the world.

The following system is the basic difference between normal state level universities that is those colleges that offer B.E. and the autonomous universities that offer B.Tech.

Crediting System

As in any degree college, the tenure to achieve the bachelors degree in engineering is of 4 years and is divided across 8 semesters – 6 months each. Each semester has certain number of subjects (may be 5-7) decided by the university. Likewise one completes around 40 to 60 subjects at the end of 4 years. In this system, each subject is awarded some number of credits, points to say in lay man’s language. Successful completion of each subject awards the student that many number of credits. In most cases, the subjects are usually allotted 2-4 credits, depending on the size of the syllabus. Implies that at the end of 4 years, students end up finishing 180-200 credits as per the university necessity (183 credits in case of VIT).

The question is how are these credits decided..?

Each lecture is of 1 hour. The number of hours i.e. lectures per week for a subject is equal to the number of credits that are awarded to the students on successful completion of that subject. In many universities, the subjects to choose, the time to study, the place to study, and the faculty who is going to teach are all fixed. This makes it monotonous and very similar to the Bachelor of Engineering Degree offering colleges.

This is why the new upcoming universities have brought the advanced version of Crediting System - The Fully Flexible Crediting System or FFCS. In this system, the students can make their own time table, choose the subject they want, choose the classroom they want, not only classroom but also the faculty. This is the system that we follow at VIT

FFCS at VIT

The subjects at VIT are divided in 3 categories. Theory only, Lab only, Embedded Theory-lab. The credit counting is done  by the formula

L+T+P/2=C       here: L=lecture hrs, T= tutorial hrs, P=practical hrs, C=total Credits

Each lab slot has 2 hours continuous which is counted as 1.

For example, the subject Modern Physics with the code PHY101 has

3 theory hrs in a week

2 lab hrs in a week (back to back)

Thus the total credit count of this subject is 3+0+2/2=4

Hence when you complete PHY101 successfully, 4 credits are awarded to you.

Example 2

The subject Multivariable calculus MAT101 has

3 hrs of theory

1 hr of tutorial

Thus the total credit count of MAT101 is 3+1+0=4

Hence when you complete MAT101 successfully, 4 credits are awarded to you.

Like that you go on to make some 21-24 credits on an average in every semester. say 23.. for 8 semester.. Total at the end of your B.tech program.. I hope you can do the math..
The VIT system allows a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 27 credits per semester.

The grading process is also deeply connected with this system. Well every college with a crediting system has a very similar implementation of grading system. Grading system shall be discussed in my upcoming articles..

I hope I have pretty much explained the crediting system. Do read the next article in power of choice to know what the FF before the CS is...