Internship work in eFloraofindia

Internship work in efloraofindia : 18 posts by 1 author.
These days lot of students wants to do internship in their vacations. Lot of them are willing do that even if it’s free.

I request members to urge botany, taxonomy, ecology students etc. to take up internship work in Efloraofindia. They may be asked to help in the identifications etc. on the efloraofindia e group.  
In lieu of their work, we may provide suitable certificate in the matter, if required.

This will certainly add lot of knowledge in their respective fields.

Certainly a good idea …

I will try to encourage some of the good students to take on this opportunity…!!
Can we place a willingness form on the home page of efI?

Thanks, … Let us see what others feel about this idea. 
Internship is official and has to be done at a recognised/registered organisation like universities or companies or even websites. 

I imagine if we are capable of providing such information. 
Thanks, …  I am not taking of compulsory internship. I am talking of additional volountry internship. 

We should not have any issues. Lot of people do not get internship though they want to work in their holidays. It will be work from home. One need not have to go anywhere. Some of our moderators can sign the suitable certificate and can be verified at our itpmods id. 
Do you see any difficulty? 

Helping efloraofindia is a good thing but calling it internship depends on the certification. Their college internship needs this authentic certificate. Our efloraofindia india can give a signed certificate but it may not be recognised by their university. 

For example I am one of the moderators of this group, but this is doesn’t really add to my qualifications but yes it is recognised as an outcome of the qualification I have. I am also moderator of the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group. But Infact that adds nothing to my CV or qualification.
There is another way. The student can do the so called internship under a university faculty in this group and the certification can be given by the university faculty on a university letter head. Or, there is a way to give the certification through the NGO which was constituted few years back by Balkar sir I think.

Thanks, …, If somebody has worked for eFI (in a constructive way with suitable outcomes, which are visible in the form of eFI site), why can not he add it on his/her CV (giving suitable details) ?
Is it a less important work (of not helping others, but also the whole fraternity of taxonomists, ecologists, who may be frequently consulting the efi site as a secondary source etc.) than say publishing a paper ?
I think such constructive contributions will be appreciated, to whom so ever CV is presented.
People has published papers and books based on observations discussed in the groups. Is eFI is not a sort of e-publication, with collective contributions ?

May I request other moderators also to give their views and how they feel as it is a very important point of discussion and Pankaj ji has also raised a very important point. 

Internship work in eFloraofindia is a good and innovative idea. This will be quite helpful to the interns as well as for the popularization of efi. A common certificate may be designed and e-signed by two authorized signatories (you and Dr. Singh Sir can do this work). The interns will be required to associate with some botanists.  This information may be put on the efi website.

It would be a good idea to encourage students to contribute towards efl as it is an interesting endeavour for the students as well. Perhaps instead of calling it an official internship it can be termed as work experience. Internship is an official part of education bound by college or university regulations of time period, stipends, supervision, etc.
Perhaps voluntary students could be offered time bound, predetermined projects entailing some research and organization to keep them engaged.
I would think one of the senior members or a botanist could then give them a certificate, it will look good on a young person’s resume.

yes a good idea to encourage them by issuing a certificate by our emeritus persons; they may be entrusted to write notes/key to the species where it is yet to be done in the efi, or region wise classifications/ to contribute a few images they have observed like that, it will be useful to efi thus they may learn how to manage the data how to study etc.,it will also teach them how to deal in a group

This is something interesting. I support the point that … shared, to some extant. A student by doing an internship would be looking for a valid certificate (at the present job scenario is concerned). Valid means valid for their respective colleges, universities, companies, firms, etc. Many of the colleges and Universities do not know about efi. Whenever I deliver an invited lecture I use to incorporate efi as one of the best platforms to get plants idied and a great chance to get in touch with leading experts in plant taxonomy in India. However, people are reluctant to come up with using the platform (a scenario from Kerala, at least). I do not know why. Many of the Indian institutes have not yet accepted the idea of such groups in solving identification problems. However, we are growing further from the base that you laid years back and I believe that this idea would also get accepted by botanists and plant taxonomy aspirants in near future.
I include(ed) my role in efi in my CV and whenever there is a query on the same, I use to tell them about efi and my role (especially how I learnt more about plants that are in distant places that I may not reach from my place) in efi precisely. That is more than enough, I believe. We can spread the message somehow.
I would be happy to tell my students to take up small assignments such as identification comparison and gathering data based on our data archives. I shall certainly consider this as an internship as she or he got to know how to go about something anew. That would probably help them to go further, I am sure.
It doesn’t matter whether any agency or admission authority or firm would consider the certificate valid. But what is important is that he or she (student) has learned to do something (after doing some exercises) that would add confidence in the student, for sure. Getting such chances where several experts are present is also a matter that should be considered a great achievement for a student to start with. That confidence itself would be an added boost for a better learning experience. I suggest you to make sure that there should be some monitoring and scrutiny of the works done by the interns. Based on the recommendations a certificate of appreciation shall be issued. Also the names of interns and their respective works shall be mentioned in our site. That itself would be a reference for them to claim.
Thanks, …, for an important feedback.
Our is basically a work of mouth spread along with those coming in contact through net. I think young generation will be more aware about us.
There is certainly a need to popularise it more in different forums as Nidhan ji and Balkar ji, did twice by presenting in IAAT conferences in Banglore and Delhi.
Somebody can write a beautiful paper revealing it more to the world.
At the same times, we have world renown authorities who are not only aware about us, but also help a lot in ids in their area of expertise, whether it is ferns, Arecaceae members, begonias, Himalayan flora, Impatiens, Araceae members, convolvulaceae members etc. 

Yes it is a good idea. We have to do our bit to make the group popular. I latest Fourth International Edition of my book “Plant Systematics An Integrated Approach” released in June, 2019 I have added the followng paragraph:

Last few years have seen the spurt of internet-based exchange of information. Efloraofindia (formerly Indiantreepix) https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/ is one of the biggest non-commercial website, based on photographic collection of plants. It is documenting flora of India that is being discussed on efloraofindia google e-group https://groups.google.com/forum/indiantreepix, devoted to creating awareness, helping in identification, discussion and documentation of Indian Flora. It also has the largest database on net on Indian Flora with more than 12,000 species (along with more than 3,00,000 pictures. It also includes species from other parts of world.
This will also be there in Fourth Edition of Indian version “Plant Systematics: Theory and Practice”, which will be released soon, and am happy to note is read widely by College and University students and teachers.

I never said that working on efi is not a good idea or has no meaning.

Internships are of three types and all three types atleast gives experience to the student.
1. One which is chosen by the student and he or she has the freedom to do what he/she wants and is recognised as a voluntary work, but has no mark value but is supposed to be a part of course the person is undertaking.What the student get is an authorised certificate.
2. Second is a compulsion as a part of their course study and they must do it from a recognised organisation, and the student gets a particular marks for that. What the student get is an authorised certificate.
3. Third is a voluntary act, students get nothing out of it except experience. In this we can give a recommendation letter to the student. I or any one of us can write a letter on respective letterhead stating their involvement and conduct. But this is not certificate.
In Hong Kong there is a thing called summer internship and it has to be done from a recognised organisation and hence the organisation is contacted by the students university. Students get some bonus marks for that and its a part of their curriculum and infact if the organisation doesnt give a positive certificate (very rarely if student does something bad) then student may also be expelled from their university.
Now, how to get efi involved in this?
The best way would be to get it recognised by a UGC recognised university. Then for example a staff member or ex-staff member of University along with … and some others can sign the certificate, endorsing that the intern has done some work on the efloraofindia from the period of xxx to xxx. 
Chinese Virtual Herbarium in China is run by the university staff members and anyone involved is recognised by their perfomance based on number of species contributed, number of pics contributed, number of id contributed etc. But as it is run by the University staff itself, hence it is well recognised and it matters for a member to be participating in it.
Ours is a different case.
We should either get ourself recognised by a university of an organisation.
I suggest there are two ways:
Officially recognised by any University which any of our current or ex-faculty members can do by putting it up with their university board. Then the certificate can be signed with a logo or
Write a letter to Ministry of Environment and Forests and tell them about our work and get it recognised by them (the main basis being it is selfless effort by both scientists and citizen-scientists). It may take some time to get recognised but once done, it would certainly be an achievement. I would suggest this to be done by Gurcharan sir as he is based in Delhi and is well recognised.
Please remember that I am not against it, rather I want the intern to earn some authentic certificate from us apart from experience.

Thanks, … I always thought of voluntary internship, which a student takes to utilize his spare time in holidays and has nothing to do with formal compulsory internship.
We wants to maintain our paperless & meeting free working and does not want our selves be involved in any bureaucratic hassles.
Here also we would like to maintain the same standards. If it is acceptable it is OK. If not, than also OK.

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