The participation of IT Department in Higher Education & Industry Symposium

Information Technology Department of University of Technology & Applied Science-Ibri participated in the Higher Education & Industry Symposium, University of Technology & Applied Science -Nizwa, 15-16 Dec 2020. The program started with a welcome address by Dr.Salim al-Shaikh, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and Scientific Research.

The symposium included about 28 sessions for different themes, which are: Aligning curricula with the industry needs, Quality standards in preparing higher education graduates, Promoting entrepreneurial culture in HEIs Internship and On-Job –Training Programs and Community Participations.

IT department participated in two papers. Nasim Al Balushi (Lecturer) presented her paper about “Learning Methodologies to Keep Pace with Oman Vision 2040 and Covid 19Pandemic”.The abstract of her paper is in the history of development economics, education has been thought of as a key factor in is the basis of development. Extensive research has shown the importance of effective learning methodologies to achieve the outcomes of the course and assess the students based on the outcomes. Each academic institution in Oman needs to qualify the students to achieve the goals of Oman Vision 2040, which indicates that Learning, Education, Scientific Research, and National Talents represent the top national priorities for the Sultanate of Oman. Furthermore, it is required to use new learning methodologies due to the Covid 19 pandemic as most of the academic institutions towards online learning. For graduates to contribute to a knowledge-based local economy, they should improve their ability to “think well”. This concept is explained differently in various parts of the globe, but the basic idea is that graduates should be able to tolerate increasing levels of ambiguity, be creative and intuitive, and be able to use their cognitive knowledge and skills when faced with problem-solving tasks. The Dearing Report which deals with higher education in general in the UK indicates some skills that students must have including “cognitive skills, such as an understanding of methodologies or ability in critical analysis” .Bloom Taxonomy can be an effective tool to change the way of learning and learning. Recently, considerable literature has grown up around the theme of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

There is a need for the implementation of Blooms' Taxonomy to keep pace with Oman Vision 2040 in the field of education. Recently most academic institutions use online learning due to Covid 19, there is a need for an effective mechanism to ensure the understanding of the students for the materials as the online teaching method is a new strategy for some institutions. Data for this study were collected using different approaches of Blooms' Taxonomy. It is hoped that this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of the Oman vision 2020 relating to the improvement of education and the way to assess the students due to the new way of teaching because of Covid 19. The reader should bear in mind that the study is based on the analysis of Bloom's Taxonomy. My personal experience of learning has prompted this research.

Dr.Amal(Head of IT) and Ms.Moza(Head of ARD) presented a paper titled “A Framework to Support the Delivery and Assessment of Practical-Based Concepts On Online Learning”. The abstract of the presented paper is due to the current situation with the spread of Covid 19 virus, teaching and learning have been directed towards online-based approach. The available platforms for online teaching and learning like E-learning, MS Teams and Google Classroom are supporting the delivery and assessment of theory-based courses. However, when practical-based courses are involved, the delivery and assessment of such courses are challenging tasks. The delivery of the practical skills/concepts requires the availability of the tool and the supervision of the educator during implementation. To assess the acquired practical knowledge by learners, an activity-based assessment can be used. In such assessment method, the learners’ progress needs to be observed and tracked to determine the time required to complete the activity and the correctness level of the attempted activity. As the available online platforms for teaching and learning are lacking these features, there is a need for a mechanism to adapt the available platforms to handle the delivery and assessment of practical skills. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework to integrate tools for online practices to facilitate the delivery of practical-based concepts. The proposed framework will also utilize the generated data during the online learning process to understand the learners’ behavior and knowledge level.