IT Students Won Second Prize in National Level Research Competition The IT students who represented UTAS-Ibri won the second prize during the National Level Research Day Competition which was graced by the University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Said Hameed Al Rubei and organized by UTAS-Al Musannah in collaboration with ISACA - Muscat Chapter in November 10, 2022. The Student Research Day was designed to promote student research and creative inquiry. This event was open to all students from all the academic institutions across the Sultanate who wanted to display their research and creative projects in the IT discipline in the form of a Poster or Applied model with oral presentations. Three teams from the IT department (UTAS-Ibri) participated in the Research Day that focused on “Oman Vision 2040 for Research”, keynote address on “Information Security” and other technical talk and poster/project presentations. Out of 26 teams who participated from 17 universities, the IT team (UTAS-Ibri) won the second prize for the presentation entitledاطمئن Etmaen – “An interactive AI App to boost the mental health in the Arab World”. This research proposal explores a novel idea of mobile application that uses Arabic Natural Language Processing (NLP) feature and AI based software robots to interact with the users that could beat depression, anxiety, self-criticism, stress feelings, psychological disorders and help while they feel anxious or insecure, sad, or angry. Moreover, another presentation entitled, “Self-Checkout Shopping Cart with Anti-Theft Solution” won the ISACA-Muscat chapter one year membership. The main goal of this project is to boost the existing supermarket shopping carts to prevent them from being misused and/or damaged as well as to provide a modern shopping experience. Another team presented the project entitled, “Smart Master Alarm Clock” which received a certificate of appreciation for the worthy idea and presentation. This project is intended to design a smart alarm clock that interacts with the environment to adjust the room temperature and lights to create the most convenient wakeup ambiance. A total of 8 IT students and a lecturer, Dr. Wilfred Blessing N.R have participated.
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Research Day Winners and Participants |
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SN |
Title |
Students |
Supervisor |
Award |
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1 |
اطمئن Etmaen - An Interactive AI App to Boost the Mental Health in Arab World |
Said Saud Sulaiman Al-Qassabi, Nizzar Said Obaid Al-Shukaili |
Dr. Wilfred Blessing N.R |
WINNER – Second (Cash Award of OMR 100 & Certificates) |
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2 |
Self-Checkout Shopping Cart with Anti-Theft Solution |
Sabrina Sulaiman Ali Al Kalbani, Nawf Abdallah Rashid Al Shamsi, Atheer Sulaiman Ali Al Kalbani |
Dr. Qais Saif Qassim Al Janabi |
ISACA Muscat Chapter-Gift Voucher (One year membership), Certificates |
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3 |
Smart Master Alarm Clock |
Amna Khalaf Mohammed Al Mamari, Zainab Awadh Mohammed Al Saadi, Amal Said Bati Al Qayudhi |
Dr. Qais Saif Qassim Al Janabi |
Certificates |
Through this active participation and presentation, all the student participants have benefitted especially on the awareness on current research domains and projects. The interaction with other university students and experts are highly effective.
The Staff Development Committee of Engineering Department organized a webinar program on “Supply Chain: Inventory Management through Rules and Packages” on 8th November 2022, Tuesday from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM through MS Teams. The program was delivered by Dr. Joby George, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amal Jyothi College of Engineering, Kerala, India. The targeted audience for the program were faculty members of Engineering Department.
He started his presentation with a welcome address note on global supply chain management. Then he started explaining about the components of supply chain management and further elaborated the presentation on inventory management in supply chain. Also, discussed the research possibilities in inventory management using different rules and packages that are now being used in SCM research. It was a useful presentation for all the faculty members of engineering department. Also, the session was interactive and useful.
In conjunction with the university's strategic plan to strengthen the relationship with industry sectors for innovation, research and academic collaboration opportunities, the IT department has organized an industrial visit to Oman Data Park in Muscat in November 10, 2022. The visiting team included the Head of the Department, Dr Amal Al Abri; the Head of the IT Section, Ms Fatma Al Shamli; the Public Relation Committee Coordinator, Mr Abdullah Al Shukeily; and the Coordinator of the Research and Consultancy Committee Dr Qais Al Janabi.
The visit was organized to discuss various aspects, including organizing common activities, research and consultation opportunities, knowledge and experience exchange, and initiatives to support students' learning and training. It is worth mentioning that Oman Data Park (ODP) is the Sultanate's premier cloud services provider, established in 2011 to offer superior Managed Data Centre Services and Cloud Services utilizing its own Tier 3 certified Data Centers.
The visiting team was welcomed by Mr Muhanad Rashid Al Bahri, Senior Account Manager at Oman Data Park, who accompanied the visiting team to the meeting room, where he presented the company's profile, portfolio, and achievements. Mr Muhanad has extensively described the various cloud and security services offered by ODP. Afterwards, during an open discussion, the visiting team highlighted some of the key points where opportunities for research collaboration, knowledge exchange and student support initiatives can be realized.
Next, the visiting team met Mr Yasser Al Hosni, Team Leader of the Data Center at Oman Data Park. He escorted the group to the data center units, including the Network Operation Center (NOC) and the Colocation Unit. Mr Yasser has demonstrated the various physical and digital security measures applied by ODP to comply with the national and international standards as well as he demonstrated the facilities provided by ODP for colocation services, including the multi-source power supply, multi-source cooling system and network connectivity. During the tour the team also introduced to various software applications used for monitoring and alerting purposes. During this visit, our team had the chance, after taking all the security measures, to visit one of the most secure and highly technical places that many Omani companies and government institutes use to store their data and applications.
Later, our team met Mr Said Mohammed Al Jahwari, Deputy General Manager – Business Development at Oman Data Park. During the meeting, our team highlighted some of the actions to take place in order to strengthen the relationship with ODP and accelerate the collaboration adoption.
At the end of the visit, the team expressed their deepest gratitude and thanks to the ODP team for their time and hospitality.
With the aim of enhancing ELC staff members’ understanding of Oman Vision 2040, Ms. Heba Qureshi conducted a professional development seminar on “Preparing Students with 21st Century Skills from the Perspectives of Oman Vision 2040” on Tuesday, 15 November 2022 at Multi-purpose Hall, Engineering Building.
Ms. Qureshi started the seminar by asking the staff about the 4C’s of 21st Century Skills. Active participation of the attendees showed their willingness to learn more. She emphasized the need to enhance the communication skills of students, for recruiters look for graduates with excellent communication skills. She then shared the list of interactive classroom-activities conducted by her, which focused on formal walk-in job interviews; some methods and tips that helped her enhance her students’ employability skills and the outcomes of the innovative class activity.
Before the session ended, a video recording of the walk-in job interviews and students and teachers’ views and comments were shown to the attendees.
Mr. Mohammed Aslam moderated the session. Ms Heba was awarded with the certificate of Appreciation.
The Research and Consultancy Committee of Engineering Department organized an programm on Damage Detection in Airplane Wing Structure Using Chirped Fiber Bragg Grating (CFBG)" on 10th November 2022 (Thursday) between 1.30 PM to 2.30. Dr. Sivananth Varatharajan, Lecturer (Engineering Department, M&I), has delivered the presentation for the benefit of the staff members. He gave general introduction about various kinds of damages occurs in Aerospace structures due to the impact force caused by natural incidents like bird strikes . His presentation mainly focused on application of optical fiber sensors in monitoring the performance and damage detection in aircraft structure . The presentation include modeling of aircraft wing and strain analysis using solidworks and COMSOL software. The speaker also gave overview about Optiwave software and its application in fiber design using Bragg wavelength concept. The presentation highlights the importance of simulation for various real time applications. The staff members felt that the presentation was very much useful and effective.
The Ibri School paid a visit to the ELC on November 8, 2022. This is the second visit after receiving extraordinary feedback from the last school visit in the first semester.
More than 35 students from grades 7, 8, and 9 along with two teachers from the school participated in various programs that the ELC management and the Student Activities Committee (SAC) arranged for the visit.
The visit started with students being welcomed by Dr.Abdulasalm, Dr. Maryam, and Dr. Sultan in the ELC lobby. The committee members, along with the HOC, took the students on a campus tour to show them the facilities at the university. Later on, the English society mentors guided the students to attend a session in the ELC building. The session was fruitful and highly productive based on the feedback received. Dr. Mohsen, welcomed the students and introduced the agenda to them. Dr. Abdulsalam and Ms. Hiba enlightened students with their motivational speeches. The English Society mentors did a commendable job by sharing their views on relevant and key topics such as the importance of communication skills, dos and don'ts in school, life skills, procrastination, and so on. Thanks to Samah, Abdulkarim, Maitha, and the photographers who made the session a grand success.
The Staff Development Committee of Engineering Department organized a seminar program on “AutoCAD / Autodesk Applications” on 3rd Nov 2022 Thursday from 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM in Engineering Multi-Purpose Hall (B102). The program was delivered by Mr. Mohammed Ali Taher, Lecturer / Mechanical Engineering. The targeted audience for the program were the lecturer of Mechanical Engineering.
He started his presentation with product life cycle management and Autodesk products. Then he explained the importance and usage of different products of Autodesk in various fields such as Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Product design, Manufacturing, Simulation, Workflows, Media & Entertainment. He provided with a comparative statement of different products available in the market with the Autodesk about the market share and Industrial usage. He also, provided us with the facilities available to the tutor and students, so as to avail the Autodesk product with ease. It was a useful guide to the college tutor and the student of Engineering department to get benefitted with the Autodesk products.
An awareness session on Strategic, Operational and Action Plans was held on 8 November at D003, ELC Building. The event was attended by ELC Staff. Ms. Zahra Zohair Arab and Ms. Frizha May Baylon led the session.
Attendees were requested to form in groups and read the handout on main elements of the Strategic Plan. Then a quiz was given about it which contained 10 questions via Quizziz. The staff enjoyed and at the same time learned a lot about the quiz. The top scorers were Dr. Mirriam Cordova, Ms. Sharon Ruth and Dr. Mobina Rahnama.
The English Language Centre at UTAS - Ibri is always replete with novel ideas to break the monotony of work and The Social Activities committee compliments with an array of events for the teachers. The ELC staff was ushered into the new academic year with a welcoming event on Tuesday, the 27th of September 2022. To create a friendly ambience for the teaching staff, the event had a short entertaining drama titled “A Funny Burglar,” performed by the ELC faculty members Mr. Humaid Al Mamari and Mr. Mazaher Engameh.. The comedy skit had the audience in splits and proved as a good beginning to the day ahead.
As part of the establishment of a relationship with the industry, the Information Technology Department of UTAS-Ibri has visited the Data Center of Muscat International Airport on 27th October 2022. The visit was organized by the Public Relation and Marketing Committee headed by Mr Abdullah Mubarak Mussabah Al Shukeily, Lecturer, IT Department.
Mr Sadiq Al Alawi, Sales Manager of Oman, and Yemen Cisco Systems Inc, received the team consists of twelve (12) students along with a supervisor Mr Junath Naseer Ahamed and gave us presentation on topics such as network cables, server, end-users and discussed about the five best security technology solutions such as Firewall, Intrusion prevention system (IPS), Anti-virus, Email security and Web security. Later, Mr Sadiq explained the importance of CAT – 6 cable, UTP, Fiber optic cable and its types of single and multimode communication channels and insight about DMZ (Dematerialized Zone). Mr Saleh Hassan Saleh Batooq, Head of Network Systems, Data Center Muscat International Airport greeted the gathering with gratitude and gave us presentation on topics such as types of topologies, router, switches, Intrusion Detection System, SNMP, and Multi-layer access switches. Later, Mr Saleh explained about the operation of the NOC Team, which is Network Operating Centre Team, who works round the clock 24/7 on the maintenance service of Data center support, the team consists of Network Engineers who monitors the data center without getting into trouble, apart from that there is monitoring systems to produce alerts in case of any emergencies or failure occurs. The ICT Network Infrastructure and Data center Engineers Mr Ashraf Al Hinai and Mr Ahamed Al Balushi along with Mr Saleh Hassan Saleh Batooq (Head of Network Systems), Mr Sadiq Al Alawi (Cisco Sales Manager) and Mr Yousuf Al Sandi (Network Engineer) the team of staff from Muscat International Airport took us around the data center and explained the physical devices, components, storage racks. During the physical tour they emphasized the importance of up time and down time of data center. At the end of the session a short verbal quiz was conducted to the students, were everyone responded with correct answer.
Importance of the Industrial Visit:
Industrial visit is considered as one of the tactical methods of teaching. The main reason behind this industrial visit was to let UTAS Ibri students know things practically through interaction, working methods and employment practices. Moreover, it gives exposure from academic point of view. Main aim of industrial visit is to provide an exposure to students about practical working environment. It provides students a good opportunity to gain full awareness about industrial practices.
Importance of Data center:
Modern life relies on the functioning and availability of data centers. Data centers run every aspect of human activity; from energy, lighting, telecommunications, internet, transport, urban traffic, banks, security systems, public health, and entertainment even how our personal data is collected and stored is ultimately controlled by data centers. The welfare and security of billions of human beings is reliant on data centers and the supervision of data and information is therefore, of vital importance.
