The Business Studies Department, represented by Mr Omar Al Balushi, HoD, and Mr Mohammed Al-Sakiti, lecturer, participated in a workshop on “Creating a Professional Presence on LinkedIn” on Tuesday, 12 March 2019, at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Muscat.
The workshop was delivered by Mr Wael Hasan, Key Accounts Director of LinkedIn at Middle-East and North Africa (MENA) region. The main aim of the workshop was to encourage both graduates and professionals to use LinkedIn to discover their careers, build their brands, and find a job they love.
At the end of the workshop, both Mr Omar and Mr Mohammed had a fruitful discussion with the speaker on the presented topic. Further, Dr Zahran Al-Salti, Director of the Center for Community Service and Continuing Education at SQU, provided the audience a summary of the key points discussed in the workshop before giving a memento to the speaker appreciating his presentation.
Written by:
Business Lecturer
Business Studies Department
This report is regarding the visit of Al Murtafa School (Ibri) to Ibri College of Technology and experiences during the visit on 10 March 2019, guided by N. Srinivasa Rao, lecturer and students of Electrical Power Engineering.
On the occasion of National week of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM-2019), 32 students of Al Murtafa School (Ibri), with one teacher and two supervisors, reached the college at 09.15am. The students were gathered in the Multipurpose Hall of the Engineering Department. The students of Electrical Power Engineering explained the principle of batteries, the applications of batteries, and the ongoing research in Nano Technology batteries.
The Electrical Power Engineering students practically demonstrated how to measure the voltage of a battery with digital multi-meter, charging and discharging process in dry, lead-acid, lithium-ion batteries, maintenance of batteries, and safety practices. The Electrical Power Engineering students demonstrated the homopolar motor run by battery, led torch, and different types of batteries. Then school students visited the Electrical, Electronics, and Mechanical Engineering laboratories. The visit ended at 11.30am.
This trip was very helpful to the school students to acquire knowledge about batteries and ongoing research in nano-technology batteries. The school students were inspired by our college. Some of them have decided to study at Ibri College of Technology after completing their school studies.
As a part of community engagement programme, the Health and Safety Committee organised a Road Safety Programme for the students of Dharar Bin Al Azwar school, Ibri on 28 February 2019. The program started with an introduction by Mr Ahmed Al Ajmi, staff member, Engineering Department. Mr Ahmed mentioned the need of this awareness programme keeping in view of the fatalities caused by road accidents taking place in various parts of the Sultanate of Oman. The speaker, Dr K. Elangovan, HoS/Mechanical Engineering of the Engineering Department and chairman of the Health and Safety Committee, stressed the importance of road safety, the primary cause for accidents, various forces acting on cars and the role of speed causing accidents. The speaker equally stressed many facts to name a few - types of traffic accidents and collisions, collisions due to poor driving, collision reasons, qualities of good drivers, safety lists, etc. The speaker also showed some of the relevant videos which emphasise the importance of road safety procedures and how to avoid accidents. The presentation is well received by the participants with good interaction on both sides.
An Industrial visit to International Marble Co. LLC (IMC), was organised for diploma and advanced diploma students, by OJT and the Industrial Link Committee. Twenty-three students with staff members, Ms Geetha and Mr Krishnakumar, from the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Section, visited the site on 5 March 2019 from 10am to 3.30pm.
International Marble Co. LLC (IMC) provides high quality processing and supply of natural marble. Mr Rashid, administration staff, welcomed the staff and students, and gave a brief introduction about the company’s activities. Later he handed over to Mr Fahad Al Kalbani, maintenance engineer, and Hilal Al Nasseri, production engineer, for the visit to the production plant and workshop.
The following processing of marble was observed during the visit.
- Marble mining
- Arrival and unloading of marble blocks
- Marble cutting
- Strengthening and polishing
- Slab storage
- Central workshop
- Water treatment plant
Finally, the managing director of the company shed light on the job opportunities and challenges and invited students to have an opportunity to do OJT in the company.
During the session, the students interacted with the engineers very effectively. All the students expressed their thanks to the officials for the opportunity. The Industrial visit was highly useful for the students. A special word of thanks is extended to Mr Mohammed Riyaz and Mr Zaid Al Badi, who were actively involved in arranging the industrial visit.
The Information Technology Department, with support from the Staff Development Committee, conducted a workshop on Item Analysis. The workshop was conducted on Thursday, 28 February 2019, in room A109 at 12 noon. The speaker for the event was Mr. Guruprasath, a lecturer at Ibri College of Technology.
The speaker started with a question and answer session and stressed its importance and usage. He said that Item Analysis helps us to ensure the fairness of assessment and to identify content areas that may be problematic for students. He gave an example of Item Analysis and explained how to calculate it. He suggested creating an item bank for all courses. Mr Safik Khan, lecturer of Information Technology, created an Item Analysis in AMS and explained how to use it. This workshop helped staff members to get a better understanding of Item Analysis. Staff members discussed and asked questions. In conclusion, the HoD appreciated Mr Guruprasath and Mr Safik for their efforts and he said that with the help of Item Analysis the department can improve their testing standards. The event ended at 1.25pm.The workshop achieved a feedback score of 3.45.
The Staff Development Committee of the Engineering Department organised a staff induction programme for newly-joined staff on 28 February 2019 from 09.30 to 10.30am.
The presentation started with a brief introduction about the various Colleges of Technology, Ministry of Manpower, Oman. A detailed explanation was given about the different facilities available in Ibri College of Technology and their locations as demonstrated. A clear description was given on different levels of courses, and the course audit plan for different specialisations.
Apart from teaching, other roles and responsibilities of lecturers such as students counselling, OJT supervision, examination supervision, the marking system and record maintenance in the Advisory Management System (AMS) were explained in detail.
The presentation also explained the registration procedure to be followed on advising the students while registering their courses. A clear demonstration was given on the usage of the College Information Management System (CIMS) and the Advising Management System (AMS) for maintaining advising records.
This programme was well received by the staff and highly beneficial to the participants.
The Electrical and Electronics Section of the Engineering Department, together with the Engineering Society, scheduled a two-day workshop for students, “Workshop on Simulink Modelling of Physical Systems and its Applications”, on 22 and 29 January 2019, two consecutive Tuesdays, 12.00 noon to 2.00pm, at the Electrical Principles Laboratory (B007).
This workshop was actually scheduled in Semester 1, 2018-2019. However, due to time constraints it was postponed and instead offered in Semester 2, as it is deemed worthwhile for students’ learning.
Simulink is a software package, fully integrated in MATLAB, for modelling, simulating, and analysing dynamic systems that support linear and nonlinear systems, which can be modelled in continuous time, sampled time, or a hybrid of the two. Simulink Modelling is a good platform for creating ideas for future student projects.
- The two-day workshop covered the following topics:
- Basic Settings and Operations
- Steps to Modelling any System
- General Simulink Model Block Diagram
- Modelling for Various Circuits: RLC Series Circuit at Steady-State, Transient Response of RL Series Circuit, Half-Wave Uncontrolled Rectifier, Separately-Excited DC Motor, Symmetrical Short Circuit for Three-Phase Transmission Lines, Three-Phase Induction Motor – Steady-State Simulation, and etc.
Mr Chandrashekara B. L. and Mr Reddy Ganesh served as the workshop’s resource persons.
Only 15 students, those who have successfully carried out the workshop tasks and generated working outputs, were awarded a Certificate of Participation.
The Staff Development Committee of the Information Technology department organised a seminar on Technical Teaching Techniques by Ms Saba Hasan, Lecturer, Math Section, Information Technology Department, on Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 12 noon in Lab 4 (A112) of the Information Technology Department.
Ms Saba started with a basic introduction of how technology can enhance the interests of learners in the teaching-learning process. She then introduced the audience with hands-on experience on an online tool ‘kahoot.it’, which can be used for conducting quick quiz-kind activities in gaming mode. She also made everyone aware how to register for Kahoot, create and conduct the activity. After Kahoot, she discussed the use of Google Forms for creating and conducting quizzes in class. She also introduced the online latex tool where Math teachers can easily construct math formulae and integrate them into Google Forms. Teachers were happy to have learnt through hands on practice.
Many members present had a good understanding of the use of simple tools and appreciated the impact they can have in the teaching-learning process to make learning fun with the use of technology.
The seminar received a good response from the staff members of the department. In the end, feedback was collected from members attending. On the scale of 5, average feedback is 4.26.
The information Technology Department of Ibri College of Technology participated in the Open Day of Research that was held at Ibri College of Applied Sciences on Tuesday, 26 February 2019 under the patronage of Dr Amal Al Badwawi, Assistant Director General for Academic Affairs, Ministry of Higher Education.
Dr Duhai Al Shukaili, (HoD, Information Technology) was a member of the panel discussion entitled Improving research in Undergraduate Institutions with other members who were Dr Ahmed Said Al Busaidi, Manager of Strategic Research Programmes, The Research Council, Sultanate of Oman, Miss Amal Al Maqrashi, TRC Research Award Winner and Faculty, University of Nizwa. Nasim Al Balushi (Lecturer, Information Technology) presented a workshop for the students about academic writing, and how to prepare research papers.
The Higher College of Technology, in association with ACCA Middle East Chapter, organised a one-day workshop, Train the Trainer, for accounting faculties of all Colleges of Technology (CoTs) in Muscat on 25 February 2019. The key presenter was Ms Fazeela Gopalini, (FCCA, MBA), the head of education Middle East – ACCA. Four Accounting faculty members of the Business Studies Department, Mr Jayakumar Aswathman, Mr Arun Lal, Mrs Laly Antoney and Mr Vinod Repalli represented Ibri College of Technology in the workshop. The workshop was organised in the context of benchmarking of accounting qualifications of CoTs with the ACCA qualification of the UK. Ms Fazeela trained the participants on the learning strategies to be adopted in accounting classes to the students of millennial cohorts.
