A batch of 27 Bachelor of Telecommunication Engineering students, along with Mr R Devasenathipathy, visited Omantel Ibri on 18 February 2019 between 9am and 1pm.
Mr Yasin, the operation head, addressed the students and introduced them to Omantel’s landline and broadband connections. The objective of this visit was to provide and show the real-time operations and maintenance of Omantel’s telecommunication systems to the students of the Telecommunications course.
It was a four-hour visit to the Ibri earth station and telecommunication exchange. Mr Younis presented the operations, maintenance activities and plans of Omantel, Ibri branch earth station. Mr Younis also introduced the officials of Omantel to the students for interaction. Students actively participated in this interaction and felt very satisfied. After the presentation, the students were taken to the Omantel exchange located on the Ibri Souq road.
Mr Yasin and Mr Younis explained the operations of the old analogue telephone system compared to today’s modern telecommunication system including, the wireless communication system, live on Omantel.
The students visited the entire exchange to observe real-time operations and automatic switching and high-speed transmission devices and their operation. The students collected some samples of various types of cables and wires including fibre optic cable used in the transmission highway. The visit concluded at 1pm with the commitment of future support by Omantel in connection with student training and technical support.
Technical Specifications:
This visit set out the technical specifications of the Omantel network. The ITU-T recommendations applied were given as a demonstration. They explained the PNT, Broadband, 2G, 3G and 4G networks. The connection of Omantel’s E1 interfaces with the Requesting Party E1 interfaces using proper over voltage and lightning protection measures were observed. Common earthing for both Omantel and the Requesting Part equipment with E1 interfaces were described.
With regard to internet communication, they gave a clear demonstration about accessing the Internet ADSL, where the broadband connection is routed from the customer connectivity to Omantel aggregation router and further via the Omantel IP backbone and reaches the AAA server at the requesting party’s premises. After authentication, the customer is assigned the required resources for full internet access. The requesting party bills the customer for the service and for the traffic usage. They also described the Omantel data centres connected to Omantel operated cable landing stations and earth station and as such provides access to all Omantel-offered international connectivity services through submarine cables and satellites respectively.
The students were satisfied with the alignment of their course and industrial visit. They were very happy in learning the new things in alignment with the course. The course teachers showed interest in collaborating this course with the industrial visit. The outcome of the visit was to give a clear idea on the latest trends in telecommunication technologies and operations of telecommunication exchange.
In our quest for the provision of quality education and to contribute to the national development endeavours of the Sultanate, this industrial visit finds a way for our students to acquire job market-relevant knowledge and industrial experiences for their future both inside and outside the college.
Students were exposed to the real-time environment of telecommunication. Omantel staff members extended their excellent services during their busy schedule by engaging our students as part of their growth.
As a part of health and safety activities, the Health and Safety Committee organised an awareness programme on road safety for the staff members of the Administrative Department on 7 February 2019 in the VIP room of the administration building.
Dr K. Elangovan Krishnamoorthy, chairman of the Health and Safety Committee, was the speaker for the presentation. The presentation started with the statistics of road traffic accidents in the Sultanate of Oman which shows that accidents are declining due to various measures taken by the Royal Oman Police. He also elaborated on the importance of road safety, primary causes for accidents, and the role of speeding in accidents. The speaker equally stressed the different types of road traffic accidents and collisions due to poor driving habits. He shared some road safety videos to avoid accidents emphasising the importance of wearing seat belts and conducting vehicle safety checks. The programme was well received by the participants with good interaction between the various attendees.
The research committee of the Information Technology Department conducted a seminar on “Cartesian Product of Graphs - A New approach” for mathematics lecturers on 31 January 2019 from 8:30 to 9:30 in Lecture Hall A133. The seminar was presented by Dr Sanal Kumar, lecturer in Mathematics, Information Technology Department. He started the seminar with basic elementary tools available for the operations of graphs and explained the new operations, which he found in his research. He continued and presented analogue mapping of the Cartesian Product of two sub intervals of the real line in a two-dimensional space and the Cartesian product of two graphs. This seminar provided a basic idea to innovate a new research area for the staff interested in pursuing research.
The participants appreciated the seminar, which is evident from their average feedback 4.5 on the scale of 5.0 and expressed their interest to have more of such seminars in the future.
The Information Technology Department, through the Research and Consultancy Committee, conducted the first Information Technology seminar for students on 22 January 2019 in A109. The speaker for the event was Salim Al Badi, Information Technology student from Ibri College of Technology.
The objective of this seminar was to encourage the students to share their technological knowledge between them.
During the seminar, Salim discussed his project which is titled “Light Box Virtual Pen-testing Lab”. He explained in detail the idea of his project and the objectives, which are to enable the security specialist to find vulnerabilities in the web by using legal ways, and to enhance ethical hacking skills. After that he explained the common bugs that may affect web applications based on the Owasp.org website. Furthermore, in the practical part, Salim highlighted how to detect weaknesses by using his web site. In addition, he spoke about the tools that he used to build his project which are: Raspberry pi 3, ethernet cable and modem, and a power supply.
In the end, feedback was collected from members attending the seminar. The majority showed their satisfaction with the arrangements. On the scale of 5, the average feedback was 3.2.
The event ended at 2:10pm and four staff members and five students benefitted from the seminar.
The Risk Management Committee of the Engineering Department organised an awareness programme on “Risk Identification Techniques” on 17 February 2019 from 10 to 11am for students.
Mr Maswoodhur Rahman, Lecturer in the Engineering Department, conducted the programme.
The programme stated with an introduction about the need of risk identification. A brief introduction was given on various steps involved in risk management such as risk identification, risk analysis, risk evaluation, risk treatment and risk monitoring.
A detailed explanation was given on a few risk identification techniques such as the Four Quadrant Scenario Analysis, Structured What If Technique (SWIFT) and Failure Mode Effect Analysis. Practice was given to the students to use the risk register in order to register the identified risk.
All the participants benefited from this programme.
Training Programme on “eLearning Through Multimedia Applications”
Speakers : Mr Brain Gee Chacko
The Staff Development Committee of the Engineering Department organised a training programme on eLearning through multimedia applications on 14 February 2019 from 10 to 11.30am.
Mr Brain Gee Chacko, Lecturer from the Information Technology Department, conducted the programme.
The training session started with an introduction about animation software called “Unity3d”. Initially all the participants were asked to register online to use this software. After registration, the initial settings to be done before starting a project were clearly explained.
A detailed explanation was given on the effective use of the animation tools available in the software to create animations which may be useful to explain various complicated concepts involved in the subjects to the students.
This programme was well received by the staff and highly beneficial to the participants.
The Business Studies Department, represented by Mr Mohammed Al Sakiti, participated in a research-gathering event entitled “Towards Spreading the Culture of Research and Innovation” on Tuesday, 12 February 2019, at the College of Applied Sciences, Suhar.
The main aim of this event was to encourage academics to share their thoughts on different areas of research. The keynote speakers of this event, Dr Shahid Al Balushi and Dr Reynaldo, shared their experiences on how conferences, workshops and symposiums can benefit higher education institutions to promote research activities.
The symposium consisted of three sessions emphasising Arabic and Education studies, Mathematics studies, and Business and Communication studies. At the end of the gathering, certificates of appreciation were given to the keynote speakers and presenters.
The Information Technology Department, through the Research and Consultancy Committee, conducted the first Information Technology seminar for students on 22 January 2019 in A109. The speaker for the event was Salim Al Badi, Information Technology student from Ibri College of Technology.
The objective of this seminar was to encourage the students to share their technological knowledge between them.
During the seminar, Salim discussed his project which is titled “Light Box Virtual Pen-testing Lab”. He explained in detail the idea of his project and the objectives, which are to enable the security specialist to find vulnerabilities in the web by using legal ways, and to enhance ethical hacking skills. After that he explained the common bugs that may affect web applications based on the Owasp.org website. Furthermore, in the practical part, Salim highlighted how to detect weaknesses by using his web site. In addition, he spoke about the tools that he used to build his project which are: Raspberry pi 3, ethernet cable and modem, and a power supply.
In the end, feedback was collected from members attending the seminar. The majority showed their satisfaction with the arrangements. On the scale of 5, the average feedback was 3.2.
The event ended at 2:10pm and four staff members and five students benefitted from the seminar.
The research committee of the Information Technology Department conducted a seminar on “Cartesian Product of Graphs - A New approach” for mathematics lecturers on 31 January 2019 from 8:30 to 9:30 in Lecture Hall A133. The seminar was presented by Dr Sanal Kumar, lecturer in Mathematics, Information Technology Department. He started the seminar with basic elementary tools available for the operations of graphs and explained the new operations, which he found in his research. He continued and presented analogue mapping of the Cartesian Product of two sub intervals of the real line in a two-dimensional space and the Cartesian product of two graphs. This seminar provided a basic idea to innovate a new research area for the staff interested in pursuing research.
The participants appreciated the seminar, which is evident from their average feedback 4.5 on the scale of 5.0 and expressed their interest to have more of such seminars in the future.
The student Research Committee of the Business Studies Department conducted a workshop on “Sampling Techniques” on 12 February 2019 from 12 to 1pm in A204 for the senior/graduation project students. The purpose of the workshop was to give training to the students on sampling design, sampling size and application of sampling techniques that they may apply to their current projects.
Dr Ansarul Haque, coordinator, Students Research Committee, welcomed the project students and resource persons of the workshop, Mr Muhammed Faisal and Mr Asif Mahmood.
The workshop was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, Mr Muhammed Faisal discussed the sampling techniques mostly used for HR projects. He elaborated how students can design the sample and sample size for their respective studies. Further, he explained this by using some of the project titles as samples.
In the next stage of training, Mr Asif Mahmood explained how sampling techniques can be used for the projects in Accounting Specialisation. He further added how the studies can be conducted in the areas of accounting and finance considering secondary data.
The faculty and students who attended this session showed their enthusiasm by participating in the discussion and requested for more such training sessions to be conducted in future.
The workshop ended at 1pm with a vote of thanks by Dr Ansarul Haque.
