IT COLLEGE AT A GLANCE

Transcription

1 JUNE 2012 IT COLLEGE AT A GLANCE VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 Dr. Sulaiman Al Jassim in IT Students Expo Week FACULTY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE DR. ABDALLAH TUBAISHAT (CHAIR) EDITORS: DR. MANAR ABU TALIB DR. EMAD BATAINEH DR. ZAKARIA MAAMAR EDITOR ASSISTANT: BRITT MITCHELL YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN US! FEEDBACK? We encourage you to share with us: - Your recently accepted research papers. - Upcoming IT events and conferences. - Interesting extracurricular activities. - Research seminar topics. - Others Message from Dr. Larry Wilson Dear Students, Faculty, Staff and Friends of the College of Information Technology: It is a pleasure to welcome you to this issue of the IT College at a Glance. In looking through the contents of this issue, I am very impressed with the depth and range of activities in which students and faculty are engaged, and in the amazing recognition that you have received for your accomplishments, both locally and regionally. Mabrouk! It is clear to me that the CIT is a college on the move as a leader in the use of information technology to enhance learning both within the College and beyond. It is also refreshing to see articles concerning leadership, cloud computing and cyber security, all areas of great importance the UAE and to the world. Your activity in these fields bodes well for the College as you launch your new initiatives as the College of Technological Innovation where we will rely on your leadership and guidance in improving still further the education and research activities for which Zayed University is rapidly becoming known as the university of the 21st century. And, I add, that the CIT has been a leading college at ZU in building community through your several social events. Shukran to everyone. Larry Wilson, Provost. this issue Message from Dr. Larry Wilson P.1 Faculty/Staff Gathering This Month P.2 Upcoming IT Events and Conferences P.2 IT College News P.3 IT Students Expo Week P.5

2 JUNE 2012 IT COLLEGE AT A GLANCE VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 s Upcoming IT Events and Conferences POTLUCK PARTY Let s get together and have some fun before summer vacation. Place: FF AUH R L1-075 DXB Date: Wednesday 13 th June 2012 Time: 12:00 onwards

3 IT College News JUNE 2012 VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 College of IT Receives Two Awards The College of Information Technology is the recipient of two awards in the 2012 GIS Workshops and Exhibitions for Esri Users (GISWORX 2012, that were held at Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai, May 1-3, The award ceremony was attended by many high-profile people from different public and private organizations. The first award, Excellence in GIS Implementation, recognizes organizations that promote innovation and experimentation in GIS implementation and integration of GIS programs into curricula. The second award was presented for Maryam Mohamed Abdulla Mohamed, a student in the College of IT who won the first prize in GISWORX Mobile Developer Challenge (GMDC). Maryam developed a Mobile GIS app called Green Future that, among other things, makes people aware of the challenges of inappropriate handling of e-waste. Maryam was supervised by two CIT faculty: Dr. Zakaria Maamar and Dr. Mario Guimaraes. IEEE UAE STUDENT DAY 2012 IEEE UAE Student Day 2012 Two groups of students, under the supervision of Dr. Manar Abu Talib, participated in the Seventh IEEE UAE Student Day that was hosted by HCT on May 12 th. The students had the chance to meet with other students from different universities from the UAE such as Petroleum Institute, Manipal, AUST, AUD, AUD, UAEU, Khalifa University, Ajman University, HCT, University of Sharjah, BITS Pilani, etc. They had the pleasure to share their learning experiences with a group of experts, faculty members and the Vice Chancellor Dr. Tayeb Kamali, who was pleased to see representatives of from Zayed University participating in this important event.

4 IT College News JUNE 2012 VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 Cryptography Conference On May 20th a number of our security students, under the supervision of Dr. Andrew, Dr. Huwida and Dr. Maurice, attended a lecture at a conference on Cryptography that was hosted by Khalifa University. The conference was aimed at professionals and researchers in the field of cryptography. However it included a lecture suitable for undergraduate students on Cryptography in general by the famous Professor Fred Piper. This was the part that was of interest to our students. Professor Fred Piper is Professor of Mathematics at the University of London since 1975 and has worked in Information Security since He has lectured worldwide on information security, both academically and commercially, has published more than 100 papers and is joint author of Cipher Systems (1982), one of the first books to be published on the subject of protection of communications, Secure Speech Communications (1985), Digital Signatures Security & Controls (1999) and Cryptography: A Very Short Introduction (2002). Professor Piper s talk was on practical issues related to cryptography, not on theory. So, all the students I feel were able to follow him, and benefitted from his ideas. He presented a number of thoughtprovoking questions. For example he discussed the conflict between privacy and encryption. He said that encryption makes privacy easier to achieve. But he said it's two sided - it prevents intelligence gathering by law enforcement in certain situations. He said that this raises the question of whether we all have the same equal rights to privacy. Should the police possess technology capable of breaking encryption codes so they can prove their case? Many might argue that they should have that right in such obvious cases where it helps catch and convict a paedophile or helps prevent a terrorist attack. FACULTY NEWS Dr. Omar Al Fandi participated in the NTMS 2012 conference ( and served as a session chair of MWN3: Wireless Security & Advances in Wireless Networking. In his paper entitled A Novel Indirect Trust-based Link State Routing Scheme using a Robust Route Trust Method for Wireless Sensor Networks, he used the help of a Geometrical Mean based indirect trust evaluation mechanism to calculate trust of individual nodes and thereby use the calculated trusts for determination of the different route trusts (RTs). Based only on these indirect trusts, he presented a link state routing protocol which forms the routes and finds the best trustworthy route among them by comparing the values of all the calculated route trusts as for each route present in the network. He developed three algorithms related to this and showed their merits. Finally, he compared his work with similar trust integrated routing protocols and showed its advantages over them.

5 IT College News JUNE 2012 VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 IT College Executive Leadership Series ITSA, under the supervision of Dr. Munir Majdalawieh and Dr. Emad Bataineh, is organizing an executive leadership series. The first event took place May 24 th. Mr. Qais Gharaibeh, SAP Managing Director, UAE delivered a talk about Building a Successful Career in Information Technology. Building a successful career requires a combination of skills, knowledge and mindset. Information Technology is a wide sector with many exciting career options. According to Mr. Qais As a student in this field, you have a unique opportunity to be a pioneer in this domain: equip your mind with knowledge, be passionate about what you learn, believe in yourself and develop your skills to match and evolve your career path and every time you look in the mirror you will be looking at one of the next great leaders in this ever evolving industry. FACULTY NEWS Dr. Manar Abu Talib was an invited speaker at a conference on Social Research at the Emirate Center For Strategic Studies and Research. She spoke about the use of Open Source Software to enhance social research in the UAE. Arwa Al Nauimi and a number of our IT students also attended this conference on May 29 th. Internship Opportunities The college invited Mr. Ayman Zghool, the Head of Network and Support section, Mrs. Noha Yahya, the IT manager and Mr. Mohamad Badran, the Head of e-government section from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development to discuss internship opportunities for IT students on May 24 th.

6 JUNE 2012 IT Students Expo Week VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 The College of IT, under the planning and coordination of Dr. May El Barachi, hosted the second annual IT Students Expo week event, which took place from May 13th to May 17th, in the Abu Dhabi Female Promenade Area. The event featured an assortment of booths, in which IT students showcased projects and activities related to various courses they took in the college. In addition to the students booths, there were three vendors that showcased interesting products and gave informative lectures. Overall, the event was very successful and attracted a lot of attention from pre-major students and the ZU community at large. Here are some of the highlights of the event: 1. A total of 26 booths were setup and manned by our students, including: Security Awareness booths Network Security & Ethical Hacking booths Multimedia Design & Game Development booths Mobile, Cloud, and Green Computing booths PC Assembly & Web Development booths 2. Three booths were setup for our invited vendors, namely: Merlin s Computers (Cool computer gadgets) GraphEast (Adobe authorized distributor) EnviroServe (Recycling Company) 3. Two lectures were given to the ZU community: A tutorial on Adobe CS6 features and usage, by Mr. Zaid Hilali, from GraphEast A lecture on the importance of recycling, by Ms. Nirmala Gilbert, from EnviroServe 4. An Electronic waste collection area was setup as part of the green computing booth. The collection of electronics is still ongoing for the coming two weeks, after which, EnviroServe will pick up the collected items for recycling purposes. 5. A large number of students and ZU community members visited our booths throughout the week, and interacted with our students. Furthermore, Dr. Suleiman Al Jassim paid us a visit on Wednesday, May 16 th. 6. Two booths were setup by our students clubs (the Techno Club and the Robotics Club) as a fun way to close the event, and an aerial view photo of all participants was taken as a souvenir. Finally, the college would like to thank its students for their enthusiasm, efforts, and creativity that made this event a success. Special thanks to CIT faculty members who supervised those students and encouraged them to participate in this event, namely: Dr. Maurice Danaher, Mr. Peter Cox, Dr. Brad Young, Dr. Omar AlFandi, Dr. Ibrahim Baggili, Dr. Abdallah Tubaishat, Dr. Manar Abu Talib, Dr. Patrick Doran, and Dr. May El Barachi. Many thanks to Ms. Mona Bader, Mr. Izzeddin Asad and Ms. Arwa Al Nauimi for their valuable support. Last but not least, we would like to thank Dr. Anthony Rhodes and Dr. Leon Jololian for their support, guidance, and encouragement in relation to this event.

7 Security Awareness Multimedia Design, Game Development, Network Security, Ethical Hacking and PC Assembly.

8 IT Students Expo Week JUNE 2012 VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 Web Development, Mobile, Cloud, and Green Computing

9 JUNE 2012 IT Students Expo Week VOLUME #1 ISSUE #5 Techno Club and Robotics Club Merlin s Computers, GraphEast and EnviroServe IT College At A Glance AN OPPORTUNITY TO INFORM AND SHARE INFORMATION It s your TURN!