Integrated eLearning solution for United Arab Emirates schools

Premises

In the current knowledge-based economy, education is the key resource for ensuring success at global level. The Ministry of Education in United Arab Emirates recognized the importance of education and is prepared make a long-term investment for developing its educational system and to provide all students free and equal access to education, in order to develop the skills needed to better face the challenges of the modern society.

The long-term vision of the Ministry of Education of United Arab Emirates (UAE) is to ensure that the educational system follows the universal educational standards and prepares students for a beneficial and productive life. The education strategy also aims at supporting students to develop new abilities and skills to better face the challenges of the modern society, in order to contribute to the development of the community.

Description of the solution

1. Development of an Educational Portal for the UAE educational system

SIVECO Romania, in partnership with Microsoft, ITQAN (UAE) and ITWorx (Egypt), has implemented a national educational portal in the United Arab Emirates, representing the world's largest deployment of SharePoint 2007 tehnology, servicing over 30,000 students. The portal provides students, parents, administrative personnel of the United Arab Emirates and also the general public with online information regarding the educational process.

The free access to the portal encourages an efficient communication among the parties involved and ensures at the same time the transparent transfer of information. The portal offers a set of applications fit for the dissemination of educational information and educational services, aiming at offering increased benefits to the community.

The solution is based on Microsoft Connected Education Framework, providing an extensible and flexible solution and laying the foundation for future developments. The Educational Portal is able to interface with a gateway, exposing the Ministry of Education and other relevant government organizations to online users from a single access point. The solution architecture follows the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design patterns.

General features of the Portal:

• web-based, Microsoft Connected Education Framework
• flexible and extensible, laying the foundation for support of future developments
• the Education Portal is capable of interfacing with a gateway, which exposes the Ministry of Education and other relevant government organizations to online users from a single access point
• stores Enterprise records, such as the schools from UAE, students, Ministries employees or businesses in UAE
• solution architecture follows the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design patterns
• solution based on workflows, by using InfoPath forms that are hosted inside of Microsoft Office system client applications, as well as on the server

The Portal beneficiaries are:

• students, parents and general public - they have permanent access to on-line information, from anywhere
• the teachers and schools' staff - by introducing the registration facilities and member services, the interaction between students, parents, teachers and school administration staff has been facilitated
• MOE staff (they have access to secured member areas) - the Gateway provides a collection of common services and tools that enable MOE departments to deliver e-Government Services on the MOE Portal and other channels
• other businesses and the education industry in general.

2. eContent development for the UAE educational system

The second phase of the implementation of the national education strategy consisted in developing a project for supporting the teaching and learning process in public schools by the use of digital learning objects. Thus, in 2008, the IT Department within the Ministry of Education of the United Arab Emirates chose SIVECO Romania as a partner in developing this project.

The project main objective was to contribute to the development and modernization of the education system and to enhance the use of information technology in the process of teaching/learning in pre-university education.

The educational solution offered by SIVECO Romania was designed as an additional tool for teachers and students, according to a methodology that specifically targets the advantages of information technology in education and maps computer usage to classroom practices.

Why eContent from SIVECO Romania?

• To improve the learning performance and increase the quality of education in UAE, in accordance with the Ministry of Education national strategy.
• To provide a new approach in computer-based education for the students and teachers in United Arab Emirates.

The characteristics of the eLearning solution provided by SIVECO Romania

• Provides an extensive repository of 7,000 interactive learning objects, integrated with the existing portal of Ministry of Education in UAE.
• Offers access for students and teachers to the largest and most attractive collection of animations, movies, simulations, exercises and experiments based for Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geography subjects.
• The content was translated both in English and Arabic, being perfectly localized for the United Arab Emirates culture and curriculum, with the help of local specialists. SIVECO Romania benefited from the full support and the involvement of the local teachers and the IT department from the Ministry of Education in the process of creating custom eContent. As a result, the interactive lessons developed comply with the country's cultural and educational background.
• The learning objects translated in English were designed to remove the need for additional pre-university training.
• Training sessions for teachers and administrative staff in more than 100 schools for IT&C tools and eLearning software usage, with the purpose of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning process.
• Reassign a central role of teachers in the education system, emphasizing that the quality of education is directly linked to how well teachers are prepared for teaching.