Integrated eLearning solution for United Arab Emirates schools

Portal development for the UAE educational system

In United Arab Emirates, SIVECO Romania in partnership with Microsoft, ITQAN (UAE) and ITWorx (Egypt) have implemented a national educational portal, representing the world’s largest deployment of SharePoint 2007 servicing over 30,000 students. The portal provides students, parents, administrative personnel of the United Arab Emirates and the general public with online information accessible from anywhere.

Free access to the portal encourages a good communication among the parties involved and, at the same time, sustains the transparent transfer of information. The portal offers a set of applications fit for the dissemination of educational information and services, with potential to offer increased benefits to the community.

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

• 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.

• Students, parents and general public
  They have access to on-line information conveniently, consistently, irrespective of their physical location.
• Teachers and Schools staff
  With the introduction of registration and member services it became possible to facilitate the interaction between students, parents, teachers, school administration personnel.
  In addition there is the capability to support governance through MOE-School interaction
• MOE staff (access to secure 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.
• Support for future extensions to provide collaboration and information services for private organizations and other government agencies.
• The Gateway will serve as a channel for government organizations in order to support communication and cooperation among them.

eContent development for the UAE educational system

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

The main objective of the project 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.

SIVECO’s solutions for improving the education in UAE:

• An extensive repository of 3,200 interactive learning objects, integrated with the existing portal of Ministry of Education in UAE.
• Access for students and teachers to the most exciting collection of animations, movies, simulations, exercises and experiments based on Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geography.
• 1,200 learning objects both in English and Arabic (total of 2,400 objects), perfectly translated and localized for the United Arab Emirates culture and curriculum, with the help of local specialists*.
• 800 learning objects in English, specially designed to remove the need for additional pre-university training.
• Face-to-face training of teachers in information technology and eLearning software usage, for 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.

* 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 follow the country’s cultural and educational background.

The long-term vision of Ministry of Education of 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 to better face the challenges of the modern society and acquire specific skills needed for the 21st century in order to contribute to the development of the community.