General guidelines for designing bilingual low cost digital library services suitable for special library users in developing countries and the Arabic speaking world

The World is witnessing a considerable transformation from print based-formats to elec-tronic-based formats thanks to advanced computing technology, which has a profound impact on the dissemination of nearly all previous formats of publications into digital formats on computer networks. Text, still and moving images, sound tracks, music, and almost all known formats can be stored and retrieved on computer magnetic disk. Over the last two decades, a number of special libraries and information centres in the Arab world have introduced electronic resources into their library services. Very few have implemented automated and integrated systems. Despite the im-portance of designing digital libraries not merely for accessing to or retrieval of information but rather for the provision of electronic services, hardly any special library has started the design of digital library services. Managers of special libraries and information centres in developing countries in general and in the Arab world in particular should start building their local digital libraries, as the benefit of establishing such electronic services is considerably massive and well known for expansion of re-search activities and for delivering services that satisfy the needs of targeted end-users. The aim of this paper is to provide general guideline for design of special low cost digital library providing ser-vices that are most frequently required by various categories of special library users in developing countries. This paper also aims at illustrating strategies and method approaches that can be adopted for building such projects. Seeing the importance of designing an inexpensive digital li-brary as basic principle for the design accordingly, the utilisation of today's ICTs and freely avail-able open sources software is the right path for accomplishing such goal. The paper intends to de-scribe the phases and stages required for building such projects from scratch. It also aims at high-lighting the barriers and obstacles facing Arabic content and how could such problems overcome

Why economic growth has been weak in Arab countries: The role of exogenous shocks, economic policy failure and institutional deficiencies

The gap between the per capita income of most Arab countries and that of advanced industrial countries has widened since the early 1990s. The economic growth performance of the Arab world has been weak by developing country standards, too. Yet, the diversity of growth patterns within this group defies easy generalizations on the reasons underlying the disappointing performance. In some cases, country-specific shocks played a role, notably for relatively high growth in Sudan (discovery of oil) and the poor performance of Jordan (embargo on neighboring Iraq). On the whole, however, influences beyond the immediate control of Arab policymakers contribute surprisingly little to the explanation of growth patterns. The relation between terms-of-trade developments and economic growth turns out to be extremely weak. Moreover, the IMF and the World Bank are hardly to blame for imposing ineffective policy conditionality on Arab countries, if only because the leverage of international financial institutions has remained limited in the region. Economic policy failure in Arab countries appears to be a more important reason for poor growth. Even though the region has partly fallen into line with the Washington Consensus, various Arab countries lag behind other developing countries when it comes to trimming the interventionist role of the state and integrating themselves into the global division of labor through trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). Nevertheless, the relation between macroeconomic conditions, factor accumulation as well as trade and FDI liberalization on the one hand and economic growth on the other hand remains elusive. This may be because reforms have not gone far enough and have remained fragmentary even in Arab countries with a relatively favorable growth performance. It can neither be ruled out, however, that some elements of the Washington Consensus have been less effective than widely expected in promoting growth. For example, the enclave character of FDI in some Arab countries is rather unlikely to spur per capita income growth. This implies that country-specific conditions deserve close attention when designing economic policy reforms. In Arab countries with low per capita income, domestic resource mobilization appears to be more important than attracting FDI. Even in more advanced countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, continued efforts towards human capital formation are key to sustainable growth. Furthermore, policy-related variables and economic growth depend on more deeply rooted institutional deficiencies. Institutions in many Arab countries are less advanced than their income level would suggest. The experience of several oil exporters in the region supports the proposition that the abundance of oil encourages rent-seeking and exerts a negative impact on economic growth via its deleterious impact on institutional development. As a consequence, economic policy reforms along the lines of the Washington Consensus are not sufficient to improve the growth prospects of Arab countries. The call for institutional reforms mainly applies to resource-rich countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, notwithstanding their different growth performance in the past. It may prove difficult for these countries to overcome the natural resource curse, but the successful transformation of a country like Mexico from an oildependent to a highly diversified economy with more advanced institutions may show Arab countries the way. --

Moving to E-CRM in Arab world to increase profit, AqsaCRM a case study of Building an Arabic E-CRM

There is hundreds of software that implement CRM methodology, but there are no Arabic complete solutions till now except a few products for big companies like Microsoft, so it is a big challenge to Arab world to benefit form CRM concept and implement theirs software to benefit from it. This paper aimed to discuss the difference between traditional marketing 4Ps and the new generation of marketing 4Cs, and then to explain what does CRM mean, its definition, features, and how to implement E-CRM success fully, how CRM increase profit to companies using it. A Case study will be presented about designing and implementing an Arabic ECRM, we have developed the necessary database schema and structure to support a web-based CRM system and front-end portal for both the clients and employees to access, input, and transfer information.CRM, informatics, marketing

Exploring Participatory Design Methods to Engage with Arab Communities

ArabHCI is an initiative inaugurated in CHI17 SIG Meeting that brought together 45+ HCI Arab and non-Arab researchers/practitioners who are conducting/interested in HCI within Arab communities. The goal of this workshop is to start dialogs that leverage our "insider" understanding of HCI research in the Arab context and assert our culture identity in design in order to explore challenges and opportunities for future research. In this workshop, we focus on one of the themes that derived our community discussions in most of the held events. We explore the extent to which participatory approaches in the Arab context are culturally and methodologically challenged. Our goal is to bring researchers/practitioners with success and failure stories while designing with Arab communities to discuss methods, share experiences and learned lessons. We plan to share the results of our discussions and research agenda with the wider CHI community through different social and scholarly channels

Culture in the design of mHealth UI:An effort to increase acceptance among culturally specific groups

Purpose: Designers of mobile applications have long understood the importance of users’ preferences in making the user experience easier, convenient and therefore valuable. The cultural aspects of groups of users are among the key features of users’ design preferences, because each group’s preferences depend on various features that are culturally compatible. The process of integrating culture into the design of a system has always been an important ingredient for effective and interactive human computer interface. This study aims to investigate the design of a mobile health (mHealth) application user interface (UI) based on Arabic culture. It was argued that integrating certain cultural values of specific groups of users into the design of UI would increase their acceptance of the technology. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 135 users responded to an online survey about their acceptance of a culturally designed mHealth. Findings: The findings showed that culturally based language, colours, layout and images had a significant relationship with users’ behavioural intention to use the culturally based mHealth UI. Research limitations/implications: First, the sample and the data collected of this study were restricted to Arab users and Arab culture; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to other cultures and users. Second, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model was used in this study instead of the new version, which may expose new perceptions. Third, the cultural aspects of UI design in this study were limited to the images, colours, language and layout. Practical implications: It encourages UI designers to implement the relevant cultural aspects while developing mobile applications. Originality/value: Embedding Arab cultural aspects in designing UI for mobile applications to satisfy Arab users and enhance their acceptance toward using mobile applications, which will reflect positively on their lives.</p

Customization in Designing a Course for Interpreter Training

This article deals with the notion of customization for the purpose of conference interpreter training. Two years ago a new MA level programme in Interpreting and Translation was created at the School of Languages and International Studies, University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK. At the beginning of the third year of teaching on the programme, the author attempts to analyse the course design to find out if the course can be tailored to meet an individual student‟s needs while at the same time ensuring that the students are taught all the key modules. All the modules that are directly relevant to practising interpreting skills are presented and carefully analysed. The author is also interested in the process of intercultural communication between students from the respective language streams on the course (so far, in alphabetical order, Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Polish) and the influence it could have on the students‟ co-operation within the course. Another important background question is related to the impact customisation in the course design could potentially have on the alumni‟s employability and in what way the programme actually prepares students for their future professional lives. Conclusions and evaluation form the last part of the article

PROMOTING OUTCOME BASED LEARNING (OBL) IN A LINGUISTICS COURSE

Teaching and learning linguistics in higher education is very important especially for English students because of learning language aspects. Linguistics is a course learnt by English students in Department of English Education. In the process of teaching and learning linguistics, the lecturers should focus on the outcome of the learning. They do not only demonstrate how to understand the branches of linguistics such as morphology, semantics, discourse but they also should be able to make a successful teaching and learning. One of the ways is by applying Outcome Based Learning (OBL) which is rarely applied. This approach covers three basic elements: designing the course intended learning outcomes, designing teaching and learning activities, and designing assessment. That is why the literature study is used to know whether OBL can be a potential approach in teaching and learning a linguistics course in Department of English Education. This article focuses on how OBL contributes in the teaching and learning a linguistics course

An investigation into hotel group and luxury fashion designer collaborations

This article is a preliminary exploration, aiming to identify the drivers of a plethora of developments led by luxury fashion designers. It was found that both luxury fashion designers and the hotel companies realised a strategic fit between brands and products offer, based on the consumer demand for the luxury experience. One common motive amongst the two industries was to capitalise on each other’s brand reputation, particularly known for its capability to provide quality and luxury products. This article also identified that the Chinese market has the potential to grow and could be a lucrative location into which to expand the luxury fashion designers’ hotel concept

Against Marrying a Stranger Marital Matchmaking Technologies in Saudi Arabia

Websites and applications that match and connect individuals for romantic purposes are commonly used in the Western world. However, there have not been many previous investigations focusing on cultural factors that affect the adoption of similar technologies in religiously conservative non-Western cultures. In this study, we examine the socio-technical and cultural factors that influence the perceptions and use of matchmaking technologies in Saudi Arabia. We report the methods and findings of interviews with 18 Saudi nationals (nine males and nine females) with diverse demographics and backgrounds. We provide qualitatively generated insights into the major themes reported by our participants related to the common approaches to matchmaking, the current role of technology, and concerns regarding matchmaking technologies in this cultural con-text. We relate these themes to specific implications for designing marital matchmaking technologies in Saudi Arabia and we outline opportunities for future investigations.Comment: 11 pages, 1 table, DIS 201