Professional Development (PD) at the Colleges of Technology in Oman: An Inquiry into English Language Centres’ Staff Perceptions of their PD, PD Needs, Current PD Provision and PD Enhancement

This study investigated the nature of professional development (PD) of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) lecturers at the Colleges of Technology (CoTs) in Oman. The study aimed to explore how the staff of English Language Centres (ELCs), that is, both EFL lecturers and administrative staff, perceive PD and their PD needs. It also explores their views regarding the current PD provision and PD enhancement in the same context. There was a need for the issue to be further explored and understood since research regarding this issue has not yet been undertaken. Most of the conducted studies in Oman have focused on the pre-tertiary education (secondary schools) system but few have been conducted to investigate EFL lecturers’ PD in the tertiary education context, and none have been conducted in the Omani technical education system. The study utilised a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews. Following empirical analysis of 81 questionnaires answered by participants from the ELC academic staff, 3 focus group interviews and 12 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 of the EFL academic staff and 6 members of the administrative staff. The findings suggested that although participants hold different views of the professional development needed by EFL teachers, the lecturers here were likely to instantly recognise the PD practised in the ELCs as a model in which one or a group of administrative staff decides on the content to be delivered and the participants are largely passive recipients of this. They believe that a top-down approach like this can be seen as an imposition by administrators who focus on the skills that they (the administrators) think teachers need to upgrade. The nature of the current PD system seems to negatively affect the success of PD in the CoTs, which, as participants indicated, does not respond to teachers’ individual needs. The results also indicated that participants of the current study classified their needs mainly into teacher-related needs, where pedagogical content knowledge needs were discussed, and student-related needs, where the lecturers expressed their desire to understand concerns related to their students and some of their students’ psychological aspects. The perceived PD needs of the EFL lecturers included aspects of teaching skills and methods, language improvement, and instruction in ESP. The findings also revealed that teachers in ELCs had limited experience of PD practices in comparison to the other educational and private sectors. While they experienced some learning opportunities through participating in formal structured activities, such as training sessions, workshops, observations, and occasionally one- or two-day symposiums, these models are still unresponsive to the continuous demands of teachers to be professionally developed. Finally, the participants’ multidimensional conception of PD enhancement at the CoTs was revealed. These dimensions were on a macro-level where they proposed a reform in which clear PD plans and strategies are applied. Within this macro-level, participants suggested that the reform should include, but not be limited to, applying micro-level approaches of alternative PD models for staff PD, offering effective PD opportunities, providing staff with ongoing support, exploring technology as a PD resource, and raising awareness of life-long career development. The thesis concludes by presenting practical and theoretical implications for ELC administrators, PD coordinators, and lecturers. It emphasises the need to create PD opportunities that promote teachers’ collaboration, and more systemic approaches that provide effective PD are necessary. Also, the academic and non-teaching staff members’ voice should be considered when planning PD. In addition, PD course designers need to identify the suitable preparations required to best sustain and match the demands of teaching in such a technical context

New Perspective on Portfolios in EFL Classrooms: Portfolio as an Autobiographical Text

This paper aims to define the term “portfolio” and its application in classrooms. Through reflecting on my personal experience with using the portfolio project with EFL students and exploring the related literature, some major challenges will be addressed. The main focus of this paper is to introduce the autobiographical approach in curriculum as an attempt to find new pathways to deal with these challenges

The parliamentary experience in the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States : a step towards democracy; facts and ambitions

Literature on legislatures in developing countries shows two opposing views on their effectiveness and efficiency. In the light of these views, this study chronicles the rise of the GCC States' assemblies, focusing on their role, structure, legitimacy and mechanism, as well as their relevance and contributions to the GCC States' political system. Studying national assemblies is important for understanding the GCC democratic experience, in which the assemblies played a pivotal and positive role.This study leads to the conclusion that despite the fact that the constitutional framework of the GCC States imposes limitations on the functions of the assemblies, they laid the groundwork for institutionalising the legitimacy of the political system of the GCC States, allowing room for various groups to participate in the policy process. Indeed, the GCC parliamentary experience can be appreciated when it is viewed as part of a political system aimed to reduce GCC State's vulnerability and contain external and internal threat. However, viewing the experience in the context of the Islamic teaching and from the perspective of Western democratic principles, the relevance and contribution of the GCC States' legislatures is not only elusive and intangible, but insignificant and undemocratic

Food safety policy and management : a case study of implementing the HACCP system in the fish industry in the Sultanate of Oman

Oman is one of the most important countries engaged in fishing in the Middle East. Fishing and agriculture have been traditional Omani occupations and sources of food and employment for the people in Oman. Over the last 40 years, many major food-importing countries have established strict hygiene regulations and legislation, including definitive standards for fishery products. Many countries exporting fishery products, particularly developing ones, did not have the mechanisms in place to meet such requirements. This led to rejection of consignments and economic losses, a fate suffered by Oman in 1997.Since 1997 Oman, has adopted a preventive approach to food safety, inspired by Council Directive 91/493/EEC and Commission Decision 94/356/EC. The acronym HACCP (standing for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) denotes the management philosophy and family of techniques employed to implement the preventive approach.In the light of these factors, it was considered important in this study to examine, through case studies, the extent to which HACCP principles and associated practices were being applied within the fish industry. Thus the difficulties of their application in practice would be assessed, and their reception in the fish processing industry reviewed. To meet this gap in knowledge, a survey was designed and carried out in all Omani regions. Such a study would determine the problems, as seen by the industry, that obstruct the proper implementation of HACCP.The aim of this study is to explore the process of HACCP implementation in the Omani food sector, using the seafood processing sector as a case study. To carry out this study, a triangulation method was employed to collect and validate both qualitative and quantitative data. A questionnaire was employed as the main method of data collection supplemented by semi-structured interviews of key-informants together with the application of a checklist against existing practices in the plants.The analysis of the food safety policy and management in Oman, in relation to the food industry as a whole, reveals that most problems experienced are those related to: a poorly developed institutional and legal framework; weak technical regulations; ill-defined inspection and approval procedures; lack of skilled staff for inspection and laboratory testing; many sub-standard processing factories; and the absence of adequate infrastructure for fish marketing.At the level of individual businesses, fish processing strategies for HACCP system implementation were investigated. The findings of this study are that most Omani fish processors are focused primarily on the development of their HACCP plans. Although developing of the HACCP plan is a fundamental part of the HACCP process, it is not widely understood among managers that this is just the beginning. The implementation and sustaining of a HACCP system can be a difficult and time-consuming mission. The study attributes this weakness to three main elements: poor training of personnel; shortcomings in prerequisite programmes; and a lack of commitment to maintenance of HACCP

Designs of low delay cosine modulated filter banks and subband amplifiers

This paper proposes a design of a low delay cosine modu-lated filter bank and subband amplifier coefficients for digi-tal audio hearing aids denoising applications. The objective of the design is to minimize the delay of the filter bank. Speci-fications on the maximum magnitude of both the real and the imaginary parts of the transfer function distortion and the aliasing distortion of the filter bank are imposed. Also, the constraint on the maximum absolute difference between the desirable magnitude square response and the designed mag-nitude square response of the prototype filter over both the passband and the stopband is considered. The subband am-plifier coefficients are designed based on a least squares training approach. The average mean square errors between the noisy samples and the clean samples is minimized. Com-puter numerical simulation results show that our proposed approach could significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of digital audio hearing aids

Modulation of NMDA Receptor Currents in Rat Substantia Nigra

Dopamine receptor signalling is essential for normal basal ganglia function but in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) substantia nigra (SNc) dopaminergic (DAergic) neurons degenerate with consequent loss of dopamine signalling. SNc DAergic neurons express D2 autoreceptors (D2Rs) that have been shown to mediate inhibition of NMDA responses in both hippocampus and striatum while Gascoupled adenosine A2A receptors (A2ARs) have the potential to counteract the action of Gai -coupled D2Rs. Here I tested whether D2R activation with ropinirole, a D2 receptor agonist currently used in PD therapy, modulates DAergic neuron NMDA responses in the SNc along with other proteins in the cell. Whole-cell patch clamp recordings were made from DAergic neurons in the SNc of acute midbrain slices from young (P7, P21 and P28) rats. DAergic neurons were identified by the presence of a prominent hyperpolarisation-activated inward current (in P7 rats, amplitude, 178 ± 5 pA; activation time constant, 797 ± 77 ms; mean ± SEM, N = 19) in response to a voltage step from -60 to -120 mV. In P7 and P28 rats, upon application of 200 nM ropinirole, the steady state NMDA current was not significantly changed suggesting D2-R activation may not modulate NMDARs in neonatal rat SNc. In addition, an A2AR agonist, CGS21680, and an A2AR antagonist, SCH 58621 were applied in the presence and absence of ropinirole to test for any A2AR – D2R interaction. Upon A2A-R activation, the NMDA-R current increased (P = 0.002, N = 16). Furthermore, to establish the effects of PKA on NMDA-R responses, 2.5µM Forskolin was introduced. It produced a statistically significant increase in NMDA-R current (NMDA: 419 ± 78pA; NMDA+ Forskolin: 515 ± 54pA, N=13). To determine whether the lack of effect of the D2-R agonist on NMDA-R response might be due to a low resting concentration of cAMP in the cell, forskolin was introduced to increase the levels of cAMP prior to introducing ropinirole. However, following addition of D2-R agonist after forskolin treatment, the NMDA-R current changed by only 11% (N=12). Intracellular tyrosine kinases, Src and Fyn have shown modulatory potential on NMDA-Receptors (NMDA-R) that is governed by the balance between kinase and phosphatase activity. Inhibiting Src kinase activity with PP2 and Src-I1 decreased the NMDA-R inward current however no such effect was seen in the presence of the interfering peptides suggesting a lack of direct interaction between Src/Fyn kinase and NMDA-Rs. Furthermore, ERK1/2 inhibitor, Ulixertinib, decreased the NMDA-R current suggesting an involvement in receptor modulation. Similar results were obtained in the presence of a CaMKII inhibitor CN21

Investigating the Performance of Data Complexity & Instance Hardness Measures as A Meta-Feature in Overlapping Classes Problem

Open Access via the ACM Agreemen

Stability and Accuracy of Feature Selection Methods on Datasets of Varying Data Complexity

Postprin

MOOCs in Omani Higher Education Institutions: Use and Popularity

Due to the rapid influence of technology on the teaching-learning process, both instructors and students alike are expected to keep abreast of the perpetual developments in the field of education. The introduction of Massive Open Online Courses (Henceforth MOOCs), as one form of e-learning, has made skyrocketing changes in the manner and availability of education provided to mass numbers of learners all the world, including Arab countries. The use of MOOCs in Oman is relatively new, and thus it appears to be unbeknown to a large segment of undergraduate students. The study beforehand, therefore, is meant to explore Omani undergraduate students’ awareness of MOOCs both locally and globally via the use a self-administered questionnaire targeting three main academic institutions in Oman with a total number of 306 participants. In-depth scrutiny of the obtained data evidently shows that unfamiliarity of MOOCs among Omani undergraduate students is significantly high, a fact reflected in the high percentage of those oblivious of its existence (88.89%) as opposed to those (11.11 %) who are familiar with MOOCs. Lack of publicity of these platforms in the Omani academic institutions and the academic community in general, among several other reasons, stand behind such unawareness of these platforms

EFFECTIVENESS OF E-BOOK IN IMPROVING OMANI KINDERGARTEN KIDS COMPREHENSION AND MOTIVATION TOWARDS STORIES READING

Nowadays technology became an affective and worthy tool for learning and acquisition of knowledge. Although e-books have many facilities and tools which motivate children to read and develop their reading skills, most of the early childhood institutions in Oman are not using e-books for teaching children. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the difference between using e-books and printed books to motivate kindergarteners to read and enhancing their understanding of the text. This study compares between experimental group which use e-books and control group which use printed books. Findings show that there are no significant differences between the two groups with regard to motivation. However, children who read from paper books got better scores in the comprehension test. The study concludes with some future recommendations.  Article visualizations