Building a truster environment for e-business : a Malaysian perspective

Internet identify ‘security’ as a major concern for businesses. In general, the level of security in any network environment is closely linked to the level of trust assigned to a particular individual or organization within that environment. It is the trust element that is crucial in ensuring a secure environment. Besides physical security, security technology needs to be utilised to provide a trusted environment for e-business. Network security components for perimeter defense, i.e., Virtual Private Networks, firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems, need to be complemented by security components at the applications and user level, e.g., authentication of user. ID or password security solution may be an option but now with the availability of legally binding digital certificates, security in e-business transactions can be further improved. Time and date stamping of e-business transactions are also of concern to prove at a later date that the transactions took place at the stipulated date and time. Digital certificates are part of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) scheme, which is an enabling technology for building a trusted epvironment. PIU comprise policies and procedures for establishing a secure method for exchanging information over a network environment. The Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA 1997) facilitates the PKI implementation in Malaysia. Following the DSA 1997, Certification Authorities (CAs) were set up in Malaysia. This paper describes a trusted platform for spurring ebusiness and provides a Malaysian perspective of it

Industrial Training as Gateway to Engineering Career: Experience Sharing

AbstractToday's engineering education demands in-depth theoretical knowledge as well as hands-on exposure to the profession. Traditionally, theoretical engineering education is achieved in campus through direct teaching and laboratory learning. However, hands-on exposure or real world confrontation provides engineering students with on-the-job experience. This helps them to decide whether their skills and industry are a good match. For specialised industries, such as manufacturing, aerospace and electronics, industrial training provides the opportunity for students to gain the most rewarding and enlightening working experience in related companies. This paper examines the industrial training experience gained by the students through a 12-week attachment period specifically looking at whether the companies have been successful in providing a relevant engineering workplace experience. A few industrial training experiences by students will be shared highlighting the positive and negative aspects. This study also suggests some steps that can be taken to ensure companies run industrial training programs that do meet the faculty's expectation

Students' expectations analysis before and after a curricular internship

The present study analyses the expectations of chemical engineering students towards their first professional experience before and after doing a curricular internship. This exploratory research applies to students from the last year of first cycle graduation from Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) and it is based in the results of two similar questionnaires handed to students in two different moments: before starting and after completing the internship. Different items were classified by the students in a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). The study considered a group of 44 students and refers to one academic year (2015/16). The results show that the students' expectations before starting the internship are globally very high (medians 4 and 5, for all items). Students' conclusions about real achievements (after ending the internship) are quite close to initial expectations, but for ten of 22 items, statistical differences were observed. In all these cases, the observed differences reflect only a slight decrease in the scores. This exploratory study confirms that the internship allows the students a better awareness of personal, technical and soft skills (self-evaluation) as well as of that first professional experience outcomes. Self-evaluation and real achievements are still very positively classified by the students after the internship, confirming the importance of this experience in their formation.The authors thank the Research Centre CIETI (Centro de Inovação em Engenharia e Tecnologia Industrial) and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia in the scope of the projects COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and UID/CEC/00319-2013 for all the support providedinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio