Towards an Islamic lifelong learning information system: A visionary model of an Islamic learning community

Statistics from studies and analysis showed that the Muslim countries are the least democratic, having lowest income, as well as slowest growth income per head. Such are the results from inefficient system and management of education as well as not being able to practice lifelong learning to the upmost.Education has been the answer at the early time of Islam during the prophet’s life. Based on the claim, this paper aimed at proposing an alternative educational model in order to implement the need for mass-educating the Muslim community in general. The model, which is based on the Nested Learning Community Concept, takes into account current ICT infrastructure and pervasive computing applications.It consists of five integrated layers, supported by three information system pillars namely content, communication, and self directed assessment performance.The model adopted a non formal education system which does not require students to sit in class and follow instructions to pass exams.It provides a platform for life improvement and wellbeing of oneself.Should the model be implemented in a structured way, it can fulfill all the requirements for an effective educational system in the current lifestyle of the digital age and bring us back to the glory of Ottoman Empire

Fostering creativity in the Islamic world: towards an effective Islamic creative industry

The world’s predominantly Muslim countries have long been lagging in their contribution in the creative industry.This is due to the lost of creativity and innovative traits in the Muslim communities.This paper provides conceptual and preliminary analysis on the actual situation of the Muslim com- pared to others in the world, points out to the reasons leading to the situation and suggest ways to foster creativity in the Muslim communities.Realizing the situation, understanding the problem and move towards the correct direction to cure the illness is the important prerequisite

JCA: an application model for asnaf identification and reporting

Proactive mechanism in identifying and reporting genuine asnaf cases is very crucial in contributing to effective zakat distribution. There were many viral cases which had portrayed badly the reputation of the zakat authority. All these have led to low trust from the public or zakat payer which consequently discourage them to pay the zakat properly. Jom Cari Asnaf (JCA) app is carefully designed to leverage the current available information technology in modernizing the asnaf identification and reporting, where public can involve in the processes. It has been equipped with tools for managing and monitoring the management of asnaf identification and reporting. It also takes consideration of the newly-creatively created zakat distribution structure where the involvement of “Penolong Amil”. Penolong Amil are the zakat distribution agents appointed at region (kariah) level to become the front end where they are in better position to assess the genuineness of the case and be able to process or to propose it quickly. JCA has been successfully developed to enable community or concern individual to report immediately any potential asnaf and it has been linked with Penolong Amil and other division of of zakat distribution to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the zakat distribution

Providing Islamic Learning Structure for the Muslim Net-Generation

The changes in the digital era have created new breed of generations different in capabilities and way of thinking and acting. On one hand, the changes posed new challenges to life, on the other hand the digital era also comes with new potential tools to help human face the challenges.The changes also prompted the Muslim community to react accordingly to enable Muslim to adapt to the changes swiftly and comfortably while ensuring that Islamic ideals is preserved and the struggle towards achieving Islamic objectives continue. One critical tool to realize these needs is education. In order to ensure its idealism and survival, the need to redefine Islamic learning model to befits the current needs and Muslim net-generation has been ever critical. Our proposed model will fulfill two aspects the need and requirements related to the digital changes while still fulfilling Islamic education objectives and requirements. These requirements were obtains via thorough literature survey related to the theory of the net-generations literatures and practices in the Islamic education world. The model proposed is a direct mapping of these two elements to be implemented in the form of a Lifelong Learning Management System (LLLMS) prototype as its main delivery form. The future direction will involve usability studies and expert reviews on the LLLMS prototype to be built

Ranking network security threats of academic administrative local area networks at the institution of higher learning in Malaysia

The advancement and proliferation of computer networks nowadays have prompted for a concern on the issue of security of the whole network operation. The concern applies to both business and academic computer network environments. This paper describes our research about ranking possible network security threats in academic administrative local area network. In the research, the Delphi method which involve formation of a team of experts, is adopted to obtain the ranking order of the possible security threats. The network security threats are ranked in terms of severity and probability of happening. The response from the Delphi team is then sorted using two methods, namely the Comparison Risk Ranking and Simple Summation Method. The ranking of threats will then be used for further investigation regarding those network security threats

Utilization of information system towards resolving trust issue in zakat distribution

Zakat is considered to be one of the five central pillar of Islam, the only one dealing directly with the social and economic aspect of the Islamic ummah. In order to achieve its intended objectives, it is critically important to ensure that the two major aspects of zakat management – collection and distribution is handled in the most effective way. Furthermore, the effectiveness of collection and distribution is very much dependent on the existence of the element of trust in the implementation of the two aspects. Increment in collection amount of zakat is very much dependent on the level of trust of zakat payer towards the zakat authority. Trust in turn, is very much a result of an effective zakat distribution mechanism. The central pivot of an effective zakat management thus revolves around the level of trust towards zakat implementation mechanism. This study proposes the usage of information technology to improve the implementation of zakat distribution which in turn increase the level of trust towards zakat management in Kedah. The increase level of trust will further trigger more collection from zakat payer. We have developed a model based on the current zakat management structure in Kedah. The model then will be used as the basis to create an information system specifically to simplify the process of asnaf identification and reporting in zakat distribution process

Semantic Approach for Al-Quran Knowledge Representation in Islamic Knowledge Management Framework

Using ontology data model to accurately represent Al-Quran knowledge using its inherent structure of Division (Juz), Chapter (Surah), and Verse (Ayah) should be done within the framework of the Islamic Knowledge Management (IKM). Data modelling neglecting the IKM framework would result in inaccuracy and irrelevant result in knowledge processing activities involving the Al-Quran. Many of the current approaches utilizing conventional knowledge management methods such as taxonomy, hierarchy, or tree structure are limited in the sense that they only define the concepts of knowledge without relating it to a theme that defined from corpus of Islamic knowledge. In the case of Al-Quran, a classification of themes from background knowledge are important to provide a structural explanation of the knowledge and to ensure that the results obtained from a searching function of the corpus of the knowledge will result in an accurate and appropriate meaning intended by the Islamic knowledge. The aims of this paper is to demonstrate the construction of Al-Quran ontology and elaborate the searching method for representing and retrieving the relevance and accurate verses toward the theme of Al-Quran by using the semantic-based approach. The specification of Al-Quran ontology of which the prototype application was built on has been validated by experts. The evaluation test of the Al-Quran ontology application furthermore shows high precision result from searching functions done. With a good level of accuracy achieved from the test, it is hopeful that Al-Quran ontology application will provide a new experience of Al-Quran themes searching and browsing within the IKM framework for the Al-Quran readers. A capability to efficiently and accurately performing search of Al-Quran will certainly improve their understanding of Al-Quran contents