Sungard Systems and Computer Technologies (SCT) has begun the rollout of a project at the University of Sharjah (UoS) – its largest project in the region since establishing a UAE office in 2003. The e-education software solution vendor will replacing existing systems for administration, web content presentation and student and graduate tracking across the campus’ ten buildings.
“The University of Sharjah is very serious about having an e-university, and it is really trying to drive the strategy and direction of the university with the latest technology. It has a whole series of new investments planned for its campus, and is bringing in new teaching areas around the medical trade,” said Matthew Boice, general manager, marketing and channel sales EMEA at Sungard SCT.
“The university is building three new colleges and the subsequent phase of the project will be to construct a teaching hospital on campus,” he added.
The 18-month project will involve the installation of the Banner and Luminus suites offered by Sungard SCT. Approximately 15 Sungard SCT staff, gathered from both North America and Dubai will install the system. Leading the project for the vendor will be project director Tony Roach and project manager Helen Thomas.
Sungard SCT is one of the few vendors in the Middle East that undertakes the full implementation of its solutions. The UoS rollout is the sixth project undertaken by the vendor in the UAE.
“We are expected to finish at the end of 2006, which is quite a pace for a project of this size. The interesting thing about this particular solution is that the university is a very well run and organised operation. Often the start point for these projects is with faculties that have some inherent issues they wish to sort out in their operation. That isn’t true with this project and the UoS already has world class facilities and networks,” said Boice.
The software will be supplied in both English and Arabic versions. The Arabic speaking modules developed by Egyptian company ITSoft, alongside Sungard SCT, at the latter’s competency centre in Cairo. These modules have the capability to be localised through the introduction of project specific and local vocabulary and terminology by the users themselves.
“The vision of the University of Sharjah is to become a leading academic institution in the Middle East, and a world-recognised university, by meeting our students’ educational and cultural needs in a manner consistent with Islamic values and traditions,” said Professor Ismail Al Bishri, Chancellor at UoS.
The Sungard SCT Banner software is an internet-based administration solution for a wide-range of university processes, including student services, human resources, advancement and finance. The SCT Luminis software works alongside the Banner application to provide a web portal, enterprise application, collaboration, data integration, and web content management functionality.
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