Editorial Team Chief Editor : Norizan Mohamad

Editors : Nazatul Azleen Zainal Abidin Mohd Hanapi Abdul Latiff Siti ‘Aisyah Sa’dan

Vol.: 1, Issue: July, 2015A publication by members of Computer Science Department, Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, UiTM Terengganu

BEYOND WINDOWS

by: Norizan binti Mohamad

Bulletin

Toward Strengthening University-Industry Linkages: In Need of an Efficient Industrial Training Management System

each company to acquire about the internship op-portunity. If the company agrees to offer a place to the student and the student decides to undergo his or her industrial training at the company’s prem-ise, further documentation takes place. During the training, students are required to write about their daily routine into the logbook. In the assessment aspect, all parties i.e. student and both academic and industry supervisors are required to fill in vari-ous assessment forms. Upon completing the train-ing, students must submit all the documentation including the final report and the project assigned to them. Consequently, heavy use of paperworks is unavoidable.

Issues

The industrial training process consumes a great deal of energy particularly in acquiring the place-ments (Collins, 2002). In addition, there are other challenges. First, the process places a heavy work-load on the industrial training coordinator since the coordinator needs to manage the entire document required for every student. The documentation is still being managed manually, heavily dependent on papers. Second, the coordinator must handle all the communication to and from the students and the industry regarding the current status of each application. Third, sometimes it takes time for com-panies to confirm the availability of the internship position, although the students have contacted them personally. When the offer finally arrives, the student has already selected another company to undergo his or her industrial training. Fourth, there has been much concern on the mismatch of the skills and qualification of the students with that of industrial expectations (Renganathan, Karim, & Li,

Introduction

Industrial training refers to students’ placements at selected organizations for a predetermined dura-tion ranging from at least eight weeks to 20 weeks, depending on institutions. During the training, stu-dents will be exposed to the career world and gain working life experience. At the same time they can equip themselves with the necessary soft skills that require them to interact with the people inside and outside the organizations.

Usually, four parties are involved in the industrial training process i.e. the industrial training coordina-tor at the faculty, the students, the supervisor at the organisation and the academic supervisor.

However, the placement process is time consuming, and currently done manually in many higher insti-tutions. In UiTM, each program at the faculty has its own industrial training coordinator. For exam-ple, in the faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences in UiTM Terengganu, one coordinator is assigned for diploma program (CS110) and another one for each respective degree program. Currently, the faculty has four industrial training coordinators for four programs. As a result, each coordinator has her own company database that she would regu-larly send their students to. Nevertheless, the appli-cation process for all the students for all programs in the faculty is very much similar, including the issuance of letters to the organizations.

At the beginning of the placement process, stu-dents are required to submit to the coordinator the companies they desire. Upon receiving the in-formation, the coordinators will produce a letter to

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2012). There were cases where graduates with excel-lent academic performance were not able to express themselves well (Karim, 2009).

With about 150 to 200 students to handle yearly, the coordinator needs a better management system to handle the industrial training process and activi-ties. An efficient industrial training management system would definitely be able to automate some processes. In addition, apart from improving com-munication among all parties involved, and elimi-nating paperworks, another benefit is the ability to get instant status update. Considering the number of students to handle each semester, it is timely that the procedures of industrial internship be simpli-fied (Okay & Sahin, 2010). Literature Review

Industrial training is a bridge from classroom to workplace. The objective of the industrial training is to expose students to the competency, knowledge and skills needed to succeed at the workplace. By undergoing the industrial training, students will be able to relate the theory that they learnt and ap-plied them practically (Jainudin, Francis, Tawie, & Matarul, 2015). Findings show that students benefit from the internship programme that provides them with both the technical and soft skills required in the marketplace (Maelah, Mohamed, & Aman, 2014). Other benefits can be projected such as staff exchange, technology transfer and research and de-velopment initiatives (Hasbullah & Sulaiman, 2002).

The collaboration between university-industry part-nerships can bring potential benefits to many par-ties – the university, the industry and the graduates themselves. However, there is a barrier that can hinder the partnership i.e. lack of communication. Yet, networking and personal contact are vital in building synergy between the partner university and industry. Therefore, both parties need to have regular engagement to improve communication (Baharom, Salleh, & Idrus, 2009). In particular, the university coordinators should link with industries to build good relationship in order to have effective internship program (Karunaratne & Perera, 2015).

Therefore, industrial training needs to be well managed since it is important to maintain and de-

velop links between the university and the indus-try. The management of industrial training process can only be successfully undertaken by electronic means and supported by the web technology (Neill & Mulholland, 2003). In addition, there has not been a structured way of establishing relationships with the outside community. With the advancement of the computing technology, almost all communica-tion can be computer-mediated (Debora & Carolyn, 2014). Thus, it is important to develop a common on-line system at university level for all students and industry players to access (Gill, 2009).

This online strategy has been opted by Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). UUM has developed an On-line Practicum Student Placement (OPSP) that al-lows companies to register, view available students for industrial training by academic programmes they undertake, select potential students for train-ing according to their preference (e.g. academic results, race, language proficiency, hometown, co-curricular activities), and confirm the selection of students electronically through the Internet within minutes.

In addition, due to its potential impact on the man-agement of the industrial training, OPSP has re-ceived the Malaysia Civil Service Innovation award in 2007 (Kardi et al., 2009). Furthermore, with the advent of modern technology, the use of content management systems such as the online journal system has also been very beneficial to the students and both the academic and industry supervisors (ChanLin & Hung, 2015). The online journal pro-vides the opportunity to help students document and share their own learning process from intern-ship experiences.

A more strengthened partnership and cooperation between university-industry is very vital and as much as possible be fostered and developed (Nduro et al., 2015). Hence in order to minimise the gap, a process of empowering and strengthening those parties should be conducted (Phang, Yusof, Saat, & Yusof, 2013).

Government’s Policy

The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Malay-sia has placed graduate employability as an impor-

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tant agenda under the National Education Strategic Plan, stressing that all the graduates need to have additional skills to complement their knowledge in order to be employable after their graduation. Consequently, Malaysian universities are urged to produce competent graduates to fulfill national manpower needs with 75% of graduates employed in their relevant fields within six months after grad-uation (Jainudin et al., 2015).

Further, based on the National Philosophy of Educa-tion, the Malaysian Education Development Blue-print’s (2013-2025) has given great emphasis on the holistic formation of students in line with quality human capital formation. This blueprint is in line with the Government Transformation Program (GTP), which propels Malaysia towards becoming a developed and high-income country (Rus et al., 2015). Since then, higher education policies in the country have been formulated to serve ‘national in-terests’, such as socio-economic development and nation-building (Nikitina & Furuoka, 2012).

At the top, graduate employability has been a glob-al concern for all higher education sectors (Kardi et al., 2009). Consequently, parallel with the national agenda, in UiTM, the office of Industry, Commu-nity and Alumni Network (ICAN) has established Academic-Industry and Community Division (AIC) and Graduate Employability Division (GEm) to strengthen the current and existing industry-uni-versity partnership in the area of academia industry and graduate employability. Another division of In-dustry and Community Network is the Malaysian Academy of SME & Entrepreneurship Development (MASMED) with the objective to increase graduate employability and employer-ability (Hamdan et al., 2011).

Therefore, industrial training is considered as an effective tool to enhance graduates’ employability (Khalid et al., 2014). Symbiosis relationships between the university and industry are very significant be-cause the relationship between those two can foster economic development of a nation, leading to na-tional economic prosperity. No doubt, strengthen-ing university-industry linkages is a corner stone of economic development (Hamdan et al., 2011).

Conclusion

The industrial training has long been emphasized as important in higher learning institutions. The industrial training acts not only as a platform in preparing students for jobs and expose them to real situations, but also help develop key competencies in students (Saat, Yusoff, & Panatik, 2014). In the fast changing technology and competitive world, it is necessary for the university to collaborate with the industry to better understand the needs of the in-dustry (Hamdan et al., 2011) and to produce better graduates (Pillai, Khan, Ibrahim, & Raphael, 2012).

One efficient solution to execute the collaboration is to manage the industrial training process in a systematic way via a web-based implementation. It is crucial to see that the success of the industrial training management depends greatly on the im-plementation through systematic process and effi-cient delivery system to ensure that all parties i.e. the students, the industry and the university benefit from the technology-based capability.

References

Baharom, M. N. R., Salleh, R., & Idrus, H. (2009). University-Industrial Partnerships To-wards Producing Quality Graduates. Conference of the International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 1(20), 70-76.

ChanLin, L.-J., & Hung, W.-H. (2015). Evaluation Of An Online Internship Journal System For Interns. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 191, 1024-1027. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.700

Collins, A. B. (2002). Gateway to the Real World, Industrial Training: Dilemmas and Prob-lems. Tourism Management, 23, 93-96.

Debora, J., & Carolyn, A. (2014). e-Internships: Prevalence, Characteristics and Role of Student Perspectives. Internet Research, 24(4), 457-473. doi: 10.1108/IntR-11-2012-0226

Gill, S. K. (2009). Academia, Industry and Community Collaboration in Malaysia: Strategies and Opportunities for the Future.

Hamdan, H., Yusof, F., Omar, D., Abdullah, F., Nasrudin, N., & Abullah, I. C. (2011). Uni-versity Industrial Linkages: Relationship Towards Economic Growth and Development in Malaysia. International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic and Manage-ment Engineering, 5(10), 205-212.

Hasbullah, H., & Sulaiman, S. (2002, August 18–21, 2002). Industrial Internship Pro-gramme At Universiti Teknologi Petronas - A Collaboration Strategy That Enhanced Stu-dents’ Soft Skills in the Ever-Changing Technology. Paper presented at the International Conference on Engineering Education, Manchester, U.K.

Jainudin, N. A., Francis, L., Tawie, R., & Matarul, J. (2015). Competency of Civil Engineering Students Undergone Industrial Training: Supervisors’ Perspectives. Procedia - Social and

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We welcome any feedback, suggestions, questions or comments from the readers. Email them to: norizanm@tganu.uitm.edu.my

Behavioral Sciences, 167, 245-249. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.669

Kardi, N., Hashim, R. A., Yusoff, N. M., Hassan, S., Ahmad, N. H., Zalazilah, H., . . . Shafie, I. (2009). Enhancing Employability Initiatives: Malaysia Experience. Paper presented at the The 2009 ASAIHL Conference, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

Karim, Z. A. A. (2009, 16-19 May 2009). Measuring the Success of Industrial Internship Programme for Undergraduate Study. Paper presented at the International Engineering Education Conference, Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Karunaratne, K., & Perera, N. (2015, 20-22 February 2015). Students’ Perception on the Effectiveness of Industrial Internship Programme. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the International Conference on Global Business, Economics, Finance and Social Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand.

Khalid, N., Hamid, N. A. A., Sailin, R., Othman, N., Awang, A. H., & Nor, M. F. M. (2014). Importance of Soft Skills for Industrial Training Program: Employers’ Perspective. Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 3(4), 10-18.

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Nduro, K., Anderson, I. K., Peprah, J. A., & Twenefour, F. B. K. (2015). Industrial Training Programmes of Polytechnics in Ghana: The Pertinent Issues. 5(1), 102-113. doi: 10.5430/wje.v5n1p102

Neill, N. T., & Mulholland, G. E. (2003). Student Placement - Structure, Skills and E-support. Education & Training, 45(2/3), 89-99.

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Okay, S., & Sahin, I. (2010). A Study on the Opinions of the Students Attending the Faculty of Technical Education Regarding Industrial Internship. International Journal of the Physi-cal Sciences, 5(7), 1132-1146.

Phang, F. A., Yusof, K. M., Saat, M. M., & Yusof, N. M. (2013). Perceptions of Engineering Students on Industrial Training in Malaysia. QScience Proceedings (World Congress on En-gineering Education), 20, 1-6. doi: 10.5339/qproc.2014.wcee2013.20

Pillai, S., Khan, M. H., Ibrahim, I. S., & Raphael, S. (2012). Enhancing Employability Through Industrial Training in the Malaysian Context. High Educ, 63, 187-204. doi: 10.1007/s10734-011-9430-2

Renganathan, S., Karim, Z. A. A., & Li, C. S. (2012). Students’ Perception of In-dustrial Internship Programme. Education + Training, 54(2/3), 180-191. doi: 10.1108/00400911211210288

Rus, R. C., Yasin, R. M., Rubi, D. M., Nazri, A. R. M., Mamat, A. B., Hanapi, Z., & Hasnan, K. A. (2015). From Training Institution to Workplace: Towards a Training Model in the Industrial Training Institutes. International Education Studies, 8(2).

Saat, M. M., Yusoff, R. M., & Panatik, S. A. (2014). The Effect of Industrial Training on Ethical Awareness of Final Year Students on a Malaysian Public University. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev., 15, 115-125. doi: 10.1007/s12564-013-9306-5

Bengkel Pemantapan Pengajaran Kursus Pengaturcaraan CSC138 telah diadakan pada 20 & 21 Mei 2015, bertempat di UiTM Terengganu Kampus Kuala Terengganu.

Objektif bengkel adalah untuk:(1) Membincangkan kaedah penyampaian kandungan kur-sus CSC138 yang sesuai, dan(2) Menyediakan dokumen panduan pengajaran kursus CSC138 yang setara bagi semua kampus.

Dua orang penceramah yang berpengalaman luas dalam pengaturcaraan iaitu Prof. Madya Wan Dorishah Wan Ab-dul Manan dan Dr. Norlela Samsudin telah dijemput untuk bersama-sama berkongsi tips dan pengalaman dalam as-pek PnP termasuklah dalam aspek pembinaan soalan serta kandungan bahan pengajaran.

Seramai 20 orang peserta telah hadir. Peserta adalah pensya-rah yang mengajar kursus pengaturcaraan di Kampus Dun-gun serta pensyarah dari seluruh kampus UiTM termasuk-lah Kolej Bersekutu UiTM. Di dalam bengkel ini, peserta dibahagikan kepada empat kumpulan mengikut topik yang diajar di dalam kursus CSC138. Setiap kumpulan diberi-kan tugas untuk menghasilkan perancangan penyampaian kandungan kursus mengikut topik yang diberi.

Di akhir bengkel, skema kerja dan perancangan kursus CSC138 telah berjaya dihasilkan dan telahpun diguna pakai pada semester Jun 2015.

Jutaan terima kasih kepada semua AJK yang telah berusaha menjayakan bengkel ini iaitu Pn Norizan Mohamad, Cik Siti ‘Aishah Sa’dan, Pn Suhana Sulong dan Pn Sh. Nurulhikmah Sy. Yasin. Setinggi penghargaan juga dirakamkan kepada panel Pembangunan Sumber Manusia UiTM Terengganu, Unit Latihan & Pembangunan Staf yang telah meluluskan bajet bagi melaksanakan bengkel ini. Terima kasih.

Bengkel Pemantapan Pengajaran Kursus Pengaturcaraan CSC138

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