Message_Associate_Dean

=** Message from the Associate Dean – Faculty of Computer Science **=

[|Dr. Sayeed Ghani]
During the last academic year the Faculty of Computer Science at IBA went through the first academic audit process initiated by the National Computing Education Accreditation Council (NCEAC) of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. We are very proud to announce that the Accreditation Council awarded a rating of ‘W’ to the IBA BS(CS) program, which is the highest rating that can be achieved from the four possible ratings of W, X, Y and Z. This was achieved after a rigorous academic audit process conducted by an external panel of experts who visited the IBA Center for Computer Studies in November 2008. The rating was based on the overall quality of the program, including quality of faculty, students, curriculum and facilities offered. The IBA is extremely proud of this landmark achievement which places our Computer Science program as one of the top rated programs in the country.

In addition we have had a number of new and returning faculty join the department. We have been fortunate in having Dr. Zaheeruddin Asif rejoin the faculty in Fall 2008 after completion of his PhD in Management Information Systems from Temple University and his introduction of an innovative MIS specialization in both the BBA and MBA programs of IBA. Dr. Asif has also taken on the challenging role of Program Coordinator along with Mr. Abdul Wajed and we hope that these new positions will bring a welcome change for our students.

The faculty also welcomes Dr. Sajjad Haider, who joined in January 2008, who has brought a lot of excitement and passion to the department in the rapidly evolving discipline of Artificial Intelligence. An AI Lab has also been created ( [|http://ailab.iba.edu.pk] ) which focuses on research and development, both at PhD and undergraduate levels, in the areas of computational intelligence and incorporation of AI in video games, robotics, data mining, semantic web as well as the important interdisciplinary applications of AI in economics and finance.

The most recent addition to our faculty is Dr. Shakeel Khoja who joined us in August 2009. Dr. Khoja is sure to bring a lot of contribution to the department with his research interests in Learning Technologies, Usage of Web Technologies into learning, Digital Video/Image Processing and Storage, Multimedia Systems, and Internet programming.

The MS in Computer Science evening program was also launched for the first time this year. The PhD program has also been further strengthened this year with the intake of three additional PhD students, one of whom, Mr. Raza Abedi, has also joined as a full time member of the faculty.

The innovation in the BBA and MBA curriculum has also come in the form of academic alliances with strategic partnerships with both SAP and Oracle. IBA became the first university in Pakistan to initiate offering of SAP education as a part of its curriculum at undergraduate and graduate levels when it signed an alliance agreement with SAP on February 9, 2009. The collaboration will link the SAP’s University Alliances Program (UAP) with IBA’s ERP Academic Alliances Program (EAAP) and will pave the way for IBA to offer SAP training as part of its BBA and MBA programs.

Finally, the Faculty of Computer Science has continued its emphasis on research in the areas of Computer Science & Engineering, Information and Communications Technology, Management Information Systems while further broadening its offerings of PhD research to include Operations Research, Artificial Intelligence, Numerical Analysis, Numerical Computing and Supply Chain Management. During 2008 the full time faculty of Computer Science published 19 papers including 9 in internationally recognized conferences and journals.

This emphasis on research continues to be depicted by successful completion of the third International Conference on ICT (ICICT 2009) which was held on August 15-16, 2009 under the leadership of Dr. Wasim Khan. The conference continues to keep up the tradition of being held once every two years and to attract high quality publications from all over the world. This year we attracted **122** papers from 18 countries (England, Germany, Australia, Scotland, France, Austria, Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, Spain, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, UAE, India, Bangladesh and Syria) besides Pakistan, out of which **64** papers were accepted for publication.

Given all the innovations, changes and challenges taking place, I look forward to an exciting year ahead. I welcome all of you to interact with our faculty and to explore the challenges and opportunities that exist in the field of Computer Science and MIS.