United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

As MOE has around 1043 schools, 53000 teachers and administrators with 550000 students spread all over the country in 11 educational zones. With the land area of about 309,500 and population slightly over 3 million, these zones are spread far away from each other. Lots of information are communicated on a daily basis, therefore, it presents a lot of challenges in communications and exchanges between the staff, students and parents of the zones. Efforts are duplicated as the administrative processes are mostly paper-based, with lots of red tapes and unnecessary workflow. The geographical distance also created a connectivity problem. Apart from poor connection or no connection to the internet, schools cannot interact with each other and with the Ministry head office online. The previous School Management Program that was supposed to handle the administrative processes is a standalone system that did not support any online exchanged data. There were also no proper document tracing, achieving and management in the old system. This resulted in insufficient data for planning and decision making which directly affect implementation of projects and programme. This in turn leads to
human and financial resources not fully optimized.
Teachers are loaded with administration and paperwork daily that less time are dedicated to innovating classroom instructions. It is also human nature to be resistant to change, teachers are comfortable in the traditional face to face instruction thus not receptive and motivated to update themselves with skills to improve classroom instructions.
Students on the other hand are the very comfortable with using technology for communication. Internet forums, chats are platform that they are familiar and accustom to rather than the traditional communication channels.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The solution is to have a web based application that is tied to a centralized database. This will create a single entry point or portal for all application related to the users within the MoE. Benefits are: 1. It streamlined administrative processes and allow different transactions to be carried out online by the different users; the administrators, the teachers, the students and even the parents. 2. Via the portal, users can access applications such as; The School Management System (SMS) transformed all the administrative work in schools into electronic form. It provides comprehensive information on schools, students, teachers and ministry's employees and offers a range of electronic services for them. This allows critical data and information to be collected and facilitate planning from the Ministry level. This is especially important for determining new policies and regulations regarding the education sector. 3. The other application linked to the portal is The Learning Management System (LMS), this application handles all educational aspects publishing elearning content like digital text, e-books, audio and video materials to present the subject in an attractive way for the teachers and the students. 4. The portal is also linked to The Documents Management System (DMS) which tracks and archived electronic documents sent by the users. This provides audit trail to all documents transmitted between the users, it also cuts down a lot of paper transactions within the users and saves a lot of expenses for papers and storage space for the Ministry. 5. All the three systems mentioned above are integrated with each other and users access them via the Interface Portal System (IPS). This saves the Ministry around OMR 200,000 for storage shelves. 6. This online portal shortens the distance and gets transactions completed in a speedy and simplified manner as it eliminates the unneeded procedures. The efficiency of educational planning and evaluation methodologies are considered and implemented. 7. Many administrative applications and services with regard to MOE employees have been designed in the portal; teacher transfer, vacations, exams, supervision, training, qualification, budget, etc, culminate in one comprehensive portal. One example will be it saves around 3 weeks for generating student evaluation reports. So far, the response from the three implemented three educational zones is exciting and successful. Each segment of the main target, the components of educational sector, can log in this portal and have the services furnished with satisfactory standards allowing daily online interaction to be experienced. In a nutshell the Educational Portal has provides transparency, accuracy, rapidity, availability and cost reduction to the Ministry.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
This project was driven by Mr. Khalid Al-Siyabi who is now the General Director of the General Directorate of Information Technology at MOE. When he was the supervisor of the School Administration Program (desktop application), that was launched by the MOE in 1994, he thought of how to have all schools linked with each other sharing educational, administrative, financial applications, services and database. The implementation of this project is done by a dedicated in house education team which has the experience dealing with such programs in their schools and has the necessary experience in the educational environment. This facilitates the understanding of the schools' requirements; therefore updating and improving the system in view of that. Additional support is by having another team in each educational directorate to coordinate the efforts and observing the implementation climate and ensure that the project is moving in the right direction by getting on time solutions for any problems occurred. A database specialist also is placed in each school to ensure the proper usage of the system and to train and lead teachers implementing the system effectively and efficiently. This project is now implemented in three educational zones and it will be expanded in the second semester of this academic year 2010/2011 to cover additional four educational zones. The stakeholders of this project are teachers, students, parents, employees, visitors and educational zones. These stakeholders are interacting with each other as they implementing the system benefiting therefore from the services and applications provided in order to manage their requirements separately and to have the processes of whatever needed. At the technical side, a private company was contracted to develop the portal. They handled the analyzing, designing, developing and training of the system functions

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The implementation strategy is based on the international benchmark in adapting ICT in education, the following strategies and objectives have been design so as to move in the right direction of having a robust infrastructure that leads to having high quality performance: • Having a national ICT strategy • Enabling education; ICT building capacity • E-learning & E-training • Building centre of excellence to train teachers producing interactive and attractive e-contents • Providing computer for each teacher and student • Building schools of the future • E-correspondence & archive • Free Internet via ADSL or sat • Conducting awareness campaign • Digital Studio • Digital Library The objectives of these strategies are: • Build an online educational portal links all the community with one centralized shared data base that fed with accurate and updated information. • Simplify procedures • Consolidate future planning and control • Advocate a flexible, secured and productive platform for teachers to implement the ICT in their educational activities and performance processes and to exchange and share experiences, knowledge and skills. • Educational society to be well-acquainted with the projects and technology gap to be bridged. • Save time, cost and efforts by adapting the e-corresponding and archiving system. • Ensure the acceptable infrastructure with cost effective technical support • Provide assorted communication channels; emails, SMS, forum, chat and call center. • Enhancing the capabilities of teachers in ICT to use it in producing e-content.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Phase one 2006 – 2008 • Automating the schools business and have all the educational operation and services related to students, teachers and parents transferred from the traditional way to electronic using the School Management System (SMS) • Adapting the portal in two educational zones out of eleven. • Preparing and completing the data of the other educational zones for the portal system implementation. Phase two 2009 – 2013 • Adapting the portal in the other educational zones gradually. • Automating the administrative work related to the employees. • Building e-content • Launch Learning Management System (LMS) • Launch the Document Archives System (DMS) Phase three 2014 – 2016 • Improve the e-financial system in the portal. • Integrate with Oman financial and administrative systems. • Integrate with other governments unities.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
There are some unpredicted obstacles encountered along the way. MOE has done within its capacity to resolve those obstacles that are within its jurisdiction but some issues need to be tackled in association with other organizations. The main obstacles are: • Infrastructure It is necessary to have connectivity between the schools and later throughout the country to implement this project in all educational zones. Therefore, MOE is aggressively moving with Information Technology Authority to provide the internet via the satellite for those areas do not have the internet. • Human resources As MOE implementing new technology, the training part should be met so as to enhance teachers' technological capabilities. It is normal for people to resist changes to their environment. By letting them acquire new skills in teaching their subjects effectively helps reduce the resistance and will direct MOE to learning organization with effective change management. In this aspect, MOE embarked on an initiative with some well known companies to enhance teachers’ ICT capabilities in their daily activities. • E-curriculum MOE is building Centre of excellence oriented towards improving teachers' skills in e-content besides involving teachers in some dedicated courses to build e-content adhering to international standards. • Society and culture In spite of having the administrative program implemented in schools 15 years ago, teachers are not all well-equipped with the technological knowledge required to use this project. In addition many people in society are used to traditional ways of doing things. Therefore, it was necessary for MOE to handle productive awareness campaign to elevate parents' knowledge in using the portal in a more effective way. • Financial resources It is not cheap to implement the project and it needed constant maintenance and update. Servers, computers, internet, helper projects, maintenance, etc need to be funded financially in constant manner. There are many efforts done to ensure this funding with ITA and other governments relative unities. • Applications solutions (creativity) Automating administrative and educational processes is not an easy job and requires proper analysis so as to streamline unnecessary processes and procedure. Phase number two is really challenging as it has a direct relation with employees working environment.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
This project requires various resources and they are as follows • Financial resources Finance is always the main concern for any project needed to be funded properly. This is to ensure a successful implementation and to see a continuous progress. There is a co-operation between MOE and relative ministries to support this project and therefore the fund was provided accordingly. • Technical resources Technical support is granted by the company provided the project itself. There is also additional support provided by people from the General Directorate of Information Technology as well as Information and Technology Authority. • Human resources from Schools and teaching staff As this portal is mainly oriented towards the educational sector, it was important to have teachers with the required background to handle the project. The idea is working well and these teachers demonstrated diligent productive efforts as they can cope with any updates given. The mobilization of these resources was directed towards having healthy working environment that facilitate a smooth work flow between all these elements with having them well-integrated.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
With a very young population and about half of them still in school, there will be a constant demand for education and education related services. The world today is fast moving and Oman is moving towards a digital society, it is important to embrace technology to enhance our day to day environment. Omani people have realized this and they started getting confidently and culturally involved in networking each other using technological products. The project is not only designed from a technological point of view but it has a positive effect on all stakeholders and leading them towards a learning organization.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The lessons learned from this experience are: • Introducing such technological project needs an effective strategic planning to ensure achieving the required goals. • Having all educational sector acquainted with the driven shared vision of the project is vital to unify the efforts. • Providing training for the target so as to get them technologically prepared and to reduce the resistance of a particular segment. • Top management to be well-supported for the project and advocate therefore their decision making in this area. • Conducting an aggressive awareness campaign for parents to ensure reaching the acceptable understanding of dealing with new technology. • Specifying a dedicated team to handle the system, solve problems encountered during the implementation and to get the feedback from the target in a constant manner. • Dealing with target in an effective way to convince them using the services provided through the portal. • Negotiating with other companies provided assortment of technological products. • Interacting with other people from different country holding the same ideas in the same sector. • The dynamic environment in thinking how to automate any administrative service and provided it in attractive shape. • The limitation cost of many paper based projects. • The importance of having all educational components linked online. The initiative is consider a success because the take up rate has increased steadily, so far,14046 Teachers, 1052 Administrators, 180991 Students in 290 schools and 111892 Parents are using the system to carry out daily transactions. In the next academic year 2011/2012, an additional 8950 Grade 1 students have registered online to the system.


Institution Name:		Ministry of Education
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Sultan Al-Wadhahi
Title:		Electronic Education Portal
Telephone/ Fax:
Institution's / Project's Website:
E-mail:		sultanw@moe.om
Address:
Postal Code:
City:
State/Province:
Country:		Oman

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information