Saqib Ali

The key success factors to mobile commerce for Arab countries in Middle East

A number of studies have been conducted on the diffusion of mobile commerce, its challenges, opportunities, issues and obstacles. However, few have emphasized on its adoption within Middle East countries. This paper reviews the current literature in order to assess the mobile commerce adoption in Arab countries within Middle East and identify the key success factors in mobile commerce adoption in them.

Ontological framework for trust & reputation for DBE

Todaypsilas e-businesses rely heavily on trust and reputation systems. These systems are key indicators for businesses performance. Businesses that interact with each other for their business needs form a digital business ecosystem (DBE). Members of DBE need to know the trust and reputation value of each other before the start of business interactions. The feedback mechanism is needed so that members of DBE form a unanimous opinion about trustworthiness of any specific member of the community and based their business interactions on this opinion. We present an ontological framework that will combine the feedback from all different trust and reputation information publicly available for a specific member of a domain and gives the knowledge representation on the bases of combined feedback. We call this ontological framework dasiafeedback ontologypsila.

A Road Map to Risk Management Framework for Successful Implementation of Cloud Computing in Oman

Cloud computing nowadays is adopted by many organizations around the world because of its potential benefits such as cost reduction, high availability and elastic scaling. In spite of all the claimed benefits and to deal with any potential risk and vulnerability of cloud computing, risk management is becoming a critical domain that requires a fundamental review in the business strategies and can be linked to cloud computing, in order to have a successful cloud implementation. Risk management can help in avoiding, transferring, mitigating or minimizing the risks associated with being on the cloud. The main objective of this research is to explore the existing risk management frameworks in order to recommend an appropriate risk management framework for cloud computing environment. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed based on interviews conducted amongst the information technology and risk management professionals in Omani organizations (public and private). The recommended framework can be used in conjunction with other risk management approaches for industries which already moved to cloud or in transition of moving towards cloud environment in Oman.

Mobile Services in Oman: A Feedback on SMS-Parking Service

Mobile technology has evolved quite rapidly over the past few years. Many experts argue that the future computer technology rests in mobile or wireless computing. As the number of mobile phone users is increasing worldwide, different organizations are offering their services using these mobile devices Oman is a developing country that strives to adapt M-services. The emerging mobile technology is impacting and becoming the main element that moves Oman forward and helps in its national development process. Internet penetration in most developing countries like Oman is still low as opposed to mobile dissemination. Despite the government plans and strategies to enhance internet diffusion, Internet subscribers comprise about 2.5% of the general population of Oman. In contrast, the number of mobile phones holders increased substantially since the launch of these services in 1996. Prepaid mobile services and SMS were introduced in 2001 and both are currently popular with subscribers. Such fine appeal influenced many government organizations to go mobile with their services. This paper reviews the current m-government initiatives in Oman and the feedback of the users on the SMS-Parking Service, introduced recently by a joint venture of the Muscat Municipality and the Oman Mobile company offering mobile services to its citizens. This study shows that in spite of all these initiatives still the users of mobile are cautiously adapting to M-services as reported on SMS-Parking System.

Evaluation of the quality of E-government services: Quality trend analysis

The immense improvement in information and communications technologies (ICT) has motivated service providers to offer services through electronic channels. Governments also realize the widespread, cost-effective and strategic roles that ICT plays in order to serve citizens and other businesses. With the development of a greater number and variety of e-services, citizens have higher expectations and demands and they only quest for those government e-services that are high in quality (i.e. as far as performance, security, availability, etc. are concerned). Although some studies have proposed some quality models, standards and frameworks that organizations can adopt to meet the expectations of citizens, they vary in terms of their domain of use, their maturity in providing the services, the number of factors they consider, their importance and their validity. One of the concern of the E-governments are to prioritize and invest in those quality factors that are of greater interest to citizens. This study presents a quality trend analysis for the evaluation of the quality of e-government services.

An Analysis of the Security Threats and Vulnerabilities of Cloud Computing in Oman

Cloud computing technology is known for its potential advantages which include cost reduction, enhanced flexibility, improved stability and the provision of a proven delivery platform for delivering IT services to its end users. In spite of the numerous benefits, cloud computing does attract security threats and therefore has vulnerabilities. Understanding and mitigating such threats and vulnerabilities are crucial to its continued existence. The main objective of this research is to explore the various threats and vulnerabilities associated with the cloud computing technologies that have been adopted by different organizations in Oman and hence propose solutions to mitigate them. To achieve the research objective of the study, a survey among the cloud computing users and providers was conducted. The main findings showed that data control and privacy, security risks and security threats present considerable barriers in the implementation of cloud computing.

Conceptualization Approach for Accessibility-Aware Framework

For many people, the use of the technology offers opportunities to engage in activities that would otherwise be impossible. However, this potential can only be realised if the technology is designed so that it can support people in achieving their goals. Information access for people with special needs is creating numerous opportunities and challenges within the Information expressway community. A majority of web based information and services are inaccessible to people with certain disabilities, largely due to a lack of awareness of accessibility issues on the part of composers and developers in web engineering. There are many factors that contribute to achieving designs for accessibility, but one important issue is the availability of knowledge about how to design solutions that will take into account users and their diverse characteristics. This research discusses the need for a framework approach to determine the level of accessibility required by people with special needs to access web resources, the results of such an approach should be as meaningful as possible for web applications developers and composers. It is also argued that the current accessibility evaluation approaches are unsatisfactory in the scope and results presentation. This research will outline the groundwork for constructing accessibility aware framework approach where people with distinct needs can access all web applications based on their level of disability. The approach provides guidelines for web developers and composers in the development of accessible web solutions. Blindness and Deafness disability profiles are used as an example to demonstrate the execution of the framework approach and presented implementation architecture.

Unified Threat Management System Approach for Securing SME's Network Infrastructure

For many smaller and larger entities over the last couple of decades, information systems and technologies have become an integral part of their operations and played a major role in drastically changing and often improving their business processes. As computers become more and more integrated into our business organizations, we end up leaving and storing confidential, vital business and sensitive information on them. In general, larger organizations have the technical expertise and resources to better secure computing services. The Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEâs), however, often lack the platforms, infrastructure, technical expertise, and the required financial resources to be able to utilize modern secure technologies for computing services. This paper discussed the importance of network security, analyzed different type of threats to network infrastructure, different methodologies that can be used to mitigate network infrastructure threats and have proposed an approach for securing SMEâs network infrastructure. This approach suggested Unified Threat Management (UTM) as the first line of protection to the network, based on the links between each distribution switch layers which offers a zone based monitoring and controlling system to prevent the network from any possible threats.

Exploring the Dimensions of Electronic Government Service Quality.

Information and communication technology is progressively evolving around the world. Organizations and providers of online services, have to keep up with technological advancements when providing services and meet the redoubling expectations of its customers. At a global level there is wider adoption of e-government, a term coined in the recent past to describe the methodology that implements technology efficiently with quality of service for the general public’s administration in a government setting. This research proposes a scale for measuring quality dimension in setting of e-government by an extensive review of literature from last 3 decades and by revising the SERVQUAL scale. The proposed scale is based on 25 items and six quality dimensions namely: reliability, responsiveness, ease of use\usability, website design\content, and security\ privacy. This research is fruitful for organizations to assess, measure, and improve the quality of service concerning the e-government services they offer. Keywords-component; Service quality, E-service quality, Egovernment service quality, Determinant of quality, measurements of quality, Factors of E-service quality, Measurement of quality

An Approach to Audit Dynamic Changes within Project Development Life Cycle - A Case of Omani Public Organization

In the field of project management, rapidly changing environments are newly recognized and of increased challenge. Old-fashioned inflexible methods, focused around process control, are considered obsolete. Along with the increasing diffusion of project management worldwide, a comprehensive governance principle does not yet address this objective. Therefore, the driven dynamic changes (DC) into the business environment strongly influence the business processes and the project objectives. Thus, the risk of failure for outsourced information technology projects will increase. Thus, there is a clear need of an approach which will handle dynamic changes (DC) into project development life cycle (PDLC). This research focus on how the adoption of control principle in project development life cycle (PDLC) will reduce the effect of dynamic changes on overall project objectives. A qualitative approach has been followed by incorporating project management controls from different industrial standards, secondary data from available scientific literature and case study of Omani public organization were adopted and analyzed. This research will outline the foundation of an approach to how dynamic changes can easily be managed by using control practices during PDLC and can be accommodated within project budget.