Potential Collaboration with IIM...

Today ARI was visited by three officers from the Malaysian Institute of Integrity. We discussed for possible collaborations between ARI/UiTM and the IIM. Two possible areas identified were research, training and publication in financial integrity and corporate social responsibility. Project details will be discussed by both parties soon. ARI and UiTM members who are keen to participate in the projects please give your name to Prof Rashidah at shidah@salam.uitm.edu.my or to Ms Wan Mariati at wanmariati@salam.uitm.edu.my

Research on Credit Card Liability?.

Today I saw some write ups in the weekend newspapers about credit card dependence amongst Malaysian professionals. The two age groups mostly affected by the credit card liability are those within the 35-44 & 45 - 54 years of age. It was also mentioned that these credit card users are just paying the minimum monthly payment, hence their liability accumulates. This dependence on credit cards is indeed a worrying phenomenon. ARI is interested to conduct a study on financial literacy among young professionals. We also hope to examine their saving and expenditure habits. Any takers?...

Fire Drill VS a Meeting....

Yes, we have always been told that when there's a fire drill, we must all participate. Treat the drill as if as there's a real fire. We were at UPM recently to learn about one of the university's data management system for RU. Then, while we were starting our meeting, we heard the fire alarm followed by siren from the fire department. Just as we were thinking that may be we should just continue with our meeting, we heard knocks on the door and we were ordered by the fire department officers to leave the building immediately. What if it had been a real fire?. It was a great lesson...

Journal Meeting

As the chairman of the RU Publication Committee on Citation and Impact Factor, I was involved today with the discussion on journal consolidation with the journal editors at UPENA. It was an interesting meeting as everyone was excited with the prospect of submitting our university journals for possible registration with Scopus or ISI Thomson. As the university is also focussing on lecturers to publish in Scopus & ISI journals, it is also natural that we must also register our journals with these two publication database companies. Prof Bakar who is the Assistant Vice Chancellor was also there to brief the editors.

Copyrights

From now on, all ARI members must be deliberate in their action in obtaining at least a copyright for all their inventions, design, software and even training modules. Once your work is copyrighted, your ideas or concepts are protected. How to get the copyrights? Please get the necessary forms to apply for your IPR from the UiLC or from the DVC (Networking & Community) offices.

The Six Thinking Hats: Edward De Bono

It was such a great opportunity for me to be able to attend a talk by Dr De Bono at the Annexe Hall UiTM today. The event which was sponsored by Sime Darby Bhd was attended by lecturers, administrators, Industrists and students. For me, one of the most striking thinking concepts that he deliberated today was the Six Thinking Hats. Very often, we are faced with situations where we spent a lot of time and efforts arguing on issues simply because we disagree with a concept or idea. In a "Six Thinking Hats" situation, everyone thinks in parallel towards the same course. Each of the six hat groups: Red, Green, White, Black, Blue and Yellow assumes different roles. Rather than arguing, the ideas and concepts are further built up to benefit the organization. If you don't understand this concept, read his book by the same title...

UiTM Holding: the University Business Arm

The UiTM Holding is the business arm of our university. Formed more than three years ago, the entity facilitates all business-related activities of the university. Currently, one of the most important functions of UiTM Holding is to assist UiTM inventors and innovators to commercialise their products or services. The opportunity to meet and discuss with Encik Ahmad Reza, the CEO of UiTM Holding makes me realize the many untapped potentials for UiTM to generate its own income. He has interesting vision and business plans that the university can explore. Seen here is En Ahmad Reza (the one closest to the camera) in serious discussions with some members of the UiLC Committee.

Prof Sakhti's Visit

Our visiting professor Dr Sakhti Mahentiran from Butler University, USA will be visiting the Faculty of Accountancy and ARI next week. I hope ARI members, particularly our graduate students will take the opportunity to discuss with Prof Sakhti on how to develop research conceptual framework. Prof Sakhti's specialisation is in management accounting and corporate governance. Please arrange to have a one-on-one session with him.

Know Your Newly Elected UiTM Alumni President.....

During its recent Annual General Meeting, the UiTM Alumni Association had elected Y.Bhg Dato' Seri Mohd Zin Mohamad as its president. Today I attended a function organized by the president at the Ar-Raha Foundation in Section 7 Shah Alam. Dato' Seri President had asked us to propose to him initiatives that could strengthen the association and UiTM. Those ARI members who are keen to propose any activity or research initiative kindly let me know your plans. Insyaallah, I will let him know...

The H1N1 Epidemic

Yes it is serious and all of us must take precautions. All ARI members who are travelling to those infected countries are adviced to take extra precaution. Precautions will include the wearing of masks and sanitizing your hands after being exposed to public places. Perhaps this is not a very good time to travel. Perhaps it is better to stay put and start your Scopus and ISI publications.

PhD Progress Presentations

Today, some PhD students had their progress presentation and I was one of the assessors. The most important aspect that all phd students must know is what is their research contribution?. At PhD level, this research contribution must be both NEW and SIGNIFICANT. Thus, phd students must ensure at all time that you are able to produce this research contribution. Contribution could be a new theory or model, a new measure, findings that could produce new techniques, new policy or you have extended an existing model in such that your findings are superior in quality compared to earlier studies. Or simply, contribution is because your study is the first of its kind. So, during your progress presentation, you must be ready to answer questions that challenge your research contribution. Seen here are our two phd students: Shatari & Dalila.

Visiting Professor Dr Maunders

All ARI and faculty members must take advantage of Professor Maunders visit. He is an expert in qualitative research, particularly in the areas of management accounting and strategic management. Please make an appointment to meet up with him and discuss your proposal or research with him. PhD students must not miss the opportunity of discussing your work with him. If you have papers that you wish to publish, you can also show him and may be ask him to edit it....

Financial Fraud Forum

I was asked to chair the forum title: "Financial Fraud Management - key to Mitigating White Collar Crime". Three speakers took part in the discussions: Ms Norhayati Bakaruddin, the Technical Director IIA Malaysia, Prof Dr Syed Noh - an expert panel with the MACC and Mr Akbar Satar, the Executive Director of the Akbar Polygraph Academy.

Thank You Prof Moyes

My master student Hesri contacted Prof Moyes last year as he wanted to adapt his "red flags questionnaire" for his thesis. Ever since, we have been communicating with him either through email or by phone. Then we invited him for our PhD colloquium and conference. Through him, two papers have been accepted for international journal publication (the journals are both Scopus-registered). Meeting him in person for the first time was an interesting experience. He shared with us the need to specialize in your writing. For him, he wants to concentrate on writing articles related to "financial fraud red flags". All papers that we sent for editing was read carefully by him so much so the revised version improved tremendously. He also highlight the need for phd students and researchers to focus on details of research design. Today, after having him around for four days in Malaysia, he left for the United States. We hope to invite him again in the Summer 2010. Thanks Prof Moyes....

RO and ARO for ARI....

Prof Shidah and I were involved with the interviews of new positions for research officer and assistant research officer for ARI. 30 candidates were shortlisted. Personally I think the candidates were all very good. The most difficult task was in matching the expertise of the candidates with the needs of ARI. All the candidates were science & technology graduates. Some candidates were very creative in proposing new ideas for ARI.

Last Minute Perfecting Spirit...

Tomorrow, the PhD colloqium will start. The actual International Conference on Forensic Accounting & Financial Criminology will take place on 16-17. The professors are already here. Our conference commitee members were busy preparing the conference bags. We even have some very young "members" who offered their help.

ISC Journal Citation Report...

Another option...."ISC Journal Citation Reports التقريرالإستشهادي للمجلات العربية ". A new Islamic Journal Citation Reports offers a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the Islamic world's leading journals, with quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data. The initiave has been spearheaded by a group of professors from Iran. Plese go to the following websites for details. www.srlst.com; www.ricest.ac.ir and www.isc.gov.ir

Journal Rebranding Initiative

At least ten UiTM journals will soon be registered with the Directory of Open Access Journals - DOAJ. The directory allows these journals to be accessed globally by reseachers. This is one of the university's initiative in the rebranding of our journals. Prof Dr Rashidah, Deputy Director ARI has been entrusted with one of the university's journals: Social and Management Journal. Another immediate task is to submit the journal for Scopus/ISI registration. Yes, it is a tall order, but I am confident that she will be able to do it Insyaallah.

Open Access Journals

Nowadays, a lot of university journals are being published online. I have been advised by a professor whose area of expertise includes bibliometric and data management that all aspirant online writers or publisher to register their journals to the "Directory of Open Access". Please go to http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=findJournals for details.

Congratulations AP Dr Noorashikin

One of ARI's research associates, Dr Noorashikin Ismail has just been recently promoted to an associate professor effective 1st June 2009. May this promotion further motivates her and other ARI members to produce more Scopus and ISI articles. Congratulations

Citation of Articles

Whilst focus has always been given on publishing our articles in journals listed in Scopus and ISI Thomson, equally important is the need for us to promote our articles so that other authors will cite our articles in their papers. The "game" is to optimize the citation rate of our articles. One important lesson that I learnt from Prof Binshan recently is the need for us to continually update our international networking databases and to promote our articles to people that we met at conferences and other international travels.

Rebranding of UiTM Journals

The need to rebrand UiTM journals is more prevalent now that the university is set to apply for the RU status. Our focus now should include among others: increasing the number of journal issues per year to at least four times per year; submitting for journal registration with Scopus/ISI Thomson; collaborating with renowned journal publishers such as emerald, inderscience, elsevier etc; promoting the journals through international networking particularly in Europe and North America; formulating written policies for publications in Scopus & ISI.

FOCUS: Impact factor and Citation Index

As a research institute, all ARI members should now focus on publishing only in Scopus and ISI journals. We must also be deliberate in promoting our articles so that they could be cited by these journals. Only articles published in Scopus and ISI journals and being cited by authors in other Scopus and ISI journals would be counted for the computation of impact factors.

Collaboration with USRN Uganda

Effort is on to initiate an international research collaboration between ARI and USRN Uganda in the area of corporate governance. Dr Andrew from Uganda and Prof Rashidah from ARI will be submitting a joint-proposal to ACCA(UK) for an international research grant very soon.

Putting Them All Together....

I am honored to be invited in the final validation of RU data as we were submitting the 2008 data by today. We spent almost six hours on Friday at the TNC (Research & Innovation) office, making sure that we have all the evidences for all the data that we submitted. It was all worth it.

Following Ups & Our Committment

Tomorrow, Prof Binshan will return to the USA. He will leave us with "homework" and several follow ups related to the 33 articles that we submitted to him. It is now our RESPONSIBILITY to see that improvements are accordingly made on these articles and we shall do whatever it takes to get these papers published in the targeted journals. That should be our COMMITMENT. I know we can do it.

Note From PD

Today is the second day of FRGS evaluation. The number of FRGS proposals received this year has increased by about 30% compared to last year. UiTM has submitted a fair number of proposals. This year saw not only submissions from 22 IPTAs, there's also FRGS proposals from GLC universities such as MMU, Uniten & Universiti Petronas.

Important Lessons From The Guru....

It might appear trivial, but there are some very important aspect to consider when we submit our papers for journal publications: The title of the article must be interesting with less than 8 words; identify the target journal - in the case of UiTM, the journal must at least be registered with Scopus; identify keywords to facilitate google search engine; word count your article not to exceed 8,000 words; do journal analysis through journal analyzer of Scopus. We should not just focus on publishing in scopus or ISI journals, more importantant we need to establish strategy to increase the citation rate. The one-on-one session started with me today. All those mentioned above, I got them from the Guru himself. TQ Prof Binshan.

An Eye Opener

The day finally arrives. The ISI Binshan workshop started today with more than 50 participants. "Your research cannot be considered as complete until you get some publications out of it....". These were the opening words uttered by Prof Binshan during his morning session. Final count of articles stood at 33. There were so many lessons learnt from his first day workshop. In the evening the dean entertained Prof Binshan for dinner. I am sure that UiTM relationship with Prof Binshan is going to be a long term. When he returns, there will be a lot of follow ups that the researchers will have to do before the papers are finally published.