Long Hari Raya Break

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 1430 everyone. I took a long break this hari raya visiting friends and relatives. The first raya was spent in Hulu Langat, my home town. We went back there a few days before the raya break. Then we spent the next four days in Gurun, Kedah - my husband's home town. Every year, it has been a routine that our family will spend our time in both home towns. Raya has always been great as all our family members will get together....

Hari Raya Mood

The office was pretty much deserted as most staff has taken an earlier leave to travel to their respective hometowns. Nevertheless our office staff managed to decorate the office, so that the raya mood is there....

Software to Check for Plagiarism

There's a lot of anti-plagarism software that are available in the market. Supervisors and lecturers should check thesis, dissertation and research projects submitted by students and other fellow researchers for possible plagarism. Journal publishers are very strict on plagarism as there are instances where the authors or writers are blacklisted indefinitely should their papers are found to have plagarized the work of others. ARI will also be buying one of these softwares soon....

Potential Students Participation for IID 2010

About twenty Bachelor of Accountancy (BAcc) students have indicated their interest to participate in UiTM's forthcoming Invention, Innovation and Design (IID) Exhibition to be held in early 2010. The students had today presented their ideas to their lecturer, Ms Intan Salwani. Ms Intan will act as their supervisor for the IID projects. The Dean of the Faculty of Accountancy, Prof Ibrahim Kamal has agreed in principle to support the students' projects by allocating a small fund to them...

ARI's Latest Publications

Two new books on corporate governance were published recently by two ARI members. Basically, the two books are "spin-offs" from the authors' two separate research projects. The first book entitled CSR-Based Corporate Governance is premised on a FRGS project with similar title and the second book, Self-Regulating Corporate Governance is based on various collaborative projects with the industry.

Plagarism

The Sun Newspaper today highlighted on its front page the case of two local university lecturers who were found to have plagarised the work of others six year ago. The plagarism was nevertheless only discovered last month by the university's investigation team. I can bet the repercussion is great and very damaging. As such, don't even get near to this habit. As researchers and post graduate students, the use of internets as a reference source is inevitable. Please do not attempt to plagarise as this act remains a "liability" for a long period of time. You will never know, as the discovery may happens 10, 20 years down the road.....

ARI in Three Newspapers....

As UiTM is celebrating its 10th year anniversary since it became a university, various write ups on the university's research and program initiatives are being highlighted in three newspapers namely NST, Utusan Malaysia and Kosmos. Interestingly, the achievements of the Accounting Research Institute have been included as "centrestage" materials in the newspapers. ARI is both humbled and thankful to the university for its recognition of our contributions....

UiTM Alumni Society Meeting & Breaking Fast Event

The UiTM Alumni Society organised its third Committee Meeting yesterday at the Yayasan Ar-Raha in Section 7, Shah Alam. All Vice Presidents of the society's seven main committee presented their plans of proposed activities for years 2009-2010. Personally, I am involved in two committes namely research and intellectual discourse. Our committes have already lined up various activities to be implemented. Our first activity of intellectual discourse will be in October 2009 as Y.Bhg Tun Dr Mahathir has agreed to give a talk at the Yayasan Perdana Leadership in Putrajaya for alumni members

Briefing on Cradle Funding

In ARI's monthly meeting today, we have invited Mr Kenny from Cradle Fund to give a briefing on how ARI and faculty members can take advantage of the fund to further develop our research products so as they are ready for commercialisation. Thanks to Associate Professor Dr Noraini for organising the briefing.

Workshop on ISI/Scopus Conference Proceedings

In our ARI meeting today, it was agreed tht Prof Rashidah will conduct a workshop on how ARI members can take advantage of the many engineering & other science-based conferences that are indexed by either Scopus and Thomson ISI. The workshop will be organized on 15 & 16 September 2009. All ARI and faculty members are invited to participate in the workshop

Strategic Direction for COEs

The university is organizing a 3-day workshop on 11-13 September 2009 at the Puncak Alam campus. Basically, the workshop is to discuss strategies and future direction of our centres of excellence in UiTM. Perhaps some COEs need to merge to form a unit that is transdiciplinary - may be an Institute of Transdiciplinary Research (ITR). We must take advantage of our strengths in social science areas such as law, art & design, creative art, architecture, Library studies etc so that we can produce research projects that are multi-disciplinary....

ARI and Applied Research

When asked about what sort of research ARI focuses on, it is obvious that ARI concentrates on applied research. To date, we have collaborated with various organizations and conducted researches on areas that interest them and in the end facilitate them with research findings that could contribute to their decision making process. Among organisations that we have been involved with are: IIM, MSWG, MICG, CIMA, CPA Australia, ACCA, MIA, Petronas, RAM, TM Berhad, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Nestle Bhd, Philip Lumeleds, DHL, Public Bank Berhad, Bank Rakyat Bhd, ICSA, LLM, Mesiniaga, Biz Aid Technology, Proton etc

UiTM's 10th Anniversary as a University

The university status awarded to us in 1999 has indeed transformed all of us. Today UiTM aspires to become a research university. Why not?. But everyone of us must contribute towards this aspiration. Listed below are contributions that everyone should give to our beloved university. Can we contribute at least one unit for all these items per year?:
1. 1 Publication in Scopus/ISI-indexed journal
2. 1 Publication in non-indexed journal
3. 1 Chapter of a book
4. 1 IPR
5. 1 research grant of at least RM10,000
6. 1 paper presentation at Scopus/ISI conference

Institute of Transdiciplinary Research

With the diversed research areas that our researchers in UiTM are engaged in, I personally think that we should formalise the setting up of the Institute of Transdiciplinary Research (ITR). At least we shall have the right structure and facility to integrate multi-disciplinary research activities in the university.

More ISI-Thomson Indexed Conferences

Yes, our research is accounting-based. But certainly we can "adapt" our papers to suit the need of these indexed conferences.

ISI-INDEXED CONFERENCES 2009/2010

1. The 2nd International Conference on Advanced Computer Control (ICACC 2010)
Shenyang, China, 27th-29th, March 2010. Submission deadline: 5th November 2009. www.icacc.org/

2. The 2nd International Conference on Computer modeling and simulation (iccms 2010), Organized by the International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology January 22-24, 2010, Sanya, China. Submission deadline: September 10, 2009. www.iccms.org/

3. 2010 International Conference on Business, Economics and Tourism Management (CBETM 2010), February 26 - 28, 2010, Singapore. Submission deadline: October 20, 2009. www.iacsit.org/cbetm/

4. 2010 International Conference on e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning (IC4E 2010), Sanya, China, January 22-24, 2010. Submission deadline: October 5, 2009. http://www.iacsit.org/ic4e/

5. The 2nd International Conference on Machine Learning and Computing (ICMLC 2010), Bangalore, India, February 9-11, 2010. Submission deadline: October 20, 2009 http://www.icmlc.org/

6. The 29th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic EngineeringShanghai, China - June 6-11, 2010; Submission deadline (abstract): September 28, 2009, http://www.ooae.org/

7. The 2010 International Conference on Chemical Engineering and Applications (CCEA 2010) Singapore, Feb. 26-28, 2010. Submission deadline: October 30, 2009. http://www.iacsit.org/

8. The 2010 International Conference on Electrical and Energy Systems (ICEES 2010)Singapore, Feb. 26-28, 2010; submission deadline: October 30, 2009: http://www.iacsit.org/icees/

More Opportunity for Novice Writers

Yes, I have been mentioning a lot about publishing your work in Scopus and ISI Thomson journals. Whilst that is what we aim for, novice writers should not despair. You may want to start by submitting your papers to any international peer-reviewed journals. You should get into perhaps groups of 3-4 authors and submit 2-3 papers to different international journals. You may want to browse through the attached URL which is based in Canada. The Canadian Centre for Science and Education (CCSE) has more than twenty online and print journals that you can consider to publish in. As the journals are published monthly (i.e 12 issues per year), the turnover to get your papers considered for publication is relatively short, between 1-2 weeks. But the publication may require some fee payments. That's why, if there are 3-4 of you, you can share the cost. Happy trying. Remember, once you have gained confidence in publishing in these journals, your publication should evolve to Scopus & ISI-indexed journals.

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal.html

RMI Research Direction Workshop

RMI organized another round of research strategic direction workshop for the Tenth Malaysia Plan (RMK 10). RMK 10 covers the periods between 2010 to 2015. This time around, a lot more deans, deputy deans and heads of centres of excellence were involved in the discussions. Basically we were discussing on our strengths and at the same time, making sure that our strategy is in tandem with the country's vision.

UiTM Purchase of ISI Thomson Database

The university has recently gotten an approval by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) on the purchase of the ISI Thomson (Web of Science) Database. Today, UiTM (headed by Prof Dr Mustafa, TNC Academic) and ISI Thomson representatives had a price negotiation session with the supplier. It was agreed that UiTM will buy the databases for three years. This purchase would certainly facilitate UiTM researchers to move in tandem with the university's aspiration to become a research university. The Perpustakaan Tuan Abdul Razak has been given the honour to maintain the databases and to initiate trainings for staff and students to maximize the utilisation of this facility.

New Policy on Conference Paper Presentations

I have been informed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic and Internationalisation) Prof Dr Mustaffa that the UiTM top management has decided to implement a policy of only allowing paper presentations at Scopus or ISI Thomson-indexed conferences. The good thing about this policy is that researchers can present in as many conferences as possible. Moving forward, UiTM is also planning to index some of its major conferences with Scopus and ISI Thomson. This policy is in tandem with the university aspiration to become a research university.

Happy 52nd Merdeka Malaysia

Yes time flies. Happy 52nd Independent Day for al Malaysians. May all of us be free from all other forms of "colonisations" (e.g. fear, helplessness, debt etc).