President of Umm Al Qura University (UQU) Dr. Bakri Bin M'atoog Bin Bakri Assas on Wednesday, Rabi' Al Thani 26, inaugurated nine e-services which would be available via university's portal.

The inaugural ceremony, which took place in the President's office in Al-Abdiyah, was attended by Vice President for Academic Development and Community Services Dr. Hany bin Othman bin Yassin Ghazi, Vice President for Educational Affairs and Dr. Al-Srouji, Dean of Admission and Registration Prof. Hashem bin Ahmed Al-Samadani, Dean of Information Technology Dr. Majed Al Gethami, Vice Dean of IT Dr. Majed Farash, Vice Dean of IT for E-Transactions Dr. Atif M. Alhejali, Vice Dean of IT for Technical Affairs and Head of the university portal Eng. Salem Ba-Hamdin.

 Addressing the meeting, Dr. Ghazi reiterated importance of keeping pace with the e-service evolution as a main tool of development at the university. He said extensive changes swept the website to make it one of the best international quadrilingual sites.

The mission achieved under support of the UQU President at the hands of Dr. Al Gethami and his team, the vice-president said, praising cooperation and efforts exerted by the IT Deanship staff who managed to make content available in a remarkable short period of time and linking its topics to the social media networks.

For his part, Dr. Al Gethami noted the e-services are parts of the second package which are envisaged to be available by the deanship according to the highest standards and specifications. This month, according to Dr. Al Gethami, another package of services would be launched and is expected to have positive impact on the UQU employees.

During the meeting, Dr. Alhejali gave a presentation on the new services which include a number of important platforms; for example, Rasel that gives access for email and SMS services in addition to Student Rasel Communication System which allows staff members to hold contacts with their students via email and SMS throughout the semester.

The communication system allows them to send forms to sub-sites in the university portal managed by staff members or other personnel, he added, saying this can give access for creation of e-forms and questionnaires and entry management in addition to the GPA calculation according to subjects and expected grades.

Also, employee email address queries would be possible via another service that allows search for an employee's email address using her/his code, he said, adding another service named "Who Messaged Me?" would be accessible. It is an open service through which you can identify the source of message (SMS or email) by adding the message's number to see the details of the sender via Rasel or Student Rasel system and Transaction Queries services. It also includes UQU's maps and Google location services as well as Tawasul service which shows all contact details (phone number, email, social media accounts and extensions) and book printing for all entities.

In the same context, Dr. Assas gave the green light for the new e-services and asserted that the university has taken wide steps according to the government's directions to develop and provide e-services for beneficiaries as per the highest standards.

Today, students can remotely register in education programs (diploma, bachelor and postgraduate degrees) or take academic action (add projects, cancel or postpone study online), Dr. Assas said and urged students to use the online services. Also, he saluted efforts exerted by Dr. Ghazi for realizing a comprehensive development at the university. He extended thanks to Dr. Al Gethami, vice-deans and team responsible for the e-system upgrade.