Department of Information Studies

Accreditation of Bachelor Program
Bachelor Program for External Review
Accreditation of Master Program

During the last few years Sultan Qaboos University moved quickly and steadily toward establishing standards for quality assurance in teaching and scientific research. With alignment to this movement, the department of Information Studies started to take several steps toward academic accreditation including updating academic study plans, changing the department’s name to one which suits new changes in the field, and bringing external experts to evaluate the department’s programs and plans. Finally, we created a partnership with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).

Concluding all these steps, on 22^nd of February 2016 CILIP announced officially that the Bachelor Program (Management of Archives specialism and Management of Information Institutions specialism) at Information Studies Department at Sultan Qaboos University were accredited for five years.

The attached external review report deals with the evaluation of the department of Information Studies at Sultan Qaboos University. This mission, which lasted five days (April 11 – April 16, 2015), concerned this department. The work began with a first meeting with the Head of the department Dr. Al Suqri Mohamed and his collaborator Dr. Nabhan alharrasi on April 11, then with the Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences and his collaborators on April 12, in addition to the visit of the University Quality Assurance Service. On April 13, the external evaluator was informed by the Head of the department about the experience of the department. We had the opportunity to get access to the department’s study plans and program files. On April 14, a visit was arranged to the University Main Library which led to an interview with the Head Librarian (Appendix 3). Then, the external evaluator was able to have an interview with a sample of teaching staff of the same department (Appendix 1). On April 15, a visit to the department’s study classrooms was arranged with a meeting with students who responded to interview questions (Appendix 2). The external evaluator had long discussions during his short visit with the Head of the department of Information Studies around the activities and services offered by his institution. This task was completed, on the one hand, through the study of documents and files consulted in the department, and, on the other hand, via the content analysis of interviews arranged with various persons that are active in the institution. Observations concerning our appreciation of the service offered with recommendations that may improve the quality of the service will be presented in this report.

- External Review Report

MasterAccreditationCertificate

Following the accreditation of the Bachelor’s program in 2016, the Information Studies Department began another step towards accrediting the Master’s program. Due to well- established rules and practices at the department, CILIP announced officially on 6^th of April 2017 that the Master’s Program at the Information Studies Department was accredited and this accreditation is valid until 5^th of April 2022.

For all these achievements, it can be said that the Information Studies Department at Sultan Qaboos University was the first department within the Arab Gulf States to be accredited in this field at Bachelor level, and the first department within the Arab States to be accredited as a bilingual Master’s program.