24th Annual Conference & Exhibition of the Special Libraries Association/ Arabian Gulf Chapter:Big Data and its investment prospects: The way towards knowledge integration
6 - 8 March 2018, Muscat – Oman
 

Organized in collaboration between the Department of Information Studies and the Special Libraries Association/ Arabian Gulf Chapter

Today’s BigData and Cloud Technology is creating the marketing strategies of the libraries and information centers future. It is predicted that the market for big data will reach $43.3 billion in 2017, growing 6 times faster than the overall IT market, while libraries and information centers are considered the actual repository that users expect to find their needs in. Based on that, the conference intended to:

1. Bring together applications from professional researchers, academics, publishers, and users in the area of information studies and related disciplines.
2. Expand professional competences and expertise of information programs, library services, and publishers market.
3. Increase and encourage information and knowledge values stemming from the massive volume of data which are made available currently and in the near future.
4. Explore the approaches for Big Data and Service Sharing in resources, portals, platforms, and open-sources, technology and tools.
5. Encourage the issue of Interdisciplinarity in managing Big Data to ensure integration of deep knowledge rather than presenting uniformed learning and training programs.

Help publishers, marketers and information services providers playing the numbers game (analytics) revealing the user side of data aggregation and analysis, the way they compile, assess, and act on.

During the study life at Sultan Qaboos University, our students have conducted several activities. Under their group called "Libraries and Records Group" they have a plan for several activities during this academic year 2017/2018. The activities are as follows:

• Workshop on how to prepare a research paper 26/9/2017
• Discussions and meeting with the head of the department 4/10/2017
• Workshop on Illustrator program 21/11/2017 and 28/11/2017
• Lecture about worrying 10/10/2017
• Innovation and research competition (Colosus) 19-22/11/2017
• Design a bag for information specialist 20/2/2018
• The Annual student Journal "Alfahras" 16/4/2018
• Workshop on Arabic font 4/4/2018
• Workshop on electronic archival 17/4/2018

Students Publications:

1. AlFaharas Handout 2017
2. AlFaharas Handout 2018
3. Biblio Book

Student Symposiums:

During the last three years students have conducted three symposiums. The first one was in the academic year 2015/2016 and the second and third were in the academic year 2016/2017. The fourth Informatics symposium will be organized during the period from 16/4/2018 to 18/4/2018 at the College of Arts and Social Sciences. During these symposiums several workshops were conducted and an accompanying exhibition was organized. The Fourth Informatics Symposium will be entitled "The Future Responsibilities of Information Studies in Enhancing Intelligent Societies". The symposium will cover issues such as Internet of things, Information security and Cyber security, Programming, Cloud computing, 3D printing, Big data, Artificial intelligence, Artificial reality, Electronic government and Information literacy.