ZiiK - Report Nr. 14

Graduation event for Afghan graduates of the

master's program in computer science

at the TU Berlin

Berlin,11th - 13th March 2010

Zentrum für internationale und interkulturelle Kommunikation (ZiiK)Technische Universität Berlin, Fakultät IV (Elektrotechnik und Informatik)Franklinstr. 28/29, 10587 Berlin

ISSN 1619-3660

Technische Universität Berlin

ZiiK - Report Nr. 14

Graduation event for Afghan graduates of the

master's program in computer science

at the TU Berlin

Berlin,

11th - 13th March 2010

Partners:

World Bank

German Academic Exchange Service

Imprint:

Editor: Dr. Nazir Peroz

Layout: Saskia Steinbeck

Photography: Peter Himsel, Xun Zhou

Technische Universität Berlin

Centre for International and Intercultural Communication (ZiiK)

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Franklinstr. 28/29, 10587 Berlin

www.ziik.org Berlin, June 2010

Content

Preface..................................................................................................41st Day: Welcome and Opening...............................................................5

Welcome and Opening....................................................................................5

Impressions of the Afghan Graduates............................................................112nd Day: IT Regulations and IT Infrastructure........................................12

IT Regulations..............................................................................................12“National ICT Policy for Higher Education in Afghanistan”............................................12“Developing a nationwide IT curriculum system for Afghanistan”.................................12“A Strategy to localize Open Source Software to Pashto in example of Open Office” ...13“A Concept for establishing a Computer Science Faculty at Balkh University” .............13“An Online Encyclopedia for scientific terms in Dari-Persian and Pashto” ....................14“A Concept for an IT Center at Kandahar University” ...................................................14“Improving maintainability of J2EE applications by applying AOP paradigm” ..............15

IT Infrastructure..........................................................................................16“Sustainable Power Concept for servers in IT Centers at Afghan Universities“ ............16“Sustainable Network and Bandwidth Management for Afghan Universities” ..............16“Sustainable Backup Solutions for Higher Education in Afghanistan” ..........................17“Concept for a sustainable Email System at Afghan Universities” ...............................17“Improving availability of internet access through cooperation between Afghan ISPs” 18

3rd Day: IT in Adminstration and Education...........................................19

IT in Administration......................................................................................19“Concept for an University Finance Management System” ..........................................19“Concept for a Patient Emergency and Management System” ....................................19“Transforming a paper-based Library System to digital in Example of Herat University” ..................................................................................................................20“Information Management System for lecturer profiles in the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan” ...........................................................................................20“Interoperability Tests With the Quagga Open Source Router” ....................................20“Concept for an adapted School Management System” ..............................................21“Benefits of Open Source Based School Management System for Afghan schools” .....21

IT in Education ............................................................................................22“Concept to improve computerised post-examination processes of Concours” ...........22“Concept to improve University Entrance Exam (Concours)” ......................................23“A Management System for university entry examination questions in Afghanistan” . .23“A System to support the transformation to Credit Point Grading at Afghan Universities” ................................................................................................................24“Concept of Timetable and Resource Management System for Afghan Universities” . .24“Developing a System to manage Student Records at Herat University” .....................25

Summary and Outlook..........................................................................26Appendices..........................................................................................28

Appendix 1..................................................................................................28Conference Program.....................................................................................................28

Appendix 2..................................................................................................32Impressions of the Graduation Ceremony.....................................................................32

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Preface

The Computer Science Master's Program for Afghan lecturers is a special program of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin).

The preparation of the program was fun-ded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from December 2007 to February 2008 and the master's program itself has been realized with funding from the World Bank from April 2008 to March 2010. This program is the first of its kind for Afghanistan and one of many projects of the TU Berlin for the reconstruction of the country.

The Centre for International and Intercul-tural Communication (ZiiK) of the TU Ber-lin has, with support from the DAAD, not only supported the reconstruction of aca-demic structures in the area of Informati-on Technology (IT) in Afghanistan, but also realized many projects since 2002.

With the education of 25 Afghan Master students from six Afghan universities (Ka-bul, Politechnical University Kabul, Herat, Balkh, Kandahar, Nangarhar), a solid base has been created for the employment of IT in the area of higher education, especially in Afghanistan.

After their return to their home universi-ties, the graduates of the program will be lecturers and be active in the sustainable construction of IT structures in Afghanis-tan in the areas of IT policies, IT infra-structure, IT education and IT manage-ment.

For the final graduation ceremony of the program from the 11th until the 13th of March 2010, the following persons, besi-des the administration of the TU Berlin and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, have been invited to the TU Berlin:

• Mrs. Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs,

• Mr. Abed Najib, Counsellor of the Afghan Embassy in Berlin,

• Guests from Afghanistan:• Prof. Mohammad Hassan

Rashiq, head of the education department of the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education,

• Prof. Abdul Azim Noorbakhsh, head of the press department of the Ministry of Higher Education,

• Prof. Mohammad Homayon Naseri, Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the University of Kabul,

• Prof. Mohammad Mirza, Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the Politechnical University of Kabul,

• Prof. Abdul Wasi Amiri, Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the University of Herat as well as

• Dr. Alexander Kupfer, representative from the DAAD.

The following is a brief report about the opening of the ceremony on the first day and the presentations of the master's theses of the participants of the program on the second and third day. The topics of the master theses have been chosen to address current needs of the Afghan society.

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1st Day: Welcome and Opening

Welcome and Opening

Prof. Hans-Ulrich Heiß,Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Electrical Engi-neering and Com-puter Science of the TU Berlin has been moderating the first day and welcomed the Mi-nister of State, the Counsellor of the Afghan Em-bassy, the guests

from Afghanistan, the representative from the DAAD and the Afghan graduates. Prof. Heiß shortly went into details of the acti-vities of the ZiiK of the Faculty and em-phasized the importance of the Master Program for the reconstruction of the aca-demic structures in Afghanistan.

Mrs. Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, pointed out the impact of education for Afghanistan. She started her speech with the metaphor of educati-on being light. For the German Govern-ment, education is one of the core areas of engagement with Afghanistan. In hig-her education, this support is mainly pro-vided by the DAAD, which allocated nu-merous scholarships, guest lectureships in Afghanistan and research promotions in Germany. This cooperation is comple-mented by efforts in education in schools, which is also supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

By exchange programs like this Master program, not only expertise is created, but also an exchange between cultures is taking place. In the scope of this intercul-tural exchange, both parties are learning from each other. Mrs. Pieper asked the graduates to carry their experience with foreign cultures to Afghanistan and to pass it on to the next generation. At the same time, she asked them to sustain their connection with their friends in Ger-many and to visit Germany again in their role as university lecturers. She thanked the TU Berlin and the ZiiK for their activi-ties for the reconstruction of academic structures in the area of IT.

Dr. GabrieleWendorf, vice president of the TU Berlin, congratulated the master graduates for their success-ful studies. With more than 100 co-operation con-tracts with foreign universities and scientific instituti-ons from 36 coun-tries as well as an above average propor-tion of foreign students, the TU Berlin is a university with a very strong international character. Thanks to the widespread in-ternational cooperation and their gradua-tes in different countries, the TU Berlin has an expansive world wide network.The TU Berlin is happy to support Afgha-nistan, and is thankful for the effort the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, especially Dr. Peroz is making to establish such a master's pro-gram to ensure the Higher Education Sys-tem in Afghanistan. She wishes the gra-duates a successful future life.

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Herr AbedNajib, Counsellor of the Afghan Em-bassy in Berlin, emphasized the role of Germany in the reconstruc-tion of Afghanis-tan during the last years. The Petersberg Confe-rence created the basis for free elections and thus paved the way of

the country to democracy. Therefore, Mr. Najib thanked State Minister Mrs. Pieper as representative of the German Government. The path to education is open now for the young generation in Af-ghanistan and they can now also study Computer Science and new technologies. These technologies enable the young ge-neration to take part in the global village and to communicate with the whole world. The sustainable support from the TU Berlin is only possible through the stepless efforts from Dr. Peroz and his team as well as from Dr. Kupfer from the DAAD. Mr. Najib expressed his thanks to them. For the graduates, he wishes a happy reunion with their families in Af-ghanistan and all the best for their fur-ther academic career.

Prof. Mohammad Hassan Rashiq, Director, Coordination of Academic Affairs, Ministry of Higher Education:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,I am very happy to be here and participate in this important ceremony. It is the result of your kind support that made us able to celebrate this event. I specially thank Excellency Mrs. Pieper, Deputy Foreign Minister for her interest in Afghan Higher Education Development and taking her time to come to this graduation

ceremony.Germany is a main player to support Afghanistan higher education. Afgha-nistan people and academic society respect Germany for their continuous support for Afghanistan in different spheres, among them in the sphere of education and higher education. We remember that Germany started sup-porting our country very soon after independence. You established for us a very prestigious high school called Amani, named after King Amanulla, which produces very qualified graduates for our society since then. This high school remained as a symbol of German-Afghan friendship up to now. Recently, once again Germany expanded it fundamental support to our higher education. I want to express my best thanks on behalf of ministry of higher education leadership for the support of your country for our higher education.

Dear friends,Afghanistan higher education is in the process of fundamental changes to provide more and more access and improve the quality of higher education. These are two main goals of our new strategic plan. According to this plan enrolment would be doubled in five years period and the quality would be improved. In the respect the curriculums would be revised and updated, research work and post graduate degree programs would be developed in national univer-sities and educational level of staff members would be risen. New infra-structure would be built and an accepted accreditation system would be introduced to ensure standard quality of our higher education. To achieve all these goals we need more and further support from all our partners especially Germany. However we know you already did a lot for us. But since still a lot remained which has to be done in the future, so please stay with us. Once more I take the pleasure to thank you all for your excellent contribution and support to our higher education. I also want to congratulate our young staff of our universities for their successful completion of their education program and wish them more success in the future. I thank TU Berlin professors and

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leadership for their excellent job in preparing our staff members. I am confident that the cooperation between our universities will continue and would expand even more in the future. I also want to thank the World Bank for its financial support of this program and for providing many other facilities to our higher education. At the end let me say that we together with our partners particularly Germany would accomplish the goals and objectives identified in strategic plan of Afghanistan higher education.”

Dr. Alexander Kupfer, head of department for Afghanistan and Pakistan of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD):

“Ladies and Gentlemen,I am very happy to be here today as a representative of DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service. It is my pleasure to convey to you the greetings of our Secretary-General Dr. Bode who very much regrets that he cannot be present in person.The occasion of our meeting is the celebration of 25 freshly graduated Masters from Afghanistan. You will be aware that DAAD is providing some 60,000 scholarships every year, and that accordingly there are many opportunities for us to celebrate events like this one. And yet, this graduation ceremony is something special.It is special, because until only eight years ago, Afghanistan was virtually cut off from the rest of the world, with a very limited rest of academic activity going on.It is special, because eight years ago achieving such Master's degrees must

have seemed utterly impossible to Afghan lecturers, living in a warstricken country and being deprived of the most basic elements of modern university teaching.It is also special, because this ceremony conveys a message of hope. From DAAD's perspective, you 25 lecturers are 25 pillars for a better of future of Afghanistan. You will soon return to Afghanistan, where you will be able to share your knowledge and skills with your colleagues and students. You will be vital in improving the quality of academic teaching in Balkh, Herat, Jalalabad, Kabul, and Kandahar. In short, you will be vital in helping Afghanistan to help itself.Why is this so? Why is the quality of higher education important for the process of Afghan civil reconstruction? The answers are obvious: Higher education, scientific expertise and knowledge are the only key for Afghanistan to become truly self-sufficient, to develop markets according to local demands, to preserve knowledge, to distribute it, and to develop it further. For Afghanistan, a quality higher education will be the admission ticket to enter into the international community of knowledge, to start exchanges, and to build partnerships. At home, higher education and education in general will provide the most powerful tools against any fraction or party who intend to trick the population into activities which they would not do if they only knew better. This is, I am certain, why the Taliban for instance are so hostile to education. And this is why, in the long run, one well-educated mind will be much more powerful than a loaded weapon. Education will be the most essential resource for a brighter future, not just in Afghanistan but anywhere. Without it, even the greatest efforts would be doomed to fail.The current master's program was generously funded by the World Bank. It was also supported by DAAD in the framework of the special program “Stability Pact for Afghanistan”, and it would not at all have been possible without the steady support from the German Federal Foreign Office which has continually been provided since the beginning of 2002.

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On behalf of DAAD, I would therefore like to express my gratitude for the financial means which have so far been provided, and also our sincere hope that this important support will be continued to complete the job according to plan. With great pleasure and relief, dear Minister of State Pieper, I have heard of your commitment to continue this support and even to double the current financial resources. This is indeed a very importantSignal.I would also like to thank the Technical University of Berlin, Dr. Nazir Peroz and his colleagues for their tremendous efforts in support of establishing academic IT structures and IT knowledge in Afghanistan. Today’s graduation ceremony is an important milestone. Others, I am sure, will follow.Thank you.”

Prof. Abdul Wasi Amiri,Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the University of heart:

„Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all I would like to give you the best regards on behalf of Excellency Bariz Hossaini chancellor of Herat University. I am really happy that you made available the opportunity to participate in the graduation event for Afghan graduates of the master's program in computer science.

There is no doubt that Afghanistan was away of scientific development, due to civil war in the past years. After peace replacing in the country lots of changes could cover many of war conflicts, particularly in academic area. As the Universities have been facilitated with teaching materials, laboratories, research farms and etc. Capacity building of the Universities staff is one of the major goals of Afghanistan Ministry of Higher Education which could reach to it partly.

Certainly, friends and brothers countries supported Afghanistan in all the fields, especially education section. We are thankful for their attention and cooperation.

Dear friends,

Herat University is one of the most important Universities in the country. It has been established on 1988. There are eleven faculties in the University which are including Faculties of Fine Arts, Literature, Agriculture, Economy, Islamic Culture, Medicine, Engineering, Law, Science, Education, and Computer Science faculty. Herat University has about 250 academic staff with 7000 students and general library with 38000 volumes of different types of books. Its campus contains 146 jerib which is located in the north side of the city. This University has partnerships with many of the Universities like Hartford and Purdue Universities of the United States, TU Berlin and Bochum Universities of Germany, Shahid and Tehran Universities of Islamic Republic of Iran, Italy and some other countries.

The faculty of computer science is one of the faculties that have the partnership with TU Berlin since 2004. In fact this faculty was established officially as a faculty with cooperation of the TU Berlin. All the facilities including lecturers, teaching materials, laboratories and many others were provided by the TU Berlin as well as by DAAD and financially supported by world bank.

As the technology is new in Afghanistan and needs further work, however our friend country Germany has done a lot since starting the partnership with Herat University even with Economy and science faculties that is appreciated. I am sure this would be the most first batch of master degree students in Afghanistan; I hope all the successes for kind people of our friend country Germany especially TU Berlin staff. I am sure this is not the last stage of cooperation it will be prolonged in all the fields in IT in Afghanistan. At the end once more I wish you all the best for your kind support.

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Dr. Nazir Peroz, head of the Centre for International and Intercultural Communication (ZiiK) at the Faculty IV of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the TU Berlin:

“Ladies and Gentlemen,It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to our Graduation event. First I speak very shortly about the importance of education system in Afghanistan.After that, I want to talk about our contribution for the establishing of the academic structure in the area of information technology.

The future of Afghanistan depends on the quality of its education system and the level of education of its young generation. Information technology plays hereby a key role.

Therefore, sustainable and secure action programs must be started,

• to guarantee the needs of Afghan society,

• to train qualified teaching staff,• to create a functioning technical

infrastructure, • to offer a curriculum on

international standards and• to modernize the management of

universities.

What is our contributionSince 2002, we offered not only know-how but also trained staff and established the necessary technical infrastructure. From the beginning until now we have designed our IT concepts sustainable. In

the course of this we considered the situation and the needs of the Afghan universities.

In realization of our projects we are working together with the Ministry of Higher Education and Afghan universities in the following areas:1. Strategy Development,2. Establishing a basic infrastructure and3. Demand-driven Education.

1. Strategy DevelopmentWe developed a national IT strategy together with the Ministry of Higher Education. To coordinate this IT strategy we established an IT Department at the Ministry of Higher Education in Afghanistan. We trained its staff and support them till now.Meanwhile, the IT department offers further education and training for IT managers of the 23 Afghan universities.In addition, we organize every year IT conferences on various topics.

2. Establishing a basic infrastructureAt the Universities of Kabul and Herat, we established computer centers as a basic IT infrastructure.Also we established a network of the faculties of the University of Kabul. The computer center (ITCK) in Kabul exists since 2003 and trains the academic members like employees, teachers and students in the use of computers and also trains IT administrators for faculties.The academic members use the ITCK to prepare for their lectures and use the internet at the ITCK for their communication.By now, more than 2000 people have been trained in ITCK.Since 2007, the ITCK is completely in the responsibility of the Afghan colleagues.The computer center in Herat (ITCH) was just completed and handed over to the university leadership. The University of Herat and we are planning to officially open the ITCH soon.We also established two libraries in Kabul and Herat in the area of Computer Science (CS).

3. Demand-driven EducationIn many winter and summer academies in Berlin, we trained IT administrators and IT

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technicians. In Kabul, Herat and Mazar, we trained IT professionals.At our initiative a faculty of CS at the University of Herat was established in 2007.We have designed an IT curriculum for the faculty CS at the University of Herat.

We are training 300 Bachelor students in cooperation with Afghan teachers at the Faculty of Computer Science at Herat University.

The master's program of the TU Berlin for 25 young Afghan teachers from 6 different universities is also a sustainable milestone in our program.We want to improve with this program the quality of teaching and research, as well as the functionality of the IT supply in Afghan universities.

Because the information technology is a key competence for all sectors of society, like economy, management or education and science.

The Afghan society needs about 500 Masters and 50 PhD till 2020 in the area of information technology.

Therefore the Ministry of Higher Education and the Afghan universities need partners who support such programs.

This project could have never been performed without help and support.We had the support of the Ministry of Higher Education and Afghan universities. At this point I would like to thank Professor Babury.

Also I would like to thank the presidents of the universities Kabul and Herat, Prof. Amin and Mr. Hussaini, and the Deans of Faculties of CS at University Kabul, Politechnical University of Kabul and University of Herat, Prof. Naseri, Prof. Mirza and Prof. Amiri. They have always supported our concepts and local staff.

Furthermore I thank the leadership of the Technical University of Berlin and the leadership of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, by Prof. Mahr, Prof. Heiß and Prof. Jänichen

who has supported me and my team in setting up this program.

In addition I would like to thank the DAAD for the financing and especially I thank Dr. Kupfer for his support.

I am also grateful for the financial support of our project through the World Bank and the SHEP committee at the Ministry of Higher Education.

My thanks to the lecturers Mr. Rene Herliz, Ralph Magnus, Christopher Nuygen and cultural advisor Mr. Marius Mailänder, who were not only present for the teaching and organizing of cultural programs but also for the individual problems of the master students.

This master's program was a very good experience for us.These 25 students are reflecting a small version of Afghanistan with its various ethnic facets. We have seen in this program that Afghanistan can build its future in peace, without hate and problems. Here, it did not matter whether one is a woman, a Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek or Hasara. All of them worked together, learned together and studied in working groups. After 2 years of hard work, they are now with us and can see the product of their own work.

I congratulate the master students that they completed in difficult situation and far from home their studies with success. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow they will present their master theses.”

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Impressions of the Afghan Graduates

Fereshteh Forough (University of Herat), Naweed Rahmani (University of Balkh)

Facing a new environment always has some strange feelings and impressions, specially when you are going to live in it for a long time. You will have interaction with new people, culture, language, ideas, festivals thus you will start a new adventure in your life, like in our case at the TU Berlin. The educational aspect is one of the im-portant parts within this environment. There were many foreign students who come to this place for further studying, different educational system with various fields and concept is considerable, partici-pating in projects, team works and the sense of cooperations is notable in educa-tional point of view. There are many re-sources for doing extra studying like: li-braries, on-line resources, university ma-gazines and research papers are all ac-cessible.In aspect of other cultural impressions, there are many points to consider, one is the transportation system which has a very scheduled concept behind. There were many ways to go from one part of the city to another part easily and safely and it really manages your time. In Berlin many people with variety of cultures and religions celebrate their ceremonies and festivals and enjoy the time together without any problem.The architecture is nice, it has the old and new view of the city together instead of destroying the old buildings and construc-ting new ones, they try to renew the old buildings and let them to be alive.The other aspect of making a country like

Germany developed is the sustainability of electricity, they have sustainable power supply which helps them to speed up their work so fast.Writing all impressions and feelings in one paper is not enough, I will finish this paper with a proverb that says:” Every day is a journey and the journey itself is home.”

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2nd Day: IT Regulations and IT Infrastructure

Prof. AbdulAzim Noorbakhsh, head of the press depart-ment of the Mi-nistry of Higher Education ope-

ned the second day of the graduation event. He spoke about the activities of the TU Berlin for the reconstruction of Af-ghanistan and in the name of the Ministry gave thanks for their effort. After this opening speech the graduates presented their master's theses on the subject of IT regulations.

IT Regulations

“National ICT Policy for Higher Education in Afghanistan”

Obaidullah Rashed, University of Kabul

In general, the fast and widely growth of Information Technolo-gy (IT) in Afghanistan and specifically in Higher Education of Afghanistan is signifi-cantly considerable since the establishment of Afghanistan's transitional government in 2001. Conside-ring the importance of IT in every dimen-sion of today's life especially for Higher Education, which is deeply concerning to the education and research productivity within the country, requires having a na-tional IT policy for Higher Education in Af-ghanistan.

So in this policy (as my master thesis), I have tried to recognize the role of infor-mation technology as an enabler for Higher Education considering the past and present situations, for the purpose of enabling and providing sustainable IT and

IT education at universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Afghanis-tan.

The thesis starts from the fundamental issues like introductory of policy and the necessity for having this policy by defining the roles of IT policy in Higher Education of Afghanistan, tasks, responsibilities and the motivation part.

Consisting of regulation for IT law, giving priority for IT infrastructure, adoption of IT education within the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), universities and HEIs, finding the way of modernizing IT management, improving the cooperation and coordination and importantly considering the security issue in the proposal are topics of my thesis.

There is an action plan for the years of 2010 till 2020 based on prioritized aspect realized from the current situation of IT in universities and HEIs in Afghanistan.

I also provide the conclusion for the who-le covered aspects in the thesis. Finally I depict the used abbreviations within the context of this thesis.

“Developing a nationwide IT curriculum system for Afghanistan”

Hamid Rahman Mohmand, University of Herat

Afghanistan is a country that has just passed two decades of war. The international society has decided to help Afghanistan rebuild and compensate losses that the country had to endure du-ring the war. These assistance are cover-ing various aspects in Afghanistan. The country is being helped with security, economy, reconstruction of roads and buildings, law enforcement, education as well as many other aspects.

Ministry of Higher Education has to derive a specific policy that would make it possi-ble to coordinate all helps and projects being offered to the higher education of

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Afghanistan. Bringing conceptual changes to the curricula of university studies must be of the highest priorities to the ministry. IT is a fast and wide spreading phenome-non to which special attention must be paid. The only possibility to keep up with this speedy technology is to promote Af-ghan universities with computer science studies that would offer the country a chance to drive along with the IT caravan.

Afghan universities should come to an agreement where they would offer one concrete and well planned curriculum for all faculties where they offer studies in computer science discipline. This strategy has to be adopted for some period of time before each university could come to a level where they could offer topic-specific studies in computer science. As far as computer science discipline is changing constantly, this change should not affect the basis of computer science curriculum in Afghan universities but should bring updates to the related parts of the curriculum. Core and basis of the curriculum for Bachelor studies in Compu-ter Science has to be kept unchanged. That will help Afghan society better digest new changes in IT; because once the core is built concretely, then technological changes will not affect the society any-more.

“A Strategy to localize Open Source Software to Pashto in example of Open Office”

Haji-Gul Wahaj, University of Nangahar

This thesis co-vers and empha-sizes the softwa-re that is already localized to Pashto, problems with the current applications and the organizations work for localization. Developing a su-stainable strategy to localize Open Sour-ce Software (OSS) to Pashto, need for localization, objective of the proposed system and localization methods are the key topics that this thesis deals with. The-refore it first analyzes and portrays the current status of localization in Afghanis-

tan and the major differences between proprietary and open source software. It also motivates community members and prefers using OSS due to its many advan-tages.This thesis emphasizes on the advanta-ges of OSS localization for Afghanistan, community formation and training. This thesis optimistically compares the affecti-on of localized software usage with pira-ted commercial software. The developed strategy motivates volunteers to build software localization communities, which will help reduce the involvement of cur-rent private business driven organizations in the overall localization process. Fur-thermore, an example is provided of how Open Office could be localized to Pashto, which steps need to be taken and who can contribute to fulfill the task. This the-sis also contains an evaluation of the strategy that explains the different pro-blems and provides recommendations for those problems. Beside that some conve-nient OSS localization tools and efficient methods are outlined.A strategy is developed to localize OSS to Pashto and as a result it replaces the usa-ge of pirated commercial software by lo-calized Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in Afghanistan.

“A Concept for establishing a Computer Science Faculty at Balkh University”

Naweed Rahmani, University of Balkh

Information technolo-gy plays crucial role for gradual growth of a higher education. 20 years of civil un-rest in Afghanistan has totally damaged higher education in-frastructure. However higher education in Afghanistan needs to obtain standard le-vel of teaching and research and join the international higher education communi-ty. Computer science faculty is the core of IT services to a university, thus establish-ment of a computer science faculty at the Balkh University enhances the teaching and research additionally facilitates it

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with e--learning and efficient administrati-on. This thesis provides a functional con-cept for setting up Computer Science Fa-culty at the Balkh University by coordina-ting involved parties and current state. Furthermore the concept ensures a long-life functional computer science faculty with suitable recommendations in each and every aspect of establishing a com-puter science faculty at the Balkh Univer-sity.

“An Online Encyclopedia for scientific terms in Dari-Persian and Pashto”

Seema Azimi, Politechnical University of Kabul

The idea of develo-ping a web-based sys-tem for scientific terms of different fields came from a fi-nal year project in Ka-bul University in 2006. The project was to develop a software-based dictionary in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 for computer related terms. Although the software itself was quite fast, functional and re-sponsive to the technical requirements, but the information that was used as the resource for that software, had been ta-ken from an Iranian-Persian dictionary, therefore, it was not quite comprehensive and understandable for the native spea-kers of Pashto language and as well as for most of the Dari-Persian speakers who had never been to Iran and therefore, were not familiar with the scientific terms developed and introduced by Iranians.

Afterwards, through this masters pro-gram, I got the chance to enhance that software, but this time with a broader vi-sion and concept. The main objectives and goals of this thesis was to:

1. Enhance and improve the official languages of Afghanistan which are Dari-Persian and Pashto by introducing new terms into the languages and eliminating the

foreign terms. This will provide a more efficient and widespread studying, teaching and researching.

2. Provide a platform where users will be able to search through their fields’ scientific terms and find the exact meaning and description of a term in their native languages.

3. Facilitate and speed up the long process of gathering the scientific terms through a forum interface. This will allow the Afghan professionals from anywhere to participate and contribute in writing the articles for the encyclopedia.

“A Concept for an IT Center at Kandahar University”

Abdul Sattar Kakar,University of Kandahar

Today computers and information technolo-gy (IT) services play a crucial role in acade-mic institutions and higher education. Wi-thin today’s age of in-formation Kandahar University lacks IT services within the uni-versity framework. Students and lectures have no access to Internet for research, study and learning. University administra-tion process is manually and paper ba-sed. This thesis provides a concept for establishing an IT center in Kandahar Uni-versity and providing IT services. Provi-ding such a concept of an IT center needs to analyze the requirements of an IT cen-ter and find solutions on how to meet the requirements. This thesis contains all pos-sible requirements (infrastructure, organi-zational structure, financial and budget planning, technical realization) of an IT center and proposes the solutions of how to get the requirements in comparison to other IT centers the Information Technolo-gy Center at Kabul University (ITCK) and the Information Technology Center at He-rat University (ITCH) established in Kabul University and Herat University. It will give a chance to Kandahar University to

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be equipped and supplied by IT services to enhance the study, research and admi-nistration of the university and modernize and standardize the academic field of the university. The concept of IT center can help to make proposals and convince the donor and funding organizations to fund for the IT center and can be extended to an IT strategy for Kandahar University.

“Improving maintainability of J2EE applications by applying AOP paradigm”

Abdul Saeed Ahmadi,University of Kabul

The main purpose of this thesis is to provide concept for improving main-tainability of a cho-sen J2EE applicati-on by applying the paradigm of AOP.

AOP is a new programming paradigm that complements OOP paradigm. It increases modularity in object oriented applications by implementing crosscutting concerns of a software in separate modules called aspects. This thesis applies concepts of AOP to UCOOP a J2EE web application. Goal of the thesis is to improve main-tainability of the system.

Two different approaches were taken to find crosscutting concerns in the coopera-tion platform. Top down approach found logging crosscutting concern and bottom up approach found university ranking sys-tem and security check crosscutting con-cerns. Three crosscutting concerns were implemented with aspects. After implementation of these crosscut-ting concerns with aspects, business logic of the application is monitored for reada-bility, reusability, evolvability, modulari-ty, code duplication and lines of code.

It is clearly shown that application of AOP concepts is improving maintainability of the system. Crosscutting concerns now have modular implementation and busi-ness logic is more readable. Also it is

shown how reusability can be increased and code duplication can be avoided. It provides a solution to make the applicati-on more evolvable and to reduce lines of code within the application’s modules.

Further more the thesis solution redesi-gned and implemented the cooperation platform. It also provides suggestions for proper deployment and sustainable use of the platform at MoHE.

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IT Infrastructure

Prof. Mohammad Mirza, Dean of the Computer Science Facul-ty of the Poli-technical Uni-versity of Ka-bul welcomed

the participants of the graduation event to the second half of the day on IT infra-structure. He reported about the situation at his faculty and said, that he would be deligthed, that master graduates from England and Germany will be coming to his faculty, soon. He hopes, that the TU Berlin will continue its support for his faculty in the future. Afterwards the master graduates presen-ted their theses on the topic of IT Infra-structure,

“Sustainable Power Concept for servers in IT Centers at Afghan Universities“

Abdul Rahman Vakili,University of Herat

This thesis pro-poses a su-stainable power concept for IT centers using one of the Virtualization techniques called “Domain Migration” for IT centers in Afghanistan.One of the most problematic obstacles against IT centers every day work flow in Afghanistan is power instability and in particular power blackout.Considering the weak economical situati-on, offering a solution which cankeep IT center servers and related ser-vices running at the time of powerblackout is the goal to achieve in this work.When a power blackout happens, physical servers (Hosts) will run on power backup

of UPS batteries untill switching to the power generator electricity. Each physical server runs some virtual servers (Do-mains) which will be migrated to other physical server at the time of power down in order to run maximum number of servers in fewer number of physical servers. In this case, before turning on the generator, we can power off one or more physical servers and as a result we would use smaller power generators that consume less amount of fuel.The proposed solution is applied in nor-mal hardware used in IT centers and all software used for implementation are open source so that do not require a li-censing fee or purchasing software.

“Sustainable Network and Bandwidth Management for Afghan Universities”

Sayed Jahed Hussini,University of Balkh

Internet, wi-thout a doubt, is the fastest growing net-work in the world. Since its invention its users has grown million times over. But there is a big obstacle on its growth path, Band-width. Since its invention, Internet has been offering different services. As the services numbers are growing, so does their bandwidth consumption volume, which have resulted in degraded service quality. Network operators have been try-ing different method to utilize the net-work bandwidth at its maximum. Increa-sing infrastructure capacity might be a good idea, but it has some problems. First is the cost of increasing the capacity, which will increase the bandwidth price and second problem is that bandwidth heavy services e.g. file sharing applicati-ons, are becoming increasingly popular and can max-out all the bandwidth, as it becomes available . Bandwidth, as a net-work resource is a valuable asset, which have to be paid for. And in countries like Afghanistan which lacks the infrastructure for such networks its price is much more

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higher than other countries in the world. This thesis looks at ways to increase bandwidth consumption efficiency in aca-demic networks, in a country where Inter-net bandwidth prices are among highest in the world. It will propose a concept where mission critic traffic can always get a fair share of the bandwidth by minimi-zing non-mission critical traffic.

“Sustainable Backup Solutions for Higher Education in Afghanistan”

Maria Sawaby,University of Herat

It is important for higher education to give the facility to users for their data(projects, resear-ches) to be saved during their studies or works in the uni-versities.The purpose of this study was to provide a cost neutral backup solution for higher education by using the existing resources in Afghan universities.The ISCSI (Internet Small Computer Sys-tem Interface) and NBD (Network Block Device) were tested, compared and eva-luated according to their performances and reliabilities. Both simulate the remote devices like the local block devices and are used to transmit data over local area networks. RAID (Redundant Array of Inde-pendent Disks) levels were studied for the purpose of increasing fault tolerance for the devices. The RAID level 1 and le-vel 5 have been implemented on both iSCSI and NBD accordingly. The backup application called sbackup (Simple Backup) which is also an open source software is chosen to backup on the re-mote devices. At the end concluding to prefer a solution which is quite easy to implement and suitable for the purpose.

“Concept for a sustainable Email System at Afghan Universities”

Ahmad Zia Sharifi,University of Nangahar

This thesis proposes a concept of a sustainable email system for Afghan Uni-versities and Higher Education Instituti-ons. Currently the email systems used in Afghanistan are usually the free webmail providers, but they offer limited facilities and cannot offer functionalities as dedica-ted systems for the universities. Considering limited infrastructure such as unstable power supply and unstable Internet connection, the proposal is to build a sustainable email system for Af-ghan Universities and other Higher Edu-cation Institutions with individual name space for each university. This system will provide email facilities to all university administration staff and faculty students, whether they are accessing from inside the university premises by using the In-tranet or outside, from the Internet. Em-phasis is put upon administrators training and knowledge transfer. Security for the equipments as well as the system is dis-cussed in detail. The current economic si-tuation of Afghanistan has been conside-red for choosing the various elements of the proposed system. Free and Open Source Software is proposed for establis-hing email systems for the universities in Afghanistan. This type of software will not only prove to be economically advanta-geous in the long run but will also provide new grounds for teaching and experimen-tation. The availability of free source code along with the servers opens up new doors for the modern research and deve-lopment in Afghanistan with no additional costs.

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“Improving availability of internet access through cooperation between Afghan ISPs”

Mohammad Idrees Khatibi, Kandahar University

Three decades of war have totally destroyed the communications infrastructure in Afghanistan. The lack of infrastructure has seriously impaired the growth opportunities of ICT services. The new government established the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in 2001, and by now 10 nation-wide ISPs are registered. However, internet users in Afghanistan are plagued with problems, among which are low bandwidth, high latency, frequent connection failures and long reaction time to support incidents.The present thesis proposes a concept to link together ISPs which enables them to offer better service to their customers. Concentrating on the ISPs in the Qanda-har region, redundancy is introduced through sharing of Internet bandwidth. A policy is devised which ensures fairness and proper compensation between ISPs.

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3rd Day: IT in Adminstration and Education

Prof. AbdulWasi Amiri,

Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the Universi-ty of Herat ope-ned the third day of the event. He prai-sed the presen-

tations of the master graduates that had been conducted so far, and refered to them as beeing informative and of high quality.

After these words of praise, the master's theses on the subject of IT in Administrat-ion were presented.

IT in Administration

“Concept for an University Finance Management System”

Mohammad Ismail Khattab,University of Nangahar

This thesis deals with the finance pro-cess of the universities in Afghanistan. The various steps involved in the finance process are described in it. The first step is the bud-get approval request which is made by a university to the Ministry of Higher Educa-tion. The second step is making the ap-proved budget appropriate. The third step is generating reports and sending them back to the Ministry of Higher Education. The thesis also points out the numerous bureaucratic hassles in the current fi-nance system and provides solution for it with presenting a new University Finance Management System.

The main purpose of this thesis is to de-sign a systematic, well structured and consistent concept of a system for the University Finance Department. The new concept covers all aspects necessary for the University Finance Department for better understandability to computer software and to computer environment.

Due to four decades of unrest and war in Afghanistan the University Management System like other institutions has not im-proved. All the procedures of all kinds are carried out manually without the involve-ment of the computer in them. So, there has always been a lurking danger of loo-sing, changing and destruction of the data. Therefore, the data has not been under control. On the other hand, the through proper channel of the University Management System is tedious and time consuming.However, with the usage of an application the Financial Department would become more stable and easy to control its works. After the installation of University Finance Management System the manual system of the Finance Department will convert into a computerized system.

“Concept for a Patient Emergency and Management System”

Mohammad Shafi Tokhi,University of Herat

The main aim of the presentation was to give a short over-view of the thesis which discuss how to develop a J2EE web application from a very primary step toward the re-quirement elicitati-on, information gathering, evaluation and implementation. As an example the thesis applied the above mentioned concepts for developing a Patient Management System for Herat Regional hospital that is able to computerize the main activities of the hospital. The application is evaluated and tested by the users and its already

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under the customer usage. According to the thesis the presentation discuss the in-consistencies and problems of the hospi-tal before software implementation and has calaried what kind of software might be required to overcome the hospital pro-blems. After specifying the main problem the thesis start digging through informati-on gathering (using interviews and obser-vations), analyzing the gathered data and task dening toward solutions and techni-cal approaches that have been applied during the prototype designing, evaluati-on and implementation of the suggested system.

“Transforming a paper-based Library System to digital in Example of Herat University”

Abdul Rahman Sherzad,University of Herat

Resourceful li-braries have long attracted knowledge-see-kers and have played an important role in education and research. With the astonis-hing advances in science and technology, traditional libraries have not remained unaffected and the concept of digital li-brary has emerged and caused a revoluti-on in these old institutions. A digital libra-ry can provide access to many of the in-formation networks around the world, which is a necessary component of al-most any research experience today.

Considering the facilities associated with a digital library, gradual replacement of traditional libraries by digital ones ap-pears to be inevitable. As an important step in enhancement of education in Af-ghanistan, the concept of digital libraries must be introduced and integrated into the country’s rapidly evolving educational system.

This thesis addresses the challenges exis-ting in Afghanistan university libraries. A solution for each challenge is defined by introducing digital and automated sys-

tems and finally a scheme is provided for switching from a paper-based library sys-tem to a digital library system.

“Information Management System for lecturer profiles in the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan”

Ibrahim Shahristani,Politechnical University of Kabul

Lecturer Profile Sys-tem will be developed in this thesis which is intended to store per-sonal information, process of promotion and addresses of related files within the Academic Promotion Office in the Ministry of Higher Education.This system accelerates the current admi-nistration tasks and make them manageable within the Academic Promo-tion Office. The reason for these claims are the load of folders and documents that are compiled during the promotion procedure of lecturers from all govern-ment universities.Studying the current paper-based process and forms, which hold data related to the process of promotion, as well as ques-tionnaire based method is used to deve-lop this system. Therefore, the significan-ces are that the system is being develo-ped using open source technologies which is beneficial for Afghanistan.

“Interoperability Tests With the Quagga Open Source Router”

Mohammad Mussadiq Jalalzai,University of Kabul

Commercial routers are widely implemented in the internet. Internet is increasing in size and traffic volume. Commer-cial router vendors build proprietary routers while

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keeping in mind the current and future needs. But these commercial routers are expensive and inflexible.Alternatively, free open source routers are also available. They also provide routing services between networks. But they have limited performance on the top of personal computers. It is also very im-portant to determine if the free open source router is interoperable with other routers in the network.In this thesis an open source routing tool Quagga is considered and different tests have been performed on it to conform its basic interoperability to other commercial routers. In this thesis, free and open sour-ce routing tools are used to perform all tests.BGP Timers implemented in Quagga and Quagga behavior while using these timers and features is also observed. The results show that Quagga implements entirely time driven behavior, but still by tuning BGP timers and enabling certain BGP fea-tures can have positive impact on how fast Quagga can detect a change in net-work and propagate information to other peers, hence making network conver-gence faster.

“Concept for an adapted School Management System”

Humaira Akhtari,Politechnical University of Kabul

The purpose of this thesis was to identify the need for an adap-ted school manage-ment system in Af-ghanistan. Afghanis-tan is a country that has gone through de-cades of war thus residing in a low econo-mic state. Afghanistan is recognized as an under developed country that has lost everything from infrastructure and for renovation, improving education systems is considered to be a fundamental point.School Management System is a compu-ter based system designed to enhance school management tasks, to ease the task and to make processes efficient. School Management System is a system

that is new in Afghanistan; there is no pri-or investigation existing. Thus investigati-on was carried out in examining the pro-cess of several schools in Kabul city, the capital of Afghanistan. The research consisted of four detailed interviews with officials of both governmental and non governmental schools. During research the present system was examined and short comings of the system were identified.The current system is paper-based and thus it is time consuming. A possible solu-tion for the identified problems were sug-gested and a new computerized system was introduced in detail. The new system is believed to solve all the problems asso-ciated with the current manual system. The school personnel welcomed the pro-ject and are ready to adopt to the new system. The system was designed using as a web based application using Java programming language. It is highly recommended that school administrative staff should be well trained on how to use the system . The feasibility of the project was studied and it was found that some major schools in Afghanistan are feasible for applying this system currently, whereas, minor schools with low or no computer resources are not applicable for the time being. Schools residing in farthest provinces of Afghanistan are not equipped with computer resources, they do not have trained staff for using this system, and no power thus in such schools the new system is not applicable and it is considered as the limitation of the project.

“Benefits of Open Source Based School Management System for Afghan schools”

Freshta Popalyar,University of Kabul

Afghanistan, after deca-des of war, has recently stepped into the digital age. As every day passes, the need of adopting new techno-logies are felt even more. Most organizati-

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ons and institutions in Afghanistan need specially designed software for their work. Afghanistan being a country suffe-ring from a weak economic situation, can not afford to answer the necessities of the governmental establishments in this regard. In such a situation when offices in Afghan organizations and institutions are mostly equipped with computers, a proper way to get the most benefit from the resources is required. This thesis has presented the open source software development approach as an answer to the specified necessities of Afghan institutions.The purpose of this thesis was to clarify the benefits of an open source approachfor developing software for Afghan institu-tions. Designing an open source software for Afghan schools was taken as an exam-ple for this purpose. The document has analyzed the current situation of school management and open source software in Afghanistan. In addition benefits of open source software in India were explo-red, as an example of benefits of open source for developing countries.The thesis evaluated the advantages of open source software and open sourcesoftware development in context of Af-ghanistan. It has also examined the cur-rent situation of proprietary software usa-ge and its disadvantages for a country like Afghanistan.The thesis has compared the advantages and disadvantages of both open source and closed source software for Afghan in-stitutions and as a result preferred open source software development as the solu-tion of the identified problems. Further-more an open source school management system software was evaluated and desi-gned for usage in Afghan schools. Feasibi-lity of implementation of School Manage-ment System in Afghan schools is studied in the document. Additionally guidance on research areas on benefits of open source software for Afghan institutions, development possibilities and further im-provements of the project are provided. The thesis highly encourages and motiva-tes creation of a center for the Afghan Open Source Community, that gathers all local Afghan experts in the field of Soft-ware Engineering and builds software for Afghan institutions and organizations.

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IT in Education

Prof. Mohammad Homayon Naseri,Dean of the Computer Science Faculty of the University

of Kabul opened the second half of the day on IT in education. In his short speech he emphasized the role of IT in Af-ghanistan. The presentations of the mas-ter graduates make him confident, that the foundation and a network for IT will be established in Afghanistan.Afterwards the master's theses on IT in Education were presented.

“Concept to improve computerised post-examination processes of Concours”

Mariam Farda,University of Kabul

Concours Examinati-on is the countrywide university entrance examination through which tens of thou-sands of students are selected to universi-ties and other governmental institu-tions each year.Attempts started to computerize the Con-cours Examination process a decade ago. Twice it was done, however the results are not satisfactory.The main objective in this study was to investigate the current system, identify the factors which negatively impact Con-cours system and develop a concept to improve Concours computerized system. The conducted interviews due to lack of written documents in this regard pointed out the factors and issues existing in the current system. To improve the compute-rized Concours system, current situation has been analyzed and a concept for im-provement of computerized Concours

system has been developed. To support and measure feasibility of this concept a proposed system has been developed and discussed in detail.The proposed system has gone through the full System Development Life CycleModel, i.e. Waterfall process. All the ne-cessary and required steps are taken in proper sequence of Requirement Enginee-ring, Design, Implementation, Testing and Maintenance.This study goes through Requirement En-gineering using the results of conducted interviews, Design by using UML (Unified Modelling Language) diagrams, Imple-mentation using open source technolo-gies and Testing using JUnit tests. The Maintenance phase comes after the de-ployment of software which is beyond the scope of this study.The aim of this thesis was to find an ans-wer to the question of how to improve computerized Concours system which could be a good solution for the current problems and can be further extended and maintained to answer the future needs. The result of this study indicated the suggested solution to answer the re-search question and suggestions for fur-ther improvement of Concours.

“Concept to improve University Entrance Exam (Concours)”

by applying an Online Registration System for Ministry of Higher Education in Afghanistan

Baseer Ahmad Baheer,University of Kabul

Ministry of higher education is responsi-ble for regularizing and managing higher education system in Afghanistan. Mana-ging University Ent-rance Exam (UEE) or Concours exam is one of the biggest activity among these ministry ‘s obligations.Students are admitted to different colle-ges in different universities on the basis of the University Entrance Examination.

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Major part of the Ministry’s Annual Bud-get is spent on this activity. Number of students taking the entrance examination is more than 100,000. Furthermore Con-cours committee is responsible for mana-ging some other type of exams (e.g. Scholorship exam and etc).So far two computerized systems are im-plemented to handle Concours exam’s processes (Pre and Post examination pro-cesses), but these both systems did not fulfill all requirements of this committee.This thesis is focusing on pre‐examination or students registration and admission processes. The goal of this study is to im-prove computerized pre‐examination pro-cesses of Concours exam. To provide a system which is based on elicited real re-quirements, to remove existing manual pre‐examination processes, free of char-ge, with high level of secrecy, and free from any large scale human intervention.

“A Management System for university entry examination questions in Afghanistan”

Ogai Ahmadi,University of Kabul

Admitting students to public universities and other higher education institutions in Afghanistan is a cumbersome and time consuming task for the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). To admit students to such institutions, the applicants are required to set an entry examination which is called Concours. This process was introduced during 1960's and 1970's where the number of applicants were limited and primarily the lecturers of Kabul based universities used traditional methods to prepare, mark and then produced the results of examination. The same method was applied during the time of war 1980's - 1990's until the intervention of the international community in 2002. Since then the number of candidates are increasing dramatically every year and traditional methods cannot fulfill the demand and to

mark the exam papers, and produce the results in a short span of time. Therefore, MoHE has realized that modern technologies such as ICT can be employed for such purpose; consequently they have used several computer packages with limited success.In this study, the shortcomings of the existing computer packages used for preparing, marking and producing the results without major problems have been investigated. After long investigation and analysis, it has been recommended to the MoHE to develop a system using open source software for this purpose in order to produce an automated system for managing university entry examination questions in Afghanistan. The principles of such a system have been demonstrated and the details are presented in this thesis.

“A System to support the transformation to Credit Point Grading at Afghan Universities”

Zoia Sahab,University of Kabul

The purpose of this master the-sis is about ma-naging credit point grading system in hig-her education of Afghanistan, identifying the barriers for applying this system and developing an IT system to support the transformation of grading to credit point grading system at Afghan universities.Higher education of Afghanistan applies two grading systems, credit point grading system and semester based grading sys-tem. In this thesis, both grading systems are surveyed. Interviews with responsible people of the Ministry of Higher Education and respective universities are done. From these interviews and some official documents of both grading systems, the important points of these systems are described. Regarding to the main difficul-ties due to applying credit point grading system in higher education institutions, the requirements for an IT system are de-fined, which defines all aspects of the

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system. According to the system require-ments the conceptual and logical designs of the system are developed, which is very helpful for implementation of this system. For implementation of the sys-tem, the technologies that are used are briefly described. The main parts of the implementation process are described. The system is analyzed according to the requirements, the current status of thesystem, limits of the system and the fur-ther work for the system are specified.

“Concept of Timetable and Resource Management System for Afghan Universities”

Noor Mohammad Atapoor,University of Kabul

The main purpose of this thesis was to provide a concept for minimal solution of problems that co-mes from legacy paper-based me-thods and approa-ches that are used in some managerial works of Computer Science Faculty of Kabul University. These managerial works are arrangement of ti-metables, registering official files and do-cuments, registering students and lectur-ers and handling information about them. Performing these tasks with current exis-ting methods and approaches are consi-dered to be time consuming - none flexi-ble and accessible processes as well as accompanied with basic searching pro-blems.Required data in research processes was gathered through interviews and ques-tionnaires with lecturers, administrator and dean of the faculty. Based on obtai-ned data and requirements as well as their analysis, the concept was acquired to obviate problems. Through implemen-ting the proposed concept, a web-based software system (TRMS) has been desi-gned and developed to make the above mentioned work flow more manageable, accessible and flexible as well as accele-

rating it.The system is designed considered the model-view-controller design pattern and is utilized with open source technologies (J2EE) for its implementing. To make the system's usage more convenient, its in-terface has been localized in two official languages of Afghanistan. Through provi-ding appropriate services and functionali-ty the system would be capable to deal with the discussed problems and facilita-tes works' performance for its users.

“Developing a System to manage Student Records at Herat University”

Fereshteh Forough,University of Herat

The output of se-veral decades of war in Afghanistan was a total physi-cal destruction which made the country not to fol-low the develop-ment process time line. Education is one of the other aspects that have been influenced until now and still deals with many challenges. Universi-ties are the important parts of an educa-tional system, it consists of many bran-ches where all of them deal with docu-mentary processes while data manage-ment and keeping track of them is an im-portant issue. Thus, a need for having a digital system to control and supervise the procedures is necessary.Student Record System (SRS) is an alrea-dy implemented software project which focuses on two main parts that are regis-tration and grading. The purpose for se-lecting SRS is to improve and refine this system by adding more new functionali-ties which meets Afghan universities re-quirements from a very initial part which is student registration until making it as a web based application to access it online and make the administration work more easy, reliable, efficient and consistent for the university and faculty administrators.

The scope in which the system is going to

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be applied later on is the Student Affairs Office at Herat University and its related faculties. To have an appropriate vision of the system data the first step was to ga-ther the needed information which was done at Herat University by gathering se-veral registration forms and grade sheets while there are different formats of registration forms. The most common one was chosen. By modeling the gathered information, a blue print of the system can be achieved and next the system implementation would be done accordingly.

For applying a software system many other factors must to be considered like not having a stable electricity and appro-priate place to accommodate the tools for running the system. The intention is to gain a system that could offer more facili-ties and comforts in the administration work and save the time.

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Summary and OutlookIn a short period of time, information technology (IT) in Afghanistan evolved into a new means for conveying personal, scientific and professional information, and thereby also, into an instrument to improve teaching and research. The Afghan society and the universities require approximately 500 master and at least 50 PhD graduates in the field of IT until 2020 to establish a scientific foundation to create a scientific basis.The Ministry of Higher Education, the Afghan universities and the international donor countries can leverage the employment of IT to collectively map out a distinct and far-reaching strategy and to establish the essential preconditions for academic structures. With this master's program for 25 participants from six Afghan universities, the first step has been taken. In the conception and realization of the program the following aspects have been considered:

Eliminating the lack of qualified staffDue to the current situation in Afghanistan the master's program concentrates on satisfying the demand for highly qualified staff and experts in the various fields of IT like communi-cation and operating systems, software engineering, database and information systems. Furthermore, the program conveys structured thinking as well as analytical and most of all practical skills to prepare the master graduates for the needs of the Afghan society and universities.

Taking Afghan needs into accountBoth the structure of the master's program---with teaching and research as well as setting up an efficient and stable IT supply at Afghan universities as its core element---and the topics of the master's theses are aimed at the Afghan needs and take into account the specific situation of the country.

A targeted educational programThe education of the master students was always adapted to fit the actual needs of Afghanistan. Due to the current educational standards, the master's program provided a period in the

beginning of the program where the participants could compensate for any lack of basic or specific knowledge required for studies in the area of IT on an international level.Thus, the program focused on those fields that were most relevant for Aghanistan. It put the participants in a position

• to accomplish sophisticated tasks in the area of industry, administration and science independently,• to split up complex tasks and solve them together in a team,• to deepen their knowledge in specific fields of computer science independently and to teach the students at their home universities,• to communicate and implement their knowledge theoretically, methodically and practically,• to suggest IT solutions, that are adapted to the needs of Afghanistan and to establish academic structures at the Afghan universities,• to build up social competence for working together in projects and in the area of teaching and research.

A particular emphasis of the master's program were the extensive practical projects that have been designed and implemented for the six Afghan universities, as well as on the master's thesis, which referred to the project. Within the practical project the participants developed an IT solution specially adapted for an Afghan university. They also outlined a plan on how the particular IT solutions can be implemented at the university. The necessary fundamentals had been imparted in the courses during the first three semesters, where theoretical, technical, practical and application-oriented topics were combined. To meet the requirements of a quality education, the departments of Communication and Operating Systems (KBS, Prof. Heiß), Software Engineering (SWT, Prof. Jähnichen), Formal Models, Logic and Programming (FLP, Prof. Mahr), Intelligent Networks (INET, Prof. Feldmann) and Computer Science and Developing Countries (ZiiK, Dr. Peroz) have been involved.

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Membership in the international „scientific community“The master's program for computer science provides the integration of the Afghan universities into the international „scientific community“ as an acknow-ledged member in the area of teaching and research. It enables the graduates to establish an exchange between their home university and other national and international universities. Furthermore they can do their PhD in this field.

Establishing prerequisitesTo strengthen the creation of academic structures in the area of IT, the Ministry of Higher Education has to establish the respective prerequisites to maintain cooperation and partnership, to award students with scholarships for master's programs and to admit the graduates of the program to their universities in the field of IT without difficulties.

Cooperation and PartnershipIntegrating the educational institutions in the area of IT into the international „scientific community“ does not mean, in the first place, to import foreign edu-cational structures into Afghanistan. The imported theoretical and methodical foundations shall rather be of assistance by developing the fundamentals for the scientific development in the field of IT in Afghanistan. This master's program is a milestone regarding the establishment of a future partnership and the foundation for a scientific discourse.With its concept, activities and the master graduates the TU Berlin set up a scientific network for the Afghan univer-sities. To expand this network and to consider the needs of Afghanistan in the future it is significant, especially in the area of IT, that the persons responsible for the universities concentrate on one system and promote it. To advance this network, the ZiiK at the TU Berlin is planning to hold a conference on IT in Afghanistan this year. This also gives the master graduates the opportunity to present their projects.

I again thank the Ministry of Higher Education, the Afghan universities, the World Bank, the Ministry of State for Foreign Affairs, the DAAD, the German

Embassy in Kabul and the Afghan Embassy in Berlin as well as the administration of the TU Berlin and of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the team of the ZiiK, that organized and performed this event.

I wish the master graduates all the best for their future and a good collaboration among them – for a reliable and sustain-able establishment of the IT sector in Afghanistan.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Conference Program

Conference Program

Graduation event for Afghan graduates of the Masters program in computer science

11.03. until 13.03.2010

First Day, Thursday 11.03.2010

Moderation: Prof. Hans-Ulrich Heiß, Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of the TU Berlin

14:15h Welcome and Opening

Mrs. Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

Dr. Gabriele Wendorf, Vice President of TU Berlin

Herr Abed Nadjib, Counsellor of the Afghan Embassy Berlin

Prof. Mohammad Hassan Rashiq, head of education department, Ministry Higher Education in Afghanistan

Dr. Alexander Kupfer, section Afghanistan and Pakistan,German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

15:15h Coffee Break

15:45h Mr. Abdul Wasi Amiri, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Herat University

16:00h Dr. Nazir Peroz, Head of the Center for international and intercultural Communication at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics

16:15h Impressions of the Afghan GraduatesMrs. Fereshteh Forough, Mr. Naweed Rahmani

17:00h End

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Second Day, Friday, 12.03.2010

Moderation: Mr. Daniel Tippmann, TU Berlin

IT Policies

9:00h OpeningMr. Abdul-Azim Noorbakhsh, Head of the Press Department of the Ministry of Higher Education in Afghanistan

9:30h “National ICT Policy for Higher Education in Afghanistan”Obaidullah Rashed, Kabul University

9:50h “Developing a nationwide IT curriculum system for Afghanistan”Hamid Rahman Mohmand, Herat University

10:10h “A Strategy to localize Open Source Software to Pashto in example of Open Office” Haji-Gul Wahaj, Nangarhar University

10:30h Coffee Break

11:00h “A Concept for establishing a Computer Science Faculty atBalkh University”Naweed Rahmani, Balkh University

11:20h “An Online Encyclopedia for scientific terms in Dari-Persianand Pashto” Seema Azimi, Kabul Politechnic University

11:40h “A Concept for an IT Center at Kandahar University”Abdul Sattar Kakar, Kandahar University

12:00h “Improving maintainability of J2EE applications by applying AOP paradigm”Abdul Saeed Ahmadi

12:20h Lunch Break

Moderation: Mr. Christopher Nguyen, TU Berlin

IT Infrastructure

14:00h OpeningProf. Mohammad Mirza, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Polytechnic University of Kabul

14:30h “Sustainable Power Concept for servers in IT Centersat Afghan Universities“Abdul Rahman Vakili, Herat University

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14:50h “Sustainable Network and Bandwidth Management forAfghan Universities”Sayed Jahed Hussini, Balkh University

15:10h “Sustainable Backup Solutions for Higher Education in Afghanistan”Maria Sawaby, Herat University

15:30h Coffee Break

16:20h “Concept for a sustainable Email System at Afghan Universities”Ahmad Zia Sharifi, Nangarhar University

16:40h “Improving availability of internet access through cooperation between Afghan ISPs”Mohammad Idrees Khatibi, Kandahar University

17:00h End

Third Day, Saturday 13.03.2010

Moderation: Mr. Ralph Magnus, TU Berlin

9:00h OpeningMr. Abdul Wasi Amiri, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, University of Herat

IT in Administration

9:30h “Concept for an University Finance Management System”Mohammad Ismail Khattab, Nangarhar University

9:40h “Concept for a Patient Emergency and Management System”Mohammad Shafi Tokhi, Herat University

10:10h “Transforming a paper-based Library System to digital in Example of Herat University”Abdul Rahman Sherzad, Herat University

10:30h Coffee Break

11:00h “Information Management System for lecturer profiles in the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan”Ibrahim Shahristani, Kabul University

11:20h “Interoperability Tests With the Quagga Open Source Router” Mohammad Mussadiq Jalalzai, Kabul University

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11:40h “Concept for an adapted School Management System”Humaira Akhtari, Kabul Polytechnic University

12:00h “Benefits of Open Source Based School Management Systemfor Afghan schools”Freshta Popalyar, Kabul University

12:20h Lunch Break

Moderation: Mr. René Herlitz

IT in Education

14:00h OpeningProf. Mohammad Homayon Naseri, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, University of Kabul

14:30h “Concept to improve computerised post-examination processes of Concours”Mariam Farda, Kabul University

14:50h “Concept to improve University Entrance Exam (Concours)”Baseer Ahmad Baheer, Kabul University

15:10h “A Management System for university entry examinationquestions in Afghanistan” Ogai Ahmadi, Kabul University

15:30h Coffee Break

16:00 “A System to support the transformation to Credit Point Grading at Afghan Universities”Zoia Sahab, Kabul University

16:20h “Concept of Timetable and Resource Management System for Afghan Universities”Noor Mohammad Atapoor, Kabul University

16:40h “Developing a System to manage Student Records at Herat University”Fereshteh Forough, Herat University

17:00h End

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Appendix 2

Impressions of the Graduation Ceremony

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