The department heads were also updated on the various e-Services offered on the portal. Salem Al Shair, director, e-Services, Dubai e-Government, said: "We have just moved to a new, more advanced application platform and we are confident this will lead to higher standards of e-Services delivery. We firmly believe the choice of the right IT system holds the key to e-governance success."
The Dubai e-Government team, consisting of Hisham Al Amiri, development manager; Rehab Lootah, e-Services provisioning manager; Mahmood Al Bastaki, business process re-engineering consultant; Okan Geray, strategic planning and implementation consultant; and Marwan Al Naqi, community outreach officer - government sector, briefed those attending the meeting on the latest developments in e-Services such as e-Learn, e-Employee, m-Dubai, e-Job, e-Pay, AskDubai, e-Jawaz, e4all magazine, and the steps taken to market e-Services to the government departments.
Al Amiri highlighted the projected developments in IT for this year.
"In order to keep ahead with the latest offerings in technology, we are in the process of exchanging the application servers to a more advanced system. After almost three years of working with our present set up, we feel the time has come to move to a more compatible and user-friendly system".
Al Amiri explained the new system is more flexible, especially in service upgrade and security issues. "The new system is scalable to support more government department users. Flow of information between departments will be smoother and faster, leading to improved delivery of e-Services."
Lootah highlighted the strides made by Dubai e-Government's e-Learn in online courses provided on the portal.
"We offer more than 3,000 courses not just in IT, but in diverse fields such as self-development, skill enhancement and sales and marketing, in association with leading training institutes.
"These courses are ideal for government departments because they offer the Learning Management System (LMS) which allows the human resources manager to monitor the employee's learning progress."
Lootah also focused on e-Employee, a double certification programme that combines ICDL-Start certification with three additional courses of instruction selected by Dubai e-Government, to meet the specific needs of government departments.
"These online courses are conducted on global standards and are designed to provide government employees mastery in computers upon completion of all the courses."
To encourage further growth and e-learning, Dubai e-Government has introduced e-Employee Plus, designed for directors or employees who have already completed at least three online courses.
"If the participants complete the three additional courses, they become e-Employee Plus, which certifies an advanced level of expertise in computers."
Lootah briefed government departments about the latest figures of m-Dubai, the service that has, to date, enabled, over 20 government departments to deliver more than half a million messages to customers through mobile phones.
e-Job, which allows job-seekers searching for job opportunities in the public sector to submit their CVs electronically, was also highlighted. This service can be accessed by all government departments seeking to fill vacancies, and the response can be tracked by the applicant.
Lootah urged all government departments to use e-Job to manage their recruitment needs and to give young nationals the opportunity to work.
Quelle: Gulf-News, 03.03.2004
