Call for Nominations
Goal: As in the past three years, the intended goal of the BI2TS22011 is to bring together a select group of scholars: both international and Palestinian, a select group of students: from various Palestinian Universities and the local IT industry to work on courses on cutting edge Information Technology, to encourage networking and future collaboration.
Description: The courses offered will be part of the student regular curriculum and will be studied for credit. Students will need to pay the host university tuition fees. The course work will be intensive to accommodate the diverging academic calendars of home universities of participating individuals. The general characteristics of the courses offered are: courses taught by renowned experts in their fields, courses on emerging technologies and courses for which Palestine may lack experts. Generally these courses will have a “special topics” designation but that may be changed when the offered courses intersect heavily with courses offered by the host department/college. However, students will be issued certificates detailing the topics covered in the course to enable home schools to avoid duplicate credit for the same material. The regulations of the host university will govern the BI2TS22011 courses.
Organization: This year BI2TS2 will offer two or three courses, 3 credit hours each. A course may include two or three separate teaching modules, with a total of 48 class hours. Each module will have its own final exam, daily quizzes, and home assignments. The assignments may include design, programming and/or research, and may extend for a couple of weeks after the classes, and be submitted online for grading.
Schedule: The summer course at BZU is broken into two sessions. The first summer begins on Monday, May 3rd, 2011 and ends on Saturday, June 25th, 2011. The second summer begins on Monday, July 4th, 2011 and ends on Saturday, August 6th, 2011. The teaching days are Monday to Thursday, and Saturday. For the purpose of the BI2TS22011 courses, up to 3 teaching hours may be scheduled per day, amounting to 15 hours per week. Thus a teaching module extends for as long as it takes to cover its teaching hours. For example, a module that includes 24 teaching hours requires 8 days of teaching plus a day for the final exam.
Nominations: Every year we reach out to renowned experts in their fields, who may offer courses on emerging technologies and courses for which Palestine may lack experts. Scholars may nominate themselves or others. A nomination must include:
The full name, post, rank, and contact information.
An outline of the suggested topic, including a brief description, the number of teaching hours, references, and any required software tools.
The suggested time slot at which the scholar can be present in Palestine.
Compensation: The compensation for the scholars’ time and effort is not meant to be competitive; it is only meant to minimize the out-of-pocket expenses. Therefore, we compensate for air tickets, ground transportation, and accommodations. In addition, we offer a nominal amount for daily subsistence.
Deadline: The final date to submit nominations is Monday, March 7th, 2011. The decisions and invitations will be sent out before the end of March, 2011.
Contact: Abdel Salam Sayyad
Faculty of Information Technology
Birzeit University
P.O.Box 14, Birzeit, Palestine
telefax: (970) 2 298 2935
mobile: (972) 54 2190485
Email: asayyad@birzeit.edu
