Mocked VIVA

Ms Amrizah Kamaluddin, one of our PhD students submitted her thesis recently and would be having her viva vorce very soon. Today, we organized a mocked viva for her so that she will be better prepared for the actual event. ARI wishes to thank our research fellow/asscociates for helping out. Thanks Dr Zuraidah, Dr Wee Shu Hui and Dr Huang Ching Choo. To Amrizah, good luck...

Another Possible Collaboration

Today I receive an email from Prof AlRashed from the Accounting Department, Kuwait University which include among others the following request: "...I am writing to you respected self to investigate the possibility of joint cooperation among our institutions including joint research, visiting programmes, and exchange programmes among faculty and students"... This is indeed a very good opportunity for our two universities to collaborate. ARI will certainly go ahead to propose possible research and publication collaborations. Kuwait University is also opening up a visiting professor position. Any takers?

UiTM-ANM Memorandum of Understanding

A historic event indeed: the MOU signing ceremony between UiTM and the Akauntan Negara Malaysia (ANM)was completed today in Kota Baru. The ceremony was held in conjunction with the 24th Public Sector Accountants Conference that is taking place on 27-29 July 2009 at the Renaisance Hotel. Dato' Salleh, the Accountant General represented the ANM and Prof Dr Mustafa, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic & Internationalisation)was representing UiTM. In view of the MOU, both parties undertake to collaborate in research, seminar and publications in the area of Public Sector Accounting

Tea with the Accountant General....

A group of us from UiTM: Prof Mustafa, Prof Ibrahim Kamal, Assoc Prof Dr Nafsiah and myself were travelling to Kota Baru for the MOU signing ceremony with the Accountant General Office tomorrow. We were in the same flight with the Accountant General (AG)Dato' Salleh himself. As we landed at the Kota Baru airport, we were ushered to accompany the AG for high tea at the VIP room. During our short stint with the AG, we were able to discuss possible collaborative activities that both entities could undertake. This includes among others, the training of AG staff in the area of government financial reporting and the publication of empirical studies in the public sector. ARI is confident that the collaboration will be asuccess, Insyaallah...

UiTM Journal Consolidation...

The university journal consolidation committee is preparing to submit eleven journals for possible registration with Scopus. Insyaallah, with the completion of the June/July 2009 issues, we should be able to submit our application by the 1 September 2009 deadline as given by Scopus. ARI has been given the task to compile all journal issues and to complete the latest publication of the Management and Social Science Journal. Prof Dr Rashidah is the Managing Editor and Associate Prof Dr Loo Ern Chen is the journal administrators. ARI wishes to thank all journal committee members for jobs well done...

OBE Workshop Postponed

The Outcome-based Education (OBE) workshop which was originally scheduled for today has been postponed to Wednesday 29th September 2009. This is to allow for more lecturers to participate in the event. Since the university has decided to prepone the midterm break to 27 July to 2 August, all lecturers should be free to attend the workshop. Assoc Prof Dr JJ will once again facilitate the workshop...

Celebrating Success

One of the most interesting characteristics of ARI and faculty members is the fact that we are a very close-nit "family". We always celebrate success: be it for getting some awards, recognising the best academic, the best researcher or sharing the joy of collegues getting their promotions. Today, our friends who got their promotions and others who were awarded the excellence awards organized a hi-tea party for all members at the UiTM Hotel. We all had a great time. Thanks, lets keep the spirit of comradship alive....Congratulations

RU Marking Scheme

Like it or not, ARI and faculty members must familiarise yourself with the marking scheme of RU Assessment: Quality & Quantity of Researcher - 25%; Quality & Quantity of Research - 30%; Quality & Quantity of Postgraduates -15%; Research Innovation - 10%; Professional Services & Gifts - 7%; Networking & Linkages - 8% and Support Facilities - 5%.

The Research Librarians....

That would be a very ideal situation: Our librarians are not just custodians to information, they are also researchers and consumers to information. Today, the Research Support Division of the Tun Abdul Razak Library (the university library) organized a research training workshop with the hope of encouraging librarians to become researchers themselves. As the task of collecting various library-related statistics is a normal routine job for librarians, the workshop encouraged them to be proactive and to use and analyse the data so as useful country & industrial databases could be developed and disseminated to researchers. One of the workshops was facilitated by a very experienced librarian, Dr Siti Arfah. Prior to joining the academic line at the university, Dr Siti used to be a librarian in two research organisations in the country. In view of the university's focus towards RU, having research librarians around would be handy...

Strategizing RU Activities for 10th Malaysia Plan

UiTM's Research Management Institute (RMI) conducted a special workshop with selected heads of Centres of excellence to discuss strategies, activities and key performance indicators (KPI)for the forthcoming 10th Malaysia Plan. In the discussion, it was requested that RMI play a more proactive administrative role in supporting COEs to fulfill the RU requirements. It was further suggested that the 10% research-inclined lecturers be placed at the COEs.

International Research Collaboration

ARI will be focusing on forging relationship with global research centres for possible research collaboration within this academic year (July-December 2009). In view of the six research centres placed within our organisational structure, ARI is looking forward to collaborate in the following research areas: sustainability reporting, financial reporting, managerial accounting, corporate governance, forensic accounting & financial criminology and public sector accounting.

Suggested Reference Books for Applied Research

ARI recommends two reference books on applied research. The first book,Applied Research Design: A Practical Guide (Applied Social Research Methods) (Paperback)
by Terry Elizabeth Hedrick (Author), Mr. Leonard Bickman (Author), Ms. Debra Rog (Author). The second book, Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods (Hardcover)by Mr. Leonard Bickman (Editor), Ms. Debra Rog (Editor).

Applied Research Proposals

Masters students who opted to do applied research presented their proposals today. It was indeed interesting to watch how they presented their proposals. The fact that applied research aspires to solve a specific problem within their organisation, they have to identify a "problem" that they wish to solve. Since they are very familiar with their own organisation and the scope is focusing on their own job specification, it was easy for them to understand the kind of data that they need to collect. Among the topics presented today included: Financial Integrity, Privatision of PLCs, Money Politics, "Ah Long" Investigation Framework, Fraud prevention Mechanism, Tax Audit Duration etc. ARI and the faculty hope that more students will be finishing their applied research projects this semester.

ARI July Meeting

ARI monthly meeting this afternoon decided on the publication of Books of Readings by each of the research centres: Asian Management Accounting Research Centre will write three books; Financial Reporting Centre (3); Sustainability Research Centre (2); Public Sector Research Centre (1); Corporate Governance (1); SME Group (1), Knowledge Management (1) and Forensic Accounting (2). The heads of each research centre further reported on initiative to publish papers in Scopus and ISI Thomson journals.

Vision for New Journals

ARI's vision is to register all our journals with either Scopus and/or ISI Thomson (Web of Science). Currently, they are already indexed with Cabel's, Ebscohost and Ulrich directories. All new journals initiated by research centres must be initiated correctly: i.e. make sure all journals are published consistently (at least two issues per year); Editorial board members must comprise of people who themselves are authors who have published in citation-indexed journals; There's diversity in editorial board membership (preferable they must be from all seven continents); at least the abstracts & references must be in English; articles in journals must be cited by others and journals must be published on time.

SME Initiatives with CPA Australia

The SME research group, headed by Associate Prof Dr Zuraidah has been asked by CPA Australia to review a CPA publication on Financial Survival Kit - Small Business Victoria and to determine if there's any element from that publication that might be useful and relevant for the Malaysian SME. It is certainly an honour that we have been given the trust to evaluate such an important document. Congratulations to the team...

Chapters in Books

The CIMA-UiTM Asian Management Accounting Research Centre (AMARC) organized a meeting amongst its members today. Basically the discussions dwelt around strategies to publish books of readings in management accounting. Prof Suzana, the head for AMARC will be leading the initiave to publish chapters of books for her centre. Other faculty members from the branch campuses who are keen to participate in this effort please contact ARI or Prof Suzana for details. Basically, this initiative hopes to publish themed books of readings in the area of management accounting.

Prof Mustafa Mohd Zain & a CSR Professorial Lecture

The professorial event lecture went on very well. Congratulations to the organizing team headed by Assoc Prof Dr Rozainun Abdul Aziz. The hall was full with guests, students and fellow colleagues. Prof Mustafa is always passionate about CSR. So delivering the professorial lecture was just "second to nature" for him. The lecture monograph and a recent book publication were made available to all attendees. ARI and the faculty of Accountancy co-hosted the event today.

Management Accounting World Conference

The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) hosted the second World Conference which began today. The two-day conference (13-14 July 2009)was graced opened by His Excellency Mr Boyd McCleary, British High Commissioner in Malaysia. The event attracted some 600 participants from thirty countries. It was indeed a good place to network. Some international and local case studies were presented by the invited speakers. On the first day itself, there were case studies on Tesco, Nando's, Genting International, DHL and AMD Malaysia. Participants were shown how management accounting information facilitates important strategic decisions made by top management...

Vacancy: Skim Khidmat Pelajar (SKP)

There's an immediate vacancy for 4-5 SKP posts at ARI. Full time students who may have spare time to spend, may apply for the SKP positions at ARI. Details on wage rate and scope of work can be obtained from ARI office. Basically candidates are to assist researchers with some research administration. Interested candidates please walk in and get the form from Ms Wan Mariati at ARI.

Applied Research Class

It was the first class this morning. Fifteen master students turned up for the applied research briefing. The applied research will focus on their very own organisations. They are to identify specific management and accounting issues that they wish to solve. At the end of class, we discussed some very interesting issues and possible topics for their applied research project. Next week they will present their proposals. All in all, they are very receptive and committed to finish their research project by October this year.

Working as a Team

It is heart-warming to know that the IT teams in UiTM are working together to consolidate the RU data that are available at various locations. They are forging ahead to form the Executive Information System. Sometimes we have to be told to work together. But in this case, the cohesiveness came naturally as the different groups just facilitate one another to improve the university's data management. Congratulations to the library IT dept, UPENA's Publication Respository Information System Management (PRISMa), the PSMB, the Web Media Unit and the Research Management Institute.

FSPU Research Workshop

As a director of ARI, I was invited by the Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying to share our experience in the setting and the running of the Accounting Research Institute. It was a heartwarming session as I discovered so many potentials and talents within that faculty who wants to do much more. For example, the "Warisan Centre" that has been involved with so many collaborative seminars & workshops, if it can produce say 3-4 books on "Warisan Melayu" every year, it would be such a great contribution to our heritage and country.

Understanding the Terms: Impact Factor....

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another common term is "impact factor". The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure of the citations to science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the importance of a journal to its field. The Impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), now part of Thomson, a large worldwide US-based publisher. Impact factors are calculated each year by Thomson Scientific for those journals which it indexes, and the factors and indices are published in Journal Citation Reports. The publication of each year covered occurs in the summer of the following year. The impact factor of a journal is calculated based on a two-year period. It can be viewed as the average number of citations in a year given to those papers in a journal that were published during the two preceding years....

Research with Impact: Understanding the Terms

We must know the meanings of some basic terms that determine whether our research publication has "impact". The first term is "Citation Index". According to Wikipedia, a citation index is an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. Wikipedia further notes that in 1960, Eugene Garfield's Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) introduced the first citation index for papers published in academic journals, starting with the Science Citation Index (SCI), and later expanding to produce the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). There are two publishers of general-purpose academic citation indexes:
(i) ISI is now part of Thomson Scientific. Though the ISI citation indexes are still published in print and compact disc, they are now generally accessed through the Web under the name Web of Science, which is in turn part of the group of databases in WoK.
(ii) Elsevier publishes Scopus, available online only, which similarly combines subject searching with citation browsing and tracking in the sciences and social sciences.

Updating of RU Strategic Blueprint

The Pusat Perancangan Strategik (PPS)UiTM organized a follow up meeting with members of the RU Committee at the Bilik Sidang, Canchellery Building today. The meeting was chaired by Prof Kamal Haron and moderated by Associate Prof Dr Nazip. As a follow up meeting, our task was mainly to complete and detail out the Tables that we had drafted in Puncak Alam in May 2009. Some fresh written publication policies were deliberated in details. Once approved, they will be used as a yardstick to measure the key performance indicators of faculties and departments. Basically, all responsibility centres in UiTM are now required to complete the RU forms...

Journal Distributorship

A journal distributor, Innovative Technology Sdn Bhd through its marketing officer Ms Zubaidah had met up with ARI and faculty's journal administrators to discuss of ways to improve the distribution of our three journals: Malaysian Accounting Review, Journal of Financial Reporting & Accounting and the Asia Pacific Management Accounting Journal. The company offers to find prospective clients for the journals through its global network. This is just one of the ways that we could adopt to improve on our journal's readership and citation rate.

Journal Consolidation Meeting

ARI and the faculty have been entrusted with the task of consolidating the university's Social and Management Research Journal. We thank the team headed by Prof Rashidah and hopefully we will be able to submit the journal for possible registration with Scopus this year. The submission deadline is September 2009.

Literature Review with Prof Sakthi

When Prof Sakthi first joined us in 2003, he was a fullbright scholar. We were starting our PhD program. We discovered then that one of Prof Sakthi's greatest forte was to help our PhD students with the literature review activities. He helped the students by guiding them with related reading materials and later on proposed them with possible conceptual framework. He is indeed very good with this. So today, he conducted another literature review sessions with our PhD students. We hope the students have learned a lot from him...

Have You Heard of Journal Editing Services?...

Our RU Committee on Enhancing Citation Rate & Impact Factor had a meeting today. One of our members had suggested the use of the "journal editing service" to facilitate our article publication in Scopus or ISI. Such service is useful particularly for novice writers (seasoned ones as well) whose english competency is relatively low. I found details of one service provider that might be useful for you: http://www.journalexperts.com/. The following texts are part of their promotional line

" American Journal Experts specializes in premium English editing and proofreading for authors wishing to publish their manuscripts in English language journals. Our highly qualified native English editors from the top ten medical and scientific research universities in America perform quality copyediting and proofreading in all areas of science and medicine as well as many additional academic fields. Researchers, publishers, and universities worldwide trust our English proofreading and editing skills to help them publish the best science in the best journals... no matter what country the author is from".

Strategizing for RU....

The university had invited Prof Dr Asma Ismail, the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) USM to give a talk on "Strategies Towards Research University" this morning. In the afternoon, she conducted a workshop on how to fill in the RU form. Participants included the RU Committee, Deans, Deputy Deans and Heads of Centres of Excellence.