University of Sharjah implements web portal from ITWorx

More than 9000 students, faculty and staff at the University of Sharjah are reaping the benefits from the new web portal, which was migrated, deployed, and launched in May 2007.

Built on its existing infrastructure, the new web portal has allowed the University of Sharjah to enhance its services to staff and students. The Web portal acts as a single point of information, allowing students, faculty, and staff to communicate more effectively, on and off campus as well as access high-quality content online. The portal is also capable of supporting multiple sites, audiences, and languages while enabling efficient Web publishing, which allows the University to strengthen its infrastructure using Microsoft products and solutions.

Sofiane Benna, Head of Operations, Network & Telecom, University of Sharjah, comments:

'The results experienced with the new portal in place have been beyond our expectations. The new portal reflects the University’s increased reputation as a centre of educational excellence and supports our vision to become a leading academic institution in the Middle East, recognized around the world. ITWorx succeeded yet again in demonstrating its knowledge, expertise and experience, by understanding the needs of a premier higher education institution, coupled with flair and innovation.”

The University of Sharjah required a portal to manage external inquiries and information, as well as internal communication and collaboration. The ITWorx team, specialized in the Education sector, consulted with the University to ensure their needs met with the scope of work that lies ahead.

The new portal implemented at University of Sharjah accesses all facets of University life through Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), providing the University community and its stakeholders with a central information point.

“Since 1997, the University of Sharjah has experienced remarkable growth. We attribute this to their focus on excellence in students’ education, and equally important to their direction in adopting cutting-edge technologies that help create an integrated education process, explained Magdy El-Komy, Engagement Manager, ITWorx. “Using MOSS 2007, we were able to deliver the University’s portal migration project within a month. The portal is another success in the university’s history of achievements and another step further towards cooperation and future success.”

The University of Sharjah selected ITWorx after a recommendation from Microsoft Gulf, who referred the University to ITWorx for their expertise in Microsoft technologies. The University team was confident in ITWorx skills, deliverables, and project management methodologies and that they would deliver on the University’s specific requirements.

The implementation initially began by a pilot site at the University of Sharjah. The ITWorx team resolved all technical issues confronting the University team, planned the move from pilot into production, deployed the production environment, and migrated data from the pilot to the live portal.