Documentation and Electronic Archiving Conference begins today

The three-day conference, hosted by Dubai Municipality in co-ordination with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 17 to 19 September, will be attended by more than 75 experts on documentation and electronic archiving from 19 countries. More than 700 people will participate in the conference, which is held under the banner "Knowledge Investment and Management for Decision Support."

Qassim Sultan, Director General of Dubai Municipality said that the conference is being conducted after the success of the first Documentation and Electronic Archiving conference held in October 2002, which recommended holding such conferences annually, and also the success of the second Documentation and Electronic Archiving conference held in December 2003.

He said the conference is designed to create a dynamic forum for exchanging experiences about knowledge management standards, policies and practices among diverse professionals coming from different sectors.

Sultan hoped that the conference would open new eras for co-operation among countries particularly in using applications of running information and knowledge in supporting decision-making processes.

He said the conference has attracted a lot of scientific researchers in the field of libraries, information, documentation, and electronic archiving.

Khalid Ali Bin Zayed, Director of Municipality Centres Department and Vice-Chairman of the conference Organising Committee, said that the committee had completed all arrangements for the event. Main sponsors of the conference include the Lootah Group of Companies, Al Bawardi Computers and Emirates Airlines as the official carriers.

The event will also feature an exhibition where more than 300 organizations including service providers, solution providers, sellers, buyers, trade chambers from around the world will display their range of products, services and solutions for Documentation, Digital Archiving, Knowledge Management and Decision Support Systems.

This major event will witness participation by government, corporate, and private professionals from all over the world including archivists, library and information science professionals, GIS professionals, IT professionals and service providers, content and knowledge managers, information providers and vendors, electronic publishing and virtual electronic communities and stakeholders in the digitization and knowledge business.

The participants in the conference include experts in the filed from the USA, England, Australia, Poland, Switzerland, Scotland, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE.

The conference will cover five major areas such as Libraries & Information, Documentation & Electronic Archiving, Statistics & Information, Geographical Information Systems and Management of Information Resources and Knowledge for Decision Support.

Bin Zayed said that organizing this conference is in consonance with the recommendations of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme on exchange and management of information and knowledge between establishments.

He said that Dubai Municipality's interest to organize this conference resulted from its keenness to showcase the best applications, practices and programmes in the field of documentation and electronic archiving.
Inviting private companies and establishments that are pioneers in the field proves that the civic body adheres to the principle of strategic partnership with information technology firms, he said.

Bin Zayed said that the Municipality also believes that it is necessary to unite the public and private sector in contributing towards their social, national and environmental responsibilities in popularising the concept and vision on advanced technologies so as to spread it them and apply them in the country's establishments.

"It will definitely help in the overall development of the country as well as serve the e-government projects that are being implemented in the country. The success of these projects will take Dubai to the pioneering position in the region," said Bin Zayed.

The first day of the conference will discuss the Knowledge Management Horizons - Policies - Methodologies. In the first session on Knowledge Management Dr. Najat Rochdi will speak about the Arab Knowledge Society and Dr. John Girard will speak about Developing a course toward a knowledge environment: using knowledge management to enhance decision making.

In the session on Libraries & Documentation Mr. Alan Gilchrist will speak about a working model for metadata and terminology management for use when multiple applications are required to be coordinated in enterprise-wide systems and Dr. Arwa Al-Yasiri and Ms. Hadeel Al-Obiady will give a presentation on Electronic an experience for establishing an electronic thesaurus by using data extraction techniques while Mr. Emad Abu Eid will speak on Dubai Municipality Role in Construction of Arabic Thesauri: Expanded and Archive Thesaurus. Mr. Risto Linturi will deliver a speech on Digital city background and the Coba connection and Mr. Tony Caravella will speak on strict legal regulation of record keeping - does it really Support decision-making? The experience in Western Australia.

In the third session on Statistics & Information, Dr. Atef Khalifa will speak about Statistics and Information while Dr. Hisham Makhlof will give a presentation on Demographic planning as a basis to continue the progress in achieving the developmental object of the millennium. It will follow a presentation by Dr. Zain Al-Wafa'I and Mr. Hassan Mashmoshi on Central statistical information system: Statistics Centre Solution Strategy at Dubai Municipality.

During the fourth and the concluding session on the first day on GIS, Dr. Orhan Altan will give a presentation on Monitoring of City Development by means of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and GIS, Dr. Bela Markus will speak on Spatial knowledge infrastructure while Eng. Hussein AbdulMuttalib give a speech on Dubai Municipality Role in Environmental Protection Using Remote Sensing and GIS.

Among the five major areas of the conference the topic of the Libraries & Information sector will be "Best Practice in Thesaurus Management." During this session many issues will come for debate such as role of thesaurus in document description and subject analysis: comparison between thesaurus and subject headings in accordance to structure, use and benefits, role of thesaurus as a controlled tool in search and information retrieval in the digital environment and the difference with search and information retrieval using natural language, best practices and experiments in building and developing software for mono and multi-lingual thesaurus and best practices and experiments in building and developing mono and multi-lingual thesaurus.

In the Documentation & Electronic Archiving sector, the topic of discussion will be "Knowledge Management for Decision Support: Systems - Policies - Practices." The subjects that will come under debate will be Towards international standards for knowledge management, Knowledge management from policy to metadata, Enterprise knowledge resources planning & sharing for better decisions, Knowledge management for improved quality & better customer services, Arabic legislations for electronic records authenticity, Knowledge management best practices, How to apply business classification & retention on paper & electronic records Retention, Archival for non-textual objects and Records management best practices.

In the Statistics & Information sector, the main discussion will be on "Statistics, Information, and their Application in Decision Making Support." Different topics for discussion will be Recent Strategies, Policies & Approaches of Statistics Management, Recent Trends in Technology of Information, Knowledge Management & Decision Making, Statistical Applications in Information, Knowledge Management & Decision Making to Achieve Sustainable Development, Current Chances & Challenges in the Field of Statistics, and its Role in Information, Knowledge Management & Decision Making, Best Practices & Experiments of Statistical Applications in Information, Knowledge Management & Decision Making and Statistics Role in Planning & Decision Making (Demographic Planning - Economic Planning - Manpower Planning - Health Planning - Security Planning).

In the Geographical Information Systems sector the concentration will be on "GIS Data Management & Decision Making Support: Engineering, Planning & Environmental Applications." Subjects for discussion will be GIS data management aspects, data acquisition, data processing, data storage, and reporting technologies supporting planning & decision making, GIS data structures, database technology issues, data modeling, interoperability, data standards, and Geographic programming languages used for managing GIS data, Internet & Intranet GIS application along with E-Government data management issues supporting decision-making, Management and marketing of enterprise, government, and municipal GIS data, Management of ownership and parcel information systems (Cadastral GIS), Air born and space borne Active and passive photgrammetry, remote sensing and Lidar technologies as an input to GIS for supporting decision-making , Remote Sensing & GIS applications for environmental monitoring & Mapping, The role of GPS and permanent stations along with other land survey methods for supporting GIS based decisions, GIS experiences in the domain of civil (planning, road & railways, transportation, buildings, drainage, utilities, etc) applications related to government and municipal activities, GIS applications support to police and general civil security issues, GIS measures used for business and marketing strategies and GIS international and regional education issues and status.