This research explores the impact of technology and culture on higher education in two Arab countries. In western countries where higher education is common, individuals regardless of their gender can meet, communicate, and collaborate at anytime at any place of their choice. This may not be true in Arab countries due to the social, cultural, and religious reasons. We argue that adoption of technology could provide a comparable learning environment to students in these countries. We present results of a case study based on surveys conducted in two universities, Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in Jordan and Zayed University (ZU) in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Survey results show that adoption of technology has (a) improved the motivation and confidence level of students, (b) improved their communication and technical skills, (c) encouraged students to collaborate using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, and (d) allowed students to be more independent. These improvements would not have been possible without technology in a gender-segregated society.

Adoption of Internet-based communication and learning technologies could overcome the limitations caused by the social and cultural values of a society. Zayed University (ZU) is a femaleonly university in a modern Arab country that holds dear its high appreciation to cultural and social values. This paper explores the impact and effectiveness of the outcome-based technologymediated learning environment for the College of Information systems (CIS) students. This environment compliments the classroom activities. The paper concludes with some discussion on findings from a case-study of a database course. Results shows studying in this environment helped students: (a) be more confident in expressing their ideas, (b) develop their communication skills, (c) be independent learners, and (d) be more confident to do their best work.

Underdeveloped countries have realized that the investment and the improvement in higher education are very important for the progress. This is evident in the number of new universities and institutes of higher learning are established in the last 20-30 years. In these universities, administrative processes are well established but academic processes are not. Accreditation bodies such as ABET do not dictate any specific assessment process but want each candidate program to have an assessment process that is reliable and can find out weak points in the program to continuously improve. This paper describes a successful assessment process adopted at

This research explores the impact of technology and culture on higher education in two Arab countries. In western countries where higher education is common, individuals regardless of their gender can meet, communicate, and collaborate at anytime at any place of their choice. This may not be true in Arab countries due to the social, cultural, and religious reasons. We argue that adoption of technology could provide a comparable learning environment to students in these countries. We present results of a case study based on surveys conducted in two universities, Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in Jordan and Zayed University (ZU) in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Survey results show that adoption of technology has (a) improved the motivation and confidence level of students, (b) improved their communication and technical skills, (c) encouraged students to collaborate using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, and (d) allowed students to be more independent. These improvements would not have been possible without technology in a gender-segregated society.

The objective of this paper is to design performance metrics and respective formulas to quantitatively evaluate the achievement of set objectives and expected outcomes both at the course and program levels. Evaluation is defined as one or more processes for interpreting the data acquired through the assessment processes in order to determine how well the set objectives and outcomes are being attained. Even though assessment processes for accreditation are well documented but existence of an evaluation process is assumed. This paper focuses on evaluation process to provide insights and techniques for data interpretation. It gives a complete evaluation process from the data collection through various assessment methods, performance metrics, to the presentations in the form of tables and graphs. Authors hope that the articulated description of evaluation formulas will help convergence to high quality standard in evaluation process.