Mathew Boice is the General Manager of SunGard Higher Education Middle East and North Africa. The company provides software and support, systems implementation and integration and technology management services to help colleges and universities build their digital campuses. It assists more than 1,600 customers worldwide, including the UAE. Recently the company, which provides software across the region, announced an Arabic software package called Luminis IV that will be used in the Arabic-speaking world.
What is Luminis?
It is a unified digital campus. The idea here is that you can access different elements of the campus through a computer. It brings together different services in the university to those who need access to it, the students, faculty and staff. We provide a single access point to things like the library and even prayer times. Useful things like campus announcements will pop up on the desktop when the user logs on. You could, for example, also access your grades and learn about your performance, how you are doing and what you need to do to improve.
What is the Luminis IV Arabic solution?
The Luminis IV Arabic is the latest version of the Luminis solution in Arabic and part of the Luminis Platform product family. Luminis IV Arabic solution enables institutions to create an online community environment that provides improved access to all existing resources within the institution. The Luminis IV Arabic solution will be an opportunity for universities and colleges across the region to extend the value of their current technology to provide an enhanced educational experience in their own language.
What does this mean for students using Luminis in both English and Arabic?
The Luminis Platform gives individuals personalised, 24-7 access to information and services previously limited by location or hours of operation. It integrates with the SunGard Higher Education so users can access the information and services they need through a single sign-on. Information from the banner administrative systems helps to personalise the Luminis Platform.
Why was the Luminis IV Arabic solution created?
Luminis IV Arabic was designed and developed to meet the specific needs of institutions in the Arab world and a huge market in Saudi Arabia. Some of the institutions that will be implementing the new solution, for example, will be the prestigious King Faisal University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. We realised that an Arabic version of the platform was essential to truly meet their evolving IT demands and requirements with more and more investments being put aside for technology infrastructure in the institutions.