UTHM’s Digitalisation Strategy

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia’s Digitalisation Strategy

Prof. Ts. Dr. Ruzairi bin Abdul Rahim, Vice-Chancellor, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, shares his views on how he envisions the University’s future in the “new normal” and why digitalisation is the way forward.

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), is one of the public universities in Malaysia primarily focusing on Engineering and Technology. UTHM is strategically located in green sub-urban environment in Batu Pahat, Johor. As UTHM envisions to be a world class university in Engineering, Science and technology for sustainable development, the education and training practice in this university focuses on a continuous effort to become the leader in market oriented academic programmes. These programmes are student-focused and are conducted through experiential learning to produce well trained human resource and professionals who are catalysts for sustainable development.

Apart from leading UTHM’s academic and administrative departments, I also oversee major initiatives to ensure UTHM maintains its research and academic excellence at the highest global standard. This means making focused investments on people, technology, and tools to achieve our goal towards becoming a Global Technopreneur University by 2030.

While we are on track to achieving our goal, I am also very much focused on ensuring UTHM is at the forefront in several research areas such as sustainable development, technology, and engineering, among others.

The Shifting to “New Normal”

While many organizations sought to use technologies to keep the business running in the “new normal,” the University used that opportunity to provide the highest quality learning experience. This includes transforming our library to ensure our students, faculty, and researchers can work more efficiently and have access to the world’s wealth of authoritative information for their research work. In addition, as e-learning and virtual classrooms are here to stay, we are continuously exploring ways to enhance our virtual learning environment through a wider adoption of e-books in classroom teaching. All these are part of a larger digital transformation strategy, and we look forward to seeing how this will enrich the research and academic culture in the University.

UTHM’s digitization strategy is very much focused on meeting the needs of our academic community today and the generations to come. This means not only looking beyond modernising workflows and operations, but also answering questions about “what will the classroom of the future look like?” “How can we improve student learning experiences” and “What tools do we need to improve collaboration and research outcomes” “How can we improve student learning experiences” and “What tools do we need to improve collaboration and research outcomes”

Looking Ahead

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia is set to become a global technopreneur university by 2030 and the digitization strategy put in place will enable us to nurture TVET graduates in their curiosity, innovative thinking, digital intelligence, technical expertise, etc which are the main elements in the success of a technopreneur.

The pandemic has compelled UTHM to think beyond and develop sustainable ways to ensure that high-quality education is delivered and adapt to the shifting landscape of education. Our partnership with leading industry partners like Elsevier has also helped accelerate this momentum as we foster stronger collaboration ties through its wide range of high-quality content, common platforms like ScienceDirect and the engagement support by its team of consultants.

Our students, faculty, and staff are at the heart of UTHM’s digital transformation strategy. ScienceDirect enables our growing community of interdisciplinary researchers to gain access to rich foundational knowledge as well as the latest scholarly insights to help them progress with their work. Elsevier’s high quality ScienceDirect e-books stands out as key enabler of UTHM’s virtual learning environment.