On September 7, the Director of National Erasmus+ Office (NEO) in Palestine, Dr. Nedal Jayousi conducted a support visit to University College for Applied Sciences in Gaza. The new elected president of UCAS, Dr. Saeed Al Zibdeh warmly greeted Al- Jayousi along with UCAS Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Tamer Eshtawi and Vice President of Planning and External Relations Affairs, Dr. Mohammad Mushtaha.
The visit came as a part of NEO mission to Higher Education Institutions in Gaza to follow up on the progress and the outcomes of Erasmus+ projects implemented in Gaza Universities. Dr. Jayousi emphasized on UCAS achievement and records as main partner under Erasmus+ umbrella and especially the current outputs of the ongoing Erasmus+ projects: TVET-CQ, I-CARE, PaLib and Benefit projects. He also expressed his delight to meet the partners face-to-face after long months of virtually meeting due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the meeting, Mrs. Samah Mohaisen, the international Relation coordinator presented an overview on the ongoing Erasmus+ CBHE projects and its distinctive outputs as well as International Credit Mobility (ICM) records within KA107.
Dr. Ahmed Dahdouh, Palib Coordinator, presented on ample scope the progress of PaLib work plan, achieved activities and the sustainability action of lunching the E-Library and Scientific Research platforms.
Finally, Dr. Nedal conducted a debriefing session with PaLib partners to know about the existing challenges and issues they faced in implementing the scheduled activities so on. Al Jayousi stressed on the importance of including Ministry of Higher Education in developing PaLib outputs to ensure a profound impact at the national level and he offered NEO support to reach that purpose.
At the end of the day, Dr. Nedal Jayousi inaugurated the Central Library at UCAS in a memorable opening ceremony. The library has been refurbished recently and developed during the implementation of the PALIB project.
Dr. Akram Radwan, a key staff at PaLib and the responsible of WP5: Building scientific research portal, talked in details on the process of developing the e-library and scientific research portals which have be undertaken by developing team for analysis, design, implementation of the system with the up-to-date developing tools and finally testing the portals
Dr. Akram declared that once finishing these WPs, two main outputs will be identified for each portal: a portal system and a system interface that allows other local institutions to join the portal and interact to ensure its sustainability.
