Abstract
A cross-sectional study was conducted to find out the barriers and their possible solutions to start a new postgraduate computer and engineering programs at Najran University (NU), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study includes interviews and surveys consist of 35 questions. The total number of the participant was 363; most of them were employees at the government and private sectors. In this study to analysis the result IBM’s Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 is used to analyze the result with the respective p-values calculated using the Pearson Chi-square test. Study reveals that 95.6% of participants want to pursue a graduate degree. However, only (46.9%) can communicate in English academically. Among the respondents, about (42.1%) started a graduate program before, but only (11%) has completed the program. Others could not continue their graduate programs because they were not able to attend the classes coming from a far distance and uncomfortable classes schedule and time. Hence, questions were distributed among the participants to get their opinions to find the solution. Study reveals that among the participants' both government and private sectors employees shown the importance to have online classes with (69.56%) and to have a comfortable schedule and time of courses with (95.65%). This study outlined the main barriers and possible solutions and recommendations that may be helpful for higher education institutions and organizations to start new graduate programs.
Highlights
Starting a new graduate program in computer science and engineering is a complicated process and it requires a lot of strategic planning, curriculum building, and dedication of resources
This study aims to investigate the potential limitation and provide recommendations to pursue postgraduate studies in Saudi universities, in Najran University
Most of the respondents in this study are males (91.7%), while the females are about (8.3%). The reason for this is that among all the departments in college of computer science and college of engineering, there is only two departments are available for female students, one of them started at Fall 2019
Summary
Starting a new graduate program in computer science and engineering is a complicated process and it requires a lot of strategic planning, curriculum building, and dedication of resources This process gets even more complicated when starting the new program in a public, and government funded university. As a newly appointed head of information systems department, and with average and minimum expertise in academia and management respectively, the author realized the need to have a postgraduate program in the department. This program would be the first in computer science and engineering colleges of Najran University (NU), a 12 years old and far southern rural government funded university in Saudi Arabia. Opening a new postgraduate program would be the first step toward a new vision for the computing and engineering majors in NU which in result would shift the focus to research rather than being on education only
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