Initial stage analysis of conceptual data model of International Research, Innovation, Conference, and Competition System (IRICC)

Abstract

Over the past ten years, Universiti Teknologi MARA Terengganu Branch (UiTMTB) Malaysia through Department of Research and Industrial Linkages has actively organizing conferences and innovation competitions as a platform for the researchers (i.e. lecturers and students) to share knowledge and exchange ideas in various field of expertise. All these events encourage researchers to be more productive to write and submit their research work for publication. The Department of Research and Industrial Linkages, UiTMTB has put a great deal of effort from planning until implementation to organize and ensure each of the programmes’ objectives achieved successfully. However, initial investigation has found that the Department of Research and Industrial Linkages, UiTMTB still struggling to execute four main tasks which are i) participants registration, ii) reviewing process, iii) article status notification, and iv) fees payment process as all of these tasks have to be performed manually by the program committees. This has led to errors such as disorganize information, and miscommunication among the team members, reviewers, and participants throughout organizing the programmes. Looking at the situation, it indicates that the program committees needs a systematic system to execute all the critical tasks efficiently and effectively. Therefore, this study aims to propose a conceptual data model namely Conceptual Data Model of International Research, Innovation, Conference and Competition (IRICC) System that specifically address the user requirement particularly in organizing conferences and innovation competitions. Prior to developed the proposed model, initial stage of analysis to determine the availability and the needs has to be carried out. Three phases of research activities have been conducted which are (i) user experience investigation, (ii) analysis of the previous works, and (iii) result analysis. Having carried out all three phases of research activities it was found that a Conceptual Data Model of International Research, Innovation, Conference and Competition (IRICC) System is urgently need to be explored.