The Malaysian government came up with the SETARA rating which "ranked" universities into 6 tiers , 1 – weak and 6 – Outstanding. It is interesting to note that some universities such as Taylor's University, Sunway University College are ranked in the same tier with University Malaya. This suggests that the oldest university in Malaysia either has quality as bad as private institutions, or private institutions such as Sunway have excellent quality as University Malaya, or the rating is, well, rubbish http://www.mqa.gov.my/setara09/result_en.cfm
What interest me the most is some of the universities included in the list. For example, Management and Science University is ranked in tier 5 as excellent. I never knew how good this university is, but one thing for sure, it does not belong in the same league with University Malaya, University Science Malaysia, Monash Malaysia, or even Sunway and Taylor's. What interest me the most is the lack of information being provided by the university website as well http://www.msu.edu.my/ I mean if you click on the link, you can't find any profiles of their academicians. You will not be able to see the lists of publications by their professors, how many of them hold PhD, how many of them are professors etc. Compare this with University Malaya and Multimedia University, where this information are shown on their websites.
The reason why I am interested to look at their profiles are due to the types of IT degrees being offered :
http://www.msu.edu.my/v6/fise/fise.php
They have forensic computing, IS auditing, mobile and wireless technology etc. These are quite specialized degrees and you will need capable people to develop and deliver these courses. What concern me is that does the university has such people? I am not sure as I can't see it from their website.
Another thing that bothers me is that when I click on their computer forensic programme link, the following information is being provided:
Offering of this program aims at:
a.to provide students with a full understanding of current and developing computer forensic technologies.
b.to facilitate students in the development of expertise in areas of direct and complementary relevance to gaining employment.
c.to encourage students to become autonomous learners
d.to provide students with an understanding of current computer forensic research issues.
e.to develop students' analytical, creative, problem-solving and evaluation skills.
f.to provide a platform for career development, innovation and/or postgraduate student.
I mean look at how poorly written are the objectives. "Understanding and developing computer forensic technologies"? " facilitate students in the development of expertise in areas of direct and complementary relevance to gaining employment."
The degrees proposed by MSU sounds fancy, but I am not sure what is the process involved in developing these courses. Is it developed by some lecturers in their faculties, whereby they just merged some subjects, add/adapt some subjects from books, websites etc?
As an IT researcher, I am really concern when university offers this sort of courses, as we are not sure are they being fair to the students, and are they really producing competent graduates in these specialized areas.