CD-ROM catalog; CD-ROM database; Database; Information Technology

In order for land Surveyor Companies to survive and prosper in today's competitive environments, it is essential that they govern the efficiency and effectiveness in providing services (1). To assist in the process, the utilization of information technology and automated software can provide efficiency and effective solutions to the problems of mass data and information handling (2), (3). Object-oriented software engineering methodology the idea object model for the business relates to the use case model of the supporting information system (2). Meanwhile, a practical model and procedure on how to tender products based on new, emerging technologies had been proposed by A.P. Hameri et al. (4). In particular, estimating and tendering represent important processes for organization involved in land surveyor (1). In Malaysia, the calculation of tender payment claims for the land surveyor company is based on the Vide Federal Government Gazette PU (A) 169 Thirteenth Schedule (Regulation 99) Scale of Fees for Title Surveys given by Land Surveyors Board. In addition, the traditional or former practice of tender management process and calculation of tender payment claims through the manual system is complex and very difficult (1). Before the advent of system, organization kept all their data in manual or conventional files. Basically, the manual system workflow is very inefficient and ineffective. Data processing in organizations tended to be largely departmental in nature. To manage the tender information, many staffs are involved and the processes need to be completed in several stages. The file-based system was helpful, however this conventional system wouldn't produce the kind of information that needed by the management. Inevitable, the manual system is exposed to the risk of data loss, delayed and data integrity concern, which reduce the company's operation performance.

Tender Management System in Kadastra with the database technology, is capable to manage the tender information. The software design consists the modules of the customer account details, information of separating process for division or boundary, temporary properties and survey of land. Briefly, PHP language and MySQL were used to develop the Tender Management System in Kadastra and its database system respectively. Other software had been used include My SQL Client Server GUI, PHP Editor, Microsoft Front Page and Apache Web Server.

System description: Tender Management System in Kadastra supports the sharing information. All information will be control in a centralize database. TMS in Kadastra will manage all information that relevant to Measurement System for the purpose to make ease of information access by the users. Besides, managing the tender information through fully computerized is better than manual system. For example, by implementing the computerized system, customer details can be easily accessed in short period time. User can refer to file transaction details specifically with fast and accurate. The Measurement System is developed to help the user to calculate the tender payment claim that includes two type statues, either transaction claims or quotations. The Land Surveyor Board fixes the standard matrixes rate for survey of land fees.

Tender Management System in Kadastra also supports the automatical reports generated. The facilities that supported by the system has become the powerful stimulus for increasing works quality. Through the computerized system, users need not to worry about the miscalculation of tender payment tender claims. Tender Management System in Kadastra is developed based on the manual system and existing computerized system, Sistem Kadastra Jurukur Jitu Runding Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia.

Gender Differences in Attitudes towards Information Technology among Malaysian Student Teachers: A Case Study at Universiti Putra Malaysia

This article presents a quantitative study on gender differences in attitudes toward the usage of Information
Technology (IT) related tools and applications. The study was conducted at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia,
with 73 female and 29 male student teachers involved as participants. They were each presented with a
questionnaire to relate their attitudes toward IT before and after undergoing a discrete IT course for the duration
of one semester (14 weeks). The attitudes of the respondents were measured in terms of three dimensions,
namely, usefulness, confidence and aversion. There were no significant differences between female and male
student teachers when the pre- and post-test mean scores were compared. Both genders exhibited the same
levels of attitudes before and after undergoing the comprehensive IT course. This suggests that the exposure to
IT did not contribute to any significant gender disparity. The paired sample t-test results showed improved
attitudes toward IT usage in both females and males after the exposure to IT. The biggest improvement for both
females and males was in the aversion dimension which showed that their initial strong dislike toward IT was
greatly reduced at the end of the course. In terms of confidence, female participants exhibited an enhanced
confidence level after the course as opposed to the male participants. The results support the view that computer
experience is gender-based as the increase in IT confidence over time assumed different patterns for females and
males.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN MALAYSIAN BANKS: A NEW PARADIGM

The globalization of financial markets forced bankers to be knowledge-based and be more efficient in managing knowledge in their banking operations. The importance of this function is accentuated further by the call from the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) to integrate the concepts of knowledge management in banking operations. In this paper, we discuss a research model called: Banking Knowledge Management Model (BKMM), which encompasses knowledge creation, knowledge retention and knowledge sharing and more importantly, how each of these elements can be integrated in enhancing the quality of banking operations. The various components of BKMM are described in detail so as to explain the progress of knowledge management in banking operations. Then, using the BKMM as a reference, two case studies, one of Tiger Bank and the other of the Camel Bank, were analyzed to study the progress of knowledge management application. The contribution of the BKMM is expected to create a culture that promotes and encourages knowledge management to flourish in the banking sector.

The Relationship Between Information Technology Acceptance And Organizational Agility in Malaysia

We examined the influence of information technology (IT) acceptance on organizational agility. The study was based on a well-established theoretical model, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). We attempted to identify the relationships between IT acceptance and organizational agility in order to see how the acceptance of technology contributes to a firm's ability to be an agile competitor. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to analyze the data. Results from a survey involving 329 managers and executives in manufacturing firms in Malaysia showed that actual system or technology usage had the strongest direct effect on organizational agility. Meanwhile, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of IT influenced organizational agility indirectly through actual systems or technology use and attitudes towards using the technology. The results have several implications for IS management.

The University System : Engine Of Development in The New World Economy

Science and Technology as Sources of Economic Growth in the Information-Based Economy

Science and technology play a critical role as sources of economic productivity and competitiveness in the new, informational economy (Monk 1989). Furthermore, the growing interdependence of service activities with manufacturing and agriculture place information processing at the core of productivity growth (Hall and Preston 1988). Thus, dramatic innovation in information technologies in the last two decades has made technological capacity even more crucial for economic development and political power. Because the adequate use of advanced information technologies is highly dependent upon the general level of education and culture of labor, there is a growing connection between people's intellectual skills and their countries' development potential (Carnoy and others 1982).

This analysis is not limited to market economies. The groundbreaking econometric studies by Soviet economist Aganbegyan (1989) show that the decline of the Soviet economy from 1971 to 1985 (which ultimately forced the policy of perestroika) was linked to the exhaustion of the extensive model of growth, through massive addition of labor and physical resources, as the Soviet economy became more complex and needed improved technology and better management to perform in the next stage of development. This next stage was characterized by the importance of information generation and information processing outside the secluded military industrial complex.

However, some authors argue that less developed economies are less concerned about advanced technology as much of their activity is still linked to traditional agriculture, semi-industrial handicraft production, and petty trade. Besides, advanced technologies tend to be labor saving, while the major problem in developing countries is to create jobs for a population still growing at an excessive rate. Yet, this argument forgets that today the world is closely interconnected, and that the process of development does not proceed stage by stage, but must instead be based on the proper linkages between national and regional economies with very different technological compositions (see Geledan 1990).

The informational economy is also a world economy, in which comparative advantages in terms of labor costs only become important once a given national economy is connected to the rest of the system on the basis of a sufficient level of communications, productive infrastructure, and labor skills (see Sewell and Tucker 1988). Because of the growing interpenetration of economic processes worldwide, economies that try to reach out beyond the subsistence level (thus generating some surplus) will immediately face a highly sophisticated international economy in which technological capacity is a critical variable. Unless we adopt the ideological position of full self-sufficiency, which would be hard to implement for political reasons in a world linked by television and tourist travel (Castells and Laserna 1989), the informational economy must be considered a worldwide phenomenon, with an asymmetrical structure, in which countries and regions are integrated at very different levels, furthering the system's segmentation and aggravating societies' contradictions (Ohmae 1990). In such a worldwide, informational economy we must rethink the meaning and instruments of development (see Portes and Kincaid 1990). It would seem that investment in what is called "human capital". becomes strategic, but the concrete policy implications of such a statement are more complex and less accepted than would appear at first sight.

This chapter elaborates on one of these implications: universities (but not any kind of university) become fundamental tools of development. However, they do so in a very different way to the old humanistic approach to development in terms of improving literacy and fulfilling the developing world's cultural needs.

The science and technology systems of the new economy (including, of course, the humanities) are equivalent to the factories of the industrial age. Not that manufacturing will disappear, but the new manufacturing of the twenty-first century (as well as agriculture and advanced services) will only be able to perform on the basis of a new, highly developed cultural, scientific, and technological system (Cohen and Zysman 1986).

If knowledge is the electricity of the new informational international economy, then institutions of higher education are the power sources on which the new development process must rely. This is the central proposition of this chapter.