The Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science and Mathematics (FSM) Diponegoro University held an International Teaching Fellowship on Statistics event by presenting a resource person from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Professor Dr. Muhammad Hisyam Lee. The event took place on the 4th floor of the Acintya Prasada Building of FSM Undip and was attended by lecturers and students from various levels.
The event began at 10.00 WIB with an arrangement of activities that began with an opening and remarks from the Head of the Department of Statistics, Prof. Tarno. In his remarks, Prof. Tarno emphasized the importance of activities like this to expand academic horizons and strengthen the international network of the Department of Statistics.
Furthermore, the main session was filled with material presentations by Prof. Muhammad Hisyam Lee who shared his experience and views on the management of study programs at international universities, especially in Malaysia. He explained that in Malaysia, one department usually houses more than one study program to create collaboration and academic efficiency.
Prof. Hisyam also highlighted the trend of changing the name of departments in Malaysian universities which aims to be more relevant to the development of science and industrial needs. According to him, such changes are important to maintain competitiveness and academic image at the global level, but still must go through mature internal discussions.
In his presentation, Prof. Hisyam provided a number of tips to prepare for international accreditation. Some of them are paying attention to the ratio of lecturers to students, student workload, curriculum quality, and the ability of graduates to get jobs after graduation. According to him, these factors are important indicators in assessing the quality of study programs.
In addition, he also revealed that the development of lecturer competencies at UTM tends to be limited because there are many senior lecturers in the Mathematics Department. However, this does not reduce UTM’s enthusiasm to continue to establish international collaborations and expand research opportunities with partner universities.
Interestingly, Prof. Hisyam expressed his willingness to collaborate with the Department of Statistics FSM Undip through various forms of collaboration, such as adjunct professor programs, joint publications, joint supervision, as well as staff and student exchanges. This offer was positively welcomed by the participants who attended.
In the question and answer session, a number of interesting topics emerged, ranging from postdoctoral opportunities at UTM, PhD preparation programs, to suggestions for choosing research topics for prospective doctoral students. Prof. Hisyam explained that UTM has facilities that support international researchers, including free lodging in university dormitories for participants who take part in short programs.
The discussion session also discussed the opportunity for Media Statistika journals to be included in the Scopus index. Prof. Hisyam provided various technical advice, such as maintaining publication consistency, strengthening the editorial team, ensuring a clear peer review process, and expanding collaboration of authors from abroad so that the journal has stronger international value.
The event was closed with a group photo session and souvenir handover. With the implementation of this activity, FSM Undip hopes to strengthen the global academic network and improve the quality of publications and research of lecturers within the Department of Statistics.