Quality assurance for educational process is necessary to achieve continuous improvement. The present paper explains a quality assurance system (QAS) established in Qassim University (QU), and illustrates its implementation in the programs of College of Engineering. Quality assurance in education should consider the stakeholders’ and accreditation organizations’ requirements, and study all aspects and activities of that process. Therefore, to set up this system, the followings had to be realized; availability of clear and accurate internal and external information, setting clear mission, objectives and learning outcomes for academic program in consistence with the institutional missions, ensuring that all conditions are prepared for realizing academic programs objectives and outcomes, and continually maintaining them, ensuring commitment of all faculty members and students to the outcomes evaluation process. Implementation of the system has improved Qassim Engineering programs through considerable modifications and changes in the Programs’ educational objectives, educational plans, curricula, human resources, facilities, education policies and student activities. As a result of the effectiveness of the quality assurance system all the programs of Qassim Engineering College have been accredited by ABET organization. The suggested system can be adopted by any engineering program and programs in other universities as it is comprehensive and flexible. The application of this quality assurance system will greatly facilitate academic accreditation of these programs.

Most of the universities have three main tasks, namely; teaching, scientific research and community service. Staff member is the motive and core element in the education process as he is the leader of the education and upbringing work. Also, the staff member is responsible for developing the universities, and realizing their scientific and practical missions towards the community. It is very important for ensuring the efficiency of the universities to develop the faculty members. The first step towards this is to measure and evaluate the faculty members’ performance. Evaluation will aid in taking the right decisions, encouraging the staff to enhance their performance, and enabling rewarding the distinguished staff. To avoid the disadvantages of existing evaluation systems such as limited evaluation sources and items of valuing, a comprehensive multi-source multi-criterion comprehensive system has been developed. The system has been based on weighted items and sub-items to minimize the personal sentimental factors. The system has been applied on the faculty members of College of Engineering at Qassim University. The results proved its efficiency, accuracy and fairness. Also, the results showed that the system possesses great flexibility such that it can suit the ordinary academic institution and those having special nature.

Abstract. In Saudi Arabia, scientific solutions for achieving a sustainable built environment tend to be initiated in engineering consultation offices. These address a client’s social requirements, as well as the regulations for project approval at both the urban and architectural level. This paper investigates how far the role of engineering consultation offices meets environmental requirements in relation to the regulations as well as fulfilling social needs. The study primarily employed an analysis of a survey of experts that included members of engineering consultation offices, and decision makers in the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing, along with a number of academics working in the field of the built environment. The sample included sixty experts from various institutes, including engineering consultation offices, the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing and universities. The analysis focused on the quality of these projects’ outputs in relation to environmental requirements, as well as the clients’ influence on the final output of the project in relation to social needs. The findings reveal that clients tend to play a significant role in the final design of projects prioritizing social considerations. This also indicates that some engineering consultation offices need to orient their designs to take into account environmental issues, including demonstrating them through the application of simulation tools. The panel of experts evaluated several solutions for improving the environmental design of the Saudi built environment and the study concludes by offering recommendations for both engineering consultation offices and their clients.

Abstract. Autonomous Vehicles (AV) are the smart cars of the future anticipated to be driverless, efficient, and crash-avoiding ideal urban cars. Software complexity, real-time data analytics, verification, and testing are among the more significant challenges in autonomous driving technology. This article presents practical experience and valuable insight into the above-mentioned challenges by developing a lab-scale autonomous car prototype using Rasberry Pi and Google accelerator. The full description of the car, including its technical specifications, the hardware and software design procedures, and the lab-scale circuit for testing, are discussed in detail. The developed prototype is equipped with the machine learning-based lane detection algorithm. The performance of the installed lane detection algorithm is verified by testing the car prototype using the lab scale circuit.