Dr Alaa Aljanaby

PhD Information Technology

Position

Head of School – Digital Technologies

Teaching area

Software Development and Testing, System Analysis Design, Algorithms and Data Structures, Object Oriented Programming, Research Methods

Biography

Dr Alaa Aljanaby is an experienced academic leader with over two decades in higher education. He currently serves as Head of School – Digital Technologies at Manukau Institute of Technology. Dr Aljanaby has held leadership roles in New Zealand and internationally, including Academic Manager, Programme Manager, and Head of Department. His expertise includes programme design, quality assurance, and staff development. He has taught a wide range of subjects in computer science and information technology and has supervised many student research projects. Alaa is also an active researcher with nearly 30 academic publications and a strong interest in curriculum innovation and student engagement.

Why I love MIT

I love working at MIT because of its diverse, inclusive community and strong commitment to student success. It’s a place where collaboration thrives, and I enjoy being part of a team that continuously looks for ways to improve our teaching, research, and connection with industry. The opportunity to support students from all walks of life in achieving their goals is truly rewarding.

Publications

Alaa Aljanaby, Ahmad Jawdat, Yue Xu and Tim Rose, Machine Learning Approach to Identify Performance Audit Topics for Different Government Sectors, Int. J. of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation (InderScience Journal), Vol. 20, Nos. 3/4, pp. 437-451, May 2024.

Sheerali Arya and Alaa Aljanaby, Enhancing Learning and Engagement Strategies for Improving the International Student Experience, Global Teaching and Learning Conference, Navitas, Online, Nov 2022.

Dipendra Ghirmire and Alaa Aljanaby, Agile Practices in Teaching and Learning in Teamwork: A Conceptual Framework, NZ Journal of Business and Technology, August 2020.

Cassie Po, and Alaa Aljanaby, Equipping International Learners in Aotearoa New Zealand with Kiwi Experience, NZ Journal of Business and Technology, August 2020.

Heba Farooq and Alaa Aljanaby, Innovation in New Zealand’s 21st Century Education: Exploring Technology Use. International Conference of Experience Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (XD2019GoldCoast) conference in Gold Coast Australia, Aug 2019.

Alaa Aljanaby, Md. Athar Imtiaz and Chris Mitchell, Industry focused ICT education: a case study, NZ Journal of Business and Technology, August 2019.

Heba Farooq, Md. Athar Imtiaz and Alaa Aljanaby, Persuasive Mobile Application: Enhancing Student E-Learning Experience (Poster). The 9th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2018), Wellington, New Zealand, July 11-12, 2018. Best Poster award.

Ahmad Mashayek, Alaa Aljanaby, and Donald Joyce, Designing and Developing an Information Technology Degree for a Private Training Establishment, The 3rd International Higher Education Curriculum Design & Academic Leadership Symposia (IHECD 2017), Hamilton, New Zealand.

Alaa Aljanaby, Md. Athar Imtiaz and Chris Mitchell, A framework for implementing industry focused ICT education, The 8th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2017), Napier, New Zealand, October 2-4, 2017.

Heba Farooq, Md. Athar Imtiaz and Alaa Aljanaby, E-learning in New Zealand Undergraduate Medical Education: Trends and Directions (Poster), The 8th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2017), Napier, New Zealand, October 2-4, 2017.

Keunhong Kim, Ahmad Mashayekh, Md. Athar Imtiaz and Alaa Aljanaby, Short Courses Initiative of Aspire2 International: Game Development as a Case Study (Poster), The 8th Annual Conference of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand (CITRENZ 2017), Napier, New Zealand, October 2-4, 2017. Best Poster award.

Alaa Aljanaby. An Experimental Study of the Search Stagnation in Ants Algorithms, International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA), impact factor: 0.821, vol. 148, no.14, pp. 1-4, published by Foundation of Computer Science, New York, USA, August 2016.
Mahmood K Jasim, Anwar M Al-Saleh and Alaa Aljanaby. A Fuzzy Logic Based Handwritten Numerals Recognition System, International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA), impact factor: 0.821, vol. 83, no. 10, pp. 36-43, published by Foundation of Computer Science, New York, USA, Dec. 2013.

Alaa Aljanaby and Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud, Analysis of the stagnation behavior of the interacted multiple ant colonies optimization framework, proceedings of international Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT2011), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 11-14, 2011.

Ahmad Jawdat, Qasem Obeidat and Alaa Aljanaby. Towards User Experience Based Persuasive Systems. proceedings of the International Conference on Digital Enterprise and Information Systems (DEIS2011), published in the “Communications in Computer and Information Science” (CCIS) Series of Springer LNCS, London, UK, July 20-22, 2011.

Alaa Aljanaby and Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud, Interacted multiple ant colonies for single machine total weighted tardiness problem, proceedings of International Conference on Computing and Informatics (ICOCI2011), Bandung, Indonesia, June 8-9, 2011.

Ahmad Jawdat, Qasem Obeidat and Alaa Aljanaby. On the Design of User Experience Based Persuasive Systems, Journal of Computer and Information Science (CIS), Canada, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 90-99, July 2011.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, Revisiting pheromone evaluation mechanism in the interacted multiple ant colonies framework, proceedings of 10th international conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applications (AIA2010), Innsbruck, Austria, pp.12-15, Feb. 15 – 17, 2010.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, An exploration Technique for the interacted multiple ant colonies framework, proceedings of 1st international conference on Intelligent Systems, Modelling, and Simulation (ISMS2010), publisher IEEExplore, Liverpool, UK, pp. 92-95, Jan. 27-29, 2010.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, Interacted multiple ant colonies optimization framework: an experimental study of evaluation and exploration techniques to control search stagnation, International Journal of Advancements in Computing Technology (IJACT), Korea, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 78-85, March 2010.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, Interacted multiple ant colonies to enhance the performance of ant colony optimization algorithms, Journal of Computer and Information Science (CIS), Canada, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 29-34, Feb. 2010.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, Stagnation control using interacted multiple ant colonies, proceedings of International Conference on Computing and Informatics (ICOCI09), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pp. 193-197, Jun. 24-25th, 2009.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, A new multiple ant colonies optimization algorithm utilizing average pheromone evaluation mechanism, proceedings of the Knowledge Management International Conference (KMICe’08), Langkawi, Malaysia, pp. 531-534, Jun. 10-12th, 2008.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, Optimizing large scale problems using multiple ant colonies algorithm based on pheromone evaluation technique, International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security (IJCSNS), Seoul, Korea, vol. 8, no. 10, pp. 54-58, Oct. 2008.

Alaa Aljanaby, Ku Ruhana Ku-Mahamud and Norita Md. Norwawi, On ant colony optimization and its new directions, proceedings of the international Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT’05), Al-Isra’a University, Amman, Jordan, Dec. 5-9th, 2005.

Alaa Aljanaby, Emad Abuelrub and Mohammed Odeh, A survey of distributed query optimization, International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT), Jordan, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 48-57, Jan. 2005.

Scholarly activities

  • Reviewer – multiple academic journals and conferences
  • Organiser – University of Waikato College seminar series (2022–2023)
  • Organiser – NZ Conference of Business and Technology (2019-2020)
    Programme Vice Chair – International Arab Conference on IT (2014)

Research interests

  • Evolutionary Algorithms & Ant Colony Optimization
  • Combinatorial Optimization Problems & Persuasive Technology
  • Fuzzy Logic, Opinion & Data Mining
  • Programme Development & International Education

Memberships and affiliations

  • Member, Editorial and Technical Boards of several academic journals
  • IEEE member