Site Suitability and Analysis Application for MosquesQatar University Students Use GIS for Graduation Project |
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Five computer science students from Qatar University are using GIS in a cooperative project that not only fulfills graduation requirements, but also provides Qatar's Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (MEIA), also known as AWQAF, with a valuable tool in evaluating Mosque usage.
The students Aida Al-Said Al-Hashmi, Aisha Khamess Al-Muraikhi, Ameera Al-Said Al-Mansoori, Faten Abdullah Jassim, and Noura Hassan Al-Naimi, decided to team together for their graduation project. At the beginning of the current academic year, they began making inquiries in Qatar's private and public business sectors to determine whether or not there was an opportunity for them to complete their project outside the university, which they felt would provide them with the chance to apply their theoretical knowledge to a practical application.
Qassim Al-Ghanim, Assistant Head of Qatar's Land Information Centre (LIC), learned of the students' interest and invited them to visit LIC for an introduction to GIS and a discussion about its many applications. The students left enthusiastic about the potential of the technology and determined to propose a project to their university professors that would allow them to use GIS in their final project.
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The application screen displaying information about a specific mosque |
After further discussions with Al-Ghanim and their professors, they decided that a Mosque inventory and site suitability application would not only be interesting, but would provide an important benefit to the country. The students approached officials at MEIA, who were intrigued with the idea of inventorying and mapping mosques and their adjacent properties. After establishing the feasibility of their project, officials at MEIA gave the students full support. This is the first GIS-based study conducted for MEIA and they were very excited about the prospect of using the technology for facilities management applications.
LIC arranged in-house training for the students to familiarize them with the software products they would use to create their Mosque Management System (MMS). It was decided that the most appropriate combination would be Microsoft's Visual Basic as the graphical user's interface, ESRI's Map Objects as the core GIS, and Oracle Corporation's Personal Oracle Server for Windows 95 and Power Objects 2.0 for the relational database.
Next, a pilot study area was selected. Madinat Khalifa-South (Zone 34), one of Doha's more established residential areas was chosen because of the exponential growth it has experienced in recent years. This was due to its proximity to both the city centre and the West Bay residential area. It was felt that an area experiencing rapid grow would best typify the entire city and test the robustness of the students' application.
A User Needs Assessment was then conducted to determine the sort of information required to effectively categorize the Mosques. Hundreds of disparate bits of information were ultimately organized into 12 tables of data with approximately 200 separate details. Data ranges from facility features, such as libraries, gardens, and women's praying halls, to utility items including lighting configurations, air conditioning capacity, and audio system range. Questionnaires, mirroring the database information, were then created and submitted to the MEIA for completion.
To finish the project on time, the student team works at the offices of the LIC approximately 20 hours per week after concluding their regular university studies.
When complete, the MMS will not only allow officials to determine whether or not the existing facilities meet the current needs of the area's residents, but also to formulate future expansion plans, and establish systematic maintenance schedules. With its report generating capabilities, this information will be easy to compile and distribute to decision makers and other interested parties.
"From the very beginning I was very impressed with the team's keen interest in GIS and the speed in which they were able to grasp its concepts and focus their efforts into a practical application," concludes Al-Ghanim.