Abstract:

The National Center for Statistics and Information (NCSI) in Oman was established in accordance with the Royal Decree 31/2012 affiliated to the Supreme Council for Planning. NCSI is one of the most important sources for the development and sustainability of Oman's economy by having an information bank that helps to create Oman’s strategic plan. Majority of the information is being used by high-level planners, which include governments, semi-governments, and private sectors through the portal and other media sources. However, the information is made public in terms of statistics through newspapers, magazines and social media. The study focuses on the need for developing an information system channel for disseminating information to every individual in the Sultanate of Oman with ease. Information required at school level for their planning and swift operations making them rely on the information from NCSI. Considering various HCI (human-computer interaction) principles, the authors will be proposing a framework for a new electronic platform, which will be based on the interactive media platform through smart devices. This will increase the scope of this research and the outcomes will benefit the majority of the stakeholders. The need for the proposed system is evaluated through a survey and the outcomes are analyzed. It was found that the majority of the participants do not have clear information about various services and data provided by NCSI. Further, it was noted that most of the participants agreed that such an e-channel would facilitate to receive various statistics on a timely basis. This research provides a comparison of similar systems used in other countries and provides recommendations to design an effective framework.

Keywords:

Interactive media platform, National statistics, HCI principles and Smart channel for information.