The greater goal of the conference is to contribute to national development and improve the quality of academia. Nonetheless, the conference seeks to achieve the following set of ambitious goals:

• Building a knowledge base on the Exit Exam and its role in feeding the labor market with quality graduates.
• Aligning the university graduates’ skills with the job market requirements.
• Building scientific and executive awareness about the important role of academic departments in the development of Saudi universities.
• Building bridges to activate inter-disciplinary communication in the Saudi universities towards collaboration and collective work.
• Strengthening the role of department heads and supervisors in the development of academic departments and providing them with administrative development opportunities.
• Exchange of problem solving experiences between department heads.
• Linking department heads to the executive and procedural systems in different sectors of the university and achieving organized work to ensure the highest standards of quality.
• Self-development of department heads to enhance successful leadership in their departments.
• Discussion of the most prevalent challenges facing the heads and supervisors of the departments.

Academic leaders, faculty members and researchers are welcome to present their research papers, successful experiments of leadership practices in the conference sessions and workshops within the following framework of topics :

1. Exit Exam and its Alignment with the Job Market
   • Exit Exam: concept and implementation.
   • Polices and strategies governing adoption and execution of standard exit exams.
   • Successful international models of standardized exit exams and their impact on the quality of the educational outcomes.
   • The relationship of standard exit exams with national and global job markets’ requirements.
   • Effective partnership with the job market in training, employment and career development.
2. Leadership and Academic Strategic Planning
   • Department leadership between theory and daily practice.
   • The interactive relationship between academic departments and other university divisions.
   • Academic departments and leadership conflicts.
   • Conflict management at the department.
   • Development of academic programs to cope with job market.
   • Achieving local and international competitiveness through academic programs.
   • Change management and excellence.
3. Management and Operation
   • Head of Department seen as a head of an inverted pyramid.
   • The role of modern technology in supporting leadership of academic departments.
   • Administrative planning and the strategic success of academic departments .
   • Faculty members and the burdens of the department.
   • Department productivity and positive motivation.
   • Relationship between students, departments, and job market: passion vs. indifference.
   • Working with academic, administrative and technical staff at the department.
   • Conflict management at the department.
4. Quality of the Educational Process
   • Challenges of coping up with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 .
   • Academic accreditation: a tool for quality or a tiresome requisite?
   • Quality administrative systems at the department.
   • Challenge of academic program quality.
5. Research and Innovation
   • Cultivating research in the department.
   • Innovative inter-disciplinary research.
   • Challenges and obstacles of research and how to overcome them.
   • Using technology and academic media platforms for research.
   • Motivating faculty members towards research and innovation.
6. Community Service
   • Roles of community service programs in bridging the gap between the university and the community.
   • Motivating faculty members and students toward innovative community service.
   • Community service innovation policies.
   • Success stories and factors governing sustainable volunteering.

General Guidelines

1. Submissions must not conflict with the Islamic principles, values and provisions.
2. Submission content should fulfil the objectives of the conference.
3. Submission should fall within the conference scope and topics.
4. All submissions should be plagiarism-checked; and violating papers will be rejected immediately.
5. Accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings.

Submission Guidelines for Scientific Papers:

1. Participants will be able send the abstract to ensure that the topic meets the objectives and themes of the conference. Then, the abstract acceptance notification will be sent to the author to allow for full paper submission. Please note that the participants can still send the full scientific paper on the specified date without prior approval of the abstract.
2. Adherence to all the rules of scientific research, especially the achievement of authenticity and scientific addition.
3. The paper should be written in Arabic or English, with a commitment to writing in a sound, grammatically and spelling-proof language.
4. Papers should be 6-12 pages long including references, indexes, images and drawings. It should include the following: cover page with the title and the name(s) of participant(s), abstract, introduction, study problem, study objectives, research materials and methods, discussion, results and recommendations, summary, and references.
5. Images and graphics should not exceed 6 units.
6. Submission must not have been published or accepted for publication in any scientific journal or at a previous conference inside or outside the Kingdom.
7. Manuscript format should be written in Microsoft Word (Scientific Paper English-template), (Scientific Paper Arabic-template).