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 As soon as Muhammad Syed joined the Post Foundation Program and he took control of the Blackboard platform of the course. He learnt how it works in and out and became indispensable.  Thanks to Muhammad, every year, the ENGL 203 blackboard contains all the materials needed to teach the course and allows the students to find everything they need.  Access to the course on BB is so smooth,  with Muhammad maintaining and updating the site.  We , the ENGL 203 faculty rely completely on Muhammad to  guide us through the new changes on BB and mentor us to deliver the course successfully. 

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 As soon as Muhammad Syed joined the Post Foundation Program and he took control of the Blackboard platform of the course. He learnt how it works in and out and became indispensable.  Thanks to Muhammad, every year, the ENGL 203 blackboard contains all the materials needed to teach the course and allows the students to find everything they need.  Access to the course on BB is so smooth,  with Muhammad maintaining and updating the site.  We , the ENGL 203 faculty rely completely on Muhammad to  guide us through the new changes on BB and mentor us to deliver the course successfully. 

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I have been teaching on Muhammad Syed's ENGL 203 course since I first joined QU in 2018. While I have had the opportunity to teach other courses offered by the Foundation Department of English, comparatively, one of my first observations was the streamlined ease and accessibility to necessary course materials provided on Blackboard. When needed,  Muhammad has always done a good job of  providing clear and detailed instructions  through video or annotated PDF on how to further utilize BB for course aims. This is my sixth semester teaching ENGL 203. In part, I have remained on the the course thus far due to the ease of navigating through BB to facilitate teaching the course. 

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I have been teaching on Muhammad Syed's ENGL 203 course since I first joined QU in 2018. While I have had the opportunity to teach other courses offered by the Foundation Department of English, comparatively, one of my first observations was the streamlined ease and accessibility to necessary course materials provided on Blackboard. When needed,  Muhammad has always done a good job of  providing clear and detailed instructions  through video or annotated PDF on how to further utilize BB for course aims. This is my sixth semester teaching ENGL 203. In part, I have remained on the the course thus far due to the ease of navigating through BB to facilitate teaching the course. 

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Muhammad Syed was my course coordinator for five terms when I worked at Qatar University. He recognised the potential of Blackboard for online learning and applied this to his teaching long before the pandemic. He was always the first on our team to utilise and promote many of Blackboard's features such as online feedback, journals, blogs, and discussion boards. Muhammad has a way of helping his team embrace new technology even for the most stubborn luddite. He does this by facilitating and organising the template for the courses he manages. This includes adding more complicated BB features such as rubrics in Gradecenter. I especially appreciated the way Muhammad always took the extra time and effort to make his colleagues' jobs as easy as possible.  I would gladly work with Muhammad again and highly recommend him.

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Roger Barlow

This is the second semester that I have taught course ENGL 203 led by Mr. Muhammad Farrukh Syed. He has structured the course well, so that all the materials are available on Blackboard for every lecturer and every student. The tab names are clear which helps everyone to find relevant material. When any changes are needed in Black board, Mr. Syed gives clear instructions using you-tube videos about the changes that should be made. Consequently delivering course ENGL 203 is straightforward due to the well set up Blackboard interface provided by Mr. Syed.

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Muhammad Syed has worked with me as a colleague, mentor, and subordinate. He is one of the few people that inspired me during my professional life by his dedication to work and personal care to those who work with him. Since day one when I joined QU in 2014, Muhammad was there to help, guide, and support. I am really grateful to having him as my mentor earlier in my tenure at QU and later as a colleague and a subordinate team member. Muhammad was and has been in charge of the Blackboard templates of two main courses: ENGL 202 and ENGL 203 (also called Post Foundation Courses). Not only that, he has also helped other course coordinators/leads in setting up their course templates and provided guidance to the IT committee in the department. His course templates were always referred to as exemplary course templates that other course leads needed to follow. As a faculty member teaching the two courses for more than 5 years, I can say that without Muhammad's great work on the course templates, no instructor would have been able to teach these courses. He made teaching seamlessly straightforward through setting up the templates in an easy way with no complications. Every part of the template seemed clear and logical. Links, folders, assessments, interface, all worked perfectly to deliver our courses. Of course, there were some hiccups, but when there were, Muhammad jumped in very quickly to fix them. Most of the time, these issues were the results of others involved in setting up the templates not following Muhammad's directions. Muhammad's great expertise in Blackboard became even more obvious to me when I was appointed the Post Foundation Program Coordinator. Muhammad became then, the course lead for the Post Foundation English Courses (ENGL 202 and 203). Once again, Muhammad proved to be an asset in managing Blackboard to deliver the courses. As a coordinator, I had no issues with his work. In fact, without his great work on the Blackboard templates, my job would have been far more complicated. I am grateful to him and to having him around. He sure deserves to be recognized for his contributions and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

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I have been serving as a lecturer at QU for the past 6 years, during which time I have had to seek Blackboard-related help from Muhammad Syed on a number of occasions. Each time I was struck – even inspired – by the level of commitment and expertise Mohammad has shown. First and foremost, Mohammad is well-versed in Blackboard, and has detailed know-how and practical knowledge. This is evident from the BB course templates, as his course has the most organized course template. Second, he is always willing to go the extra mile to help colleagues. He personally assisted me when I had to organize certain course-related documents on content collection. I would like to thank our colleague Muhammad for his patience, dedication and professionalism.

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When I first joined Qatar University, I shared offices with Muhammad Syed and often sought his advice and help on various issues including those that were Blackboard related. His assistance was extremely useful in helping me find my way around Blackboard and becoming a more competent user. He is always ready to assist and is quite knowledgeable in using the many features available on Blackboard. Recently, I taught ENGL203, a course in which the Blackboard template is designed by Muhammad. The template is well designed saving a lot of time and effort for the instructor. For example, all course content are preloaded and intuitively organized, formative assessments and assignments are set to become available on pre-determined dates, and rubrics are integrated making it quite easy for the instructor to deliver the course. The same intuitive design is helpful for the students as well, since everything they need is easily accessible on the course Blackboard. In fact, when we transitioned to online teaching, things were quite smooth since the course Blackboard was already well-designed and central to course delivery.

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I have taught both ENG 202 and ENG 203, when Muhammad Syed was course lead for both courses. My first semester working under Muhammad was Fall 2015, and he has always been helpful and a great resource for setting up Blackboard for my courses correctly, and addressing any issues that come up. Both course Blackboard templates have always been set up very well during semesters I taught with Muhammad. In teaching ENG 203, he had set up online quizzes that were automatically graded, online rubrics for providing feedback and grading student writing submissions, and discussion boards for students to submit and provide comments on each other's work. Teaching the course under Muhammad helped show me all of the capabilities of Blackboard tools to aid student learning. Later, when I taught summer as course lead for ENG 202 in both May-July 2019 and 2020, Muhammad provided training in setting up course links and templates, and uploading the syllabus  links correctly from FP Central. Due to Muhammed's help, I had no issues. I know personally Muhammad provided assistance and training to the previous ENG 202 course lead, and has also assisted me several  times since I became the current ENG 202 course lead in Fall 2020. Muhammad is very experienced with Blackboard and a great resource for the FPDE faculty and department for addressing  issues that come up with Blackboard, as well as learning new ways to use Blackboard to improve grading and teaching for students.

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At the beginning of each semester I tell my Post Foundation students that both they and I are lucky because the course is very well organized. Everything they need is on Blackboard. This is true for Post Foundation 202 and 203. Importantly, this high level of organization has made the transition to online learning a relatively smooth and easy process. As an instructor, I am very grateful for Muhammed Syed's work to organize these classes so comprehensively on Blackboard.

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As I was new to QU and ENGL 203 in 2020, starting a new course, which was already prepped by Muhammad on Black Board, made the start very easy. I was able to go from syllabus to course materials seamlessly so seeing how the course would pan out  - this was a great confidence booster. Student materials were up to date and all assignments were correctly set up for submission dates/due dates etc. Last year we dramatically went from classroom to online  Black Board collaborative Ultra. All course materials were easily accessible and as a result of the new style many changes were required for assessment e.g. setting up new columns on grade centre, changing grade values and creating new assignments. All of this could have been very stressful, however, Muhammad sent videos showing step by step actions with clear and very straightforward instruction. Most helpful now I am back teaching 203 again this semester the assistance from Muhammad continues. Muhammad definitely deserves acknowledgement and award.

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I have taught the courses led by Muhammad Syed many times at QU. I have used the Blackboard templates designed and prepared by Muhammad for many semesters. I can say that he is one of the most experienced faculty members when it comes to Bb. The files and items on the BB template are all organized and properly labeled. You can access the course rubrics and criteria separately through BB. Supplementary course materials, handouts, and activities including answer keys are linked to Blackboard, all of which save my time as a course instructor. Moreover, students can find the links for the university support centers such as Writing Center, Library, and Student Services on BB. Among many other practical solutions, Muhammad has made the course Bb pre-loaded with all materials and the instructor does not need to use any textbook or extra paper. In addition, there are online quizzes and assignments, which make the grading job much easier and timesaving. Professionally, I find him supportive. Whenever I have an issue, Muhammad is always available to help me. He always tries to understand the problem well and provides an immediate and prompt constructive solution. He adds his suggestions on how to proceed while using Blackboard effectively. When we had to switch to the online mode, I felt blessed with his assistance, as it was a stressful period due to the immediate changes in our teaching system. However, the transition from face-to-face to online teaching in his course was swift and peaceful as he recorded detailed videos with clear instructions on how to make the required changes within the Blackboard. I saw his hard work and witnessed the progress and development in the course. I am sure he spends a huge amount of time preparing that platform so thoughtfully for us. I am thankful to Muhammad Syed for all the help and support he has provided for my professional life at Qatar University.

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I have been teaching 203 for at least 6 years and have also taught 202, both of which have been led by Muhammad Syed. The course is the highest level of writing that's offered at QU so the content we deliver to our students in challenging and engaging. However, it is a breeze to teach because of Muhammad's efforts as both course lead and his work on Blackboard. Every semester our courses are fully loaded on Blackboard and it is very easy for us teachers to deliver our lessons and materials as everything is ready on Blackboard from day 1. Our marking is also painless as Muhammad always load the quizzes, assignments/safe assign, and rubrics so we can grade quickly and accurately, as well as give our students written corrective feedback. In addition, if Blackboard itself doesn't work or has an error, Muhammad always corrects it as quickly as he can and communicates with us to let us know the issue and how we can work around it. He is always available to help with any issues and makes stressful times like final grade submission very smooth with his assistance. He without a doubt deserves to be recognized for his service!

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I have been teaching ENGL 203 for about 5 years now. I like how Moh'd organized the files. I also like the fact that he's making use of the many features, such as blogs, discussion boards, and online quizzes. Our course BB is so organized and even my students tell me that ENGL 203 has the most organized BB. I did face issues with duplicated columns and items in the GC, but Moh'd helped me fix them in no time.

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I taught the course for the first time in Fall 2019. I was a bit apprehensive about taking on this new Post Foundation course for the first time. However, with all the planning Muhammad had put into it, there was virtually nothing for me to do. BB and the whole course was easy to navigate through and teach. All necessary resources were available at the finger tips, so to speak.
Since then I have taught the course every semester, with great enjoyment and confidence - because I know Muhammad will always be available for help whenever needed.