2010—A Year to Remember!

October 2010 Volume 4, Issue 3

Informatics.doc Newsletter from the Department of Informatics

Special points of interest:

ECIS2010

Community-based project

New Doctor

SITA

Inside this issue:

A visit by Prof Cheryl de la Rey

1

JCP: Community-based Project module

1 4

ECIS2010 2

Dr Hossana Twi-nomurinzi

3

MoU with SITA 3

In April 2010, the compul-sory community-based pro-ject for all students in the Faculty of Engineering, Built environment and IT, moved from the Dean’s office to the Department of Informatics. Dr Martina Jordaan, the course coordinator, de-scribes the excellent work that is being done in this course. During June 2010, just be-fore the Soccer World Cup, the Department of Informat-ics hosted a local and inter-national conference. In September we celebrated a new doctoral degree! Read more about this and other stories in this newslet-ter. Enjoy!

Carina de Villiers Head of Department

On Wednesday 4th of Au-gust, Prof Cheryl de la Rey, our Vice-Chancellor and Principal joined the depart-ment for our weekly meeting and enjoyed tea and cup cakes with us. She was delighted to hear that miss-ing tea spoons are still an issue in academic depart-ments!

In 2005 the Faculty of Engi-neering, the Built Environ-ment and Information Tech-nology (EBIT) at the univer-sity implemented a compul-sory module, Community-Based Project, for all under-graduate students. This initia-tive was a new endeavor for the faculty and was the first of its kind for EBIT students in South Africa. Since com-munity-based learning was not included in existing mod-ules at the time, the establish

ment of a new, separate module was necessary. One of the complicating factors was to design and develop such a module, taking cognisance of the demanding time schedules of EBIT students. The mod-ule is offered on an open-ended and project-orientated basis. Students have the option of attempt-ing the 8-credit (80 hours) module in any one of their undergraduate years of study, but preferably not during their final year. De-pending on the specific nature of the project, it can be attempted during the course of a semester, dur-ing vacation time, or both.

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A visit by Prof Cheryl de la Rey

Prof de la Rey enjoying her cup cake!

JCP: Community-based project module

ECIS2010 was the 18th European Conference on Information Systems and the first ECIS con-ference held outside Europe and the United Kingdom. The theme “IT to Empower” was very appropriate for this South African version of the conference. Rather unusually, ECIS oc-curred immediately be-fore the FIFA Soccer World Cup, which is also being held in Africa for the first time. The World Cup excitement gave everybody a good introduction to our multi-cultural society and a sense of the anticipation all South Africans were experiencing as they prepared to offer hospi-tality to so many new visitors. ECIS 2010 has been organized by the De-partment of Informatics in the Faculty of Engi-neering, the Built Envi-ronment and Informa-tion Technology, at the University of Pretoria. The name of the depart-ment is unusual here in South Africa and does cause some confusion as we offer Information Systems programmes and define "Informatics" in much the same way as the University of Washington does (http://www.ischool.washington.edu/informatics/default.aspx). Since its beginning in 1993 ECIS has set an extremely high stan-dard, attracting scholars from all over the world and we are confident that this year’s confer-ence maintained that standard. Of 481 sub-missions, from 20 coun-

tries, 170 papers were presented. In addition, seven excellent panels enriched the pro-gramme. These papers can be downloaded individually from the ECIS2010 web site (http://ecis2010.up.ac.za). The conference was attended by 268 dele-gates from 22 countries. In addition 20 doctoral students and 8 senior academics attended the doctoral consortium at Intundla Game Lodge from 4—6 June. We have relied heavily on the Conference Chairs (Roy Johnson and Carina de Villiers), the Research Paper Chairs (Neels Kruger and Dieter Bartmann), the Research-in-Progress Chairs (Machdel Matthee and Gert-Jan de Vreede), Panels Chairs (Trish Alexander and Robert D Galliers), Doctoral Con-sortium Chairs (Niels Bjorn-Andersen and Hugo Lotriet), Sponsor-ship chair (Sumarie Roodt), the Local Or-ganisation Committee Chair (Johan van Log-gerenberg), Marita Turpin who handled Manuscript Central and Phil van Deventer for the web site, large num-bers of Associate Edi-tors, and countless re-viewers. We are enor-mously grateful to them all for their tireless work!

ECIS2010: 4—9 June 2010

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Arrival of delegates at OR Tambo airport

Opening of the conference by Prof de la Rey

The Doctoral Consortium was not all work and no play!

Hossana Twinomurinzi is a lecturer in the Department of Informatics. He received his doctorate during the September 2010 graduation ceremony. About the PhD

Scientists and practitioners both concede that there is more than just the mere lack of infrastructural, skills or economic challenges in Africa that lead to the failure of perfectly good policies on development - the problem is con-textual. For governments in developing countries the failure of policy is equivalent to an exacerbation of conditions of deprivation. Hossana’s PhD investigated how ICT can facilitate policy implementation in a human devel-opment context. The findings revealed that ICT is able to play a critical role in facilitating policy implementation aimed at human development when ICT is deployed as a service in the African way of life, Ubuntu. The methodologi-cal and practical findings of real human development with ICT playing a criti-cal role are crystallized in publications in two journals and more than eight international conferences. For example, a paper was presented at a 2009 conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on how one of the research par-ticipants created a business as a result of the human development. The find-ings are an important breakthrough in Information Systems research on e-government and the role of ICT in development, particularly in Africa. This research is the first of its kind to adapt ICT within the African contextual way of life, known as Ubuntu in South Africa, to the implementation of policy in Africa using ICT. About Hossana

Hossana Twinomurinzi was born in Kampala, Uganda on 20 December 1972, a year after the infamous Idi Amin had taken over the Ugandan gov-ernment. He has lived through all the different wars that have affected Uganda since then and is fully conversant with what it means to live without knowing whether you will be alive the next day or whether there will be food to eat. His parents always considered education as key to social and eco-nomic advancement. He delights in healthy competition and enjoys partner-ing with winning teams. Nonetheless, if circumstances find him in a losing team, he works hard to lift up the losing team. He has been actively involved in sports and has played professional basketball in as a coach, captain and lead-player in national basketball league games. He has worked in the cor-porate IT sector for 15 years as a Customer Support Specialist on Networks, Network Administrator, IT Manager, ICT Business owner and a Managing Director. His Masters and PhD studies in IT have both been from the Univer-sity of Pretoria .

Dr Hossana Twinomurinzi

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On 01 July 2010, the School of Information Technology signed a Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) towards the estab-lishment of a collaborative relationship in ar-eas of research and consulting. Prof. Roelf Sandenbergh, the Dean of the Faculty of Engi-neering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) signed on behalf of the School of IT while Mr. Themba Funzani, signed on behalf of SITA. The MoU opens the door for the Department of Informatics to en-gage in research in many areas such as Hu-man Computing Interfaces, E-government, Mobile Computing, E-learning and many oth-ers.

Hossana Twinomurinzi

Dr Martina Jordaan, course coordi-nator for the Community-based

project module

Department of Informatics

University of Pretoria

Phone: +27 12 420 3798 Fax: +27 12 362 5287

E-mail: informatics@up.ac.za

2010 Dr Martina Jordaan, the course coordinator, handled 402 different pro-jects. The main objectives of the module are as follows: The execution of a

community service-related project, aimed at achieving a beneficial impact on a chosen section of society, preferably but not exclusively by engagement with a section of society which is different from the student’s own social back-ground;

The development of an awareness of personal, social and cultural values, an attitude to be of ser-vice and a deep un-derstanding of social issues;

The development of important multidisci-plinary and life skills, such as communica-tion, interpersonal and leadership skills.

Even though the main focus

Continued from Page 1 Projects can be executed by individual students or in teams. Multidisciplinary project teams consisting of team members from across the various schools and departments within the fac-ulty are encouraged. Students choose projects in an area about which they feel passionate, while also considering the needs of the community. Projects that are popular among students and the communi-ties are computer training for community members, designing and uploading websites for non-profit or-ganisations, assisting with Mathematics and Science for secondary school learn-ers, renovating rooms in orphanages, and designing and building jungle gyms. The module was formally accredited by the Engineer-ing Council for South Africa (ECSA) in 2006. The num-ber of students enrolled for the module has continued to grow since 2005, as shown in the Table. In

of a community-based mod-ule is service to the commu-nity, students are required to complete assignments and reflect on their experi-ences. Assessment in the Community-Based Project module includes the follow-ing components: Attendance of com-

pulsory contact ses-sions;

Evaluation and ap-proval of the project proposal;

Self-assessment, peer assessment and assessment by a supervisor from the community, as well the community-based lecturer dur-ing the execution of the project;

Three reflections written during the project;

A report in the form of a blog;

A presentation to the project coordinator, peers, as well as the community in which the student was in-volved.

JCP: Community-based Project module

“Information Systems developed by people for people”

We’re on the Web http://

informatics.up.ac.za

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 JCP 201 (Built Environment)

103 156 250 226 249 238

JCP 202 (Information Technol-ogy)

14 165 218 258 231 303

JCP 203 (Engineering)

121 417 742 1213* 815* 918

TOTAL 238 738 1210 1697 1295 1459

JCP students restoring an old plane for a museum and building a food hoist for the giraffes in the zoo!