2011—Quarters 3 and 4

December 2011 Volume 5, Issue 3

Informatics.doc Newsletter from the Department of Informatics

Inside this issue:

Welcome to our

new HoD

Thank you to our

previous HoD

1,

2

The first two

Gijima Expert

Lectures

3

The Department

of Informatics

reaches out to

schools in Gaut-

eng

4

Project Day 5

Prize Giving 6

I started my professional career as a lecturer at the Vaal Triangle Technikon in 1988. The first class that I walked into were all male students from Sasol that were as old (if not older) than my father. Needless to say I had to learn very quickly how not to be intimidated by more experience students.

In 1990 I was appointed as a lecturer at the Potchefstroom University's (now the North West University (NWU) Vaal Triangle campus. It was a small campus with great personal rela-tions between staff members in the faculty.

In 1992 my husband accepted a posi-tion in Pretoria and I got a position at the University of South Africa. The dis-tance education environment was to-tally new to me and some creativity

(continued on next page)

Welcome to our new

Head of Department

Thank you to our previous

Head of Department

Prof Alta Van der Merwe

Prof Carina de Villiers

These were the words used by Lizette Weilbach at the farewell from the De-partment of Informatics for Professor Carina

For the last almost 11 years you’ve been our friend, our mentor, our leader and our Boss.

We have gathered here today to say a BIG THANK YOU to a person whom we truly respect. You’ve always shown us your gratitude, your support and your kindness. With your open door policy you have in many instances robbed yourself of precious research time, de-voting your whole life to your work and to us - the people in your department - and for that we will always be grateful to you.

You have taught us so many things: the love and dedication with which you’ve

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done your work has rubbed off on many of us; you have always committed yourself to give your stu-dents the best service and the best value for mon-ey. You’ve put our Department on the map by getting our degree internationally accredited and by organising important conferences such as ECIS. We have always been in awe about your ability to work … and work ... and work … and work …

What we will always remember about you being our Boss, is your integrity, your dedication and your enthusiasm. We confess that we’ve in many cases been a difficult bunch and that you definite-ly did not have an easy task managing us, but as your colleagues we’ve always appreciated the ef-fort you’ve made and the eagerness with which you’ve been willing to listen to us and help us.

Today we say goodbye to you as our Boss, but we welcome you back as our colleague. We are hap-py that you will have a less hectic job and more time to do research, and most importantly, more time to spend with your family – because that’s what you deserve! And we want you to know that you will always be our mentor and that we dearly love you!

Staff at the annual Department of Informatics planning session

Thank you to our previous

Head of Department (cont)

The Van der Merwe family

Was needed so that I could keep ahead of the students. But as in any new position after a while you do not understand why everything seemed so foreign in the beginning. I was at Unisa for 15 years, starting out as a lecturer, completed my PhD under the supervision of Prof Paula Kotze and Prof Johannes Cronje, and eventually leaving as a professor at the end of 2008.

I then joined the CSIR as a principal researcher at the Meraka Institute. This was another new envi-ronment where the research was mostly applied and with a focus on funding of projects. Prof Pau-la Kotze was the research group leader and we focused on research within the Enterprise Archi-tecture field. In order to be involved in supervi-sion at universities, I was appointed as Professor Extraordinary at Unisa, NMMU, NWU and CPUT.

On 1 October 2011 I joined the University of Pre-toria, Department of Informatics as the new Head of Department. This is a challenging and stimula-tion position where there are many opportunities to grow as a researcher.

Our new Head of Department (cont)

I am married to Derick and we have three children

that occupy what little free time we have. We have

been married for 24 years and have lived in Pretoria

for the past 18 years. Derick also works in the IT

domain and since he is an enthusiastic deep sea

fisherman the preferred vacation spots are along

the Mocambique coast-line.

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The second Gijima Expert Lecture took place on 27 October 2011. Dr Dirk Le Roux, previously CIO at Media 24 and now owner and consultant of Think-

Worx, discussed the media industry as we know it today, focusing mainly on the printed media includ-ing newspapers, magazines and books. He provided us with a fascinating journey through history, start-ing with the first printing press and up to present day Internet-based media. Dirk pointed out the economic, historical, and societal ramifications re-lated to the more than 206 million active Web sites providing access to virtually all the worlds' newspa-pers. As he pointed out, this is forcing a significant change onto the business models of organizations in the printing and publishing industry.

He emphasized the role of social networks, some 100 million blogs, innumerable sites about specific topics and topical categories and the key enablers such as network coverage and search engines. Mo-bile devices and the emergence of cloud computing make these sources even more accessible. It is in-teresting to note that the reason that people are switching from paper-based to digital content is because of the far greater choice and easier access to news, entertainment and information.

In the last three months of 2010, Amazon has an-nounced that their e-book sales in the United States surpassed sales of paperback books for the first time. Traditional news has moved on-line, has become almost real-time and has become inter-active. Two typical examples are News24 and Inde-pendent On-line (IOL). We are experiencing these developments first hand, also in South Africa.

The lecture concluded by noting that the consumer of news and other publications is now in control or at least in a more powerful position as a result of the afore mentioned technological advances.

As an academic, one wonders what impact these developments will have for the academic world of the (not so distant) future, considering issues such as intellectual property, changes in delivery mecha-nisms and methods by lecturers and the enhanced possibilities for distance learning. Report by Ian Strydom

1st Gijima Expert Lecture

Vis Naidoo

2nd Gijima Expert Lecture

Dirk Le Roux

The first Gijima Expert Lecture was hosted by the Department of Informatics on 23 June 2011 in the Sanlam Auditorium, at the Hatfield campus of the University of Pretoria. The first speaker for this prestigious series of lectures was Mr Vis Naidoo from Microsoft South Africa (Pty) Ltd., where he is Citizenship Lead. The topic of his talk was: Is the ICT sector geared for creating jobs? A critical view.

Noting the nature of the jobs in the ICT sector and the types of skills and competencies that are re-quired, we can appreciate the complex interplay between these and the way businesses function. This relationship is important if we are to respond to the question – is the ICT sector geared to create jobs?

According to Naidoo, an analysis of the situation shows that the South African technology sector by itself is not geared for growth to an extent that will make a meaningful dent in the 5 million jobs that government is aiming to have by 2020. We need to view the ICT sector in the context of other sectors that also require employees with ICT skills and, in particular, in the context of developments in the sectors that have been identified by government as those that will be able to create jobs.

If the technology sector can purposefully identify the technology applications and new innovations that can support these sectors, then yes, our sector can ensure that new jobs are created. This should be seen as a great opportunity for the technology sector. The lessons from international experience point to the importance of emulation, adaptation and diffusion of existing technologies in ways that will support large-scale employment creation and improved livelihoods (New Growth Path).

Mr Naidoo concluded his talk as follows: “Yes, the ICT sector IS geared for creating jobs with various prerequisites and for-ward thinking that needs to be applied.”

Report by Awie Leonard

Vis Naidoo

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Dr Rennie Naidoo represented the University of Pretoria at an interschool IT showcase hosted by St Benedict's College on the 29th September 2011. Penryn College, Doxa Deo College, Stanford Lake College, Heron Bridge, St John's College, Trinity College and St Benedict's College participated. Three universities, including the University of Pre-toria, were invited to evaluate the level of skill achieved by matric learners studying IT. All three evaluators were impressed by the final software products and the calibre of work pro-duced. Some learners were passionate about developing software games. These learners demonstrated outstanding use of graphics, novel gameplay and story-line, and the use of a database. There was also ample evidence of thorough testing which is particularly challenging in game design. Other learners demonstrated that they are crea-tive problem solvers who are already able to de-

velop software solutions for business. These learn-ers demonstrated excellent and thorough under-standing of their business problem domain which resulted in user friendly and useful applications to support small businesses. We were particularly impressed by the entrepre-neurial flair demonstrated by all the learners. Rennie also gave a talk to the learners, parents, teachers and guests on the future role of the IS/IT Professional. We are always encouraged when learners are eager to take on IT at the school level, and we hope to see them continue their exciting journey in the IT field with us at the University of Pretoria. We want to express our gratitude to Delia Kench, the HoD of IT at St Benedicts College for inviting us, for her sterling efforts in promoting the disci-pline at the school level, and for organising this event.

Informatics attends annual Interschool IT Showcase in Johannesburg

Dr Rennie Naidoo (far right) seen here with winners Sean Steenkamp, Mat-thew Ellis, Ryan Gibbons and fellow judges Prof. Marijke Coetzee (University

of Johannesburg) and Dr. Ken Nixon (University of Witwatersrand)

Page 5 Informatics.doc

Three …, two …, one, …. GO! In February 2011, 44 third years started the INF370 (Final Year Project) race with a desire to finish their degrees in style – and they did indeed!! 2011 showed a 100% pass rate for the INF370 students – a year to remember! As always this highly anticipated, final year ended off with a well attended Project Day on the 19th of October and a stylish dinner celebrating success at the Mocha Restaurant in the Botanical Gardens.

And the winners are:

The Informatics students often tell us that the most challenging but most rewarding module of all that they take is INF370, the Project Module. Here they have to apply everything that they have learned in Informatics over the course of the three years that they study Informatics at the University of Pretoria. This means that they cover the complete systems life cycle from first meeting with the client to deliv-ering a working, fully tested and documented sys-tem to him or her. And to make it even more chal-lenging they have to work in teams, meet strict deadlines and demonstrate their software to a criti-cal panel of lecturers as their examination.

This project module has been in place for more than fifteen years and in that time we have seen a fasci-nating variety of systems being developed for the clients that the students have to find for them-selves.

Final Year Project 2011

Best System: Group 9: JV le Roux, J van Zyl, K Bassuday & R Goosen

Best Exhibition: Group 7: C Kruger, J Pretorius, E Potgieter & W Rouche

Best Documentation: Group 8: D Ellet, M Nel, K Vaskes & I Joubert

Overall Winners: Group 5: N Joubert, J Kleynhans, E Steyn & N Pieterse

The students are those graduating with B Com (Informatics) and some B IT students.

This year Lizette Weilbach, ably assisted by assistant lecturers Judy Allen and Thanel Voigt mentored and managed the project with other lecturers contrib-uting for specific deliverables (Pieter Joubert snr, Phil van Deventer, Sumarie Roodt).

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Every year the School of IT holds a prize giving where all three departments in the School con-gratulate their best students on their achieve-ments. This year this took place on 19 July 2011 at the Groenkloof Campus. We are most grateful to all the organisations that sponsored prizes.

Once again, congratulations to our top students. We hope that those of you who received your de-gree in 2011 (completed at the end of 2010) have already started on your next degree or will consid-er continuing with a further degree at some stage.

Prize giving 2011 for achievements in 2010

PRIZES AWARDED FOR 2010 ACHIEVEMENTS

STUDENT NAME SPONSOR AWARDED FOR

Mr TR Dyzel Gijima Top achievement in Informatics on 100 level

Ms E Steyn Gijima Top achievement in Informatics on 200 level

Ms T Voigt

Ms JC Allen Gijima Top achievement in Informatics on 300 level

Ms NC Pieterse

Ms E Steyn Real IRM Solutions Best INF261 Database Project

Ms M Nel Real IRM Solutions Best INF272 student (Visual Basic Programming )

Ms T Voigt ABSA Bpk Best achievement over all three years in the BCom (Informatics) degree course

Ms T Voigt TrustLink Best achievement in systems analysis and design over all three years in Bcom (Informatics) degree course

Mr D Curry

Mr M Dippenaar

Mr T Gouws

Future Enterprises Best project in Informatics 370

Mr D Curry

Mr M Dippenaar

Mr T Gouws

EpiUse Best system in Informatics 370

Mr GJ de Swardt

Ms J Reyneke

Mr R Swanepoel

Ms T Voigt

Mr CF Welthagen

Fifth Discipline Group (FDG)

Best project day presentation

Mr D Curry

Mr M Dippenaar

Mr T Gouws

Fifth Discipline Group (FDG)

Best system documentation for Informatics on 300 level

Ms M Henning Future Enterprises Best honours student in Informatics

Ms Y Ismail

Mr AF Lourens

Department of

Informatics Best honours project in Informatics

Mr C Kocheapen Real IRM Solutions Best INF715 project - Enterprise Architecture

Ms M Henning FNB Best INF788 project - Information Systems Development