Bakeng se Afrika Interim Meeting

During the week of 18-22 November 2019, Johann van Wyk, Assistant Director Scholarly Communications, attended the Bakeng se Afrika Interim Meeting that was held at Stellenbosch University. The Bakeng se Afrika project is an international multi-institutional project that has the following objectives:

• The development of a comprehensive digital repository of micro-CT scans of human skeletal material from South African osteological collections;

• the creation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for scanning of bones and for storage and analyses of digital data;

• the creation of a constitution for the ethical use of digital scans of human remains

The project is a three-year project funded through a Capacity Building grant in Higher Education (Erasmus+) from the European Union. The institutions that are involved in this project include: University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch University, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), University of Bordeaux (France), University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium).

The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) has a micro-focus X-ray tomography (micro-XCT) facility, and their role in this project is to use this micro-XCT facility to create high-precision 2D radiography and 3D tomography renderings/images (scans) of bone collections, some of which are held at the University of Pretoria and at Stellenbosch University. The University of Pretoria will manage the server on which these images will be stored and Johann van Wyk’s role in this project will be to advise on the setup of a suitable data repository where these images will be uploaded. The purpose of the meeting in Stellenbosch was to give an update to partner institutions on progress with the project and discussions included inter alia, administrative matters, financial matters, software and hardware issues, scanning progress, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), ethics, and quality assurance.