School of IT Research Day

Posted on September 15, 2018

On 22 June 2018, the School of Information Technology (SIT), hosted a very successful research day. The aim of the SIT research day was to bring together experts in Computer Science, Informatics, and Information Science to provide a foundation for the three disciplines to collaborate and produce cutting-edge research in the field of Information Technology.  In his opening address, Prof Sunil Maharaj, the Dean of the EBIT faculty, emphasised the university’s vision of being a leading research-intensive university in Africa and highlighted that inter and multi-disciplinary collaboration, also improves the quality and impact of teaching in the disciplines and sub-disciplines of the School’s three departments.

The keynote address was presented by Prof Richard Baskerville,  Professor of Information Systems at Georgia State University. Prof Baskerville shared his insight about the adoption of a platform that presents innovators with a situation in which innovation occurs within the confines of resources and services available from the platform. This bounded-creativity setting places limits on design possibilities; forcing designers to engage in a more intensive kind of creativity: creating innovative products that nevertheless operate as platform components.

A special address was given by Dr. Duncan Coulter, lecturer at the Academy of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Johannesburg. Dr Coulter discussed some of the benefits and pitfalls encountered with collaborative processes at both the software and the personal level. Aspects of research conducted into collaboration, coordination and decision support for multi-agent systems were contrasted with the human challenges of offering a cross-discipline, cross cultural, multi-institution masters level module.

Multiple research projects and collaboration opportunities were shared by lecturers and students in SIT.  Apart from engaging in the presentations, attendees also had the opportunity to view and discuss posters presented by students in the SIT.  A panel awarded prizes to the 3 best presentations and the posters. Thank you to the team that co-ordinated the programme and made this day a resounding success!

- Author Hanlie Smuts

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