MIT Lecturer

Academic qualifications

• B.Bibl, Pretoria (1995)
• B.Bibl (Hons), Pretoria (1999)
• MIS Information Science, Pretoria (2005)
• DPhil, Pretoria (2018)

In previous years Dr Johann van Wyk, has been a guest lecturer at the Department of Information Science, and this year he will be the coordinator and lecturer of one of our Master’s modules, MIT 885 (Research and data management).

Dr Johann van Wyk, retired at the end of August 2021 as Assistant Director for Scholarly Communications at the Department of Library Services, University of Pretoria (UP), after 32 years of service.

Johann started as a library assistant in the Merensky 2 Library in 1989, and obtained his B.Bibl degree from UP in 1995.

In 1996, he was appointed as an Information Specialist and, in this position, liaised with various academic departments in the Humanities Faculty.

He was awarded his B.Bibl (Hons) degree in 1999 and in 2002 was appointed as Faculty Library Manager for the newly formed Education Library on the UP Groenkloof Campus, which came into being when the former ‘Onderwyskollege Pretoria’ was incorporated into UP. There, he successfully lobbied for the establishment of a research commons for Masters and Doctoral Students. 

In 2013, he was seconded to the Merensky 2 Library to lead the establishment of a research data management entity for UP and to start work on a new UP Research Data Management Policy. He was also tasked to lead the Digitisation Unit in the Library. The RDM policy was eventually approved in 2017. 

While working on the RDM policy, he collaborated with colleagues in the Strategic Innovation Unit of the Department of Library Services, as well as in the IT Services Department, in evaluating various data repository systems. This then led to the establishment of a Figshare research data repository at UP.

Johann completed a Master’s degree in Information Science at UP in 2005, which explored the concept of Communities of Practice as a Knowledge Management practice within academic libraries.

In 2018. he obtained a DPhil degree from UP, which explored the relationship between Research Data Management and Virtual Research Environments.

In 2019, he was appointed to lead the newly formed Scholarly Communications Unit at the Department of Library Services, a position which he currently holds. Johann has also played an invaluable role as a member and Chairperson of the Network of Data and Information Curation Communities (NeDICC) which has made a huge contribution to the Library community by preparing, training and informing librarians across South Africa in research data curation and management.

Information available at: https://www.up.ac.za/department-of-library-services/news/post_2990579-farewell