Research Focus Areas

Research Focus Areas

 
The Department of Information Science focuses on the following research focus areas:

 

  1. Knowledge management and Competitive intelligence
  2. Information processes
  3. Meta-context of information
  4. Multimedia
  5. Book and publishing studies

 

Our Departmental Research Committee is chaired by Prof Archie Dick. Supervisors are listed underneath each focus area

1.  Knowledge management and Competitive intelligence
Supervisors
 
Co-supervisors for Master’s study
Mr Tumelo Maungwa, Email:  [email protected]
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Dimensions

Special interests

Policy and strategy

  • Theories and models of strategy
  • Strategies and policies for various environments
  • Measurement

Tools and techniques

  • Audits
  • Communities of practice
  • Storytelling
  • Intranets and portals
  • Expert locators
  • Knowledge maps

Organisational culture and leadership

  • Creating a conducive environment and culture for KM
  • Organisational learning
  • Knowledge sharing
  • Impact of corporate culture
  • Leadership and governance

Knowledge infrastructures

  • Physical infrastructure
  • ICT for KM
  • Human resources
  • Intellectual capital
  • Indigenous knowledge

Knowledge systems

  • Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)
  • Other knowledge systems

Competitive and business intelligence (CI/BI)

  • Establishing a CI/BI strategy for an organisation in order to gain a competitive edge in the market
  • Investigating the benefits of the implementation of CI/BI within a specific business sector
  • The effective implementation of CI/BI tools in organisations to improve or sustain competitiveness

Teaching, theory and practice

  • Curriculum development
  • Experiential learning
  • Teaching methodologies
 
 
2.  Information processes
Supervisors
 
Co-supervisors for Master’s study
1...     2...     3...     4...     5...     TOP...

Dimensions

Special interests

Information organisation and representation

  • Metadata schemas
  • Taxonomies, ontologies, topic maps and folksonomies
  • Abstracting, indexing and thesaurus construction

Information dissemination and use

  • Current awareness services and alerting services
  • Push technologies
  • Informal electronic communication, including social media
  • User studies
  • Personal information management (PIM)

Information behaviour, seeking and searching

  • Models and theories
  • Information behaviour in context (including collaborative information retrieval and affect and emotion in information behaviour)

Information retrieval (IR)

  • Information retrieval system design and evaluation
  • Relevance studies
  • Web information retrieval

Digitisation and curation

  • Digital libraries
  • Digitisation and curation technologies (including archiving)
  • Policies and procedures

Information literacy (IL)

  • Theory and practice of IL
  • Workplace IL
  • Digital, media and other literacies

Digital humanities

  • Annotation of text corpora for retrieval and analysis
  • E-lexicography

Data science

  • Research data management
  • FAIR data principles
  • Data management plans
  • Data repositories
  • Data literacy

Teaching, theory and practice

  • Curriculum development
  • Experiential learning
  • Teaching methodologies
 
 
3. Meta-context of information
Supervisors
 
Co-supervisors for Master’s study
1...     2...     3...     4...     5...     TOP...

Dimensions

Special interests

Information ethics

  • Social media and information ethics
  • Privacy (moral values, protection of private information, management of private information, surveillance, trust, information security)
  • Access (accessibility, gender issues)
  • Intercultural information ethics (information ethics in Africa)
  • Information ethics and Governance (social justice, information ethics and power, information ethics and politics, e-democracy/e-government)
  • Emerging trends and technologies (e-waste, information and cyber warfare)

Legal issues

  • Intellectual property rights (including fair use, copyright)
  • Open access
  • Freedom of access to information and freedom of expression
  • Information legislation
  • Protection of Private Information Act (POPIA)

Socio-cultural issues

  • Globalisation
  • Information and knowledge society
  • Digital divide
  • Information and development
  • Information poverty
  • Information flows
  • Informatisation and “information consumption”

Economic and political Issues

  • Information economy
  • Information politics
  • Pricing of information (fee vs. free)

Information communication

  • Accessibility of information content
  • Content repackaging

Teaching, theory and practice

  • Curriculum development
  • Experiential learning
  • Teaching methodologies
  • Blended / Online Learning
 
 
4. Multimedia
Supervisor

Prof Theo Bothma, Email:  [email protected]

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Dimensions

Special interests

Virtual Reality and HCI

  • Virtual Reality and interaction design 
    • Gesture control
    • Lower body gesture control
  • Virtual Reality and intersensory illusions
    • Tangible interfaces
    • Haptic feedback
    • Illusory feedback

Game studies

  • Game design theory 
    • Alternate Reality Games
    • Game-based learning
    • Pervasive/Immersive games
    • Serious games
  • Gamification in Education
    • Gamification and intrinsic motivation
    • Gamifying tertiary education

Information architecture

  • Usability 
    • Heuristics based on information architecture
    • Website usability based on information architecture

Interaction design

  • Tangible interfaces 
    • Low cost tangible interfaces
  • Internet of things
    • Access control
    • Surveillance and communication
  • Augmented reality
    • Augmented reality and navigating academic spaces
 
 
5. Book and publishing studies
Supervisors
 
Co-supervisors for Master’s study
1...     2...     3...     4...     5...     TOP...

Dimensions

Special Interests

Authorship

  • Multilingual and local language writing
  • Translation practices
  • Profiles of South African writers

Current publishing practice

  • Publishing list analysis and bibliographic studies
  • Editorial policy, practice and issues for print media products
  • Ownership and business profile analysis
  • Product and cost analysis
  • Regulation, censorship and national policies

Digital and e-publishing

  • E-publishing formats
  • E-publishing technologies and processes
  • Publishing in multiple formats and media from single sources
  • Enhanced e-books
  • The impact of digital publishing

Book and print history

  • Histories of publishers, printers, booksellers and related industries
  • History and development of practices of reading
  • History of orality, performance and print cultures

Dissemination and reception

  • Access to print media products
  • Distribution networks and bookselling practices
  • Marketing and markets
  • Audience research
  • Reception and readership studies
  • Reading promotion campaigns, including issues of literacy

Teaching, theory and practice

  • Curriculum development
  • Teaching methodologies
  • Experiential learning and vocational training for the publishing industry

 

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