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Faculty of Arts and Design

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    An analysis of stakeholder engagement in the e-learning policy-making process at a higher education institution in South Africa
    (Durban University of Technology, 2023) Makwambeni, Patricia; Makwambeni, Blessing; Usadolo, Sam
    Over the past two decades, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa have been formulating e-learning policies to assist them to realise the full potential of using ICTs in teaching and learning. E-learning policies serve as guiding frameworks that create enabling environments for embedding ICTs in teaching and learning. The development of e-learning policies has attracted various stakeholders and actors with varied interests, views, priorities, influence and power. Consequently, stakeholder engagement is now an essential factor in the policy process. The efficacy of an e-learning policy can therefore be judged based on the multiple perspectives that it includes and the inclusion of those it affects in the policy-making process. In light of this background, this paper examined stakeholder engagement that characterised the e-learning policy formulation process at a University of Technology in South Africa (UoT). How stakeholders were engaged in the policy-making process using stakeholder engagement as its analytical framework, the stakeholders and actors involved in the policy formulation process and the nature of the dialogue that informed the policy formulation process were examined. The qualitative study gathered evidence using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The study's findings show that the policy-making process at the UoT followed a bureaucratic process dominated by one actor, the policy delegate. Key stakeholders were excluded during the policy formulation process and were only consulted at the drafting stage. As a result, stakeholder engagement in the policy formulation process was low, resulting in key stakeholders and actors lacking policy ownership. Our findings also show that the exclusion of key stakeholders in the policy formulation process resulted in a policy that exclusively focuses on the Learner Management System and overlooks other technologies that play a crucial role in teaching and learning. These findings suggest the need to include all critical stakeholders and actors affected and interested in the e-learning policy at every stage of the policy formulation process.
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    Tribe of colours - reclaiming identity via the Web
    (Faculty of Arts and Design and Art for Humanity, Durban University of Technology, 2010) Stewart, Graham Douglas James; McNulty, Niall
    Now in the second year of its development, the Encyclopaedia of South African Arts, Culture and Heritage (ESAACH) is both traditional encyclopaedia and hypertext web. Published volumes will emerge from the collaborative writing space provided within the wiki database. “You and I a tribe of colours” - by tapping into the collaborative spirit of social networking, ESAACH is emerging as a communal knowledge base that is far more than the sum of its parts. ESAACH is intended as a work of reclamation scholarship to address the dearth of reference material in South African arts, culture and heritage studies, and flights a number of concepts of importance in knowledge production for social transformation - notions that represent a fundamental shift in perspective: “panoramic, inclusive, democratic, and non-canonical”. An encyclopaedia, by its very nature, can never be complete. An online encyclopaedia never needs to be complete. Users can continually add entries or edit existing ones while an open-source community, (e.g. Media wiki) is continually improving and developing the management framework. An active community that has bought into ownership of the encyclopaedia, and has an interest in maintaining and growing its content, ensures its sustainability. This paper reports on work in progress, outlining the founding principles of the encyclopaedia and presenting the current state of the development and usage of the Verbal Arts section of the wiki. Later phases of the project include the Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Heritage.
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    Introduction
    (Alternation. International Journal for the Study of Southern African Literature and Languages, 2002) Stewart, Graham Douglas James
    Humanities Computing is a new discipline unfamiliar to the South African literary community. This special number of Alternation is intended to bring some perspective to the practice of humanities computing in South Africa by publishing a divergent set of reflections and approaches to the introduction of computers into the contemporary study of literature, and in particular the study of South African literature. The papers in this issue may also be viewed against a backdrop of a curriculum for humanities computing. The wide range of approaches reflected by the contributors suggests that there is no such curriculum as yet in South Africa, but the quality and innovativeness of the articles represents a first attempt to find a coherent conceptual framework to accommodate a humanities computing research agenda and provide a springboard for further development. Because the field of humanities computing is as yet ill-defined, the articles in this edition are inevitably eclectic - indeed, the primary purpose of this edition is to range as widely as possible over an emerging discipline to identify focus areas and expose areas of contention and also future research directions. One dispute which emerges here is between enthusiastic converts to digital technologies and skeptics. The former tend to dwell on the benefits that the systematic exploitation of lCTs can offer the humanities, and the latter -who are more apprehensive about the contribution computers can make on the humanities--on its limitations and disadvantages.
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    Mirage of us. A reflection on the role of the Web in widening access to references on Southern African arts, culture and heritage
    (Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde, 2010) Stewart, Graham Douglas James
    This article outlines the broad aims of the Encyclopaedia of South African Arts, Culture and Heritage (ESAACH) Project then goes on to consider the ESAACH Website as a networked resource that speaks to the project’s vision of accessibility and participation. The wiki architecture is highly accessible to users and contributors alike. In addition to its robust structure as a reference work, a wiki encyclopaedia facilitates networked social collaboration uniquely suited to the co-operative principles of the project. Subject area specialists will exercise editorial control over the content of the wiki, and work with the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors and peer reviewers to assess contributions, recommend editorial corrections, and select articles, essays and entries for inclusion in the printed volumes of the encyclopaedia. The paper surveys existing Web-based reference sources on Southern African literature, arts and culture; provides an account of the evolution of the Verbal Arts section of the ESAACH wiki; and discusses the prototype ESAACH wiki.