Research

Overview

The Department of Information Systems has a dual mandate: to bring the best of IS knowledge to the classroom for dissemination to students and to assist in the production of IS knowledge through active research and publication.   

The research reported in these pages is a collection of publications at conferences, formal theses and reports from post-graduate course work. The people involved in research and publication in the Department of Information Systems are mainly full-time staff members and post-graduate students. 

A few publications are loaded on the web server. Most publications are not, mainly due to copyright restrictions. If you wish to obtain one of the latter publications, check the reference or, alternatively, contact the author.

Research Areas

The main research focus of the department is the role of ICT in National Development. This entails looking at the relevance of current information systems issues in the context of both the first-world and developing context within South Africa as well as the rest of African. In particular, the following specific research areas have been identified by the staff as areas of strength.

• Education: Educational technologies for previously disadvantaged SA students; teaching educationally disadvantaged students; e-learning; IS staff and skills shortages; IS careers; perceptions of IS in work and study; computer literacy.
• Management of the IS function: IS planning; strategic aspects of IS systems; management information systems; systems thinking in IS; enterprise IS architectures; management of IS professionals; enterprise computing; computer supported cooperative work & EMS.
• Knowledge management: indigenous KM systems; modelling; data mining.
• System development: methodologies of IS development; teams and project management; OO approaches to systems development; system development approaches.
• Electronic commerce and business: e-markets; SME's; mobile computing; e-business models; e-government.
• Development and cultural issues: IS and culture; the digital divide; IT implementation and 1st world technologies in 3rd world environment; gender issues in IS and women in IT; IT government policy; open source software; IT adoption.

The following are the areas of specialization of the various IS staff members

• Associate Professor Irwin Brown
  Research Methodology, IS Theory Development, IS and Education, ICT Innovations, IS Management, ICT for National Development
• Dr Wallace Chigona
  ICT for National Development, ICT and Education, Mobile Technology for Development
• Dr Eric Cloete
  Electronic Commerce, Mobile Commerce, ICTs in SMEs
• Mr Mike Eccles
  E-Learning, Education and IS, Systems Development Methodologies
• Professor Mike Hart
  IS Management, IS Education, CRM, BI
• Associate Professor Kevin Johnston
  IS Education, OSS, ICT Strategy and Alignment, ICT Management
• Ms Salah Kabanda
  Software Engineering, Electronic Commerce, ICTs in SMEs
• Associate Professor Mike Kyobe
  Strategic Alignment; IT In SMEs, IS Security, Audit and Controls
• Mr. Michael Pollock
  Technology Adoption, Systems Development, IS Education
• Mrs. Elsje Scott
  IS Project Management, with the specific focus on Student Team Projects; SW Testing, Object-Orientated Programming
• Mr. Kosheek Sewchurran
  Development, Project Management, ICT Governance; Adoption and Maturation of ICT; E-Learning, “Virtualisation" And Digital Democracies, Systems Thinking, CDA, ANT
• Dr Lisa Seymour
  ERP Software and Computer Applications, Business Process Management, SMMEs
• Professor Derek Smith
  Business Strategy, Project Portfolio Management, Programme Management, People Management
• Mr Adrie Stander
  Data Communications; Database Design; Human-Computer Interaction; Culture and Information Systems, IT and Tourism, Computer Forensics
• Ms Maureen Tanner
  Software Engineering, Virtual Teams, Agile Methods
• Associate Professor Jean-Paul Van Belle
  ICT- & E-Readiness; NGOs and SMMEs; Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

Proposed Journal Ranking List

You can download the proposed journal ranking list for the IS Department here

Centre for Information Technology and National Development in Africa (CITANDA)

CITANDA is housed within the Department of Information Systems at the University of Cape Town and is the vehicle through which research in the department is conducted. It aims to bring together researchers, projects, funders, and programmes focused on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the service of national development. For more information, you can visit the CITANDA website.

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