Influential factors impacting leadership effectiveness: A case study at a public university

As a result of increased globalisation and rapid changes in the technological, social, economic and political spheres, the environment in which businesses and organisations function has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA). This has created a unique set of challenges for the leaders of these organisations, including higher education (HE) in South Africa. This study aimed to identify potential influential factors that have impact on leader effectiveness in a HE VUCA environment

Achievements and challenges for Higher Education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid review of media in Africa

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic struck globally and has affected higher education institutions (HEIs) and their operations, indirectly impacting the progress of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 achieved thus far. This article addresses HEIs achievements and challenges experienced in the wake of the pandemic. Online news media reports played a facilitative role in providing information to the HEI communities. A rapid review exploring online news media messages relating to higher education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa was utilised. Narrative synthesis was used to analyse the data. The results highlight HEIs achievements, which aim to ensure that all students receive the same level of education and provision in terms of devices and mental health support. However, challenges were also experienced at HEIs and include students feeling uncertainty and fear regarding completing their education. Furthermore, the results also show that not all students received the same level of education due to contextual factors, thus deepening the existing social disparities in Africa. The pandemic provides an opportunity for HEIs to embed the components of global citizenship education into the curriculum and to work in an innovative way to promote Sustainable Development Goal 4

Blended Learning From Design to Evaluation: International Case Studies of Evidence-Based Practice

This study compares and contrasts four international faculty development programs for blended learning in order to understand the benefits, challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations from such initiatives. The benefits identified for faculty members, who participated in these programs, were that they became more reflective of their teaching practice and began to make a role adjustment from being a content provider to a designer and facilitator of learning for students. The biggest challenge appeared to be a lack of common institutional definition and understanding of blended learning as well as a lack of time and resources to support faculty in the redesign of their courses. With regards to lessons learned, each program emphasized the need for all institutional stakeholders to be involved in supporting the initiative and that blended learning does not simply imply adding digital technologies to an existing face-to-face course. The key recommendation from this study is that a faculty development program for blended learning needs to be clearly aligned with the institution’s vision and mission

Die internet as platform vir 'n nuwe Afrikaanse spraakgemeenskap en 'n nuwe variëteit : 'n korpuslinguistiese ondersoek

Thesis (Ph.D. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2007.It is generally accepted that the growing interest in the internet has opened new horisons for language research. The aim with this study is to explore the internet as a dynamic language environment and to investigate how written language is used and adapted to suit the conditions of three modes of computer mediated communication, (CMC) namely e-mail, chatrooms and websites. The research aims in this dissertation focus on the extend to which specific e-style characteristics are found in different CMC modes and whether the internet is emerging as a homogeneous linguistic medium or as a collection of distinct varieties, reflecting the different needs, purposes and attitudes of its users. Results have shown that these still rather new modes of communication have fostered new norms of expression and developed innovative ways of written language, particularly in the case of e-mail and chatrooms. Language use in CMC has been proven to be adapted to suit the particular conditions according to level of synchronicity, means of expression and situation in the respective communicative settings. A number of linguistic features are shown to be characteristic of the modes of CMC investigated in this study. This dissertation concludes that although there are a few linguistic properties which the three different internet situations analyzed in this study share, these do not make a very strong case for a view of internet Afrikaans as a new variety of Afrikaans. It is proposed that the kind of language which is used on the internet in its different situations should rather be regarded as a new linguistic medium - something fundamentally different from both writing and speech, as traditionally understood.It is generally accepted that the growing interest in the internet has opened new horisons for language research. The aim with this study is to explore the internet as a dynamic language environment and to investigate how written language is used and adapted to suit the conditions of three modes of computer mediated communication, (CMC) namely e-mail, chartrooms and websites. The research aims in this dissertation focus on the extend to which specific e-style characteristics are found in different CMC modes and whether the internet is emerging as a homogeneous linguistic medium or as a collection of distinct varieties, reflecting the different needs, purposes and attitudes of its users. Results have shown that these still rather new modes of communication have fostered new norms of expression and developed innovative ways of written language, particularly in the case of e-mail and chartrooms. Language use in CMC has been proven to be adapted to suit the particular conditions according to level of synchronicity, means of expression and situation in the respective communicative settings. A number of linguistic features are shown to be characteristic of the modes of CMC investigated in this study. This dissertation concludes that although there are a few linguistic properties which the three different internet situations analyzed in this study share, these do not make a very strong case for a view of internet Afrikaans as a new variety of Afrikaans. It is proposed that the kind of language which is used on the internet in its different situations should rather be regarded as a new linguistic medium - something fundamentally different from both writing and speech, as traditionally understood.Doctora