Dear Alumnus Over the past few weeks I have added email addresses from many Alumni who studied with us as far back as the 1990’s and even earlier. I therefore decided to use this newsletter to first give a quick overview on the past 15 years in the Department, and then to discuss some broad aspects of and trends in the department.

1998 – The Telkom Centre of Excellence was founded by Prof Janet Wesson. Many Honours, Masters and PhD students have been funded by Centre over the years. In addition to the bursaries, the centre also funded research equipment which made a great contribution towards research in the department. The largest contribution is probably the Usability Lab, while outstanding research is conducted on a multi-touch table top.

1999 – The Department moves to the new Embizweni Building (next to the Main Building), where we currently have six undergraduate and five postgraduate labs, with over 350 PC’s.

2004 – Prof de Kock retires after 29 years of being HOD of the Department. He and his wife have since relocated to Polokwane. Prof Janet Wesson took over as HOD on 1 January 2005. 2005 – After the merger of UPE, the Port Elizabeth Technikon and the local VISTA campus, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University is founded. The Department now presents modules on four of the institution’s five campuses: South Campus (the former UPE), 2nd Avenue Campus, Missionvale Campus (the former VISTA) and George Campus. After a six month stint in the Engineering Faculty around that time, we “came back” to the Science Faculty. 2010 – I get my turn to be HOD. Later that year our name changes from “Computer Science and Information Systems” to “Computing Sciences”.

The Department in 2013

We are a fast growing and very vibrant department with nearly 40 academic, administrative and technical staff. I will try and highlight some of the aspects of the Department.

Our students can enrol for any of the following degree programmes: BSc Computer Science, BSc Information Systems, BCom Computer Science and Information Systems, BCom Information Systems and BCom Rationum (for Chartered Accountants).

Our postgraduate numbers have grown significantly over the past 3 years. In 2010 we had 12 Masters and PhD students. Currently we have 27 M and D students, with a further five seriously considering registering later this year. An important trend here is an increasing number of Alumni in industry registering for part-time Masters or PhD studies. We also have various inter-disciplinary research projects with students from, amongst other disciplines Physics, Mathematics, Journalism and the Business School being co-supervised by staff members.

With around 30 research outputs annually, we are seeing the fruits of these increased M and D enrolments. We are very proud of the fact that our students have produced Best Papers four times over the past eight years for national research conferences (SAICSIT and SATNAC), as well as Best PhD paper (SAICSIT 2010) and Best HCI Paper (SAICSIT 2012).

Many of our staff members have obtained their PhD qualifications over the past decade. We currently have ten staff members with PhD’s (this is expected to soon be eleven). This makes us one of the best qualified computing departments in the country. I can also mention that Prof Andre Calitz also obtained his DBA two years ago, which was his second doctorate after receiving his PhD in the 1990’s and has opened many doors for collaboration with the Business School.

Collaboration with the University of Oldenburg, mainly driven by Dr Brenda Scholtz, has opened many new opportunities for research, teaching and industry liaison in the department, mainly in the fields of Environmental Management Information Systems, Business Intelligence and IT Entrepreneurship. Specifically regarding environmental issues, we have become national leaders in academia because of this collaboration.

Three years ago we founded our Industry Advisory Board which meets once a year. The Board is comprised of representatives from twelve national companies. This board has created a wonderful dynamic regarding partnerships and collaboration with industry on various levels (including teaching, research and improved graduate employment). We, for example, present an annual Industry Symposium as well as an IT Career Fair, which always proves to be very popular and successful events.

With increasing teaching and research in the mobile domain, the department is definitely one of the leading academic departments regarding mobile computing. At the 2012 national Vodacom Student Symposium, our students’ apps were recognised as winners in the postgraduate category and runners-up in the undergraduate category. We also received the award for Best Department.

An active marketing campaign to schools throughout the province has positioned the department as a popular first choice for matriculants who want to obtain a computing qualification. This is very evident from the increasing number of quality first years enrolling.

You are encouraged to visit our website (www.nmmu.ac.za/cs) to obtain a more detailed view of the department. By reviewing the topics for postgraduate studies and outputs (under research), you will get a good understanding of the outstanding research being conducted. Then you can also follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/csnmmu), Facebook (www.facebook.com/csnmmu), LinkedIn (NMMU Computing Sciences) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/csnmmu). We value our relationship with our Alumni, and we see you as an integral part of the profile of the Department, since your success is in some way an indication that we are doing something right. For our next newsletter, I would love to receive feedback from you. Tell us about yourself (where do you work, have you been involved with an interesting project lately, your family etc) or remind us of an incident in the Department which you will never forget. Maybe you even have an interesting photo or two from those days! We try to participate in NMMU Alumni Association’s official events, and have already (taken over ) the Alumni events in Johannesburg (2011) and Cape Town (2012). The next events we plan are a dedicated Computing Sciences Alumni event on campus in October 2013 as well as the Johannesburg NMMU Alumni event in 2014. If at all possible, please attend one of these events. Then you are also more than welcome to pop into the Department next time you are in PE. Please make contact with us! Prof Jean Greyling Head of Department.