Published papers 2014 to 2016

Here is a consolidated list of the papers published by this project in the past three years, with links for you to access the papers. We are expecting a few more during 2017 and will post an updated list later in the year.

Cohen, J., Backhouse, J. and Ally, O. (2016). Youth Expectations of Smart City Living: An Importance-Performance Analysis of Young Residents’ Perspectives of City Government,
Commonwealth Youth and Development, 14(1) 118-128. 

Backhouse, J. and Masilela S (2016). Using personas to understand city residents’ information needs and evaluate city information services. Proceedings of the African Cyber Citizenship Conference 2016, 31 Oct- 1 Nov 2016, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. pp.232-242.

Backhouse, J. and Hughes, M. (2015). An ecological model to understand the variety in undergraduate students’ personal information systems, The African Journal of Information and Communication, Issue 15, pp. 14-24.

Topo, M. and Backhouse, J. (2015). Explaining the Use and Non-Use of Smart Cities Services in Johannesburg: Residents' Perspective. Paper presented at the 12th Prato CIRN Conference 9-11 November 2015, Prato, Italy.

Backhouse, J. (2015). Smart city agendas of African cities. Proceedings of the African Conference on Information Systems and Technology (ACIST) 2015, 7-8 July 2015. Accra, Ghana.

Backhouse, J. and Hughes, M. (2015). An ecological model of the information behaviour and technologies of undergraduate students in a South African university. Southern African Computer Lecturer’s Association conference 2015, 1-2 July, Johannesburg, South Africa

Backhouse, J. and Cohen, J. (2014). 'What is a Smart City for Information Systems Research in Africa? Review Protocol and Initial Results', Proceedings of the African Cyber Citizenship Conference 2014, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. ISBN: 978-1-920505-46-3.

Congratulations to Masters student Malefa Topo

Congratulations to Malefa Topo who graduated on the 7th July with her M.Com. Her dissertation was titled: "Explaining the use and non-use of smart cities services in Johannesburg: resident's perspectives".

Malefa was our Masters bursary recipient and project manager for 2015.

Paper presented at CIRN Conference, Prato

Malefa Topo traveled to Italy last month to present a paper and a research poster titled "Explaining the Use and Non-Use of Smart Cities Services in Johannesburg: Residents’ Perspectives" at the 12th Prato Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) conference. The paper was based on preliminary results from her master's research that examined what makes residents use or not use Smart Cities services, to try and identify ways that will ensure that all residents have the privilege of using the provided Smart City services. Preliminary results showed that existing models that explain use and non-use need to be expanded to take account of issues of awareness, access, and trust that arise in a developing country context.

Malefa Topo with her research poster

The conference, hosted by Monash University at their centre in Prato, ran from the 9th to the 11th November 2015. Topics relating to information and knowledge sharing and how the production of information and knowledge can reflect unequal distributions of power and privileges were discussed at the conference. The conference also included a workshop on ethics, diversity, and inclusion that aimed to move towards approaches that ensure that ICT facilitates social inclusion and equal privileges.

 

Malefa Topo networking with other researchers

A copy of the paper can be downloaded here:
Topo and Backhouse (2015). Explaining the use and non-use of Smart City services in Johannesburg: Residents' perspectives. Paper presented at the 12th Prato CIRN Conference 9-11 November 2015, Prato, Italy.

Research retreat

From the 12^th to the 14^th of August the Information Systems for Smart Cities in Africa research team retreated to Foxwood House for three days of writing and thinking. The time was used to advance our research in a number of ways. Honours students were finalising their data collection plans and the team spent time debating those strategies to optimise the value of the research. Others worked on conference and journal articles, while time was also spent on analysing data from the Gauteng City Regional Observatory’s quality of life survey, which is throwing some interesting light on how people in Gauteng use information technologies.

Team members Malefa Topo, Jean-Marie Bancilhon, Jason Cohen,
Tom Grace and Preshlen Reddy, hard at work

Writing retreat

Six members of the project team retreated to Foxwood House during January to spend three days writing conference and journal papers based on the research that was carried out in 2014. In tranquil surroundings, and fortified by the excellent food, we worked on four papers for publication during 2015.