Writing retreat 2016

Research writing is difficult, especially for students to master. Students on the Smart Cities project recently enjoyed a week-long writing retreat where they worked on their final research reports alongside staff who were working on research articles. Students had completed their data collection and analysis and were putting the results into their final reports.

Honour's students Kundai Mutseyekwa, Brian Opheelwane and Letlotlo Kothane make the hard work look easy

The pleasant surroundings and good food, away from campus, helped to keep everyone motivated and energised, while supervisors were present to answer questions, read and give input along the way. All of the honour's students on the project have since completed and submitted their research reports.

Tom Grace, Bonolo Motsepe, Kundai Mutseyekwa and Prof Jason Cohen enjoy lunch under the trees.

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.