Deliberating information systems

PARTICIPANTS from across the globe descended at the University of Zululand’s KwaDlangezwa campus last week for the 14th annual Information System conference.

Focusing on information ethics in Africa, the conference was organised by the Department of Information Studies in collaboration with the University of Pretoria’s Africa Centre for Excellence in Information Ethics.

Delegates from ten universities and two other institutions from seven countries across Africa, Europe and North America attended the academic session. Forty six papers were presented including 32 full papers, five posters, nine research-in-progress and workshop papers.

Unizulu’s Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Prof Rob Midgley said research integrity was vitally important.

‘When undertaking research, one should respect the environment to ensure sustainability. We live in a human rights era. You have to acknowledge their rights and integrity. If you take information from communities you got to give back to that community, otherwise that research is unethical,’ said Midgley.

Keynote speakers included among others Director: International Centre for Information Ethics, Prof Rafael Capurro, Foundation Director Capurro Fiek, Vice-Chancellor and Provost Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Prof Johannes Britz and Chair of the Department of Information Science at University of South Africa, Prof Bosire Onyancha.

The conference also saw the launch of the book ‘Information Ethics in Africa: crosscutting issues’ edited by Professors Dennis Ocholla, Johannes Britz, Rafael Capurro and Coetzee Bester.

‘We envisage this to be the first volume in a series of handbooks on topics related to Information Ethics in Africa,’ said Prof Ocholla. He thanked the contributing authors and conference participants adding that the book would be of great benefit to researchers and students.