LINK Centre (Learning Information Networking Knowledge Centre)

Permanent URI for this community

https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/19250

The Wits LINK Centre is a leading African academic research and training body focused on ICT ecosystem policy and practice. Based at the Wits Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, LINK engages in knowledge production and capacity-building for the broad communications and information and communications technology (ICT) sector in Africa. Its focus spans across policy, regulation, management and practice in telecommunications, Internet, broadcasting, digital media, e-government, e-transformation and e-development, all with an emphasis on economic and social implications in African and other developing-world contexts. LINK publishesThe African Journal of Information and Communication (AJIC), which is accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). Director: Dr. Lucienne Abrahams: luciennesa@gmail.com

For technical questions regarding this collection, contact Nina Lewin, nina.lewin@wits.ac.za, who is the responsible librarian.

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Browsing LINK Centre (Learning Information Networking Knowledge Centre) by Title

Now showing 1 - 20 of 288
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    A word embedding trained on South African news data
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2022-12-23) Mafunda, Martin Canaan; Schuld, Maria; Durrheim, Kevin; Mazibuko, Sindisiwe
    This article presents results from a study that developed and tested a word embedding trained on a dataset of South African news articles. A word embedding is an algorithm-generated word representation that can be used to analyse the corpus of words that the embedding is trained on. The embedding on which this article is based was generated using the Word2Vec algorithm, which was trained on a dataset of 1.3 million African news articles published between January 2018 and March 2021, containing a vocabulary of approximately 124,000 unique words. The efficacy of this Word2Vec South African news embedding was then tested, and compared to the efficacy provided by the globally used GloVe algorithm. The testing of the local Word2Vec embedding showed that it performed well, with similar efficacy to that provided by GloVe. The South African news word embedding generated by this study is freely available for public use.
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    Access to Africa’s Knowledge: Publishing Development Research and Measuring Value
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2010-02-15) Gray, Eve
    This paper reviews, critically, the discourse of research publication policy and the directives of the regional and global organisations that advise African countries with respect to their relevance to African scholarly communication. What emerges is a readiness to use the concepts and language of the public good, making claims for the power of technology to resolve issues of African development. However, when it comes to implementing scholarly publication policies, this vision of technological power and development-focused scientific output is undermined by a reversion to a conservative research culture that relies on competitive systems for valuing and accrediting scholarship, predicated upon the systems and values managed by powerful global commercial publishing consortia. The result is that the policies put in place to advance African research effectively act as an impediment to ambitions for a revival of a form of scholarship that could drive continental growth. While open access publishing models offer solutions to the marginalisation of African research, the paper argues that what is also needed is a re-evaluation of the values that underpin the recognition of scholarly publishing, to better align with the continent’s articulated research goals.
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    Adoption of Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs) for Value-Added Tax (VAT) Collection in Kenya and Tanzania: A Systematic Review
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) Eilu, Emmanuel
    Domestic revenue collection through taxation is still below its potential in many Sub- Saharan African countries. In an attempt to boost their tax revenues, many national governments have deployed electronic fiscal devices (EFDs) to improve value-added tax (VAT) collection. However, there is evidence indicating that the deployment of EFDs in some African countries has encountered substantial challenges. Using the systematic review method, the research described in this article investigated challenges encountered in adoption of EFDs in Kenya and Tanzania. The review concludes by modelling recommendations, extracted from seven existing studies, in terms of the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework (Tornatzky & Fleisher, 1990). This model is an effort to provide a potential guide for successful EFD adoption in East Africa.
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    Africa and the Digital Information Commons: An Overview
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2006-12-15) Armstrong, Chris; Ford, Heather
    Digital technologies and global electronic networks present unparalleled opportunities for international knowledge sharing and collaboration. But these same technologies and networks can also be used by authors in ways that significantly limit access and sharing for the purposes of education, innovation, and development. Through the efforts of librarians, archivists, academics and activists, vast new reserves of information and knowledge are being made available for free public consumption, and even adaptation, on the Internet. At the same time, however, electronic networks and digital technologies are being used to limit non-commercial access to some learning materials. For example, large educational publishers charge high subscription fees to universities for access to databases, with restrictions on use that are often more prohibitive than in the offline, paperbased environment. This fundamental schism present in the digital, globally-networked era – between the building of an “information commons” on the one hand, and the privatisation of knowledge on the other – is generating a variety of dynamic activist responses, including the free/libre open source software (FLOSS) movement, the “open access” movement in scholarly communication, and the “open content” approach to online sharing and collaboration among authors. The open access movement revolves mostly around the practice of academics making their research outputs and writings freely available on the Internet, either through open access online journals or online institutional repositories (archives). The open content movement is in some cases even broader than open access, encouraging online adaptation of materials by users, with the Wikipedia collaborative encyclopedia being perhaps the best-known such project. Another important open content initiative is the Creative Commons (cc) licensing system, which allows authors to adopt a “some rights reserved” approach when publishing their materials online. Under the terms of a cc licence, users are permitted unlimited copying and distribution of materials, and in some cases, are permitted to even adapt and/or derive commercial benefit from the materials. Open access and open content initiatives aim not to eliminate copyright in the online environment but rather to ensure that copyright does not restrict the potential of new technology to overcome barriers to access and innovation. The debates around the information commons and the restrictive practices of copyright rights-holders in the online environment are of particular relevance to the developing world and the African continent. Much of the world’s copyrighted material is owned by developed-world multinationals, leaving developing nations as the “payers” or consumers of knowledge and culture, and the developed world as the “payees” in much of the flow of monetary value derived from copyrighted materials. This article outlines the global information commons debates and players, and then focuses on efforts to maximise the potential benefits of digital networks for the developing world, and in particular Africa.
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    African National Regulatory Authority Benchmarking
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2008-12-15) Kerretts-Makau, Monica
    This paper provides an overview of the extent to which regulators are using websites to inform and communicate with the public – including consumers and citizens, the private sector, media and researchers and other governmental and nongovernmental organisations. The study follows a previous regional survey conducted in 2004, (Mahan 2004) that ranked the online component of information provision and facilitation of regulatory processes by National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) in the communications sector. 1 The benchmarking assessment documents the incidence of different aspects that are important for a regulator’s web presence across the categories of basic information and responsiveness, factual information about the national telecom sector, consumer and citizen information including universal service and complaints procedures, business-related information and forms, and information about the regulator and regulatory processes. A country’s inclusion in the assessment was contingent on the country having an independent authority 2 and the authority having a functioning website. Out of a total of54countries inAfrica,30had regulatory institutions that could be classified as independent with websites and 24 did not have websites. The countries were assessed by region (North, South, Central, East and West Africa, and Island countries). The benchmarking results show marked differences across countries and regions. Egypt received the highest score and performed well across all categories. The NRAs of Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya andSouthAfrica were ranked in the top five. Following closely are Uganda,Algeria,Senegal and Tanzania. The top ten NRAs were considered to have had adequate content in support of users being informed and being able to participate in regulatory processes. Overall, the total African regional average was low, with a benchmark indicating that national regulatory authority websites hover between static and emerging levels of information provision. The analysis provides a summarised overview of the performance of African regulatory websites within the benchmarking criteria. It should be noted that this analysis does not judge websites by their look and feel; the main aim of the analysis rather focuses on the content that is provided and the ease of using or accessing the requisite information. It is hoped that this study will provide African regulators with an insight into what their users will most likely be looking for when searching through their websites. The study also highlights best practices that can be replicated.
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    AJIC Issue 12, 2012 - Full Issue
    (2012-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 13, 2013 - Full Issue
    (2013-12-15)
    AJIC thematic issue focused on "Leadership in the Electronic Age: A Broad Inter-Disciplinary Practice".
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    AJIC Issue 14, 2015 - Full Issue
    (2015-12-15)
    AJIC thematic issue focused on "Economic Regulation and Regulatory Performance in the Electronic Communications Sector".
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    AJIC Issue 15, 2015 - Full Issue
    (2015-12-15)
    AJIC thematic issue focused on "Informatics and ICT for Development".
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    AJIC Issue 16, 2015 - Full Issue
    (2015-12-15)
    AJIC thematic issue focused on "African Intersections between Intellectual Property Rights and Knowledge Access".
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    AJIC Issue 17, 2016 - Full Issue
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 17, 2016 - Full Issue - print-on-demand version
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 18, 2016, Full Issue
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-11-15)
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    AJIC Issue 18, 2016, Full Issue, Print-on-Demand Version
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 19, 2016-Full Issue
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 19, 2016-Full Issue-Print-on-Demand Version
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2016-12-15)
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    AJIC Issue 20, 2017-Full Issue
    (2017-12-23)
    This AJIC Issue 20 provides a three-article Focus Section on Cybersecurity, and articles and thematic reports on: the future of SADC digital economy regulation; development of a first aid smartphone app; development of a communication strategy to address violence against children; the potential use of drones in land-mapping; and uncertainties in the legalities of e-commerce transactions.
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    AJIC Issue 20, 2017-Full Issue-Print-on-Demand Version
    (2017-12-23)
    This AJIC Issue 20 provides a three-article Focus Section on Cybersecurity, and articles and thematic reports on: the future of SADC digital economy regulation; development of a first aid smartphone app; development of a communication strategy to address violence against children; the potential use of drones in land-mapping; and uncertainties in the legalities of e-commerce transactions.