in order for clinicians to make informed medical decisions and prescribe the correct medication within a limited specified time. Since no further informed action can be taken on the patient until the laboratory report reaches the clinician, the delivery of the report to the clinician becomes a critical path in the value chain of the laboratory testing process. The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) currently delivers lab results in three ways: via a physical paper report, and electronically through a web application. The third alternative is for short and high-priority test results, like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB), that are delivered via short message service (SMS) printers in remote rural clinics. However, despite its inefficiencies, the paper report remains the most commonly used method. As turnaround times for basic and critical laboratory tests remain a great challenge for NHLS to meet the specified targets; there is need to shift method of final delivery from paper to a paperless secured electronic result delivery system. Accordingly, the recently-implemented centralised TrakCare Lab laboratory information system (LIS) makes provision for delivery of electronic results via a web application, ‘TrakCarewebview’. However, the uptake of TrakCarewebview has been very low due to the cumbersomeness of the application; this web application takes users through nine steps to obtain the results and is not designed for mobile devices. In addition, its access in remote rural health care facilities is a great challenge because of lack of supportive infrastructure. There is therefore an obvious gap and considerable potential in diagnostic result delivery system that calls for an immediate action to design and development of a less complex, cost effective and usable mobile application, for electronic delivery of laboratory results. After obtaining research ethics clearance approval from the University’s Faculty of Science Research Ethics Committee a research was sanctioned. A survey of public sector clinicians across South Africa indicated that 98% have access to the internet through smartphones, and 93% of the clinicians indicated that they would use their mobile devices to access electronic laboratory results. A significant number of clinicians believe that the use of a mobile application in health facilities will improve patient care. This belief, therefore, set a strong basis for designing and developing a mobile application for laboratory results. The study aims to design and develop a mobile application prototype that can demonstrate the capability of delivering electronic laboratory test results to clinicians on their smart devices, via a usable mobile application. The design of the mobile application prototype was driven by user-centred design (UCD) principles in order to develop an effective design. Core and critical to the process is the design step which establishes the user requirements specifications that meet the user expectations. The study substantiated the importance of the design aspect as the initial critical step in obtaining a good final product. The prototype was developed through an iterative process alternating prototype development and evaluation. The development iterations consisted of a single paper prototyping iteration followed by further two iterations using an interactive Justinmind prototyping tool. Respective to the development iterations, cognitive walk-through and heuristic principles were used to evaluate the usability of the initial prototype. The final prototype was then evaluated using the system usability scale (SUS) survey quantitative tool, which determines the effectiveness and perceived usability of the application. The application scored an average SUS score of 77, which is significantly above the average acceptable SUS score of 68. The standard SUS measurement deems 80 to be an excellent score. Yet a score below 68 is considered below average. The evaluation was conducted by the potential user group which was involved in the initial design process. The ability of the interactive prototyping tool (Justinmind) to mimic the actual final product offered end users a feel of the actual product thus giving the outcome of the evaluation a strong basis to develop the actual product.

Crop diseases are a major impediment to food security in the developing world. The development of cheap and accurate crop diagnosis software would thus be of great benefit to the farming community. A number of previous studies, utilizing computer vision and machine-learning algorithms, have successfully developed applications that can diagnose crop diseases. However, these studies have primarily focussed either on developing large scale remote sensing applications more suited for large scale farming or on developing desktop/laptop applications and a few others on developing high end smartphone applications. Unfortunately, the attendant hardware requirements and expenses make them inaccessible to the majority of the subsistence farmers, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa where both smartphones and personal computers ownership is minimal. The primary objective of our research was to establish the feasibility of utilizing computer vision and machine learning techniques to develop a crop diseases diagnosis application that is not only accessible through personal computers and smartphones but is also accessible through any internet enabled feature phone. Leveraging methods established in previous papers, we successfully developed a prototype crop diseases diagnosis application capable of diagnosing two maize foliar diseases, Common Rust and Grey Leaf Spot. This application is accessible through personal computers and high end smartphones as well as through any internet enabled feature phones. The solution is a responsive web based application constructed using open source libraries whose diagnosing engine utilizes an SVM classifier that can be trained using either SIFT or SURF features. The solution was evaluated to establish classification accuracy, page load times when accessed from different networks and its cross-browser support. The system achieved 73.3% overall accuracy rate when tested using images identical to images end users would upload. Page load times were considerably long on GPRS and 2G network tests. However, they were comparable to average page load times users would experience when accessing google search engine pages from similar networks. Cross-browser support tests indicated that the system is fully compatible with all popular mobile and desktop browsers. Based on the evaluation results, we concluded that it is feasible to develop a crop diseases diagnosis application that in addition to being accessible through personal computers and smartphones can also be accessed through any internet enabled feature phones.

abstract: The difficulty of demonstrating a significant return on investment from the use of advanced data analytics has led to a lack of utilization of this tool. The most likely explanation for this phenomenon is the difficulty of incorporating non-financial metrics in the higher levels of analysis that are fully salient and derived in a manner that can be understood and trusted by organizational leaders. Another challenge that has confounded the use of advanced analytics by the leadership of organizations is the widely accepted belief that models are oftentimes developed with an insufficient number of variables that are expected to have an impact, which inhibits extrapolation of results for use in real-world decision making. This research identifies factors that contribute to the underutilization of analytics models in managerial decisions by leadership of the produce industry, and explores a variety of potential tools including descriptive analytics and dashboards that are able to provide predictive, prescriptive, and more advanced cognitive methods of decision making for use by organizational leadership. By understanding the disconnect between availability of the advanced data analysis tools and use of such tools by organizational leadership, this research assists in identifying the programs and resources that should be developed and presented as opportunities for support in the industrial decision-making process. This dissertation explores why managers within the produce industry underutilize higher levels of data analytics and whether it is possible to increase their levels of cognitive comfort. It shows that by providing leadership with digestible and rudimentary business experiments, they become more comfortable with more complex data analytics and then are better able to utilize dashboards and other tools within their decision-making models. As experiments are explained to managers, they become as comfortable with conducting experiments as they are with dashboards, thus becoming comfortable with evaluating their benefits. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2020

Digital technology has the potential to "democratize information" – making ideas, opinions, and knowledge accessible anywhere, anytime, and to everyone. But is this potential truly realized or will it ever be realized? Do systems enabled by digital technology exhibit or even enhance information bias, skewness, and polarization? How can we overcome them? In this dissertation, I investigate these questions in two major but distinct digital information systems: open collaboration systems (i.e., Wikipedia) and mass media broadcast networks (i.e., broadcast television in the United States). Open collaboration platforms have fundamentally changed the way knowledge is produced, disseminated, and consumed. Wikipedia is arguably one of the most successful examples of such platforms, serving millions of information seekers daily. Despite many benefits provided by the decentralization of knowledge production on Wikipedia, does the open nature and lack of broad oversight and coordination leave the question of information poverty and skewness to the mercy of the system’s natural dynamics? And if so, what can be done to address this? In Chapter 1, I examined this question using both causal inference from a natural experiment and empirically informed diffusion simulations. Another important and pervasive information system is that of televised mass media. Whereas Wikipedia is relatively open and does not have strong information gatekeeping, televised mass media has various forms of information gatekeeping, particularly through media ownership, government regulation and journalistic practice. But how does this gatekeeping affect skewness and polarization in the real-world information that is conveyed to the public? To investigate these questions, I study televised news information systems in the United States with a massive scale unstructured text data and various state-of-the-art text mining techniques in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of this dissertation. The text transcripts include the complete televised content from more than 800 television channels across all 210 designated media markets in the United States over a 5-year period between 2013 and 2018. Chapter 2 of this dissertation examines how media ownership impact political slant and information diversity in the news using massive-scale text transcripts. I found that when large owners act coherently, they can skew information to emphasize views, perspectives and framing that they advocate. This is important because previous studies have shown that broadcast media can have a dramatic impact on political and social outcomes and undeniably shapes the national dialogue surrounding important issues. In Chapter 3 of this dissertation, I study the skewed coverage of gun violence incidents in local televised news. I found that some types of gun violence, such as suicide, accidents, domestic violence and sex crimes are systematically covered less relative to other types such as assault weapon incidents, are systematically covered more. Importantly, areas of high vs. low gun ownership received different exposure to different incident types through local news coverage, further dividing an already divided population. I conducted ting a nationally representative survey found that the general public’s view on different type of gun violence is skewed in a manner that is consistent with "the warped mirror" that our media conveys. / 2023-04-29T00:00:00Z

In distance learning, ICT tools are used to bridge the instructional gap caused by physical distance between the lecturer and the student. Therefore, more effective communication tools can help to enhance the success of a distance learning curriculum. Communication barriers such as disconnectedness, conceptual confusion and lack of social pressure to perform, can negatively affect the success of distance learning. Careful design and implementation of contextually appropriate communication tools is vital in a distance learning curriculum. The University of Cape Town (UCT) Conversion Masters in Information Technology (MIT) originally used a tool called Vula for communication between staff and students, as well as student-to-student communication. Vula is UCT's implementation of the Sakai learning management system. Between 2016 and 2018, a major shift was observed in the adoption and use of communication tools within the programme. There was a noticeable decrease in dialogue between students and lecturers on Vula, and an increase in student-to-student communication using WhatsApp. In 2018, the Slack communication tool wasintroduced to the MIT degree with the objective of increasing communication and collaboration between students and lecturers. This study investigates the adoption and use of the three communication tools (Vula, WhatsApp and Slack) within the context of the University of Cape Town MIT programme. The research aims to provide an understanding of communication needs and practice that can inform the design of distance learning programmes and enable them to harness the potential of social communication tool features. The study describes the nature of communication within the UCT MIT degree. The research also explores the functional features of the tools and how they are used, and the frequency of interaction on the various communication platforms within the MIT programme. This is complemented by a survey of current MIT students and their perceptions. The research analysed 2605 communication messages in Vula (UCT's name for the Sakai learning management system), Slack and WhatsApp communication tools over the three-year transition period 2016-2018. Feedback from a student survey, in which 11 respondents completed a questionnaire after an interview, is also presented. Based on questionnaire responses from MIT students, Vula is viewed as the best tool for administrative matters, WhatsApp is preferred for sharing information and checking on peers, and Slack is perceived as best for communication with all types of participants - students, lecturers and tutors. Most respondents rated WhatsApp as accessible, convenient and providing a good experience, while far fewer did so for Vula and Slack. WhatsApp was also seen to be the tool students used to reinforce or follow up on communications posted on the other tools.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-91). / A usability study was designed with these issues in mind, to determine the influence of interface design on learning in an educational institution in Namibia. A pilot study identified obstacles and served to enhance the main study in which two web interfaces were used; one poorly designed and one well-designed. Learners from the institution were recorded during their interaction with the websies and then assessed for learning achievement. The results indicated that interface design can influence learning. However, research with a larger sample is necessary to fully understand the cultural and characteristic influences of Namibia's learners on reading and writing using the web.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-161). / By encoding 2D bar codes that store URL links, SMS or plain text, 2D visual tags link infonnation about objects in the physical world to online or offline content. The existence of physical world hyperlinks in the fonn of 2D visual tags that are placed in the natural environment therefore makes new social and cultural interaction modes possible. Although 2D visual tagging systems have much potential to positively influence the way people, and Africans in particular, interact with the physical world, there has been no indepth evaluation or cross-platfonn usability assessment of available 2D visual tagging systems. Research in the field has primarily focused on the description and evaluation of prototype visual tagging applications. The deployment and use of 2D visual tagging systems have also not been comprehensively tested in Africa. To evaluate the 2D visual tagging paradigm, five 2D visual tagging systems were selected for this study.

Despite the proliferation of mobile communication technology and smartphone adoption, a number of barriers, most notably trust and security, and the lack of critical mass, have slowed the uptake of mobile payments (m-payments). Little is understood about the factors driving the success of novel, intermediating technologies such as m-payments, particularly in emerging markets. In this thesis, we empirically investigated the factors that affect the success of m-payments in Cape Town, from the merchant's perspective. The research model is based on the Perceived Characteristics of Innovation (PCI) instrument developed by Moore and Benbasat (1991) which measures an individual's perception of adopting m-payments. Our results found the main adoption drivers to be relative advantage, ease of use, results demonstrability, convenience, speed of transaction, and service provider brand value. The key barriers to adoption include cost as well as trust and security. Based on our findings, implications for practice and future studies are suggested.

In recent years, the SVG file format has grown increasingly popular, largely due to its widespread adoption as the standard image format for vector graphics on the World Wide Web. However, vector graphics predate the modern Web, having served an important role in graphic and computer-aided design for decades prior to SVG's adoption as a web standard. Vector graphics are just as - if not more - relevant than ever today. As a result, training in vector graphics software, particularly in graphic and other creative design fields, forms an important part of the skills development necessary to enter the industry. This study explored the feasibility of a web application that can automatically mark/assess drawing tasks completed in popular vector graphics editors such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Inkscape. This prototype has been developed using a collection of front-end and back-end web technologies, requiring that users need only a standards-compliant, modern web browser to submit tasks for assessment. Testing was carried out to assess how the application handled SVG markup produced by different users and vector graphics drawing software; and whether the assessment/scoring of submitted tasks was inline with that of a human marker. While some refinement is required, the application assessed six different tasks, submitted eleven times over by as many individuals, and for the greater part was successful in reporting scores in line with that of the researcher. As a prototype, serving as a proof of concept, the project proved the automatic marker a feasible concept. Exactly how marks should be assigned, for which criteria, and how much instruction should be provided are aspects for further study; along with support for curved path segments, and automatic task generation.

Data discovery and data handling often presents serious challenges to organizations that manage huge archives of raster datasets such as those generated by satellite remote sensing. Satellite remote sensing produces a regular stream of raster datasets used in many applications including environmental and agricultural monitoring. This thesis presents a system architecture for the management of time-series GIS raster datasets. The architecture is then applied in a prototype implementation for a department that uses remote sensing data for agricultural monitoring. The architecture centres on three key components. The first is a metadatabase to hold metadata for the raster datasets, and an interface to manage the metadatabase and facilitate the search and discovery of raster metadata. The design of the metadatabase involved the examination of existing standards for geographic raster metadata and the determination of the metadata elements required for time-series raster data. The second component is an interactive tool for viewing the time-series raster data discovered via the metadatabase. The third component provides basic image analysis functionality typically required by users of time-series raster datasets. A prototype was implemented using open source software and following the Open Geospatial Consortium specifications for web map services (WMS) version 1.3.0. After implementation, an evaluation of the prototype was carried out by the target users from the RRSU (Regional Remote Sensing Unit) to assess the usability, the added value of the prototype and its impact on the work of the users. The evaluation showed that the prototype system was generally well received, since it allowed both the data managers and users of time-series datasets to save significant amounts of time in their work routines and it also offered some raster data analyses that are useful to a wider community of time-series raster data managers.