Several years of my experiences in the use of real-time experiments are now upgraded in order to enhance also the teaching of mathematics. The motion sensor device enables us to get real time x(t) and v(t) graphs of a moving object or person. We can productively use these graphs to introduce differentiation on visual level as well as to show the integration procedure. The students are fully involved in the teaching as they are invited to walk in front of the sensor. This approach motivates them by the realistic aspects of mathematical structures. The method could help to fulfill the credo of teaching: comprehension before computation. The steps of such an approach are explained and discussed in further detail below.

Renewable energy sources have started to substitute traditional energy sources in power sector, heating/cooling sector, and transportation sector. This paper explores the potential of renewable energy (mainly solar and wind) in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry. The focus is on mobile telecommunication infrastructure segment, since it is a prime consumer of energy within the ICT industry. Moving towards solar or wind power sources might bring a major shift in the ICT industry – both on the technological level as well as the service provisioning level. An overview of innovative technological solutions for solar/wind powered telecom networks is provided with a discussion on technological feasibility of innovative standalone solar/wind powered base stations. The market value of these innovative solutions as well as potential power savings are estimated in the total addressable market, the potential market, and the real market. The industry attractiveness of the innovation solutions is assessed using the Porter’s five forces and SWOT frameworks. Furthermore, these innovative solutions are assessed for their potential diffusion likelihood in different scenarios. There are several potential driving forces for the transformation towards solar/wind powered telecom networks. Based on the most important driving forces, plausible scenarios of the future have been identified and analyzed. It is identified that the renewable energy driven transformation in the ICT industry can affect developments in other industries such as automotive, agriculture, healthcare, and transportation industries.

This study was conducted to look into state-owned ICT institutions. The emphasis was on devising a strategic management framework that would be robust and agile, thereby enabling government companies within the ICT sector to rapidly respond to changes in the market and to also enable them to forecast and plan for the future in respect of technology. The main objective of the study was to derive an ICT strategic management framework for the rapid technological evolution of state-owned companies. Further, the study aimed to provide a critical exposition of the factors that affect company ICT strategies; assess the impact of technological changes on company ICT strategies; and propose guidelines on keeping companies‘ ICT strategies responsive to rapid technological changes. Through the literature review as well as an empirical study, common variables and factors that affect a company‘s ICT strategy and its response to technology changes were explored and guidelines were compiled into a framework that will assist SOEs (state-owned enterprises). Through a literature study of available material on the world‘s telecommunication trends and developments in developed nations, some key observations were recorded such as the concept of convergence, which in the main is driven by consumers‘ need for mobility and flexibility, as well as applications with high capacity demands on the one hand and the need for companies and telecommunications operators to be more efficient on the other. Convergence delivers this benefit of efficiency within the market and stimulates competition. Innovation and creativity continue to be the driving force behind the technological evolutions in the ICT sector. The study also considered how both the PEST model and Porter‘s five forces affect these companies. Issues such as the legislative and policy framework of the ICT industry in South Africa were looked at, with emphasis on how they affect ICT parastatals. The study ended with key recommendations and guidelines summed up into a comprehensive framework. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This study was conducted to look into state-owned ICT institutions. The emphasis was on devising a strategic management framework that would be robust and agile, thereby enabling government companies within the ICT sector to rapidly respond to changes in the market and to also enable them to forecast and plan for the future in respect of technology. The main objective of the study was to derive an ICT strategic management framework for the rapid technological evolution of state-owned companies. Further, the study aimed to provide a critical exposition of the factors that affect company ICT strategies; assess the impact of technological changes on company ICT strategies; and propose guidelines on keeping companies‘ ICT strategies responsive to rapid technological changes. Through the literature review as well as an empirical study, common variables and factors that affect a company‘s ICT strategy and its response to technology changes were explored and guidelines were compiled into a framework that will assist SOEs (state-owned enterprises). Through a literature study of available material on the world‘s telecommunication trends and developments in developed nations, some key observations were recorded such as the concept of convergence, which in the main is driven by consumers‘ need for mobility and flexibility, as well as applications with high capacity demands on the one hand and the need for companies and telecommunications operators to be more efficient on the other. Convergence delivers this benefit of efficiency within the market and stimulates competition. Innovation and creativity continue to be the driving force behind the technological evolutions in the ICT sector. The study also considered how both the PEST model and Porter‘s five forces affect these companies. Issues such as the legislative and policy framework of the ICT industry in South Africa were looked at, with emphasis on how they affect ICT parastatals. The study ended with key recommendations and guidelines summed up into a comprehensive framework. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

IT projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. The majority of IT initiatives have a significant impact within organisations due to the integrative nature of IT systems and as a result the cost of this failure is high. The purpose of this research report is to investigate the prevalence of „accidental project managers‟ in the ICT industry (employees that have demonstrated technical expertise and been promoted to project management positions without any regard for project manager training and competencies) and examine what effect these untrained project managers have on project performance. A descriptive, quantitative research methodology was employed, and the sample that supported this research was taken from members of the Internet Service Provider‟s Association and the Project Management Institute of South Africa. The results indicated a positive association between project manager training level and projects being completed within budget, on time, and resulting in an operational system. The results also supported a correlative relationship between project manager training level and overall project outcome. These findings highlight the importance to organisations of investing in project manager training and developing effective recruitment criteria in order to boost IT project success rates.

In recent years there has been an increase in the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in organisations, as the use of ICT causes some form of revolution in business practices. All over the world, ICT has greatly transformed the manner in which companies conduct business. However, there is considerable evidence to show that Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), are yet to reap the full benefits offered by ICT as compared to their counterparts in the developed countries. Although the contribution of SMEs’ is of notable importance to many countries’ economy, yet those in developing countries lag far behind. For SMEs to survive and remain competitive in the current highly competitive business environment there is a need to adopt and use ICT effectively, in order to attain some level of competitive advantage. This research investigates factors affecting the adoption and effective utilisation of ICT, with particular emphasis on SMEs in Nigeria. It is presumed that SMEs’ adoption of ICT in Nigeria will provide opportunities to accelerate the country’s socio-economic growth as it will offer Nigeria the chance to ‘leapfrog’ some stages of development. The methodology adopted in undertaking this study is the qualitative research approach although a survey was used at the initial stage, to provide an exploratory snapshot of the SMEs in context. This research has empirically identified key factors motivating ICT adoption in Nigerian SMEs, and benefits resulting from the use of ICT in their organisational performance. Factors affecting the adoption and effective utilisation of ICT in Nigerian SMEs were also identified. Following this, strategies were proposed which led to the development of a framework that will assist to increase the adoption and effective use of ICT amongst SMEs in Nigeria and also, aid the further deployment of more sophisticated ICT solutions by these SMEs. The framework was validated via a survey and analysed with the aid of SPSS software. The findings obtained from the validation procedure indicated that the framework is valuable and suitable for use in practice since the research shows that the majority of respondents accepted the research findings and recommendations for success. This research offers recommendations that will assist the Nigerian government, stakeholders such as ISPs, as well as owners/managers of SMEs, in resolving the problems confronting SMEs in Nigeria.

This licentiate thesis is concerned with the development of appropriate tools and implementation of hybrid e-learning to support science and mathematics education of female students in typical rural advanced-level secondary schools. In Uganda few rural female students participate in technology and engineering education in tertiary institutions because they perform poorly in science and mathematics subjects at advanced secondary school level of education. Rural secondary schools in Uganda are usually very poor and financially constrained schools. Generally, such schools have non-functional science laboratories and libraries. They also have difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified science and mathematics teachers, especially at advanced level of secondary education. The financial situations of the schools make capital investments in science infrastructures like laboratories and libraries impossible. Fortunately, such schools can afford to acquire computers preferably with multimedia capabilities. Hybrid e-learning can be introduced in such disadvantaged schools to support science and mathematics education. The main delivery tools under hybrid e-learning are the CD-ROMs due to their superior advantages over other portable storage devices: big memory capacity, high data transfer rate, multimedia capability and widespread standardization. Used computers with inferior capabilities that are being sold to rural schools cheaply are not useful for educational purposes. The cost of acquisition is low but the total cost of ownership is extremely high. The costs of Internet installation, bandwidth, commercial platforms and web-hosting make introduction of pure e-learning in Ugandan schools not viable, even in educationally elite secondary schools. Hybrid elearnin is the only realistic option in the complex financial situation of Ugandan secondary schools. Experience has shown that where there is Internet presence for use in education, open source web-hosting providers and open source platforms must be used. They are cheap and affordable even by poor rural secondary schools. Hybrid e-learning tools were developed to support such Ugandan schools using participatory methodology. The thesis is organized in three parts. Part I consists of six chapters including background information, concept discussions, problem statement, research questions, objectives of the study and research location. A justification of the use of participatory methodology in the research is also made in part I. Part II includes the four papers upon which the thesis is based. Part III contains a brief summary of the papers, conclusions and future research.

To compete in the global market, organisations have to ensure that their production is synchronised with their other business activities. To achieve this, companies deploy a variety of solutions known as Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). These systems provide the bridge between control and business systems and are used by a variety of people across many business functions. Typical users range from production and maintenance personnel to engineers, finance and management. Sectors within the manufacturing industry have their own definitions of MES and these are based on their functional requirements and by the offerings of vendors in that sector. Thus, people differ in their understanding and definition of MES. To ensure common understanding of what functionalities or modules constitute MES, the Manufacturing Execution Systems Association (MESA) has defined MES to cover the following eleven areas: Resource Allocation and Status Operations/Detail Scheduling Dispatching Production Units Document Control Data Collection/Acquisition Labour Management Quality Management Process Management Maintenance Management Product Tracking and Genealogy Performance Analysis On examining the Manufacturing Execution Systems literature, it was realised that functionalities and definitions exist but a standard approach and implementation methodology is lacking. Thus, a framework was developed based on a literature study as well as from experience within the MES environment. To ensure that the framework meets the needs of organisations, two questionnaires were developed and sent to people from various functions within large South African companies (and across divisions). The results of the empirical study showed that for large organisations, i.e. organisations with over 200 employees and an annual turnover in excess of R 40 million, some form of manufacturing execution systems were used in all the companies surveyed. The most common functionality deployed was Data Collection1Acquisition and the payback on these systems was greater than two years. The respondents highlighted that MES governance and an overall company wide strategy for MES implementation was non-existent or not enforced across the group of companies. The respondents also indicated that the implementation was time consuming and that the projects usually exceeded the allocated budget and/or were late. The respondents were not unanimous on who was accountable for MES within the organisation and a quarter felt that this was unclear within the organisation. When asked about the process that was followed in the selection of a vendor and solution, the majority felt that the process was not well defined. However, respondents noted that change management is used on all major projects and the outcome is generally successful. All the companies outsource either some or all of their IT services and the relationship with the vendor seems successful, as the rating received for MES support was very good. The benefits of implementing Manufacturing Execution Systems are also being realised by those companies that responded to the questionnaires. The overall impression is that over 75% of the respondents feel positive about the benefits and state that the benefits are realised. The only major shortcoming is that information is not being shared across business units and sites as half of the respondents felt that this was not happening in their companies. The proposed MES Engagement and Implementation Framework that was tested with the empirical study was subsequently updated. The framework suggests that all MES implementations should begin with a review of the business and ICT strategy as these would assist when defining the business requirements and the criteria for the selection of the technology, vendor, and solution The business requirements should be ascertained and a realistic business case should be developed. The project team should re-confirm the requirements once a vendor is selected, and, with the necessary change management, implement a portion of the solution as a pilot project. Once successful, then only should the entire solution be rolled out. Another parallel process should consider the outsourcing for the support phase. The entire process of implementing MES is cyclical as new requirements, additional functionality, and benefits tracking results in new projects. In conclusion adopting this framework would result in better implementation and ensure that the benefits are realised for all MES projects and that the solution is adequately supported after implementation. A model for the implementation has also been proposed and it should be developed and tested further to guide MES implementation. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

An essential factor adversely affecting the performance of construction projects is the improper handling of materials during site activities. Materials management is made problematic by materials shortages, delays in supply, price fluctuations, damage and wastage, and lack of storages pace. In addition, paper-based reports are mostly used to record and exchange information related to the materials component within a supply chain which is problematic, error-prone, and inefficient. Generally, modem technologies are not being adequately used to overcome human error and are not well integrated with project management systems to make the tracking and management of materials easier and faster. Thus, this research focuses on the development of a mechanism to improve materials management on construction projects through the integration of materials tracking and resource modelling systems. A multi-facetted research approach was adopted. Initially, a literature review on materials management process in the construction project was conducted. This was followed by case studies involving six construction projects in order to investigate current practice in materials management to establish key problem areas and elements of good practice. The case studies also explored the requirements for integrating materials management and resource modelling in project management systems. The case study findings underpinned by literature results were used to develop a real-time framework for integrating RFID-based materials tracking and resource modelling. The framework was encapsulated in a computer-based prototype system based on Microsoft Visual Basic. NET. The prototype system was developed by amalgamation of all the software and hardware chosen such as MS Access (database system), MS Project (resource modelling) and RFID (automated materials tracking) to provide the mechanisms for integrating materials management and resource modelling in the construction industry. Evaluation of the prototype system was carried out by a series of interviews with industry practitioners to assess its appropriateness and functionality. It also established the skills and other requirements for the effective use of the real-time materials tracking system. The evaluation established that the prototype system demonstrated many benefits and is suitable for use in materials tracking and inventory management processes. It is concluded that the prototype system developed can improve materials management on construction projects, particularly with regard to materials tracking and integrating materials utilisation with the resource modelling subsystem in project management applications. Adoption of the approaches suggested in the thesis will enable the construction industry to improve the real-time management of materials on sites, and hence improve project performance.

One of important issues of the policymakers is to improve output and/or productivity growth associated with information and communication technology (ICT) adoption, where total factor productivity (TFP) growth related with ICT in the 1990s appeared in the US but not in the UK (Jorgenson and Stiroh, 2000; Oliner and Sichel, 2000). The general agreement is that ICT can raise output and/or productivity growth via an increase in productivity growth in the ICT-producing sectors due to rapid technological progress, through capital deepening driven by high levels of investment in ICT equipments, and via increases in efficiency in ICT-using sectors that successfully adopt this new technology by ICT spillover effects (David, 1990). Due to the small size of ICT-producing industries and relatively low level of ICT investments in the UK (Colecchia and Schreyer, 2001; Daveri, 2002; Vijselaar and Albers, 2002), the utilization of ICT spillover effects was crucial to improving output and/or productivity growth for the UK. However, in most of the previous studies, while many concluded ICT spillover effects existed in the US, they had mixed results as to whether ICT spillover effects existed in the UK (Schreyer, 2000; Basu et al., 2003; Inklaar et al., 2005; Jorgenson et al., 2005). The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the existing literature by investigating the existence of ICT spillover effects in the US and the UK and exploring the reasons for the different effects between them. This thesis argues that the mixed findings in the previous studies are due to the ignorance of the General-purpose technology (GPT) theory and weakness in methodology. Thus, the first step is to build a new framework of measuring ICT spillover effects to solve the problems from the existing studies. The main ignorance of the GPT theory is the lack of guidance for the proxy of co-invention related to ICT investments and for the length of lag. The new framework no longer has this ignorance because it uses efficiency as a proxy of co-invention and captures the length of lag by years with negative return on ICT capital. The methodology employed in the previous studies was inappropriate mainly because of the small sample size taken in the ICT study, the two-stage approach used to explore the effect of the environmental variables on efficiency and the linear and concavity assumptions on the frontiers without taking account of ICT as a GPT. The new framework uses Bayesian technique, one-stage approach and non-parametric frontiers to avoid these three drawbacks. In addition, the new framework introduces the persistent level of inefficiency, using a first-order autoregressive (i.e. AR(1)) structure of inefficiency itself, as one of factors that influence ICT spillover effects. In order to model the new framework which takes into account the non-parametric frontiers for capturing negative return of ICT capital, an AR(1) structure of inefficiency, the small sample size and factors that influence ICT spillover effects, this thesis has developed two non-parametric dynamic stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) models with an AR(1) structure and performed the analysis via Bayesian inference. The first model was a semi-parametric dynamic stochastic frontier with a time-variant non-parametric frontier at the basic level along with a time-invariant linear function for the technical inefficiency at the higher-level. The second model relaxed the time-invariant linear functional form for technical inefficiency at the higher level. The results of the new framework showed strong ICT spillover effects in the US with a lag of about 6-8 years during 1982-83 to 1988-89, while relatively weaker ICT spillover effects in the UK. This can be evidenced by the fact that the UK has been in the process of organizational adjustment up to 2000 due to a longer lag. Thus, in the 1990s, there was a lack of TFP growth in the UK. Related to the different ICT spillover effects between the US and the UK, the results from the new framework suggested that the various persistent levels of inefficiency between the two countries was important, apart from the different levels of ICT investment between them mentioned in the previous studies (Inklaar, O Mahony and Timmer, 2003). JEL Classifications: C51, E13, O30, O33