Problems with students’ performance in Mathematics at tertiary level are common in South Africa − as it is worldwide. Pass rates at the university of technology where the researcher is a lecturer, are only about 50%. At many universities it has become common practice to refer students who do not have a reasonable chance to succeed at university level, for additional support to try to rectify this situation. However, the question is which students need such support? Because the Grade 12 marks are often not perceived as dependable, it has become common practice at universities to re-test students by way of an entrance exam or the "National Benchmark Test"- project. The question arises whether such re-testing is necessary, since it costs time and money and practical issues make it difficult to complete timeously. Many factors have an influence on performance in Mathematics. School-level factors include articulation of the curriculum at different levels, insufficiently qualified teachers, not enough teaching time and language problems. However, these factors also affect performance in most other subjects, but it is Mathematics and other subjects based on Mathematics that are generally more problematic. Therefore this study focused on the unique properties of the subject Mathematics. The determining role of prior knowledge, the step-by-step development of mathematical thinking, and conative factors such as motivation and perseverance were explored. Based on the belief that these factors would already have been reflected sufficiently in the Grade 12 marks, the correlation between the marks for Mathematics in Grade 12 and the Mathematics marks at tertiary level was investigated to assess whether it was strong enough for the marks in Grade 12 Mathematics to be used as a reliable predictor of success or failure at university level. It was found that the correlation between the marks for Mathematics Grade 12 and Mathematics I especially, was strong (r = 0,61). The Mathematics marks for Grade 12 and those for Mathematics II produced a correlation coefficient of rs = 0,52. It also became apparent that failure in particular could be predicted fairly accurately on the basis of the Grade 12 marks for Mathematics. No student with a Grade 12 Mathematics mark below 60% succeeded in completing Mathematics I and II in the prescribed two semesters, and only about 11% successfully completed it after one repetition. The conclusion was that the reliability of the prediction based on the marks for Grade 12 Mathematics was sufficient to refer students with a mark of less than 60% to receive some form of additional support. / MEd, Learning and Teaching, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

Change and transformation in higher education institutions worldwide are advancing at a rate that institutions and individual employees find hard to comprehend. During the past two decades, complex changes challenging institutions' mandates, traditional practices, authority and organisational structures have surfaced. It is widely acknowledged that stable and productive higher education institutions are vitally important to any country in order to ensure sustainable economic, social and political reconstruction and development. In the South African context, higher education institutions have an additional duty to contribute to the consolidation of democracy and social justice as well as the growth and development of the economy and redress the imbalances institutionalised by apartheid. The responsibility to execute the institutional strategies and plans to adapt to changes and to transform rests primarily with the staff of these institutions. However, the above-mentioned changes present major challenges for staff as it results in a multiplicity of roles, expectations to make paradigm shifts, implementation of new policies and practices as well as constant innovation. These challenges may be considered a healthy diversification leading to eustress and engagement, or a toll. which may well be an important cause of distress and burnout. Consequently. staffs' experience of distress/burnout and eustress/engagement, i.e. their work-related well-being, is crucially important to the success of the institution. The general objective of this research was to assess the work wellness of staff at a university of technology, and to understand the relationships between factors contributing to the experience of distress/burnout and eustress/engagement and how these relate to employees' levels of commitment and ill health. Furthermore, the study aimed to develop and test a comprehensive structural model of work related well-being to determine the effect of job demands and (lack of) job resources on distress. eustress. ill health and commitment of employees at a university of technology in South Africa. The findings are presented in three research articles, each consisting of a brief literature review and an empirical study. A cross-sectional survey design was used. The study included 353 participants (132 academic staff members and 221 support staff members). The questionnaire used in the empirical study comprised the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS), the Cognitive Weariness Scale (CWS). the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). An Organizational Stress Screening Tool (ASSET), the Life Orientation Test- Revised (LOT-R), the Job Demands-Resources Scale (JDRS) and a biographical questionnaire. Structural equation modelling confirmed a four-factor structure of burnout, and a two-factor structure of work engagement. Principal component analysis indicated that work-related wellbeing consists of a dual bipolar structure namely Eustress/Engagement (vigour, dedication, professional efficacy) and Distress/Burnout (exhaustion. cynicism, cognitive weariness). It was found that language \vas the only reliable background variable to predict differences in levels of distress/burnout and eustress/engagement between subgroups. Different organisational stressors were found to contribute significantly to psychological and physical ill health and low organisational commitment. The comprehensive structural model that was tested showed that job demands lead to distress, which in turn leads to ill health. Furthermore. job resources contributed to work wellness and organisational commitment whilst dispositional optimism has a limited effect on staffs distress. Recommendations for the institution and future research are made. / Thesis (Ph.D. Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Presented at the University of Arizona 2016 IT Summit / The past several years has seen an increasing emphasis on providing access to the results of research, both publications and data. The majority of federal grant funding agencies require that researchers include a data management plan as part of their grant proposal. In response, the University of Arizona Libraries, in collaboration with the Office of Research and Discovery and the University Information Technology Services, has been providing data management services and resources to the campus for the past several years. In 2014, we conducted a research data management survey to find out how UA researchers manage their research data, determine the demand for existing services and identify new services that UA researchers need. In the fall of 2015, the Data Management and Data Publication and Curation (DMDC) Pilot was started to determine what specific services and tools, including training and support and the needed technology infrastructure, researchers need to effectively and efficiently manage and curate their research data. This presentation will present what data management services we currently are offering, discuss findings from the 2014 survey, and present initial results from the DMDC pilot.

University managed technology-based business incubators (UMTIs) have become increasingly popular. Some universities are forming private corporations and are encouraging professors/researchers to commercialize intellectual property (IP) based upon research conducted in their laboratories. The UMTI provides the infrastructure, access to high-tech laboratories, libraries, students and faculty, and a coalition of like-minded entrepreneurs. Universities face uncertainties when establishing UMTIs and need to minimize risk while maximizing benefits. This paper discusses results of a benchmarking study of eleven technology incubators and their risk mitigation policies. Experience with technology transfer and use of the UMTI as a living laboratory for students is presented.

This thesis examines the perceptions of lecturers, graduates and employers of personal and interpersonal skills development in an accounting degree at Victoria University. The development of personal and interpersonal skills in students in higher education has been the focus of discussion amongst accounting educators, accounting practitioners and the accounting profession for many years. There is a general consensus on what skills are necessarily sought to ensure success within the accountancy profession but very few previous studies on how those personal and interpersonal skills are being developed. This research study presents a research framework which emphasises the complex interrelationships between an accounting curriculum, accounting lecturers, accounting graduates and employers of graduate accountants and their perceptions of how personal and interpersonal skills are developed. A case study approach, combining archival, qualitative and quantitative methods, is used to investigate how a Bachelor of Business Accounting degree in one Australian university facilitates personal and interpersonal skills development. The case study results indicate that the curriculum, as the vector for skills development, has both explicit and implicit references to skills outcomes. Graduates� perceptions of many of the personal and interpersonal skills considered in this study are closely related to the curriculum findings. However, there appears to be a lack of convergence between lecturers� perceptions, the curriculum and graduates� perceptions. Employers generally agree that graduates display most of the personal and interpersonal skills, albeit at a low level, in the workplace. There are curriculum implications arising from the results of this research for accounting academics who design and develop accounting programs where the value of graduates� personal and interpersonal skills are acknowledged. As a first step, academics need to improve accounting curricula by explicitly integrating personal and interpersonal skills in their subjects. Communicating to students the explicit nature of personal and interpersonal skills development and making them aware is the next step.

<p>The study investigates the role of CPUT libraries in supporting research and how academics perceive this role. CPUT is a new university of technology and aims at improving its research record. Research is crucial to South Africa to develop economically, socially and to compete globally. Research is fundamental to the existence of universities. Universities of technology libraries face the challenge of providing support for research. Previously the colleges / technikon libraries provided support for undergraduate and underdiplomates only. Today, they have to provide support for researchers at masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral levels.</p>

The degree project has been implemented abroad in Brisbane, Australia. A literature study has beenperformed parallel to the practical work within the subject »Corporate identity through graphicaldesign«. In this study deeper research has been made concerning the establishment and manifestationof a corporate identity and its program. The knowledge given from this study has been put into practicethrough two larger projects.The first project was carried out at De Pasquale, advertising agency in Brisbane, where a corporateidentity program was designed for a new company. The company is a fitness centre, called KnockoutFitness, which specializes in different types of boxing training sessions such as Boxing, Thai Bow andBoxercise but also Aqua aerobics. They needed a full corporate identity program including a logotype,business card, letter paper-paper and address labels.The second project was carried out at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. A promotioncampaign was designed for the Department of Visual Arts, which included two information folders andone advertisement. The purpose of the campaign was to promote both the undergraduate and postgraduatecourses offered within the department.

M. Tech. Interior Design / The focus of this study was a small university library situated on the TUT Arts Campus in Pretoria. Since the library opened its doors nearly 20 years ago, little attention was paid to the interior and no alterations were implemented since then. Staff and students did not perceive the library as a positive asset due to the state of disrepair of its interior. As indicated by previous studies, redesigning a library interior has the potential to improve the learning environment it offers. It was hypothesised that the condition of the TUT Arts Campus library interior may have been a deterring factor causing students' reluctance to use it and that the redesign of the library's interior would have the potential to solve this real-life problem. This study involved itself with the process of redesigning the interior of the TUT Arts Campus library and the process of achieving the final design. The study dealt with answering the research question: How may one go about to redesign the interior of the TUT Arts Campus library, with the use of focus groups involving iterative cycles and user-based input, to increase student usage?

M. Tech. Tourism and Hospitality Management / Educationally motivated mobility is one of the many reasons for human travel around the world. It is believed to be influenced by the push and pull factors that are bound in foreign students' countries, as well as receiving destinations. Developed countries like the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada have successfully utilised foreign students' mobility to reap financial benefits, as well as to create labour development opportunities. With twenty three public universities in South Africa, the number of foreign students here is perceived to represent only a very small part of the number of African students said to be studying outside of their own country. The aim of this study is to boost South African tourism, specifically tourism in the City of Tshwane, by increasing the number of foreign arrivals through increased foreign students, as well as attendant visit friends and relatives and youth travel. By means of a purposive sampling, this study examines the perceptions of 282 foreign students at the Tshwane University of Technology. The outcomes are encouraging, pointing to a bright future for tourism development by exploiting educational mobility. However, preconditions for this are the creation of the required infrastructure and the implementation of destination marketing.

M. Tech. Education / Higher Education in South Africa has - in the recent past - shifted from an elitist to a mass-based system of education with the aim of fostering democratic nationbuilding. One of the pressing demands on higher education institutions has been accommodating the large student diversity. Student enrolments have become increasingly dissimilar in terms of racial, cultural, socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds, as well as at the level of preparedness that students have for university programmes. The transition from high school to university is for many students an immense challenge and - without proper support - dropouts will escalate, resulting in higher levels of attrition. The above scenario has stimulated renewed interest and placed a premium on student mentorship in higher education. Students are more willing to seek assistance from peers than from lecturers; they feel less intimidated. The rationale for this study was to explore first-year student mentees' experiences of the student mentor programme - and their experiences of transition at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). Data were collected from students who had attended the student mentoring sessions from different faculties and on different campuses of the TUT.