5 Information Management PhD students! The Department of Information and Knowledge Management is proud to showcase two of its recent PhD graduates, Dr Tyson Mabunda and Dr Margaret Basson. Dr Mabunda did his studies under the supervision of Prof. Tanya du Plessis. The study explored the potential of knowledge management as a change enabler in academic libraries in the digital age. The main contribution of Dr Mabunda’s PhD study was the development of a change intelligence model to assist academic libraries to manage change better through the application of knowledge management as a solution. Tyson holds BA (Information Science), BA Honours (Information Studies) and MCom (Business Management) degrees from the University of Johannesburg (UJ). His research interests centre on knowledge management, change management, academic libraries, open access to knowledge, and scholarly communication. He is currently a Director of Open Scholarship at the North-West University (NWU). Prior to joining NWU, Tyson was a manager of E-Research and Scholarly Communication at UJ. He worked as a team leader of Circulation and Access Services, and as an information librarian in the UJ Library and Information Centre. The doctoral study empowered Tyson successfully to lead the project on research data management at UJ in 2018 and 2019, acquiring most of the ideas while writing the literature review chapters of his doctoral thesis. The PhD: Information Management has played an important role in preparing him for his career growth. Dr Margaret Basson holds a PhD in the field of Knowledge and Information Management. She also holds a BCom in Industrial Psychology and Organisational Development, and a Master’s in Business Leadership (MBL) degree from the School of Business Leadership at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Her formal studies exposed her to attaining knowledge in the fields of industrial psychology, corporate strategy, and leadership. She is currently the Head of Analytics at the Standard Bank Group, Global Markets Technology, and has acquired experience in a variety of other industries. Over time, her interest has led her to conduct research into the visualisation of the skills gap between the industry and higher educational institutions. Supervised by Prof. Tanya du Plessis and Prof. Roelien Brink, Margaret’s study, entitled Developing a skills hub in the process of knowledge exchange between partners, explored the need to visualise the skills gap between industry and higher education. A participative action research process was applied to facilitate collaboration between the various knowledge partners. Its main contribution was the development of a skills hub in the exchange of knowledge between partners. As the Founder of a consulting and training company, Margaret aims to contribute to facilitating collaborative initiatives between the job seeker, the workplace, and educational institutions to address the skills gap. She hopes that, through this collaboration, the unemployed could become more employable. She also believes that skills are the ability to do something well, and therefore need to be valued more than just having knowledge. BComMarketing Honours team-building On 15 July 2022, Dr Nicole Cunningham organised a team-building session for the marketing honours students at the UJ Hockey Astro. The session aimed to develop better connections between the students and lecturers. The session began with discussions on the students’ experiences of the first semester. They enjoyed discussing their goals, and reviewing whether they had attained them, as well as some of the challenges they were facing and how best to overcome them. ‘The Fun People’ facilitated the teambuilding games. Students were split into four groups. The games assisted with increasing interpersonal relations as well as releasing some of the pressures the students were facing with their studies. After the games were concluded, the marketing lecturers prepared a lovely lunch for the students, which fostered further connection between them all.
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