SACLA 2002 Editorial

This page contains the editorial, acknowledgements, details of the programme committee, and the chronology of SACLA.

Editorial

This year marks the 32nd anniversary of the annual SACLA conference. During this period there has been a great deal of change in computing technology and in Southern African society.  Somehow SACLA has survived these changes and continues to be relevant to the needs of its members today.  In some ways, with the ever-increasing external and internal pressures brought to bear on educational institutions, the need to get together and reflect on our situation as educators in a rapidly evolving field of study is more important than ever before.  In this light, it is encouraging to see the growing emphasis on educational issues in the papers that were submitted to SACLA this year.  Many of them focus on innovative ways of dealing with the rapidly changing subject matter, and the pressures brought about by increasing student numbers, and so forth.

A total of 29 abstracts were submitted for consideration this year.  These were each reviewed by at least two members of the Programme Committee, bearing in mind the aim of the conference to be as inclusive as possible.  The editors then considered the individual reviews, after which process 27 of the submissions were accepted for publication and presentation at the conference.  In addition, three panel discussion topics were suggested, and are included in the events scheduled for the conference, along with keynote addresses from the sponsors.

Contributions were received from across the country.  UCT led the group with eight submissions, closely followed by UNISA with seven and UPE with five.  Pretoria and Rhodes have two papers each, while Wits has one, the University of Natal's Durban campus has one, and there is one joint paper from both campuses of the University of Natal.

All in all, this promises to be an interesting, stimulating and sometimes entertaining conference, in the best traditions of SACLA.  We trust that all the delegates and presenters will enjoy themselves and find themselves refreshed to return to the rigours of academic life in a fast-changing discipline at the start of the 21st century!

George Wells and John McNeill
Joint Editors, 2002
RHODES UNIVERSITY

Acknowledgements

The organisers of the conference wish to thank the many people who have been involved in the arrangements for this conference. In particular, we wish to thank the staff of the Departments of Information Systems and Computer Science at Rhodes University, especially those who served on the organising and programme committees. The staff of the Fish River Sun has also been very helpful.

On behalf of all the delegates to the conference, we also wish to express our deep appreciation to the sponsors, Microsoft, Oracle and ABSA, for their generous support, without which the conference could not have taken place.

Graphic design by Bronwyn Tweedie, Graphics Services Unit, Rhodes University.

Programme Committee

Chairman: George Wells

Editors: George Wells and John McNeill

Members:

Shaun Bangay	Adele Lobb	Nakkiran Sunassee
Peter Clayton	John McNeill	Pat Terry
John Ebden	Brenda Mallinson	Alfredo Terzoli
Gareth Edwards	Lydia Palmer	George Wells
Richard Foss	David Sewry	Peter Wentworth
Bradley Klinkradt	Debbie Stott

Chronology of SACLA