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Department of Informatics
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: The field of information technology is an exciting and ever-changing field. Informatics, studies the application and use of the computer and information systems within the organisation. Our students' strength lies in their broad background of the economic and management sciences, which implies that the world of business is not unfamiliar The use of information technology by organisations is growing exponentially and new, more complex and challenging applications are explored and developed on a daily basis. It has the benefit that, in addition to the work of an informatics specialist being extremely interesting, there will only be a very small chance that the qualified informatician will ever be without work. South Africa is an advanced user of information technology, and work opportunities for graduates have never been problematic. The Informatics degree prepares you for the South African industry and gives you the opportunity to pursue your career overseas as it is internationally accredited. We also take great care to ensure that our curriculum is in line with the curricula of overseas universities and we participate in overseas conferences where educational approaches and curricula are presented and discussed. Our degree is one of only three outside America that is internationally accredited by ABET (see www.abet.org).

INF.Connect Team Upcoming Competition 2013 Riddle Challenge Comatics

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Interview with 4 Prof de Villiers Albert Pap Honors in Informatics The BA Profile Mobile Apps Review Techno Investigato: Google Glass Suit Up Day Company Profile: Standard Bank
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DICTIONARY DEFINITION:
Informatics /infematics||
> 1. Noun a multi-disciplinary subject, where information, Information Systems, and the integration thereof into the organization > 2. Verb studying for the benefit of the entire system (individual, organization and community)
ORIGIN Middle English, probably from Information, Greek morph meaning idea

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Visit and like our Facebook and Twitter page! To keep up to date on important dates within IT departments of the University of Pretoria, its IT related subjects and keeping you informed on what is happening within the IT industry. Also keep an eye out for the upcoming events. (More details on page 2)

@INFdotConnect

The 2013 INF.Connect Team

The 2013 INF.Connect Team celebrating graduation By Janine Kleynhans

What has the team been up to?

The INF.Connect team survived the 1st semester of honours and masters classes while graduating during the Autumn Graduation Ceremony. The INF.Connect Newsletter was compiled and Editied by Janine Kleynhans

The 2013 INF.Connect team would like to welcome all the students back to the University of Pretoria for last semester of 2013! We made sure that this issue is jam packed with awesome articles just for you, so happy reading!

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UPCOMING COMPETITION!
To warm up for students night the INF.Connect team has decided to test your general knowledge before painting Hatfield Square red The quiz night will be held on Thursday 24 October 2013 at Oom Gert from 18h30. Are you up for the challenge? Teams, consisting out of 4-6 members, should register via email (@ janine.kleynhans@up.ac.za) or at the Informatics helpdesk during the week of 14-18 October. Great prizes will be up for grabs!
1st Group prize is a R 600 and lunch with the managing team of Moyo Business Advisory!

Prizes are sponsored by:

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The 2013 Riddle Challenge

By Janine Kleynhans

During the month of April and May the we kicked off with our Riddle Competition. The goal of this competition was to encourage active participation on the INF.Connect social networks. Every week from 8 April to 17 May, the INF.Connect team posted a riddle from the series of 7 riddle on the INF.Connect facebook page. Each riddle pointed to a destination/ object on TUKS main campus (Harfield) of which the groups should have taken a photo. The INF.Connect team announced The Four Loops was the winning group as they had all the riddles right and were the most creative . During the departmental meeting on 28 May, a prize giving ceremony was held to hand over the BSG prizes to the winning group.

The winning groups entry

Winning group members was Armand Marais, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Hardu Nel and Rynardt Nel. Congratulations to you guys, hope you enjoyed your prizes!
Look out for our Quiz Night Competition on page 2! It is only getting bigger and better!

COMATICS

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Lecturers Profile
By Reghard van Jaansveld Prof Carina de Villiers, a former head of department, is one of out Professors within the Informatics department. As most of us know her on an academic level, we thought of getting to know her better on a personal level. ALs: How long have you been in the department of Informatics? Prof. Carina: Ive been here since 1996, so 17 years. ALs: Tell us a bit about yourself. Prof. Carina: My father was a teacher, originally, and later a professor at UNISA. I grew up in Johannesburg then we moved to Pretoria during grade 6. After matriculating at Menlo Park, I went to NW University to study a BSc in Comp Science and Maths with Economics subjects (Accounting and Economics), Information Systems did not exist back then. I met my husband there and got married before my final results for my degree was out *Haha*. I started working at UNISA while studying my higher education diploma (HED). I went there because I wanted to become a teacher - I stayed there for 17 years and then other 17 here. ALs: Why did you choose Academia? Prof. Carina: I wanted to be a teacher. Its mainly because, when I started out, there was Computer Science and Programming and I couldnt see myself doing that. Maybe if I studied Informatics I would have loved to get into industry because of the interaction. But in those days there was nothing like that. SDLC was not even a known term back then. ALs: How many degrees do you have? Prof. Carina: BSc Computer Science and Math; Hons Computer Science; Higher Education Diploma; Tertiary Education Diploma; Masters of EducaALs: If we came to dinner at your house what would you prepare? Prof. Carina: I like traditional Afrikaner Food. Leg of Lamb, Chicken Pie, Boboti, Sweet Potato dripping of syrup. ALs: Pick two celebrities to be your parents? Prof. Carina: Are they allowed to be younger than me? Its hard to find older ones *laughs*. Brad and Angelina (Brangelina) ALs: Which rugby team is your favourite? Prof. Carina: Blue Bulls, my husband supports the Cheetahs. ALs: What do you do to relax? Prof. Carina: Read, I like thrillers and drama. No love stories! *Laughs* ALs: What advice can you give aspiring students? Prof. Carina: Take your studies seriously, because your degree is going to open doors for you. ALs: What does Y-O-L-O mean, its a saying amongst young people. Prof. Carina: I have no idea, but I know LOL (laugh out loud) *laughs* tion; DCom Informatics ALs: What do you feel are your most significant qualifications? Prof. Carina: The Doctorate, since it was so difficult to get articles, there was no internet in those days. I had to spend so much time in the library copying from books and journals. ALs: How Many Cows in Canada? Prof. Carina: None. *laughs* Ive got a husband with all these types of jokes.

Prof Carina De Villiers

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Our visiting student: Albert Pap

By Corn van der Merwe

25 Year old, Albert Pap, from Utrecht University got the amazing opportunity to visit South Africa to work on his Masters degree and to assist in the community based projects at the University of Pretoria. The INF.Connect team approached him and asked him a few questions, here is what he had to say.

Interview with Albert Pap

How did you hear about our university? My professor came to know about the university through conferences. He organized for me to come do a community project in South-Africa. Why did you decide to study Informatics? When I was kicked out of school at age 16, l became a field engineer where I later got involved in the ICT environment through studying business as a major and Informatics as a minor.
Albert Pap Helping out with JCP

We heard you are planning on going to South Asia in the summer next year. What are you planning to do there? Some of my friends from back home and I want to go backpacking in Thailand, go dive with the wale sharks as well as travelling to Indonesia to see what it is like over there. Tomorrowland has become quite popular in South Africa. Have you been there and what is your experience regarding it? Yes I have! I am not really into that kind of music, but I went for the vibe and enjoyed meeting new people from all over the world while just partying crazy with them Have you been to any other places? Yes, I was in the Dutch Caribbean for 9 months and did a year and half of my masters in Iceland. I have also been to New Zealand, Canada and even Australia.

How do South African girls compare to girls from back home? Here, they are more liberal and independent They apply different lifestyles and here is a wide variety of various cultures. What are your hobbies? Any sports, especially doing Martial Arts at back home. I also enjoy hanging out with friends, playing Xbox and watching series. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I want to work on an international level by travelling and doing a lot of social development work. Later on I would want to settle down on a Mountain somewhere.

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Final year BCom Informatics? What is next?

Information System Development (INF 788)
This module focuses on system development methodologies and opens up ones understanding of the various methodologies and how to use and implement them. During the undergrad level, the focus was only on the Waterfall methodology. In this course the waterfall approach will be studied and compared to other methodologies like Process Orientated, Rapid Application, Object Orientated, Blended, People Orientated and Organizational Orientated methodologies. This is must know for any Business Analyst.

By Lambrie Steyn

This is a question most 3rd year students have when reaching the final stretch of their degree. You can get a job and start working, take a gap year or you can do your honours. If you do decide to do your honours next year this article is just for you! The BCom (Hons) Informatics degree is a 1-year fulltime or a 2-year part time course. The degree requires 120 credits of which 45 credits are allocated to Research Methodology and your Research Paper (the compulsory subjects). The remainder of credits should consist out of 5 chosen elective modules of 15 credits each. The elective modules are as follows:

Data Warehousing (INF 785)

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to data warehousing and business intelligence within the business environment. Business intelligence (BI) refers to a class of applications and technologies used to gather, provide access to, and analyse data regarding business operations. Business intelligence systems enable businesses to have a more in-depth knowledge of customer behaviour as well as other factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production and internal operations. This knowledge helps managers to make better business decisions. A data warehouse is a core requirement for BI. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools and data mining tools are used to provide different types of information from a data warehouse. For this course, the main emphasis will be on data warehousing and OLAP.

Project Management (INF 787)

Project Management on honours level is similar to INF 315, however it provides a more in depth study of project management and how to manage end users. This module covers everything from project planning to monitoring and evaluating IT projects. This is a great module in combination with your business knowledge from undergrad level! This will truly be of use in your career one day as a Project Manager or Business Analyst.

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Final year BCom Informatics? What is next? (Continued)

if you want to learn something about mobile app development the future of IT.

Enterprise Architecture (INF 715)

Enterprise Architecture (EA) involves comprehensive business frameworks that capture the complexity of modern organizations, providing a blueprint for co-ordinating and integrating all components of an organization. The course will illustrate all the aspects of EA, including the need for EA as well as various frameworks, methods and techniques.

Data Acquisition and Knowledge Sharing (INF 791)

In todays information age a lot of data is captured on a daily basis. However, the value of this data is kept locked in the databases because relatively little mining is performed. Data Acquisition and Knowledge Sharing introduces you to data mining in terms of:

Cyber Law (KUB 780)

Cyber Law introduces to the study of information and communications technology law. Some aspects looked at within this course include:

The data mining process - how do

you mine data?

The data mining techniques

- an overview of the data mining techniques that can be used. practical project, mining real industry data to find unknown patterns; and

Regulation of the Internet Aspects of intellectual property law

and the Internet

Practical data mining experience - a

E-Commerce activities and the Internet

Product overviews - product demonstrations by data mining vendors. Data mining is a great skill for any Business Analyst especially if you have a statistics background.

Criminal liability in information and

communications technology space

Constitutional aspects in information

and communications space technology

Mobile Application Development (INF 790)

For the students who love programming and want more, try going mobile. In this module current trends of mobile applications are discussed. For practical purposes as a group you have to fully developed an app to be demoed on two mobile platforms. This is a great module

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The Business Analyst Profile

By Aretha Erasmus & Mathew Mujuru

You are studying INFORMATICS but do you really know what a business analyst does? And what duties will it include on a daily basis within an organisation? The responsibility of a business analyst includes understanding an organisations needs, capturing, analysing and documenting requirements, and ensuring the quality of implementing these requirements. The best trait of a business analyst (BA) is that they understand IT as well as the business. A BA is the middle man between the two and assists an organisation in utilising IT to support the business processes. A business analysts duties will include defining requirements by conducting user interviews and JAD sessions, documenting the functional and technical specifications, creating and presenting presentations, user and training manual, managing changing requirements, doing an impact analysis and ensuring that IT

standards are met. A business analyst needs to ensure that the technology and systems used within an organisation aligns with the organisations strategy. A business analysts duties can also involve analysing existing business processes as well as managing or re engineering them. Business processes should be efficient when executed and of value to an organisation - one of the business analysts roles is to maintain such an environment. What personality a business analyst should have? A business analyst should be:

An innovative and creative thinker A problem solver A good communicator and listener A good planner Deadline driven Self-motivated individual An eye for detail

Apart from becoming a business analyst, the vast skills you have acquired in your the informatics degree enables you to also fulfil the following professions or career paths:

Systems Analyst IT Advisory Business Intelligence Project Management Programmer Database Manager

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By Jacques Wentzel

Mobile App Review

With the rise of smartphones, mobile applications have come into play in our day to day lives, in this review we are going to look at two major up and coming mobile applications available on the app markets today Ingress and WeChat

Ingress

Ingress is an enormous, multiplayer online video game in a real-time augmented reality, created by Niantic Labs. Niantic Labs is an internal start up within Google Inc. Ingress is exclusively for Android driven devices and has a complex backbone that Niantic is revealing in segments. The general premise of Ingress is that users select one of two sides within the game, namely The Enlightened marked by green or The Resistance marked by blue (except you dont know which is the good and bad side). These groups then battle for control of strategic sites aka Portals around the world. The portals are actual physical landmarks in the real world. Therefore Ingress can be seen as a massive, GPS-enabled game of capture the flag.

To capture a portal, and harvest the energy contained therein for his/ her respective team, a user must physically go to a location and check in. Additional energy is available by traveling via specific walking paths, bike paths, and inner-city routes dictated by the company, all while the users Android device is transmitting GPS and accelerometer data. In some cases, the user will be required to photograph locations or objects along these routes. By hacking portals around the world, you gain items at different levels. These items can be used to support your own portals, create links with other portals or to destroy enemy portals. The primary goal of the game is to collect the most number of mind units for your team, you create mind units by linking different portals around the map with one another. If your links make a triangle,

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the area within this triangle is converted to mind units for your team and stays that way until one of the portals in the link is destroyed or decayed. These triangles are called control fields and the area of the triangles is then converted to mind units.

app out there. It combines features from several apps into one, that results in a unified experience. Although a lot of people take it to be just another chat app on the App Store, WeChat seems to be quite intent on making itself known. Some WeChat features include:

Live conversations a feature

that mimics the likes of a walkietalkie. These live conversations can feature more than 2 people at a time.

Mobile App Review

You can send audio messages. You can send special emoticons
with animations more unique than any other app out there.

(Continued)

They seem very proud of their

Group Chat function, although many other apps other this

Integration with other social acWith its unique feel, gameplay and vast amounts of effort put into the game as well as constant improvement updates, this app deserves a 9/10. counts, such as Facebook. Originated and running from mainland China, its an amazing that WeChat continues to grow globally, despite several censorship rules that the government enforces on the online/software companies in the country.

WeChat

WeChat is similar to WhatsApp, which is well-known by South Africans, in terms of similar goals and functions. However, WeChat offers a few new additional functions and has a much more polished feel to it. At its core, WeChat doesnt bring anything new to the table. But it does one thing better than any other known chat

With its more polished feel than most chat apps out there as well as its additional and improved features; I feel that this is the best chat app out there at the moment. Therefore it also deserves a 9/10.

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Techno Investigato: Google Glass

By Lance McIntosh

Google glass has been hyped up for some time now, and as the release date draws nearer, we take a look at what exactly Google Glass is, and why it has got everybody talking. As can be seen from the image above, Google Glass is a wearable piece of computer equipment, with a small heads up display (HUD) that allows wearers to interact with the environment around them as well as provide them with updates and notifications. Think of it as having your cellphone screen mounted just on top of your peripheral vision, allowing you to see important updates such as weather and traffic information, as well as getting the latest updates from your social media followings such as Google + and Twitter, as can be seen below.

using the Android operating system running Jelly Bean, and has connectivity options of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. For us in South Africa without free Wi-Fi everywhere, Google Glass will pair with your phone and use your phones internet. Another great feature of Google Glass will enable you to plot directions of places you want to go and in front of your eyes. This little device will run on 1.2 GHz processor with about 682 MB of RAM and around 12GB of free space. Not bad for a pair of spectacles. The coolest thing however is how wearers will interact with the device. There is a tiny track pad on the side of the device where you can slide forward and backward through apps on the device in a timely fashion. In addition, you can talk to the device and it will understand! Utilising bone-induction technology, which vibrates your skull to produce sound (no, its really not as bad as it sounds) Google Glass can interpret your instructions. For those of you who have Android driven devices will already know of Google Now and the powerful voice recognition software that comes with it, and all that technology will be available without you having to touch a button. And since the camera is basically seeing what you see, there is no need to adjust settings or get the right angles. If you see it, Google Glass will see it, and you can snap or record happily.

The hardware consists of a 5 megapixel camera that can record video at 720p, with the screen having a resolution of 640 x 360, which may change by the time the retail unit arrives. It is of course

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Techno Investigato: Google Glass (Continued)

The release date is set for the end of this year, so if you want to be have one of the coolest gifts this Christmas, then be sure to write Santa a letter since this gadget wont be coming cheap, with a rumoured retail price tag of over $300, about R3 000. Start saving students, because next year note taking could become as easy as sitting back and listening to the lecturer and letting Google Glass do the recording. For more information please visit http:// www.google.co.za/glass/start/

SUIT UP DAY
14 October 2013
By Nelly Nkosi

Suit Up Day 2013 is just around the corner. Wear a suit to varsity, work, to a hospital, buy in a suit; drink in a suit, party in a suit - whatever you do, just Suit Up! International Suit Up Day originated from the character Barney Stinson from the America sitcom How I Met Your Mother. He believes in wearing a suit to almost every occasion and being awesome. Since suiting up distinguishes us from the millions of T shirt and jeans lemmings out there. According to Facebook www.facebook. com/internationalsuitupday), International Suit Up Day started in 2008, where people around the world Suit Up and stand out every 13 of October. Tuks joined this pop culture phenomenon last year and this year we doing it again! Since 13 October falls on a Sunday, we

are suiting up Monday the 14th of October 2013. It is going to be Legen wait for it dairy!! Watch out for more info on the INF.Connect Facebook and Twitter page. We will be posting all the action!

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Company Profile:
Graduate Possibilities at Standard Bank
Standard Banks 18 month Group IT Graduate Programme gives graduates an opportunity to circulate within the division every 2-3 months to expose them to all the possibilities available. Within each division, graduates will fulfil different roles to gain experience in Business Analysis, Architecture and Infrastructure, Development and Testing, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. In addition, there is also a promising chance of being send overseas for 1 month during the graduate programme. After the 18 month period graduate will be able to choose in which division they would want to work in. Standard Bank strives for continual growth and improvement through positively changing the communities they are involved with. The solid, yet flexible design of this graduate programme provides an ideal environment to discover, develop and refine ones untapped potential as a young, ambitious IT professional. This is definitely a good company to start off ones career. Read more surrounding Standard Banks graduate programmes at http:// graduate.standardbank.com

By Thomas Dyzel

In this issue, the INF.Connect team looks at Standard Bank and their promising opportunities offered to informatics graduates. Standard Bank doesnt need any introduction since they have been an established financial service provider within Africa since 1862. Their three main pillars of business are: Personal and Business Banking (PBB) Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) Group Enabling Functions (GEF)

Information Technology and Information Systems have become such an integral part of the financial sector that organisations like Standard Bank are eager to appoint Informatics graduates. Hence, Standard Bank has created the Global Graduate Programmes to provide graduates with an opportunity to gain employment experience in the financial services industry.

On the last note

The Newsletter team hopes that you have enjoyed the last issue of 2013! We hope you will join us for Quiz Night where great prizes will be up for grabs! Keep in touch with us via Facebook and Twitter! We love to hear you comments and suggestions!

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