Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Magdeline Mashilo and Tiko Iyamu
The University’s strategy focuses on people-orientated, staff development, both academic and nonacademic
as well as students’ performance. Teaching, research and community engagement were
the main strategic areas of the university. The university has attracted and retained some of the best
staff and students and continues to reach its objectives As a result, the university had a strategy to
train and equip its employees, to perform their individual tasks. One of the interviewees put it as
follows:
Currently in my department everybody knows how to perform and address different functions as well
as to manage other employees. Additional method that we normally use is to keep up with current
issues.
Other strategies of the university were: the University was committed to excellence, within the field of
academia. It also offered good support to staff and its students by promoting and rewarding good
teaching and providing appropriate academic student support. The university remained committed to
promoting racial, ethnic and gender equality even though there were some departments that were not
comfortable with these practices.
The university aimed to recruit excellent academics that were from previously disadvantaged areas. In
addition, they specifically encouraged excellent postgraduate students from these groups to pursue,
further their academic studies. This strategy had led to mentorship as described by one of the
employees:
I’ll make sure that there are standard procedures that I’ll put in place in terms of training new staff and
they must work closely with mentors irrespective of racial groupings.
The university strategy also focused on research output. As part of the university strategy, library
services had various resources to supply employees and students with relevant materials for their
research and other academic activities. The university had received international recognition
regarding their research output and it was arguably acclaimed to be the best university in South
Africa, in terms of research and student output. Many of the employees acknowledged this, as
expressed by one of the interviewees:
It’s the best university with best resources. If you need databases or books, and any academic related
materials, they are available and accessible. Also, each department had enough budgets throughout
the academic cycle.
All members were immediately given responsibility on decision making in the department. These
departments invested in the development and training of their staff in order to provide excellent
services as well as to maintain the university record of success rate.
Post apartheid, the university was mandated to transform from its former status of being white only.
The university had fair mixed of student registration particularly for those from previously
disadvantaged communities as part of transformation, and to increase students’ academic success
rate and staff retention.
Environment
The university aimed to address the imbalance relating to staff profile and demographics, which still
existed. Even though the university continued to strive for excellence, some areas were behind
schedule with their Master’s and Doctoral programmes. This was attributed to the lack of knowledge
sharing and access to electronic resources. An interviewee was quoted as saying:
Academics are not sharing enough information with post graduate students and I’ve
come to realize that our Master and Doctorate students are not performing very well;
they’re way behind schedule of between two to three years.
The university encouraged employees to be proactive in individual and group engagement within the
environment. Resources that were provided were easy to access, thereby enhancing and improving
delivery. Employees were expected to build a working relationship with experts within their specialised
fields, to promote continuous and enriched learning.
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