This article condenses the presentation by Prof J.A. Smit, as the International Open Access keynote lecture, of 23 October 2017. It forms the first of a doublebarrel article that seeks to open up some research possibilities with regard to the subject and knowledge-power 2. Drawing on Foucault, it firstly provides a theoretical framework that may assist in assessing the significance of Alternation, followed by a positioning of the questions Foucault raised through his nearly twenty years of research on this matter, in the digital, or electronic age, specifically with regard to the African Digital Humanities. It then briefly reflects on some of the founding ideas and provides a sample of the historical events in the history of Alternation (1994-1996), followed, by positioning it in the international dynamics of the digital age, and the move from Humanities Computing in Alternation, to the Digital Humanities. The fifth focus, and as part of the Conclusion, briefly reflects on Berners-Lee's pioneering vision, as well as the most basic definition of the Digital Humanities, which provides a broad framework of both the past and future research of Alternation.
This article is a continuation of a condensing of the presentation by Prof J.A. Smit, as the Open Access keynote lecture, of 23 October 2017. Drawing on Michel Foucault's relational explication of the subjective embodied capacitysubjective embodied communicationsubjective embodied knowledge-power production triad (cf. Smit & Chetty 2018: 8-30), it first explicates its theoretical framework, in terms of the triad's 'external instruments'. This is followed by a systematic exposition of this framework in terms of the opportunities that the African Digital Humanities (ADH) face as at 23 October 2017. From within the institutional framework of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the article briefly expounds the possibilities that are opened up for the ADH on the Online Journal Management Systems (OJS). This is further done in terms of the conceptualisations of the e-Humanities, or the future of the e-Human in Africa, as we can, at this stage, comparatively, and analogically envision this complex process, as it is happening at the moment, and as it will doubtlessly further expand into a rapidly changing, and high-speed future. 1 The article is paired with '23/ 25 Years of Alternation, and the African Digital Humanities: Capacity, Communication, and Knowledge-Power', published elsewhere in this issue of Alternation. The main ideas explored in these articles first formed part of the Open Access Lecture, 23 October 2017, Westville Campus, UKZN. Denzil Chetty contributed to the production of the presentation by Prof J.A. Smit, as well as these two articles.
Distance education offers a variety of teaching and learning modes, including various instruction periods, such as a year or six months. This study examined the use of semesters for teaching and learning in undergraduate programmes at a specific university offering open distance education. The authors present the perceived pedagogic challenges for programmes with modules delivered over six months. A qualitative exploratory design was used, following interpretivism. The participants were lecturers from a specific college within the university. The lecturers were involved in modules taught over six months, normally referred to as semester modules. Four group discussions were held with the nominated lecturers from different departments within the college. The discussions were audio recorded, and the data were transcribed verbatim, followed by manual content analysis. The findings indicated that the perceived pedagogic challenges in the semester system were limited time for teaching and learning which included delayed feedback to students, and the academic workload brought about by large student numbers and the types of assessment methods used. The results suggest a basis to respond to new pedagogies and the use of alternative assessment methods to match the semester system in open distance education.
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