AQUAzone

Friday, June 8, 2012

From the students desk: SABI Student Workshop

Participants at the workshop

SAIAB students and interns recently formed part of a South African Biosystematics Initiative (SABI) student workshop on scientific presentations skills in Richards Bay. SABI is aimed at assisting the scientific community in promoting the awareness and the importance of bio-systematic research in the broader community through education and outreach projects. The workshop attracted 26 students from 13 institutions across the country. These students came from Univ. of Fort Hare, Limpopo, Venda, W. Cape, Free State, Walter Sisulu University, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University, Natal and Iziko Museums, SAIAB, SANBI, and the ARC. According to SABI student committee chairperson and workshop organizer, Thabo Maake, the workshop kicked off with a “snowball fight”, as an ice breaker. Participants had to pick up a snowball with a name of someone they didn’t know which encouraged interaction and team work, giving good networking opportunities among participants. Participants were then requested to express their expectations of the workshop which was later used to direct the emphasis of the workshop. The workshop focused on issues such as good abstract writing, structuring presentations, hiding nerves, timing and confidence, keeping audience interested, K.I.S.S. (something students call, Keep It Short & Simple), etc. The workshop was a general success with one University of Limpopo student was noted as saying: “I have to say I now have much knowledge with regard to compiling a good scientific and attractive abstract and I can now proudly say I am no longer a 'Nervous Nelly' when it comes to Oral presentations.”

ACEP INCEPTION WORKSHOP

ACEP launched its postgraduate programme with an Inception Workshop of Honours students and supervisors from the University of Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu Univiersity on Friday 25th May. The participants spent the day learning more about SAIAB, SAEON and ACEP through presentations by various SAIAB and SAEON staff. The ACEP postgraduate programme aims to support postgraduate studies in Marine Science at Historically Black Universities with the aim of redress and transformation. UFH and WSU is participating as strategic partners and jointly we offer a managed programme approach where student are not only given financial assistance but also logistic support as well as academic and professional development including various scientific and life skills courses.

This year, 9 honours students from Fort Hare and 5 from Walter Sisulu will be supported by the programme and in the next 2 years the ACEP programme will grow to include MSc and PhD candidates as this year’s student progress and new candidates join the programme.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

News from the library

Our Margaret Smith Library recently hosted 34 second year Library and Information Science students from the University of Fort Hare. Upon arrival, the students watched the SAIAB video and were given a tour of the Collections Management Centre. Sally Schramm also gave the students a short presentation focusing how the library operates, the kind of books and journals the library keeps and the library website which is hosted by the Rhodes University Library site. According to Sally, these students had also visited the NELM and the Cory Library for Historical Research and their aim was to see how special research libraries are run. Nceba Ndzoyiya said he found the mobile shelves at the M.S Library most impressive.

Sally showing the students some of the Journals kept at the library

Hanoria says goodbye to the library

“Having worked at the library has been a great experience. I’ll miss Sally dearly but most importantly, I’ll miss my babies (the students).”

Sally and Hanoria at Hanoria's farewell tea

Hanoria receiving her farewell card from SAIAB MD Angus Paterson

Andrew’s I.T Lesson of the month:

share large files with others

As you know, sharing large files with others can be impossible using email. To help people easily handle this task, a file exchange site has been set up by the NRF and is open to anyone.

To Share:

Visit http://filesend.nrf.ac.za/ and fill out the form.

· Click ‘choose file’ and select the file you wish to share (repeat until all the files you want to share are listed).

· Set the expiry time (how long the download will be available for) and a password.

· Set your email address and name to the other person can see who you are.

· Fill in the email address of the person you are sending the message to in the ‘send to’ space

· Type in a message if necessary

· Click ‘Process upload’

· Tell the recipient what the password is

Receiving:

Your recipient will receive an e-mail with a link to the download. When they click on the link, they will be taken to the Filesend site and asked for the password.

After typing in the password, a .zip file will start download. This file will contain the files you’ve shared.

Note: Each time the file is downloaded, you will receive a notification. This is useful for determining whether the recipient was able to retrieve the files or not.