Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
17 May 2018 Photo Supplied
Write for the UFS Student Newsletter

The Department of Corporate Communication and Marketing is appealing to all students to keep their ear to the ground in a quest to find interesting, thought-provoking student-related information to publish in the Student Newsletter

Students can write stories, produce videos, and supply photographs or pictures that will be published in the Newsletter, which is the official student-central, online, digital media publication of the UFS.  

Content can range from anything related to university sport, interesting student seminars, presentations, and reports or commentary on various events taking place on the Bloemfontein, Qwaqwa, or South campuses of the UFS.

Articles must be written in English, with a headline of no more than nine words and a word count of 120. A JPEG photograph of good quality with a photo credit should accompany each article submitted. Should students wish to hand in videos accompanying their stories, they should consult Barend Nagel on NagelBJ@ufs.ac.za for more information. Stories will be selected for the Newsletter according to the relevance and importance of their content.

This communication platform has specifically been established to communicate important and interesting information, events, and activities from Kovsie to Kovsie, across the entire UFS student population. Students are urged to take initiative, and engage with one another, and the overall institutional realm of communication in South Africa. For more information, please email Xolisa Mnukwa on MnukwaX@ufs.ac.za

News Archive

HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’, says Prof Petersen
2017-08-22

 Description: HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’ Tags: HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’

UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor Prof Francis Petersen
presents the welcoming address at the 2017 HEMIS Institute
in Bloemfontein.
Photo: Eugene Seegers

Higher education institutions such as universities need information and accurate data to make critically important management decisions. Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), expressed these sentiments during his introduction at the 2017 HEMIS Institute recently held in Bloemfontein.

Reporting a critical part of HE practice
The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) uses its Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) to manage and verify performance data from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) regarding four crucial datasets, namely students, staff, space, and postdoctoral information and research fellows. HEMIS data is collected for quality control, funding, and planning purposes, in particular for steering the system and for monitoring the sector. This data must then be audited, since it is used for subsidy allocations to HEIs.

“Institutional reporting on aspects of what we do as public universities is a critical part of practice in Higher Education,” said Prof Petersen. He added, “Whether about insourcing statistics, … student accommodation, or transformation and indicators within that domain, it’s really all about accurate data with which informed, evidence-based decisions can be made. This HEMIS Institute 2017 ultimately enables us to share insights across institutions, which can grow and strengthen the sector as a whole.”

‘It’s about accurate data with
which informed decisions can
be made’—Prof Francis Petersen

Public and private HEIs attend training alongside government reps
The Institutional Information Systems Unit of the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP) hosted and presented the Southern African Association for Institutional Research (SAAIR) HEMIS Foundations workshop and the annual HEMIS Institute in Bloemfontein. These training opportunities were attended by university data managers and representatives from 26 public and private HEIs, as well as representatives from the Council on Higher Education (CHE), DHET, and the Namibian National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). The Foundations workshop was designed to assist those new to the platform to be better acquainted with this data management tool, while the two-day Institute was structured to answer complex questions and address issues around the use of the relevant reporting structures and software.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept