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21 May 2019 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Stephen Collett
Digital storytelling
Collaborating for the common good are from left: Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, and Dr Johan van Zyl.

Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences quoted the Cat Stevens song I can’t keep it in, to capture the excitement surrounding the opening of a Digital Storytelling Lab on the Bloemfontein Campus on 10 May 2019.

After months of hard work by Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, as well as the staff of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Centre for Development Support, the Common Good First lab was completed just in time for the launch attended by about 50 delegates from other South African universities, as well as private and public institutions.

Stories meet technology

In a message, from Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, informed the audience that the launch heralded the joining of the old world of stories with the new world of digital technology. Julie Adair, Director of Digital Collaboration at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, welcomed the UFS as a partner to this international social innovation collaborative project in a video message. 

Dr Van Rooyen, the project manager for the UFS, explained how she got involved in the Common Good First project, what the benefits of digital storytelling are, as well as what opportunities the lab creates for cooperation between role players involved in social innovation projects. 

Why the Common Good First lab?

The purpose of the lab is to create a digital network to identify, showcase and connect social innovation projects in South Africa to one another and to universities around the world for research, student engagement and learning and teaching. The lab has been fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for recording and digitising the stories that result from social innovation projects.

In a live Skype session with Dr Il-Haam Petersen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and some of the recent successes of the digital stories in Philippi in the Western Cape were shared.

Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, UFS Director Community Engagement did the final honours by cutting the ribbon, declaring the lab open, and sharing the dream that the work done in this lab will contribute to positive relationships and cooperation between the university and the community, in making not only the university, but the country and the world a better place.


News Archive

Church Mirror 2010 kicks off from the Free State
2010-10-04

Prof. Kobus Schoeman

 Prof. Kobus Schoeman, Head of the Department of Practical Theology at the University of the Free State (UFS), is one of the project leaders of Church Mirror, a unique research project in the family of Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa.

Over the years Church Mirror has been established as an important source of information for the Dutch Reformed Church. The church is provided with information by means of surveys that assist in reflection on the church as well as congregations’ role and functioning.

The 2010 survey will be no exception. The survey is conducted on the instruction of the General Synod and in collaboration with the Department of Practical Theology at the UFS. This year, the project is also extended to other churches in the Dutch Reformed Church family for the first time.

The questionnaire forms part of the National Church Life Survey, which is done internationally. The questionnaire is completed by everybody who attends a church service on a specific Sunday. Questions that are asked include, “What do the members of the congregation think of their congregation and church services?”, “Are outsiders welcome?” and “Do we care about the community?”

The first survey was done amongst churchgoers at a service in 2006.

Church Mirror is an important research project to outline the profile of mainstream churches in South Africa and it can play a major role in congregations’ planning and reflection upon themselves.
 

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