Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Prof Lizette de Wet, pioneer in the field of Human Computer Interaction

10 February 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Stephen Collett

“I consider obtaining my PhD while balancing my work, my marriage, and two young daughters (who did not sleep through before reaching age four!) as one of my biggest achievements,” says Prof Lizette de Wet, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Many firsts

Her achievements in the field include much more than the PhD referred to. On 11 February, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UFS celebrates her for pioneering the human-computer interaction (HCI) research environment, specifically the evaluation of usability and user experience in diverse application areas, where she has experienced and established many firsts.

Prof De Wet was one of the first students to complete a master’s degree in this discipline at UNISA (1994). She says the external examiner for her master’s was from the University of York in the UK, as expertise in South Africa was still lacking at the time.

In the Department of Computer Science and Informatics at the UFS, she established the HCI research area. This involved undertaking research projects in the discipline and developing curricula for a second-year module, an honours module, and a master’s module.

“The second-year module was also one of two modules on campus to first use iPads in class to assist in a blended learning approach,” she says.

Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.– Prof Lizette de Wet

A woman’s contribution

Prof De Wet believes that in the research field of HCI, the focus is on the user and his/her overall user experience (including emotions, feelings, and competence) when using computers. “Taking the human being into consideration is much more important than simply concentrating on the programming code that needs to be written.”

Whether the human being writing the code is male or female, does not matter. Prof De Wet is of the opinion that there is no gender distinction between what women and men could achieve in the field of Computer Science and Informatics.

“Although the students are still predominantly male, in the past few years more and more female students have enrolled for our postgraduate studies and completed it successfully, some of them with exceptional marks. In South-Africa, many women are making their mark in this discipline by being heads of departments at universities or in the private sector, by chairing national and international conferences, and by publishing ground-breaking research,” she adds.

Success with virtual reality

Over the past few years, Prof De Wet has concentrated on using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and virtual reality in her research. By the end of 2020, she had successfully supervised 11 master’s students and four PhD students, with one of the master’s students delivering ground-breaking research using virtual reality in the training of nursing students.

She elaborates: “The prototype involved virtually examining and evaluating a patient (with a foreign object lodged in a lung) in a virtual ward while wearing an Oculus Rift headset. The evaluation results were extremely positive and will be continued as a PhD study to investigate how to attempt to relieve motion sickness in an immersive virtual clinical simulation.”

Starting out as someone who never had the opportunity to lay her eyes on a computer during her school years, Prof De Wet is of the opinion that in South Africa – being a Third World country – there are numerous opportunities to make computers accessible to rural communities, and even to the large senior population who did not grow up with technology and might fear it.

With her passion for the profession, she not only delivers pioneering work, but also trains professionals in computer sciences who will contribute to a better tomorrow.

News Archive

UFS law experts publish unique translation

2006-06-21

Attending the launch of the publication were from the left: Prof Boelie Wessels (senior lecturer at the UFS Faculty of Law), Prof Frederick Fourie (Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS), Prof Johan Henning (Dean: UFS Faculty of Law) and Adv Jaco de Bruin (senior lecturer at the UFS Faculty of Law). Prof Wessels translated the treatise from corrupted medieval lawyer Latin into English, Prof Henning is the leading author and initiator of the publication and Adv de Bruin assisted with the proofreading and editing. Photo: Stephen Collett

UFS law experts publish unique translation of neglected source of partnership law

The Centre for Business Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) has translated a unique long neglected Roman-Dutch source of the law of partnership law from Latin into English. This source dates back to 1666.

The book, called Tractatus de Societate (A Treatise on the Law of Partnership), by Felicius and Boxelius is published as Volume 40 in the research series Mededelings van die Sentrum vir Ondernemingsreg/Transactions of the Centre for Business Law. It is the first translation of this Roman-Dutch source into English and comprises of a comprehensive discussion of the South African common law of partnerships.

“Apart from various brief provisions dealing on a peace meal and an ad hoc basis with diverse matters such as insolvency, there is no comprehensive Partnership Act in South Africa. The law of partnership in South Africa consists of South African common-law, which is mainly derived from Roman-Dutch law,” said Prof Johan Henning, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the UFS. Prof Henning is also the leading author and initiator of this comprehensive publication.

“Countries such as America, England, Ireland and The Netherlands have drafted or are in the process of establishing new modern partnership laws in line with new international guidelines, practices and commercial usages,” said Prof Henning.

“However, in South Africa the most recent policy document released by the Department of Trade and Industry explicitly excludes partnership law from its present company law reform programme and clearly regards this as an issue for another day,” said Prof Henning.

“Unless there is a political will to allocate the necessary resources to a comprehensive partnership law revision program, it is a practical reality that South Africa will not have a modern Partnership Act in the foreseeable future,” said Prof Henning.

According to Prof Henning South African courts have been using the Roman-Dutch partnership law sources as authority. “The English Partnership Act of 1890 is not binding and the English text books should therefore be approached with caution,” said Prof Henning.

“A treatise on the law of partnership that has been regarded by South African courts as an important common law authority is that of a Frenchman by the name of Pothier. This treatise was translated into English and was regarded as an authority of significance in The Netherlands towards the end of the eighteenth century,” said Prof Henning.

“Pothier’s opinions are however not valid throughout in the Roman-Dutch partnership law as it did not apply to the Dutch province of The Netherlands and it sometimes also rely on local French customs for authority,” said Prof Henning.

For this reason the Centre for Business Law at the UFS decided to focus its attention again on the significance of the comprehensive treatise of Felicius and Boxelius on the Roman-Dutch partnership law. Felicius was an Italian lawyer and Boxelius a Dutch lawyer.

This long neglected source of partnership law was published in 1666 in Gorkum in The Netherlands. "A significant amount of Roman-Dutch sources of authoritive writers trusted this treatise and referred to it,” said Prof Henning.

The translation of the treatise from corrupted medieval lawyer Latin into English was done by Prof Boelie Wessels, a very well-known expert on Roman Law and senior lecturer at the UFS Faculty of Law. Prof Wessels, who has 15 degrees, spent almost ten years translating the treatise. The proofreading and editing of the translation was done by Prof Henning and Adv Jaco de Bruin, a senior lecturer at the UFS Faculty of Law.

“We want the South African courts to use Volume 40 in the research series Mededelings van die Sentrum vir Ondernemingsreg/Transactions of the Centre for Business Law as the primary source of reference when cases where Roman-Dutch Law partnership law principles are involved, are ruled on,” said Prof Henning.

The first part of the publication comprises of selected perspectives on the historical significance of the work as well as a translation of selected passages. “The intention is to follow this up expeditiously with the publication of a very limited edition of a complete translation of the work,” said Prof Henning.

A total of 400 copies of the publication will be distributed to all courts, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
21 June 2006

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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