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Is AI the future of research?

02 November 2023 | Story NITHA RAMNATH | Photo SUPPLIED

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased to invite you to an online public lecture that will be presented by Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor of Gender and Africa Studies at the UFS. Prof Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria (UP), will respond.

Lecture description: Is AI the future of research? Experiences of co-authoring a book with machine-generated summaries.

The world is undergoing tectonic technological shifts that hold grave challenges to societies, universities, and researchers. For any researcher, the persistent challenge is to negotiate a plethora of different sources on the subject, which could be overwhelming. AI could be one means to facilitate the process of research. This, however, raises ethical questions as to the originality of research, issues of plagiarism, and the question of the individual researcher’s own intuition as opposed to software-generated prompts. Prof Solomon shares his experiences working on a machine-generated book.

Date: Monday, 27 November 2023

Time: 14:00-15:30

WATCH: www.ufs.ac.za/Webinar

For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

Speaker:

Prof Solomon is a Professor in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the UFS. His research interests revolve around political Islam and issues of terrorism. His most recent books include African Security in the Anthropocene (with Jude Cocodia, Springer, 2023), The Future of War in Africa (with Eeben Barlow, Amazon Kindle, 2023), Intersectionality and LGBTQI Rights: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Turkey and Egypt (with Simone Bekker, Nova Publishers, 2023), Directions in International Terrorism: Theories, Trends and Trajectories (Palgrave, 2021), Terrorism in Africa: New Trends and Frontiers (with Glen Segell and Sergey Kostelyanets, Institute for African Studies, Moscow, 2021), and Arab MENA Countries: Vulnerabilities and Constraints Against Democracy on the Eve of the Global COVID-19 Crisis (with Arno Tausch, Springer 2021).

Respondent:

Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem is Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at UP, the AI ethics lead at the Centre for AI Research (CAIR), and the chair of the Southern African Conference on AI Research (SACAIR). She is a philosopher of science and technology, an AI ethics policy adviser, a machine ethics researcher, and is an associate editor of the Science and Engineering Ethics journal. Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem led the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group that prepared the draft of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, currently assists with implementing the recommendation, and is the current rapporteur for the UNESCO Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem has recently been appointed to the AI Advisory Body reporting to the Secretary General of the UN.

News Archive

Another boost for sport at the UFS

2005-10-13

A contract formalizing the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was signed by Prof Verschoor and Mr Morne du Plessis in the historic Main Building of the UFS Bloemfontein campus.

The University of the Free State (UFS) has officially appointed Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd, which has former Springbok rugby captain Morné du Plessis as managing director, to manage its Centre for Exercise and Sport Science Services (CESSS) on the Bloemfontein campus.

According to Prof Teuns Verschoor, Vice-Rector: Academic Operations, the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is another step in the implementation of the UFS’s wide-ranging sport strategy to improve sport facilities and elevate formerly marginalized sports such as soccer, hockey, netball, tennis etc.

Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is the manager of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa and coordinates and manages the national basketball high-performance programme of SA Basketball, as well as the Boxing Academy on behalf of Boxing South Africa.

“It is also actively involved with the sports plans of several tertiary institutions like that of the University of Johannesburg and the University of Stellenbosch,” said Prof Verschoor.

“Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was also appointed by the Ministry of Sport and Recreation to manage the allocation of sports codes to high-performance centres and to oversee the allocation of monies received from the National Lottery to these centres – this includes the CESSS at the UFS,” Prof Verschoor added.

In unfolding its national sports plan, the Ministry of Sport and Recreation has already identified the UFS-based CESSS as the high-performance testing centre for the national basketball teams whilst the national boxing teams are also earmarked to be trained at the UFS.

“We are glad to be associated with a company of this stature and look forward to work with them in the further development of sports at the UFS,” said Prof Verschoor.

According to Prof Verschoor, the CESSS will act as a centralised body that is responsible for the coordination and management of joint initiatives between professional service providers, research projects and KovsieSport.

“The centre will also coordinate and manage joint initiatives between various academic programmes in different academic subject fields such as sports medicine, bio kinetics, physiotherapy, dietetics, etc. ,” said Prof Verschoor.

These initiatives will help the UFS to become a centre and catalyst of sports development, to become internationally recognised in the field of exercise and sports science research and to become a centre for high quality sports performance enhancement.

Some of the objectives of the CESSS are:

To provide sports science services like to athletes, students, the general public and other stakeholders including certain national sport teams.
To provide the necessary teaching and training facilities and internship opportunities for UFS students in sports related fields of study will also be provided by the centre like human movement science.
To present skills-transfer programmes directed at the broader community like development of skills in various sporting codes.
To continue and extend the current chronic risk reversal programmes presented by the Department of Human Movement Science such as obesity management, cardiac rehabilitation and other lifestyle related conditions.

The centre was founded in 2003 and was until now managed by Dr Louis Holtzhausen, from Kovsie Health and a consultant, Dr Gary Vorster.

A contract formalizing the appointment of Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd was signed today by Prof Verschoor and Mr Morne du Plessis in the historic Main Building of the UFS Bloemfontein campus.

The manager of the centre appointed by Sports Plan (Pty) Ltd is Mr Charles Store, an alumnus of the UFS, previously employed at the Sports Science Institute in Cape Town and by the SANDF at 3 Military Hospital, Bloemfontein.

Media release
Issued by: Anton Fisher
Director: Strategic Communication
072-207-8334
12 October 2005

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