EDITORIAL

 

Editorial: Transitions

 

 

Philip Machanick

Department of Computer Science, Rhodes University, South Africa sacj.editor@gmail.com

 

 

Introduction

South African Computer Journal is preparing for another transition.

After an open call, a rigorous review of the applicant and an interview, we have appointed a new editor-in-chief, Katherine Malan of the Department of Decision Sciences, University of South Africa. Katherine will spend the next year as a regular section editor so that she can take over finalizing the July 2022 issue.

That date will mark 10 years since I took over and the journal has continued to strengthen over that time, and I am confident that I am leaving it in good hands.

I would like to thank the editors who have served over this time, production editor James Dibley, who designed the current layout of the journal, including its LTEX style, and Craig Balfour who has provided able technical support for the harder things like upgrading to a new release of the Open Journal Systems installation. I would also like to thank the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town for hosting our web server.

I would like to welcome a new editor who has joined us since the last issue, Deshen Moodley of the Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town.

Numerous reviewers have done excellent work to ensure that we consistently publish papers of a high standard.

Last and not least, I thank all our authors, some of whom have used SACJ as a launchpad for very successful academic careers.

In the remainder of the editorial, I give a retrospective of how SACJ has advanced since I took over, and list the contents of the current issue.

SACJ Retrospective

When I took over the journal, it had recently shifted to the open access model, which should have been a great platform for growth, as subscription for a regional journal severely limits readership. However, the paper pipeline had dried up. After initial steps to revitalise submissions, I looked forward to making the journal more sustainable and to increasing its impact.

Steps taken include (not necessarily in this order):

• appointing a panel of section editors so I could focus on strategic positioning and managing the pipeline

• instituting a publication fee to pay for production costs

• appointing a production editor to take the task of a consistent look out of my hands

• special issues:

- extended conference papers (mostly but not entirely our parent body's SAICSIT conference)

- thematic issues

• registering a DOI for each published article

• listing on Directory of Open Access Journals

• listing on Scopus

• inclusion on the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) South Africa platform - at their invitation

Any of the last three items would on its own make us an accredited journal with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training for subsidy purposes; we are however planning on applying for listing on Web of Science (previously: ISI).

Despite all the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have brought out each issue on schedule. This is a tribute to all those I thanked for their contributions. I know some have really struggled through this time with all the extra work caused by previously unplanned remote teaching.

In this issue

In this issue, we have five research papers:

• Bosman, De Beer and Bothma: "Creating pseudo-tactile feedback in virtual reality using shared crossmodal properties of audio and tactile feedback"

• Chawana and Adebesin: "The current state of measuring return on investment in user experience design"

• Joseph and Marnewick: "The continuum of Information Systems project success: Reflecting on the correlation between project success dimensions"

• Munro, Calitz and Vogts: "Architecture and architectural patterns for Mobile Augmented Reality"

• Tsegaye and Flowerday: "A system architecture for ensuring interoperability in a South African national electronic health record system"