EDITORIAL

 

Editorial: Impact of Innovative IT Solutions

 

 

Katharine M. Malan

Department of Decision Sciences, University of South Africa. sacj.editor@gmail.com

 

 

All of the research articles published in this issue synergistically focus on the potential impact of innovative IT solutions on society and business. The topics include the use of big data analytics in rural hospitals, digital sharing platforms to support SMEs, detective analytics to mitigate financial crime, virtual reality to support psychotherapy, the impact of digital technology on teaching in schools, and the transformative potential of generative AI. The six research papers included in this issue are:

• Identifying factors affecting the adoption of big data analytics in South African rural-based hospitals to improve service delivery by Rambau, Munyoka and Mashau.

• Contextualising Design: Aligning digital sharing economy platforms with local SMEs' sharing practices in resource-constrained countries by Abebe and Twinomurinzi.

• The use of detective analytics for mitigating financial crimes: A South African perspective by Mlambo and Iyamu.

• An investigation into the feasibility of using virtual environments as an induction method in SHIP® therapy by Malan, Bosman and Bothma.

• A multilevel analysis of digital technology to support teachers to improve their professional practice by Dlamini and Fleisch.

• Generative AI: Concerns, usage, challenges, opportunities and sentiments by Twinomurinzi and Gumbo. This is the second paper of a special issue of extended papers from the SAICSIT 2023 conference.

Authors of these papers are affiliated with seven different higher education institutions in South Africa, showing that SACJ remains an important publication outlet for South African researchers.

 

Submission statistics

For information, we present the following updated statistics around submissions, acceptance rates and the processing time of articles.

 

 

The figures above translate into an overall rejection rate of approximately 86%. This may seem high, but it can be attributed to the large number of submissions from all over the world due to the indexing of SACJ on Scopus. To quantify the reach of SACJ, between 1 January and 30 June 2025 we received 56 submissions from 22 different countries (11 from South Africa, 15 from other African countries, and 30 from outside Africa).

Similar to SACJ, South African Journal of Science reported a rejection rate of 82% in 2024. In terms of submission processing time, the median time to a first decision (desk reject / send to review) since 2023 was 2 days and the median time to final decision for submissions sent to review was 5 months.

Thank you to all authors for submitting your manuscripts to SACJ and for entrusting us with your research. Thank you also to the editorial team for all your work behind the scenes and to the many reviewers who support our journal.