Call for abstracts

The world is in a state of uncertainty as different crises bombard it from one geographic region to another. The current war in Russia and Ukraine, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, has caused food prices to skyrocket as fuel shortage hits the world. Many countries have witnessed slow or no economic growth in the recent past, despite the fourth or fifth industrial revolution (4IR or 5IR) promising a favourable environment for economic development. The rapid technological developments, information overload, climate change, pandemics, poverty and strife, to name but a few, have impacted on information practices and research initiatives geared towards development, thereby raising the need for multipronged approaches to mitigate the crises and subsequent uncertainties.

It is worth noting that international and regional bodies such as the United Nations and the African Union, among others, have put in place mechanisms to spur economic development. For example, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations is a framework intended to steer development to address these uncertainties while the African Union (AU), through Agenda 2063 aims to drive inclusive and sustainable development on the continent. We believe that the success of these initiatives depends on concerted efforts by all professionals through conducting relevant research and making information available to inform processes, decision making, and policy formulation. Researchers and information professionals who include librarians, archivists, records managers, information scientists, data curators, and knowledge managers, have a crucial role to play in supporting global and regional initiatives on development.

In view of the above, the organisers of UNILISA 2023 call for the submission of abstracts from all interested persons and stakeholders addressing issues within but not limited to the following sub-themes:

• Archives, records and data curation for development
  • Archives, records, cultural heritage materials
  • Digital data curation
  • Digital libraries
  • Digital preservation
  • Digital forensics

• Data science, analytics and visualisation for development
  • Informatics
  • Digital forensics security
  • Big data analytics
  • Data mining and information management
  • Open data movement and access
  • Personal data protection
  • Data curatorship
  • Block chain technology
  • Cloud and grid computing
  • Altmetrics, bibliometrics, infometrics, scientometrics

• Information dissemination and use for development
  • Scholarly communication
  • Information dissemination
  • Governance accountability and transparency in information
  • Information ethics, computing ethics
  • Information policy
  • Information and society
  • Information security
  • International information issues
  • Copyright and intellectual property
  • Ethical concerns in information use (misinformation, malinformation and disinformation)

• Information and knowledge management for development
  • Information access
  • Information architecture
  • Information management
  • Information retrieval
  • Information seeking
  • Information society
  • Knowledge economy, evaluation, and sourcing knowledge
  • Information organisation, knowledge organisation,
  • knowledge representation, metadata, classification

• Fourth industrial revolution for development
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Robotic machines
  • Virtual reality
  • Smart technologies
  • Cybersecurity
  • Voice computing
  • Internet of things

• LIS education and research for development
  • E-learning, e-services education in information science
  • Information literacies
  • Libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions
  • Current trends in LIS research
  • Disability and inclusiveness
  • Research methods in library and information science

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

Abstracts related to the above topics should not exceed 400 words, and should contain the following:

• Sub-theme and title of the paper, which also reflects a clear description of the topic and its importance and relevance
• Name(s) of the author(s)
• Contact details of the author(s), inclusive of e-mail(s) and contact telephone number(s)
• Institutional affiliation(s)
• Main category within the conference outline to which the abstract relates
• Keywords

The above information does not form part of the 400 words allocated to the actual content of the abstract.

Important dates

Doctoral Forum

Submission of abstracts: [Closed]

Notification of acceptance: 15 November 2022

Main Conference

Submission of abstracts: [Closed]

Notification of acceptance: 15 November 2022

Research papers to be presented at the UNILISA 2023 conference will also be peer reviewed and published in a special issue of Mousaion, while others will be published in a peer-reviewed edited book.

Abstracts for the conference should be e-mailed to Prof Maned Mhlongo at mhlonma@unisa.ac.za and copy to unilisaconference@unisa.ac.za

Abstracts for the doctoral forum should be e-mailed to Dr Karin McGuirk at mcguik@unisa.ac.za and copy unilisaconference@unisa.ac.za