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I suddenly have to move my face-to-face physics/astronomy course online! What should I do? During this COVID-19 pandemic, many academic staff are being asked to quickly move their face-to-face classes online. This is challenging for many reasons: teaching online is quite different from teaching in person, many staff don’t have experience teaching online, transitioning quickly is difficult, and all of … Read More
The impact of a social network of peers on academic achievement and dropout rates in minorities is a well- studied subject (1). While no formal study of this kind has been carried out in South Africa, generally, findings internationally agree that the less isolated minority students are, the more likely they are to succeed individually, and as a group (2). … Read More
IDIA’s Development and Outreach shines at international Science for Development meeting. An international, interdisciplinary workshop on “Science for Development” was be held on January 30-31, 2020 at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa. The aim of the workshop was to create a space for interaction between natural scientists, technology experts, social scientists and development practitioners in … Read More
This SEADS seminar was held at the South African Astronomical Observatory because access to the UWC campus was not possible. We are grateful to SAAO for hosting the seminar. It was therefore also streamed online with good participation in spite of the logistical challenges we faced. Dr. Ramanujam covered many topics in his presentation, giving an overview of popular science … Read More
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous explosions in the cosmos. These explosive events last several seconds and during that time they they release in 10 seconds in gamma rays as much energy as the sun will emit in its 10-bilion year life. Such extreme amounts of energy can only be released during catastrophic events like the death of a … Read More
IDIA is welcoming Prof. Jayanne English from the University of Manitoba as a visitor on the 1st week of November. Prof. English is behind some famous images from the Hubble Space Telescope and was a key person in setting up the Hubble Heritage Project. As part of the visit, she will give a special seminar and workshop on astronomical data … Read More
After last week’s participation at the DARA Big Data Africa School held in Cape Town where 27 students from 9 African countries worked on big data science projects using the IDIA research cloud, we are now also proud to support an additional skills development initiative, the DARA Big Data Hackathon at NUST in Windhoek. More information here, on GitHub. Our … Read More
Our next speaker in the Science Engagement And Development Seminar series is Dr. Niruj Mohan Ramanujam from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Public Outreach and Education Committee of the Astronomical Society of India. Abstract: Starting from the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha in 1987, India has seen more than 3 decades of mass movements to promote science awareness and scientific … Read More
ADASS stands for Astronomical Data Analysis Software & Systems. It is an annual conference and a natural destination to present the diverse IDIA activities. This year, we are there with two oral contributions (talks) and two posters. Alexander Sivitilli, Angus Comrie, Lucia Marchetti and Tom Jarrett from the Visualization Lab are presenting a poster on Virtual Reality and Immersive Collaborative Environements. … Read More
On October 6 – 16 takes place the 2019 edition of the DARA Big Data Africa School. The Big Data Africa School aims to introduce fundamental data science tools and techniques to talented young science and engineering graduates across a range of disciplines. The aim is for students to develop skills and knowledge in working efficiently on extremely large datasets … Read More
