Visit South Africa - Part II (Cape Town - Green Market Square)

In this blog I will share some thoughts about places I visited in and around Cape Town.

Green Market Square in Cape Town is situated very close to St. Gorge's Mall and Holiday Inn Express (where I stayed). It offers a variety of African crafts mainly to tourists. Market stalls open at 9.00am but people start putting up their stalls from 8.15am onward. After an early breakfast I explored the Green Market Square with my friend and it happened to be a good idea because traders want to get their first customer early in the morning and would slash their quoted prices if you are good in bargaining.

These are some of the pictures I captured:

Photo by Tharindu

The traders in the market square seem to quote whatever price they want. So it would be a good idea to walk around asking prices before committing to buy. Look at these beautiful wood carvings and bead crafts.

Photo by Tharindu

Photo by Tharindu

 

A friend of mine who had worked in South Africa advised me to bargain at half price. In the UK where I live bargaining is almost non-existent. But I tried my best. One salesman reduced the price of a wood carving initially quoted as R80 to R20 for his first customer of the day, which to me was unbelievable. However, it is sad to be bargaining with these traders who seem to be living in poverty. But the prices they quote seem unreasonably high, may be because they are selling items to tourists whom they perceive as wealthy people or because they want to impress you by reducing the price to show that you are given a discount.

I found female traders to quote more reasonable prices than their male counterparts. For example a pair of carved spoons said to be R120 elsewhere was priced R30 at one store. When my friend bought 3 sets of spoons she agreed to give a multi-buy discount and charged only R25 for each pair. We started talking to her more and learn bit more about the trading. She then told us the prices she pay for items and asked us to buy them giving her a reasonable margin. We bought a lot of items from her - 8 key tags, 3 pairs of spoons, bracelets, carved figures, figures made of beads and so on. Her little son, not much older than my twins, was helping out at her store too.

Photo by Tharindu

So my tips for tourists visiting Green Market Square:
1. Keep your valuables safe
2. If possible try to get advantage of first customer discount
3. Shop around before committing to buy and get an understanding of the price variation across different stalls
4. Always ask for half price and you will be able to get something little more than half price. But if you have seen something elsewhere for cheaper (for example R120 vs R30) try buying from that stall rather than bargaining for less than half price (that is R15). Always think about the costs/time that would be involved and try to be reasonable with your bargain price.
5. Talk to people - take a little time to talk/reply to them and smile - they are nice people

Visit South Africa - Part I (Preparation)

This hopefully will be one of a series of blogs that I will write about my experience of South Africa mainly Cape Town. I've not written for a while mainly because I've been pressed for time now I am writing this while seated at a Nando's at Johannesburg International Airport while in transit.

Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Location_South_Africa_AU_Africa.svg/646px-Location_South_Africa_AU_Africa.svg.png

First blog, that is this one, will talk about preparation and my tips in visiting South Africa.

I knew I was going to Cape Town as soon as I registered for the conference - UNISA Cambridge International Conference - in June 2013. So I was eager to apply for visa and find a cheap airline ticket - as most travellers. When I first checked there were direct flights from London Heathrow to Cape Town and they cost no more than £600-750.

However, I found the visa application quite stressful as they only allowed to apply only 4 weeks in advance. In my two work visits to London I tried to submit my visa application, but unfortunately the staff at the visa application centre said it was too early. So by the time I applied for visa, exactly 4 weeks prior to departure date, Emirates airline was fully booked and British Airways had one business class seat for Cape Town but no seats on return flights, needless to say the remaining seats were more than double the initial fare I quoted. I was lucky because I had a sponsorship from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) - the final bill for the COL had been CAD 1600+! (more than £1000).

So here are my visa application tips:
1. Visa application centre is situated at 15 Whitehall London SW1A 2DD and there are other South African High Commission buildings elsewhere in the close proximity. So check on the map where you have to be.

2. The visa application centre opens at 9am. But even when I went there at 8.10 am I was about eight in the queue. So if you want to save the day go early and queue outside the door. Keep in mind the application center is only open for two hours to accept applications.

3. Take your visa fee in cash. When I say visa fee if it is £35 (as it was when I applied) take exact amount as they do not accept for example 2x£20 notes.

4. Take everything they ask for in the website with photocopies. You have to show provisional booking of hotel. In my case the conference provided accommodation at the conference venue and accommodation was included in conference fee. One of the lovely ladies there told me that it needs to be in conference organizer's invitation letter in 'black and white'. So in my initial visit I got to know this despite they not accepting my application due to it being too early. One good thing about SA visa application centre is that they check all your documents for free and tell you what is missing so that the next time you can get it right.

5. If you have a residence permit or visa in a card that is not attached to your passport, make sure you take that along with you!


These are my other tips for you before travelling:

6. Look at Trip adviser reviews before deciding where to stay. Keep in mind if one has had a bad experience they are more likely to share it. I booked Holiday Inn Express based on reviews and it's location and it worked perfectly well for us. We also booked private tour with Discovery Tours again due to reviews and they were good.

7. If you are travelling with young children keep in mind that many places have only stair access. For example lighting aircraft and boarding both at Cape Town and Johannesburg airports are done the traditional way - that is stairs to get into and out of the aircraft and then a bus to get to/ from building. I was travelling light so did not have a problem but I saw many ladies with high heels struggling with heavy luggage on stairs.

8. There are bag wrapping services at Heathrow costs about £10 a bag and at South African airports R60 (South African money is called Rand in case you didn't know). These wrapping services are used to protect bags from being open and valuables stolen. I did not use wrapping but locked my bag with a padlock. If my bag is broken into I will tell you. However, my friends from South Africa says that if you are travelling to/from Johannesburg it is a good to consider.

9. I would recommend 'shop around' for the taxi. For example, I paid R330 for a taxi while a local had managed to negotiate the same journey from airport for R220. If you are travelling as a group some taxis charge more while some others charge only from going from A to B regardless of the number of passengers. When we got back from Stellenbosch the taxi charged each additional passenger R220!

10. Public transport is not reliable to get even to Stellenbosch which is about 25km from Cape Town. So if you can hire a vehicle for your stay that would be very useful. But driving in Cape Town can be tricky. For example the taxi we travelled was stopped behind a container carrying truck at traffic lights and suddenly the truck reversed for no reason despite the taxi driver tooting his horn. Luckily there was no vehicle behind us and the taxi driver, a local, reversed and avoid the accident. If you are in Cape Town and wants a taxi I can highly recommend Allen, his contact details 076-3157336, don't forget to put the international code 00 27 in front.

11. Don't forget to get a travel electricity adapter plug!

Now it is time for me to board my plane to Heathrow. Hopefully I will be writing more blogs about Travelling to South Africa.

Surviving Viva

Today I was surprised to find a file in my computer, which I could not locate for so long. I've already shared these notes with my friends who were getting ready for their viva . Now I am sharing it with you because I thought perhaps it would be useful for others who may not have access to this wonderful book.

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickgage/3298339190/sizes/m/in/photostream/

These are the notes I have taken while reading the book:
How to survive your viva : defending a thesis in an oral examination by Rowena Murray.

I must say that I found this book very useful; but there may be others who think that it is not so relevant to them. So it is you to decide what is a good way to get ready for your viva. Some of these notes are direct quotes (especially questions) from the book.

What is your original contribution to knowledge?
What are your contributions?
Who are the four or five key people in the field? Names and details of their work, key works,book names, journal published and titles of papers (if you can keep them in mind!)
Are you aware of any recent publications by the key people you have mentioned?
Which publications had most influence on your work? When were they published, in which journals, which publishers?
Can you make direct connections with topics you are likely to talk about or that will introduce into the discussion?
Be prepared to introduce topics that you would like to discuss?
What are the highlights of your thesis? Where exactly are they? in which chapters, pages etc (don't forget to have post it notes indicating places)
Describe your doctoral experience? (coherent, as a narrative, a learning process, a series of decisions made on the way, sequence of mile stones)

 ***
Why did you choose this topic for doctoral study?
How did you develop an interest in this subject?
Could you tell us a bit about how you came to do this research?
What made you want to do research on this?
I’d like to know what the origins of this thesis were for you? (Theoretical, based on previous study, research, Personal, Professional, growing out of your experience and networks Conceptual based on where your work is currently located in the discipline)

***
Questions About you. Your experience, your education, your interests, and your networks About the research training you have received Any experience of teaching you have had during doctoral study and training you have had for that Have you started to compile a teaching portfolio? Whether you have joined the relevant professional body 

***
General Questions
How did you come to be doing research in this area?
Would you please summarise your thesis for us? You cover several areas in your thesis. What is the whole thing about?
Who would you say are the key people in your field today?
Did your study turn out as you expected?
How do you see research developing in the next five years?
On a general level, what, for you, were the most interesting things to come out of your thesis?
Tip: refer to your thesis and others works as you talk about general topics too - always link to your thesis.

***
Specific questions
Why is this subject important? Who else thinks it is important? Here you have to show that other than you and your supervisor there are other people interested in it. What about government documents stating the need for XYZ or international initiatives?
Who has worked on this subject before?
What had not being done before?
Who has done something similar to what you did?
What did you adapt for your study?
What is your contribution to the field?
Who will use your material?
Is there evidence of critical appraisal of other work? Does the candidate make explicit links between the review and his or her design of the study?
Relationship between your chapters?
What is your rationale about your decisions?
What is the link between your research questions and your hypothesis?
Why did you reject other methods?
What are the pros and cons of the methods you chose?
Why did you reject the others?
Tip: There may be lots of ways of researching about a problem what you have to show is that the method you have used is 'a' good approach given the circumstances.

 ***
 Open ended questions.
What is your opinion of the work of ‘X’? (The Dreaded question - what if I haven't even heard of 'X'? Probably you will not get this question)
What did you think when you got that result/outcome of your experiment/analysis?

***
Closed questions.
Did researcher A used method X or Y?
What do you know about the work of ‘X’? research methods, approaches, or perspectives
Note: If you realize you gave the wrong answer later in the discussion you can correct it. You might even want to explain your wrong answer: nerves, anxiety, a popular misconception, temporary memory loss, confusion. Do not make the mistake of not correcting something when you realize you made a mistake. Outcome of your viva may depend on it!

***
Summarize your work - combining the generalizations that are typical of summaries with specifics where possible from your thesis.

*** Easy questions and hard questions
If you are not sure about a part of your method etc or you think your examiner is so knowledgeable in an area then these will be hard questions.
*** Long questions clarify or check with examiner what he or she is asking. take notes of the question
*** The ‘second chance’ questions If you give a poor answer to a question, you may find that you are asked it again, or asked to discuss the subject again in a different way.

***
Methodological questions
What precautions were taken against likely source of bias?
What are the limitations in the design? Is the candidate aware of them?
Is the methodology for data collection appropriate?
Are the techniques used for analysis appropriate?
In the circumstances, has the best design been chosen?
Has the candidate given an adequate justification for the design used?
Summarise the steps in your research by condensing them into a series of sentences: the first step was … then … the final step was … Use the word 'step' to organize your answer. What led you to select these models of … ?
What are the theoretical components of your framework?
How did you decide upon the variables to include in your conceptual framework?
How did concepts assist you to visualize and explain what you intended to investigate?
How did you use your conceptual framework to design your research and analyse your findings?
Questions about what you did not do? You should still argue for the quality of your data or analysis, of course, but you can also critique it. Score some points by naming other researchers who have done similar work. Show the examiner how well you know this other work and other methodologies.

*** Questions about your writing.
Talk about writing as a series of achievements, each teaching something about your work. Reveal how you acted upon your supervisor’s feedback on your writing. If you have publications you can introduce them to the discussion here, talk about the peer reviews you received and about publications on pipeline. Show that you understand academic writing as a process, involving careful design, dialogue, feedback, conversations and many many revisions. Give examples.
Is the text of your thesis sufficiently transparent, with a perfectly clear intended meaning?
Where will your readers see and recognize the doctoral worthiness of your thesis?
How have you presented developing themes and issues so that examiners do not overlook or misunderstand the more complex aspects of your thesis?
How will your readers recognize the scholarly base upon which your text has been written?
Do your conclusions derive from, or are they supported by, your data or analysis?
Very specific questions may focus on what you said in page X and exactly what you meant by it? Be ready for this question it does come! I did get this type of questions but luckily for me they were clarification questions. If your argument is not clear enough in that page and if you have discussed elsewhere point to that.

***
Probing - Why? Why not?
To what extent did you feel that you had got all you needed by that point … or did you feel limited by time? (not intended to force you to reveal weaknesses in your study, but aimed at testing your understanding of what does and does not constitute a legitimate compromise, a compromise that still adheres to the standards required for doctoral research)
 ***
Follow-up questions
Did you really mean to say that … ? Don't be scared to say 'YES I did' :)

***
Combined questions Can you summarise how your use of this method might lead to … ?

*** Obvious questions To test the basics on which your study was founded. So even though they seem obvious give in-depth answers.

*** Hobby horses Examiner’s own ideas, preconceptions and ways of thinking will inevitably shape how they play their role in your examination. You need to know what interests your examiners have. Read their work especially recent publications. If they have a digital presence (which almost all have these days) don't forget to follow them. for example read their blogs and subscribe to RSS; follow them on Twitter, Academia.edu. This will help you to get grips of what recent papers/articles your examiners are reading and to be able to get yourself up to date. This method helped me immensely. Luckily my external examiner (Prof. Steve Wheeler) has a wonderful blog (Learning with 'e's), which I follow closely with great interest.

*** The ‘blue skies’ question What might this mean in terms of your project?

*** The ‘500 000 dollar’ question
If you had 500 000 pounds to spend on your research, what would you do? Idea is to stimulate candidate to speculate beyond the confines of his or her research while showing an understanding of: What should be done next What could be done for that sum of money How exactly or approximately, it would be spent. This is another variation of ‘Where do you see research going in the next 10 years’ This is also a test of can the candidate do research independently? Have a mini proposal rather than a shopping list of things. rationale for the proposed study, aims of the study, methods to be used, feasibility, outcomes or deliverable, anticipating counter arguments

*** Repackaging Questions Explain what is new about your work. Tell me how your work is different to that of X. When did you realize that you were on to something. What would you say has been your contribution.

***
How important were ethical considerations in your study?
How did you handle them?
Were there safety issues for participants yourself? How did you resolve them?
Who do you think will be influenced by your work?
How did you developed the …. you used in your methodology?
Did you use the same techniques with each subject/material?
What do you use when you use the term ….?
Did you consider how you might have to curtail a phase of your research if you saw that it was not working? Why should we trust the analysis you present in table X?
Why was …. a good judgement?
Why should we accept your interpretation of ….?
Which is your most important recommendation and why?
Do you think your recommendations are feasible?
You say … was the result of …. Could it have been the opposite?
You seem unsure of … why is that?

***
On page X you say …. what did you mean by this?
This is going to be asked one way or another. Turn to page, restate what you have written, expand on it a bit or paraphrase it, then answer the examiner’s question.

*** Define-defend method
Why did you not do more detailed analysis of ….? What I did was … My reasons for doing that was. I could have done a more detailed analysis of …. by …. But I decided not to do that because …
This define defend method was helpful for me in my viva.

***
 Is this result more important than that one?
Please tell us how good the thesis is and could you point out the best bits for us?
Which parts of the thesis are you proud of, which parts do you want to highlight

*** Hindsight
 *** Structuring answers
Classification - groupings
Analysis: breaking the subject into parts
Pros and Cons Problem - solution
General - Specific
Narrative of work done
Other directions
Before answering think quickly: Which chapter has anything to do with the question? Is there an answer to the question in any of the chapters? More than one chapter? Which one first? Summarise what happens in that chapter? Refer to and turn to specific pages (very important to show that you know your work). Say why it is relevant to the question check: have you answered the question?

Use active voice and say I. Use past tense because you have already done it.

*** Pause
before answering - time to think
during your answer - marks logical shift to next part of answer towards
end of the answer - do they want you to continue or stop
Cite the work of authorities in discussion of your own work.
Take notes
*Deal with hostility 
defuse hostility by nodding, taking notes or saying “Yes, I can see what you are saying”.   Defend your work What about trying …. ? 1. define what you did 2. justify it 3. consider the pros and cons of the alternatives the examiner proposes.
* Re-reading your thesis
 1. read the chapter from start to finish
 2. write one sentence about it. This will act as a prompt for your thinking and recall
 3. Put single-word prompts in the margin. This will help you to find your way if you lose your place
 4. Convert the chapter into a series of questions and answers 
 5. Use these in your practice sessions.
I used different colour post it notes to flag up pages that I thought would be important for answering possible questions. Helped me immensely.

Towards the end of the examination if the examiner says, ‘I think you need to strengthen the section on ….’ you need to know your thesis well in order to be able to tell whether or not you have dealt with the proposed ‘strengthening’ in another chapter. Also be sure to know how much you need to write: sentence, paragraph, half a page, page, few pages or in the worst case a full thesis (let's not go there, shall we).

If you have read this lengthy blog could it be because your viva is due soon? Is it tomorrow?
Good Luck!
Hope you will soon be celebrating...

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/hm6612/2677766099/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Adelaide - Dec 2011

I presented a paper "Extending higher educational opportunities through e-Learning: a case study from Sri Lanka" authored by myself and my supervisors at the 1st International Australasian Conference on Enabling Access to Higher Education in Sri Lanka, held at the University of South Australia - Adelaide. It was a great opportunity to meet people having similar interests and networking. The conference had 5 sessions in parallel making it difficult to select which sessions to attend as all topics were interesting. We had presenters from all continents making it a truly international experience.

The paper was about a total online distance education programme offered by Orange Valley University (pseudonymous) in Sri Lanka. Why students have opted for total online programme and how ready they were for eLearning as well as challenges in implementing eLearning in Sri Lanka were discussed in the paper. This paper presented some of our early findings from a larger project which employed multiple case studies with an ethnographic approach to examine the impact of ICTs on distance education in Sri Lanka.

During the time I was in Adelaide, I visited Wang Wang and Funi - the only Giant Pandas living in the Southern hemisphere - in the Adelaide Zoo. I also manged to visit the beautiful Glenelg beach and do a bit of shopping. The transport system in Adelaide was good and easy to find your way around the city. I did not get the chance to visit Haigh's chocolate factory but their chocolates were yummy, especially the ones with Hazel nuts.

Learning Python - File Reading

I wanted to learn Python and never had the time to invest. I have started learning Python something I should have done years ago. Anyway, as I am new to Python I found few tutorials along with the Python Documentation very useful.

While trying file handling I came across this error
IOError: (22, "invalid mode ('r') or filename", 'd:\x07.txt')

It took me bit of time to realize that I have given the path name with a wrong slash '\' instead of '/' !
Just thought to document this because when I Googled for the error it was not so easy to find what was wrong.

Using EndNote for Citing References

At the last stage of my thesis first draft I changed one reference's author using the Edit Reference in MS Word 2007 option. Alas my EndNote cite while you write tab disappeared saying that there was a major error encountered and I had to search on the Internet and invest few hours to get it sorted (how I got it sorted it is explained in my previous Blog)

This time, when I realized what happened could have been due to this reference being changed I reverted the Author name to be the previous. (Actually I have mixed first and last names of the author). Then I inserted another entry in EndNote for correct reference and let the old reference to be there as it is. It should be possible to remove reference entries but I am not taking any chances until I get my first draft finished - well to be honest I would not risk deleting it until I finish this once and for all.

EndNote and MS Word 2007

I have been using EndNote to help me keep my referencing in place and I hoped that it will help me to speedup writing my thesis. It did the job well when my thesis was in Chapters but now that I have put everything together it is taking more and more time for a reference to be inserted, updated or changed.

But I realized how much I am dependent on it only when my Word software crashed and failed to load the tab that I used to use when citing with EndNote.

After bit of research on Internet I found how to fix it and documenting it here hoping that someone else would find it useful too.

Error when trying to load the COM Add-In: The connected state of Office Add-Ins registered in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE cannot be change

System and Software: Windows Vista Home Edition, MS Office Word 2007 Ultimate, EndNote 2x

Remedy: Click on Windows key -> hold shift key and right click on Word Icon -> Run as admin
Then click on top left word icon -> Word Options -> Add-Ins ->COM AddIns -> Cite while you write

This rectified the problem for me and hope this helps someone else too.