SADiLaR (the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources), is a
Department of Science and Innovation-sponsored initiative to create and manage digital resources and software supporting research and development in digital language resources in South Africa.
Vision and Mission
SADiLaR is focussed on preserving and advancing
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
's under-resourced indigenous language. They wish to promote a digital future for all South Africans, irrespective of their language background. This is enabled by stimulating and enabling digital research and development into vernacular languages and they share these language resources freely.
History
Founded in 2016, and hosted at the
North-West University
The North-West University (NWU) is a public research university located on three campuses in Potchefstroom, Mahikeng and Vanderbijlpark in South Africa. The university came into existence through the merger in 2004 of the Potchefstroom Univer ...
, SADiLaR aims to provide a resource centre that simulates, enables, manages and distributes digital research related to all of
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
's official languages. It functions both as host and as a hub for a number of nodes, including other universities, research centres and public archives.
Nodes
The nodes that are linked to SADiLaR include;
*
CSIR (HLT Research Group)
* Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (
ICELDA)
*
North-West University
The North-West University (NWU) is a public research university located on three campuses in Potchefstroom, Mahikeng and Vanderbijlpark in South Africa. The university came into existence through the merger in 2004 of the Potchefstroom Univer ...
(
Centre for Text Technology)
*
Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...
(Child Language Development)
*
University of Pretoria
The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...
(Department of African Languages)
*
University of South Africa
The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...
(Department of African Languages)
DH-OER
SADiLaR launched the DH-OER Champions project to stimulate activism and research around the use and/or creation of OER for the
digital humanities
Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...
(DH) at universities in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
.
The inaugural DH-OER cohort offered stakeholders the opportunity observe how the various open champions (academics, researchers, and students) from other disciplines, institutions, and regions in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
(and beyond) can make use of
OER in their disciplines. The results of these DH OER projects are listed on th
Educator Track pageon the SADiLaR site.
Higher Education Support
SADiLaR are engaged in the systematic creation of relevant digital text, speech and multimodal resources.
Collaborations
SADiLaR is involved in a collaboration between
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
and the
Pan South African Language Board
The Pan South African Language Board (, abbreviated PanSALB) is an organisation in South Africa established to promote multilingualism, to develop and preserve th12 official languages and to protect language rights in South Africa. The Board was ...
. Together they launched the
SWiP collaboration at the
University of South Africa
The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...
in September 2023.
SWiP advocates for equality among all indigenous languages and encouraging languages communities in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
to become more visible on Wikipedia and post information in their own language.
References
External links
*
Digital Humanities Centers
North-West University
Language education in South Africa
Technology consortia
Endangered_languages_of_Africa
{{SouthAfrica-stub