Professor of Information Technology
Department of Information Technology
ReinhardtA.Botha@mandela.ac.za
041 504 3179
North Campus, Room J114A

Biography / Background

Reinhardt A. Botha is a Professor of Information Technology in the School of Information Technology.  He is the director of the Centre for Research in Information and Cyber Security (CRICS). His research focuses on Information Security and Privacy. Reinhardt holds a PhD degree from the former Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.  He is a certified ITIL Expert as well as a certified IBM Application Security Specialist.

Currently he teaches Information Technology Management subjects to fourth-year students. In addition, he supervises a number of research-focused master and doctoral candidates. On the administrative front he was the chairperson of the Faculty Research, Technology and Innovation Committee, as well as chairperson of the Faculty Post-graduate Studies Committee, and as such represent the Faculty on the NMMU Research, Technology and Innovation Committee and the NMMU Postgraduate Studies Committee from 2010 – 2019.

Awards and Achievements

• NRF rating (Y = 2003 – 2008; C = 2009 – 2014; 2015 – 2020)
• Research Merit Award, Port Elizabeth Technikon, 2002
• New Researcher of the Year, Port Elizabeth Technikon, 2001
• SANLAM subject prize for academic achievement in Computer Science, University of Port Elizabeth, 1988
• Alumni Merit Award for academic achievement in Computer Science, University of Port Elizabeth, 1987

Professional Activities

He serves on the editorial board of Information & Computer Security and is a past section editor of the South African Computer Journal.

Supervision

He has supervised six doctoral students and 32 masters students. His current postgraduate students comprise five doctoral and five masters candidates.

Teaching Interests

In addition to sharing technical experiences in the class, I discovered that creating a teaching and learning environment where the students have more questions spinning in their minds than answers is absolutely effective. One of the ways I follow to realize such an environment is to start and to finish my lectures with open-ended questions. When I start a new topic, for example, I always try to show the student pictures and short videos of the applications of the knowledge that they are about to be exposed to. I find that this makes the students feel the importance of the subject and get them engaged in an endless process of deep thinking. I judge this by the kind of questions pouring into the class by the end of the lecture.

Besides the subject matter, I strive to help my students appreciate the importance of soft skills such as presentation, management, and negotiation skills for their careers. Also, I always highlight in the class the extreme importance of integrity and frankness in professional engineering. I strongly believe that students, especially those working closely with me for their final year projects, are a reflection of me and the University. Therefore, I try my best to help them strengthen their positive values and views about the University in particular and professional society in general.

Teaching Interests

My teaching included a variety of subjects mostly aimed at senior students:

• Management Information Systems 2 (1996 – 1998)
• Research Methodology 4 (2003 – 2005)
• Project 4 (2003)
• Information Systems 3: Database Systems Module (1996 – 2002)
• User Interfaces 4 (1999 – 2002)
• Database Systems 4 (1999 – 2001)
• Knowledge Management 4 (2002 – 2003; 2006 – 2008)
• Information Technology Management 1 (1996 – 1998)
• e-Commerce 1: m-Business Module (2005 – 2007)
• Installation Management III (2010 & 2011)
• Information and Technology Management 4 (2008 onwards)
• IT Professional Practice 1 (2019 onwards)

Research Interests

Reinhardt has research relationships with:

• Prof Steve Furnell, Network Research Group, Plymouth, England
• Prof Dr Kai Rannenberg, Chair of Mobile Business and Multilateral Security, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany