The University of Kigali Graduate School hosted the second workshop on the map application project about using geodata in educational linguistics research on 12th June 2023. UoK students were trained in using open sources, geodata, and maps in research and education. During the workshop, the students conducted a practical introduction to working with data in the map interface and check data realization on the user interface of the map. The practices were facilitated by two international researchers: Prof. Tove Rosendal, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Prof. Helle Lykke Nielsen, a researcher at the University of Southern Denmark.
The workshop was conducted as part of a South-North research collaboration. In 2022, University of Kigali (UoK) signed a research collaboration agreement with the University of Gothenburg (UGOT) to administrate the research grant that Prof. Tove Rosendal (Professor of African Linguistics at UGOT) and Dr. AMINI NGABONZIZA (Lecturer of Educational Linguistics at UoK) had won from the Swedish Research Council. UoK strongly supports the research cooperation between the two universities. The three-year research project is titled “Reading the Signs: Renaming and transformative processes in urban Rwanda”. The first workshop held at UoK helped students to understand how the research project is conducted and introduced them to digital humanities as the research project applies Geodata and maps to process and visualise the research findings at the end of the project on December 2024.
Concluding the workshop, the Dean of Postgraduate, UoK, Dr. Ronald Kwena thanked the two international researchers for sharing their expertise with UoK students. He urged students to practice what they have learnt in their research activities. He emphasised that what makes a difference between a secondary school and university is to be a lead in research and innovation.
