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Rising student numbers and unpredictable unrest situations on campuses in South Africa have begged for alternatives to (or substitutes for) physical class attendance to address these problems. This study aimed to test student and lecturer perceptions on live streaming as a possible alternative at a South African university. Questionnaires were distributed to collect primary data. Students and lecturers agreed quite strongly that class attendance plays a big role in students achieving academic success. It is therefore crucial for the teaching functionality to continue at all times, whether physically or streamed. Participants agreed that the most popular argument why students would be interested in live streaming is the convenience of their own space, while the high cost of data would deter them from using it. Comments from participants revealed the need for live-streamed classes to be recorded and made available to them afterwards. A correlation was found between students' self-rated technological ability and their willingness to live-stream classes. Students with better technological skills are more willing to make use of live-streaming facilities. Approximately 90 per cent of student participants in this study would make use of livestreaming facilities. Lecturers, on the other hand, were less excited about the prospect of volunteering for their classes to be streamed. Their willingness to stream, however, is not dependent on their technological ability, but rather on their personal preference regarding teaching and learning.

The purpose of this study was to investigate language of instruction and the effect it has on the performance of undergraduate Accounting students at a South African university. Students who have Afrikaans as their home language (Afrikaans students) are faced with the choice of receiving instruction in their home language or in English-the language of the business world. The research design was empirical in nature. Questionnaires were distributed to obtain students' school and university results, and to gather student and lecturer opinions on matters affecting language of instruction. The benefit that English might have in the workplace was ranked among lecturers as the most popular reason contributing towards Afrikaans students' choice for receiving instruction in English. It was found that, among Afrikaans students, home-language instruction leads to marginally better midyear results at tertiary level. It was also interesting to discover that more than a third of student participants who are receiving instruction in Afrikaans indicated that they would consider a switch to English. This study proves that the choice of language of instruction in the undergraduate Accounting course would not necessarily be detrimental to student performance given that a student obtained an A or B symbol for their home-language subject in grade 12.

Several South African universities do not require students to have completed Accounting at secondary school level in order to enrol for a degree in Accounting. At Stellenbosch University such students with no prior Accounting knowledge can still graduate and receive a Bachelor of Accounting degree (which is the first step of many towards becoming a CA (SA)) within the minimum time frame of three years given that an Accounting conversion examination is passed at the beginning of their second academic year. The literature on student performance where students have no prior Accounting knowledge focuses predominantly on first-year Accounting students. Limited studies have been expanded beyond the first academic year to investigate these students' academic career up to their final year and whether such students obtain a professional degree in Accounting. The main objective of the research reported in this article was to analyse the results of first-year conversion students (with no prior Accounting knowledge) in order to report on their success rate towards obtaining a Bachelor of Accounting degree within the minimum time of three years. In order to meet this objective, a quantitative research method was applied. It was found that half of the population was successful in obtaining their professional degree in Accounting within three years and 81 per cent of the conversion students eventually obtained their professional degree in Accounting (irrespective of time). This finding suggests that Accounting as a subject at secondary school is not necessarily essential in order to obtain a professional degree in Accounting. Receiver operating curve analyses were also done to predict optimal cut-off marks for Accounting subjects in order to obtain the desired degree within three years. These predictions, together with the actual marks obtained by the identified population, should be welcomed by prospective conversion students who now have more data available for decision-making.

Microsatellite typing is frequently used in disease diagnosis and in genetic association studies. Inter-study consistency and comparability is essential in both applications. In this study, we show that the interlaboratory comparison of microsatellite sizes is often discrepant and misleading. This is a matter of great concern in the recent literature. However, accurate allele designation is easily attainable by the simple procedures we report, which are applicable to all gel-based genotyping methods. These involve: 1) the creation of dedicated standards for a specific microsatellite by PCR-amplifying representative alleles to generate an allelic ladder with comparable electrophoretic characteristics; 2) including both internal and external standards during electrophoresis to facilitate alignment. In addition, we recommend procedures that will improve inter-study comparability of all microsatellite analyses regardless of genotyping method. These involve: 1) cloning and sequencing representative microsatellite alleles to obtain accurate size designation; 2) sharing alleles of known sequence between laboratories to use as standards. We report on the typing of natural resistance-associated macrophage protein (NRAMP2) and interferon-y (IFNG) gene microsatellites as examples, the latter of which is crucial to many pathogenic processes. We describe in detail the varying allele sizes obtained by different methods, which prevent meaningful inter-study comparisons.

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