Key elements for UX-based design, applied in the improvement of the academic service of Peruvian university education in the context of COVID-19

The support systems for academic management are of vital importance for the development of activities in a higher education institution and their integration with learning platforms are key for a quality educational service, a requirement intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. In most universities in Peru, these applications are far from the necessary critical requirements and especially if seen in terms of user experience (UX), however, it is still observed that they do not apply the methodologies or techniques of this approach, they don't even consider the profile of the key user, the student, according to the context in which it operates. That is why a study was conducted through interviews applied to IT staff, which includes five dimensions and surveys to 611 students, with the purpose of characterizing it, based on three conditions, as well as identifying the key elements for the UX design of the academic management support system, through eight criteria with the objective of improving the service provided. The results of the evaluation raise the need to improve usability, based on the characterization of the student, identifying as key elements, that the students are digital natives, they use the various technological media very frequently, although there was a lack of mastery of digital skills. They make use of the academic management support system but not through the mobile mainly because it is not designed for that environment;in visual logic, the majority specifies that the elements of the same theme must be close to each other;regarding performance, access time should be reduced and interaction with the user should be improved;Finally, online support must be improved, as well as the immediacy in dealing with incidents, as a result of the pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.

Influence of Technological Factors in Teaching and Communication in Higher Education During the COVID-19 Health Crisis

Due to COVID-19, the way we use digital tools and the way we communicate with students have changed in higher education, it is so that the present investigation of mixed type carried out through: bibliographic review, interview with ICT managers, application of a virtual survey to teachers, and processing of the academic database, aimed to determine the degree of influence of technological factors in the form of communication and teaching in higher education, finding that the pandemic had positive effects, mastery of digital skills in teachers increased, digitization and updating of online courses, synchronous and asynchronous modalities were integrated, the use of digital tools was diversified and in terms of communication, and institutional mail was used massively for administrative and academic purposes. Nevertheless, in the negative effects noted, that feedback and motivation were not adequate. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Perceived Effectiveness of Gender-Based Virtual Education in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic in University Higher Education

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many processes to be digitized, one of them being education. With regard to university education, it was carried out virtually, in such a way that students were affected by the confinement and the coupling to a new educational reality. The objective was to analyze the perception of the effectiveness of the students based on their gender in the teaching - virtual learning process, under a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, and descriptive approach. A survey structured in five dimensions: psychological, technological, pedagogical, academic activities, and communication, was applied to a sample of 1,348 students from a public university. The results show that there is a significant difference between the perception of effectiveness by gender, taking into account the career groups. In technology, women perceive high effectiveness compared to men, in pedagogical terms, men have a better perception than women, academic activities and communication are perceived in a similar way in both genders, finally, psychologically, women were more affected than men. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Essential but vulnerable: Mexican farmworkers facing the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, agricultural workers in the United States were defined by the administration of former president Donald Trump as "essential workers," despite the fact that half of them are undocumented. Most of these workers were born in Mexico, and both the immigrants who already reside in that country and those who enter the United States temporarily with H-2A visas have continued to work to produce food for the entire population. This article analyzes the labor participation of Mexican immigrants in agricultural work in the United States during the pandemic and the socio-economic and working conditions that make them especially vulnerable to being infected with COVID-19. The study reveals that, in 2020, Mexican immigrants, in comparison with the total number of US workers, had the highest labor-force participation rate in economic activities considered essential. Despite transitioning from invisibility to visibility during the pandemic, many agricultural workers constitute a population that is highly vulnerable to the coronavirus, especially those who are undocumented and do not have health insurance. Moreover, many workers have different comorbidities, such as diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and obesity, that constitute risk factors for COVID-19.

Raising Awareness in the Adoption of COVID-19 Preventive Measures in Higher Education Students through an Epidemiological Surveillance Mobile App

COVID-19 disease has started several levels of alert and biosafety protocols to mitigate the risk of contagion everywhere, therefore causing universities to adopt the virtual environments in their teachings, but nowadays it became a necessity to return to classrooms in a short term basis;however, how prepared are we for this “new normal”? In this research, a validated questionnaire was used to measure the knowledge of COVID-19 and preventive measures adopted by university students, before and after the use of an epidemiological surveillance mobile app, developed as a tool to raise awareness in students. The research was quantitative, quasi-experimental, it was applied in a sample of 82 students, the analysis was global and gender inferential using the non-parametric T test for paired samples. The results indicated that the epidemiological surveillance mobile app made possible to raise awareness in the students in the adoption of preventive measures, proposing awareness strategies that allow establishing alerts and timely controls. © 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.

Food practices and lifestyle in the population of Guayaquil during the Covid-19 pandemic

Introduction: The period of home confinement for COVID-19 has generated positive effects to stop the spread of the virus, but in turn has caused a modification of the traditional lifestyle of the population;which could lead to a decrease in physical activity and less motivation to eat a healthy diet. Objective: Determine food practices and lifestyles in the population of Guayaquil during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional and observational study was carried out that included 527 people from the city of Guayaquil. The information was collected through an online questionnaire. For the identification of eating habits, the food consumption frequency survey was used and for the determination of lifestyles the FANTASTIC questionnaire was considered. Results: The research sample consisted of 190 men and 337 women;which represented 36.1% and 63.9% respectively. The age range was 18 to 64 years, with an average of 30.4 ± 10.8. The dietary practice of those investigated was characterized by insufficient consumption of dairy products (80.1%), vegetables (71.7%), fruits (71.9%), meat and poultry (76.7%), fish (63.2%), cereals and derivatives (89.0%) and legumes (58.8%). The study population showed a low tendency to consume alcohol (81.2%), tobacco (90.1%) and practice physical activity (68.3%). Conclusions: A positive change was determined in the decrease in alcohol and tobacco intake, however, there was a change in lifestyle, especially a reduction in the consumption of healthy foods and physical activity;for which health promotion strategies must be established to prevent the appearance of chronic non-communicable disease in the future. © 2021 Sociedad espanola de dietetica. All rights reserved.

Marketing and Digital Press: Information Consumption Patterns in Colombia During COVID19

COVID19 has had enormous consequences in the media. The pandemic has affected journalism by encouraging new informational newspaper consumption trends. This phenomenon has inevitably changed newspaper newsrooms since print versions started to decline in favor of digital ones. Since the beginning of the mentioned health crisis, information provided by media has become a highly citizenship demand. The study of the dynamics of information consumption is very relevant for understanding the potential journalism business transformation nowadays and in the years to come. Such a health crisis might open a scenario of opportunities and challenges to face by journalism worldwide. The objective of this research is to analyze the influence of COVID19 on newspaper digital edition consumption patterns. We have conducted an exploratory investigation based on the secondary data from Similarweb. Data focus on providing a portrait of Colombian newspapers reading habits during the most critical moments of COVID 19, the outbreak, from March to May 2020 (confinement and first wave), and the following months, from September to November 2020 (second wave). The results confirm the high impact of Covid-19 on digital edition demand on 15 Colombian newspapers during the first wave. Citizens who have traditionally been far away from media might have now been connected with media. However, results also reveal a dramatic decrease in unique visitors in the second wave, thus the potential audience benefits for media and advertisers might have been considered a missing opportunity to retain and maintain Covid-19 outbreak readership habits. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Model Maturity to Determine Student Profile During COVID-19 Pandemic at Public University

COVID-19 has accelerated the virtualization of processes in universities, academically, the role played by students. A maturity model was developed to determine the student profile based on digital culture, organizational culture and the psychological aspect, the latter being the most affected during confinement. These aspects were integrated to create a model in which students were classified into five profiles: silent, cooperative, creative, star, and superstar. This will allow us to know what type of student we have and what strategies to implement to achieve that they reach the profile of superstar student and can face the virtual teaching - learning process with success. To validate our model, it was applied to a public university where the level of maturity of the students was evidenced and strategies were established that would allow us to lead students with a superstar profile. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

A Prospective Model of a Digital Epidemiological Surveillance 4.0 Based on the Peruvian Public Health System

The health-disease situation of the population and health care delivery services are continuously monitored by epidemiological surveillance systems and health information systems, but since the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in December 2019 and spread globally, each country tried to control the virus by activating their own health protocols, but they became insufficient to face the pandemic and every control attempts seem impossible to all humanity, even more without the support of information technologies, which provides a rapid response for decision-making. Being that the reason why surveillance systems should help mitigate the spread of diseases and, at the same time, plan resources to protect the health status of citizens. Therefore, the aim of this article is to propose a model of a digital epidemiological surveillance 4.0, considering the current technological revolution and the constant evolution of the Internet. This model is divided into 4 phases: situational analysis, planning, execution and evaluation, and supported on 4 key components: logistic support, digital privacy and data protection, communication and technology, and disruptive innovation. A quantitative type of research was applied in a sample of 58 participants, all working as health staff in Chiclayo-Peru, to whom a data collection instrument, based on digital forms and interviews with medical epidemiologists, was applied, that information, which mainly considers the perception and perspectives of the epidemiological surveillance system, served as the basis for the proposed model. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Digital Transformation Model for the Reactivation of the Tourism Sector in the COVID-19 Environment of the Lambayeque Region

Globally, the tourism sector has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, which has triggered an economic and social crisis. Many countries are currently generating alternatives to promote tourism and allow tourists to return and improve the current situation. In Peru, borders were closed, and therefore the different tourist sites and activities were closed, generating unemployment in the actors involved in the tourism sector, as well as the local communities that underpinned their economy in the activities of this area. Faced with this problem, it is evident that technology and the digitization of tourism activities will allow supporting this sector, so this article proposes a digital transformation model for the reactivation of tourism, taking the Lambayeque region as a case study. We have carried out a systematic investigation of tourism information and applied interviews to specialists in the sector and surveys of the actors involved. The model is based on five dimensions: technology, management, processes, tourism product, and digital tourist. For each dimension, we describe its purpose and the proposals applying solutions and technological tools that allow digital transformation. Our model was validated through an expert judgment, the result of which was acceptable, hoping that its implementation will contribute to the reactivation of tourism. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.