ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak has caused a significant impact on the higher education system unprecedented in modern history. Learning institutions were closed, tight regulations enforced to encourage social and physical distancing and switched classes from face-to-face to online delivery (ODL). As a result, e-learning tools and platforms were explored to keep students engaged in learning during this pandemic. Although this virtual teaching–learning adaptation is not by choice and challenging for both educators and students, modern technology has encouraged us to explore a new interactive way of delivering knowledge and continue students' learning engagement. This paper focuses on the alternative teaching methods that have been conducted in Architecture Measured Drawing, which traditionally relies on physical interactions and interaction in the form of collaborative work in-studio learning and field trips. A case study of one (1) private university conducted the Architecture Measured course online in response to the pandemic has been investigated. This paper aims to identify the teaching and learning methods of this course during the pandemic and to analyze the level of students' engagement throughout the course. A survey was distributed to students enrolled in the module to gain feedback on their experience. Findings proved that the alternative method adopted has shown that students have experienced different types of engagement with each stage in the course. Students' engagement was maintained at a high level despite the shift and completed the course successfully. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) imparted unprecedented negative impact worldwide since it was declared as a global pandemic in 2020 due to its high infectivity and mortality rate. Consequently, those who have been infected with COVID-19 experienced significant amount of social stigma which resulting in deterioration of mental well-being. Hence, this study aimed to translate the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue Stigma Scale (EMIC-SS) into Malay and investigate the reliability and validity of the Malay version (EMIC-SS-M) among COVID-19 survivors in Malaysia. Initially, concurrent translation and back translation of the EMIC-SS was conducted followed by the assessment of its face and content validity. Then, the EMIC-SS-M was administered to 219 COVID-19 survivors recruited from three targeted centers for assessment of its reliability (internal consistency) and validity (convergent and discriminant validity, exploratory factor analysis [EFA] and confirmatory factor analysis [CFA]). The EMIC-SS-M reported an acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha of 0.727, while its domains reported acceptable Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.708 to 0.795. EFA and CFA confirmed that the EMIC-SS-M consisted of 15 items in 4 domains. The EMIC-SS-M exhibited good psychometric properties and ready for use to assess stigma among COVID-19 survivors in Malaysia. It can be adapted for use to assess stigma in other disease conditions among the Malaysian population in future studies. Copyright © 2022, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected most people. In Malaysia, to reduce the spread, several interventions were implemented, which have also affected the higher education system, and impacted the academicians who are the pillar of the system. This study was conducted to evaluate mental health (MH) and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) during the pandemic among university academicians of various ages, nationalities, and mental illness history. Material(s) and Method(s): A cross-sectional survey was conducted using online MOS 36-Item Short-Form (SF-36). A total of 1482 UniKL academicians were invited to participate. Sample size was calculated using Raosoft, Inc. Software. Confidence level was set at 5%, hence a total of 306 participants were needed for the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS 21.0. Result(s) and Conclusion(s): A total of 265 academicians responded to the survey. In all HRQOL domains, male respondents outperformed females. Significant differences between two genders were found in physical functioning (PF), body pain (Bp), and vitality (Vt). Except for general health and PF, older respondents appeared to have better conditions for each HRQOL scale. There were substantial differences in MH between respondents > 40 years old, but not in HRQOL. No significant differences found between nationalities in terms of HRQOL and MH, except for role physical (RP). Foreign academicians appeared to have higher mean scores for each HRQOL and MH sections of SF-36, which indicated as having higher QOL, and in comparison, foreign academicians were found to have better physical and mental conditions. There were also differences among respondents with previous history of mental illness. Almost half of those who have had a mental illness in the past believed that the pandemic worsened their mental health. The pandemic did impact the academicians' mental health and HRQOL in various ways. More studies can be conducted to identify other possible factors that could have contributed to the issues.
ABSTRACT
"Fake news" is a fairly recent term. However, literature demonstrates that the dissemination of fake news on social media has increased over recent years. While existing studies have mostly looked at fake news detection, research on the motives behind why people share fake news has been limited especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying a thematic analysis on data collected from faceto-face and online interviews, the purpose of this qualitative study is to gain an understanding of how social media users gather and share fake news through the lived experiences of 15 social media users in Selangor, Malaysia. All social media users involved had experienced receiving and sharing fake news with their circle of friends and family. We found that the users share unverified news mainly via WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook. We conclude that news is shared with the intention to be the "first messenger", to educate others, to gain more followers, and to create chaos and panic. This research, identifying a few knowledge gaps, proposes more future research on the spread of fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Novel Coronavirus 2019 or COVID-19 has shifted the traditional face-to-face interaction into digital interaction, whereby people are meeting through online;education is no longer confined within the four walls of the classroom. Subsequently, this transformation also affected the service delivery provided by the library. Recent studies show that the usage of digital libraries increases in the aftermath of COVID-19. However, there is currently scarce literature on the factors that drive the increase of usage and its impact on users’ satisfaction behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study is twofold;first, to investigate the level of digital libraries satisfaction in the aftermath of COVID-19 and second, to examine the factors that influence user’ satisfaction behavior on digital libraries. A quantitative research methodology was adopted;the instrument was developed by adopting previous research studies. The instrument was pre-tested, expert reviews, pilot-tested before actual data collection. Data was collected from one of the universities on the east coast of Malaysia. A total of 358 valid responses were received;responses were performed for data cleaning and coding. The findings were then analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and were analyzed based on descriptive and inferential analysis. The result shows that two hypotheses were accepted;digital resources quality and digital library affinity were found to have a significant and positive relationship with user’s satisfaction behavior, while digital library generic usability did not have a substantial and positive relationship with the user’s satisfaction behavior. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The world is currently facing a pandemic attack of Coronovirus disease (COVID-19), which is an infectious disease causing mild to moderate respiratory illness. One of the most common and early symptoms of COVID-19 is fever which is the reaction to a disease-specific stimulus causing the increase of the human body temperature. To slow down the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, the public is required have their body temperature measured when entering any premises. The current common method of monitoring the human body temperature uses the application of non-contact infrared thermometer (NCIT) and is only limited for stationary conditions within short distances and mostly suitable for indoor premises. The available technology to detect human body temperature for longer distances uses the thermal camera which is costly and large. Thus, it is challenging to detect anyone with high body temperature is non-stationary conditions, at longer distances, especially outdoor. The project proposes an innovation to the current practice, for a wearable noncontact temperature detector device which is portable. The wearable non-contact temperature detector embeds a thermal sensor and a microcontroller to a normal hat. It is able to detect objects with higher temperature (37.5°C) within 1 meter radius of 60° angle view in stationary and non-stationary conditions. The wearable device communicates via Bluetooth to a mobile device to display the detected temperature and notifies the user via alert message and alarm for high temperature detection. Display of the object's thermal image is also available with a resolution of 8 times 8 pixel. The wearable non-contact temperature detector is able to achieve 99% accuracy of temperature measurement for detection distance of up to 70 cm for indoor and within 20 cm for outdoor when tested with normal temperature subject and high temperature object and compared with the actual temperature detected via a commercial NCIT device. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Since Corona virus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has been infecting people worldwide, it is important to detect Covid-19 at an earlier phase to fight against the pandemic. Pathogenic and laboratory testing are needed to determine whether someone is infected or not by Covid-19. However, this laboratory test is relatively time consuming and could produce significant false negative rates. This paper presents a study on Covid-19 detection by using deep learning algorithms aiming to predict and detect Covid-19. A set of chest X-ray images are used as the input datasets to prepare and to train the proposed model. In this study, a deep learning architecture (DLA) and optimisation strategies have been proposed and investigated to maintain the automated Covid-19 detection. A platform and a model model based on convolutional neural network (CNN) is introduced to extract the feature of X-ray images for feature learning phase in order to make the model suitable for the problem. Two strategies are applied to improve the performance of proposed model, i.e. Data augmentation and fine-tuning with deep-feature-based. A classifier are employed in order to enhance the performance of model. The experimental investigation was performed between the proposed work with the pre-trained DLAs, such as VGG16 and ResNet50. The results of this study affirm that the proposed model and VGG16 obtain better classification accuracy of 98% and 95% of sensitivity respectively. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Islamic microfinance is expanding and penetrating its potential market over the globe. Access to credit or financing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, is vital for micro-entrepreneurs in climbing the socio-economic ladder that will contemporaneously increase their household income. In Malaysia, most of the MEs can hardly access financing from formal financial institutions due to poor credit rating, having zero to little collateral, income instability, small loan amounts, and high transaction costs. Alternatively, MEs approach Islamic microfinance institutions for their financing solution. Therefore, this study intends to investigate how far the utilization of Islamic microfinancing by MEs could enhance their quality of life. One hundred seven (107) usable questionnaires were analysed via the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) AMOS using IBM® SPSS and found that both investment and expansion factors played key roles in affecting the financial wellbeing of the micro-entrepreneurs. The results lend credence to the positive effect of Islamic microfinance products may have on MEs and indirectly support the long-term economic development for MEs. This study deliver implication to various angles. In practical part, it opens the eyes of micro-entrepreneurs to opt for the right path (expansion and investment) to achieve financial wellbeing. Government (regulators) can enhance the ability of Islamic microfinancing as a tool towards financial wellbeing and in theoretical part, this study deepens the scope of Schumpeter’s theory by inculcate this theory with Islamic finance scope of study. © 2021 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused massive disruptions in many sectors of society including higher education. Although the mainstream news outlets and social media have discussed how Malaysia’s higher education system coped with the disruptions caused by COVID-19, a fuller narrative needs to be properly documented. This qualitative narrative review involved an analysis of various types of publications including scholarly articles, world organizations’ reports, university documents as well as commentaries and reports from mainstream news outlets and social media that directly focus on the topic. It is evident from the review that Malaysian HEIs’ priority was in safeguarding student and staff welfare in terms of their health and safety. While providing emergency aid to students and support for institutions, the Ministry of Higher Education together with HEIs developed administrative measures to safeguard the delivery of programmes through remote online learning. The analysis confirmed that while online learning is considered appropriate during an emergency period, the digital divide clearly still exists, posing the greatest challenge to Malaysia’s recovery post COVID-19. The critical review on the immediate impacts of the pandemic on teaching and learning point to key recommendations for leadership, student welfare, and the importance of flexible education and evidence-based policymaking. © Penerbit UMT