Communicating Research as a Public Discussion: The PHED Commission on the Future of Health Care Post-COVID 19

Often phrased in terms of "societal relevance” and "societal impact,” academic researchers are increasingly expected to design projects that engage with the public and policymakers both through communicating research outputs as well as inclusion within data collection and processing. This article reports on one such engagement initiative that was, paradoxically, a response to the state of mass social isolation imposed on many in the context of the 2020 pandemic. What became known as the "PHED Commission on the Future of Health Post-COVID 19” created a virtual environment that stretched across academic and professional fields, inviting a broad range of actors to provide evidence that was archived (i.e., videoed) and published online and later turned into a written report. In discussing the "Commission,” the article highlights the lessons learned during the process, including the tensions and solutions by which to help contribute to public debates and have societal impact. While we hope that the pandemic remains an exception, we argue that it is important to see where we can benefit from the innovations developed in that moment of crisis while not ignoring the strengths of traditional research practices. Such transdisciplinary activities are, the article argues, important to knowledge that can help advance health and equity.

Using Technology to Enhance Special Education. Advances in Special Education. Volume 37

"Using Technology to Enhance Special Education," Volume 37 of Advances in Special Education, is a logically, thoughtfully organized, and well-sequenced text. It focuses on how general and special educators can use technology to work with children and youth with disabilities. This cutting-edge book involves researchers, scholars, educators, and leaders who are knowledge producers in the field. It is written to respond to today's changing world where technology has become a very powerful force. As it stands, the world is getting smaller and smaller;and what is happening in a location quickly becomes known everywhere. For example, during the tense periods of the global COVID pandemic, technology became the livewire of our world. This book begins with an introduction to technology and students with disabilities;and the remaining chapters focus on the role of technology in the education of students with learning disabilities, emotional and/or behavioral disorders, and intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, physical and health impairments, hearing impairments/deafness, visual impairments, and traumatic brain injuries. In addition, some chapters focus on the role of technology in achieving equitable and inclusive education, building culturally and linguistically responsive general and special education, and creatively using digital comics to improve written narratives. In the end, this book concludes with a chapter that forward looking ways to infuse technology in special education. We feel that this volume is an excellent resource for special education researchers, scholars, practitioners, and professionals who teach and serve students with disabilities.

Online shopping cart abandonment: A review and research agenda

The COVID‐19 pandemic has put online shopping at the forefront of retailing;however, the issue related to shopping cart abandonment remains an eternal nemesis of e‐retailers. To understand extant research on online shopping cart abandonment (OSCA), a framework‐based systematic literature review was conducted with the purpose of gaining more insights into existing studies in this context. Specifically, this review examined the literature related to OSCA in terms of theory, context, characteristics, and methods to provide (i) a comprehensive review of the current state of research and (ii) constructive future research agenda in the area. Using scientific procedures, a total of 52 research articles were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science databases published during the period 2003–2022. The results revealed that most research was founded by the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) model and the buyer behavior theory, focused in the context of the United States and China, and appeared to use quantitative methods. As a result, this review is expected to assist researchers in better understanding the OSCA context, thus paving the way for further research and development in the area. In addition, providing practitioners with a better panorama to address the issue by expanding the literature review and highlighting the inhibiting factors of OSCA.

Frailty goes viral: a critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 national clinical guidelines in the United Kingdom

This paper explores how the rationing of medical care for older people by frailty score was justified and operationalised in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was expected to overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. In March 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published the ‘COVID-19 rapid guideline: critical care in adults', which advised that clinicians use the Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) to inform decisions about which patients over the age of 65 should be offered ventilatory support. We present a Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis of this guidance and the supporting online resources. Analysis shows how the guidance merchandises the CFS as a quick and easy-to-use technology that reduces social and physical complexity into a clinical score. This stratifies older people by frailty score and permits the allocation of resources along these lines. We show how this is justified through epidemiological discourses of risk, which are merged with the language of individual mortality prediction. We discuss the proceduralisation of the CFS alongside a growing body of research that problematises its application in resource allocation. We argue that the pandemic has increased the use of the concept of frailty and that this effectively obfuscates the concept's limitations and ambiguities;the ageism implicit in the response to COVID-19 in the UK;and the relative resource scarcity facing the UK's NHS.

Questioning Intercultural Communication Skills Absence in Five Algerian Universities Digital Challenge

COVID-19 pandemic has had a hard impact on all educational sectors where access to schools, educational institutions, and university campuses is forcibly halted. In this context, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research urged teachers to move from face-to-face to online learning to mitigate the spread of the virus, keep up the regular schedule and save the academic year. This paper highlights the issues, perspectives, and pedagogical practices of the instructors' overnight change, switching pre-existing face-to-face learning to the online environment. It also refers to the challenge of those learners lacking intercultural communication skills needed to participate virtually. The researchers used the documentary research method to develop their leading research question and analyse existing research documents and other e-sources of information such as university and government reports, newspapers, PDF books, papers, and YouTube channels to collect relevant data for this study. As a result, we could illustrate the Algerian universities' response and analyse government and university sources such as newspaper articles and ministry decrees. Therefore, we believe that the emergency to digitalize teaching in our higher institutions is a significant opportunity to keep engaged in the online environment now and after the pandemic and take advantage of the universities' best pedagogical practices. Thus, prepare for the online shift to better address the digital divide by promoting equal opportunities for all students to access the Internet, possess and effectively use Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) to fully participate in the modern educational system.

Do the Scores Obtained from Online Applications Correspond to Face-to-Face Exam Scores?

The emergent COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 has affected the whole world in a short time. Therefore, schools have been closed worldwide, and online learning opportunities have been exploited. Although lessons are taught online, problems have been experienced about measuring and evaluating lessons. This quasi-experimental study with a quantitative method was conducted to offer suggestions for the measurement problems. The present study examined the relationship between the measures of academic achievement obtained through different approaches from the students studying at a university. According to the results, the achievement points earned by the students through weekly blogs had a high level of correlation with the traditional final scores. However, the scores of the practices such as online exams and term papers were not an acceptable fit with the final exams. Therefore, the scores of online missions extended over time can be claimed to be the approach that best substitutes the final exams.

Stoking the Reading Flame with Personalized Book Baskets

Williams presents using personalized book baskets to connect learners to books that will ignite enthusiasm for reading, encourage expansion of reading genres, and allow the school librarian to understand and support students on a deeper level.

Developing Madura Local Content and Augmented Reality-Based Digital Textbook to Improve Scientific Reasoning Ability

Textbooks currently circulating have not been adapted to online learning systems and their contents are less interactive, less communicative, and have not been based on local content potential. This research aimed to produce digital textbooks based on Madura local content and augmented reality to improve students' scientific reasoning ability. This research development was done based on ASSURE instructional design, between July and August 2020. This research involved 15 students of SMP Al-Hikam Burneh, Bangkalan-Madura. The assessments of the digital textbook were done to decide its validity, practicality, and effectiveness. Furthermore, the students' scientific reasoning abilities were measured using pretest and posttest. The validity data obtained were analyzed descriptively using percentages, while students' scientific reasoning skills were analyzed using gain scores. The results showed that the percentage values were 87.5% for content validity (valid), 91.10% for media (very valid), 87.41% for technical (very valid), and 88.9% for practicality (valid). In addition, the students' scientific reasoning skills were classified as effective based on the gain scores achieved in each indicator i.e., 0.49 (argumentation), 0.45 (existing knowledge), 0.38 (methodology), 0.43 (analysis), and 0.40 (concluding). Thus, the digital textbook developed is effective to improve students' scientific reasoning skills.

Disrupting Management Research? Critical Reflections on British Journal of Management COVID‐19 Research and an Agenda for the Future

Research interest in extreme contexts was growing before the COVID‐19 pandemic and has intensified since. The climate crisis, significant geo‐political conflict, political polarization and upheaval, and economic/financial crises that present existential challenges to organizations have all contributed to rising interest in extreme‐context research. COVID‐19 itself has generated an enormous body of research across all sub‐fields of management. However, the substantive, methodological and conceptual implications of this large volume of research remain unclear. In this introduction to the British Journal of Management COVID‐19 Online Virtual Issue, we describe and analyse COVID‐19 research so far published in the British Journal of Management. The Journal was proactive in seeing the profound implications of COVID‐19 for management research and practice, issuing an early call for contributions, and publishing several exploratory commentaries as early as July 2020. In this paper, we situate COVID‐19 research within the broader extreme‐context research, analyse contributions made so far, and build upon an extended taxonomy of extreme contexts to suggest ways for future research to generate further impactful insights.

Changing times

The article announces the decision of Quintessence Publishing to offer its journal "Quintessence International" as an online subscription exclusively starting 2023 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and sustainability issue.

Teaching in and beyond pandemic times

In the foreword, Jansen points out that the purpose was not to publish a standard academic book referring to research elements, but rather to use a narrative form to capture teachers' stories while simultaneously dealing with issues peculiar to distance learning: maintaining effective contact with learners;finding inventive ways of dealing with unequal learner access to reliable data and devices;the effects - on the transition to online learning - of varying and age-related levels of technological competence present among teachers;post-lockdown emotional consequences to teachers of re-entry into the system and teacher deployment in cases where colleagues with comorbidities are allowed to work from home. Millar describes this overwhelming transition process that required teachers to be innovative, to develop new technological skills and to assist the learners while fulfilling various roles such as spouse, partner, advisor and Zoom controller. The topics are pressure;pedagogy;preparation;pioneers;poverty;privilege;perspective;parents and parent teachers;peer teaching;perseverance and pastoral care.

Another Victim of COVID-19: Computer Science Education

Prior literature suggests that computer science education (CSE) was less affected by the pandemic than other disciplines. However, it is unclear how the pandemic affected the quality and quantity of students' studying in CSE. We measure the impact of the pandemic on the amount and spacing of students' studying in a large introductory computer science course. Spacing is defined as the distribution of studying over multiple sessions, which is shown to improve long-term learning. Using multiple regression models, we analyzed the total number of students' interactions with the eBook and the number of days they used it, as a proxy for studying amount and spacing, respectively. We compared two sequential winter semesters of the course, one during (Winter 2021) and one prior to the pandemic (Winter 2020). After controlling for possible confounders, the results show that students had 1,345.87 fewer eBook interactions and distributed their studying on 2.36 fewer days during the pandemic when compared to the previous semester prior to the pandemic. We also compared four semesters prior to the pandemic (Fall and Winter of 2018 and 2019) to two semesters during the pandemic (Fall 2020 and Winter 2021). We found, on average, students had 3,376.30 fewer interactions with the eBook and studied the eBook on 16.35 fewer days during the pandemic. Contrary to prior studies, our results indicate that the pandemic negatively affected the amount and spacing of studying in an introductory computer science course, which may have a negative impact on their education. © 2022 ACM.

UNDERSTANDING STUDENT SLIDE READING PATTERNS DURING THE PANDEMIC

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in school closures all across the world, and lots of students have shifted from conventional classrooms to online learning. With the help of ICT technologies nowadays, learning online can be more effective in a number of ways. However, most of the online learning environments without instructors' attention may result in different learning patterns compared to the traditional face-to-face classroom. In this paper, we aimed at detecting the slide reading behaviors of the students by analyzing operational event logs from a digital textbook reader for a lecture offered in our university. We compared reading patterns between traditional face-to-face lectures and hybrid online lectures, our results show that online lectures lead to more off-task behaviors. Our analysis provides a rich understanding of e-book reading and informs design implications for online learning during the pandemic. The findings can also be used to improve the instruction designs and learning strategies. © 2021 Virtual Simulation Innovation Workshop, SIW 2021. All rights reserved.

Advocacy for Sustainability Communication: Unseen Potential of Queer Communicators in Environmental, Climate Change and Sustainability Science

The story of climate change, of destruction and loss, is well represented in mass media around natural hazards and new scientific data (i.e., the newest IPCC report);in contrast, new concepts of restoration, eco-cultural identities, social change and sustainable development are not picked up in public discourses—similarly to how the voices of NGO communicators, activists or queer communicators are not heard in the media. Additionally, the growth of digital publishing technologies and related audience behavior not only influence public communication processes, but also challenge professional communicators, including journalists and PR professionals to scientists, artists and activists. With a series of explorative interviews in different cultural settings (Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand), we can show that queer communicators have the potential to cultivate a new understanding of sustainability communication as social conversation about sustainability, and thus, overcome the very visible old story about climate change and rather propagate the new story of sustainability and transformation. The interviews show that queer communicator advocacy focuses on mobilizing and initiating dialectic conversations, which includes community building and queering existing norms, thus choosing new pathways for communication for sustainability. The findings and the developed concept of advocacy for sustainability communication are discussed at the end of the paper, including a reflection on the limitations of the explorative character of the analysis and future research potential.

My Morning Routine: An Interactive UDL Compliant E-Book on Health and Hygiene for Learners with Visual Difficulties

Health instruction assembles students’ information, abilities, and positive perspectives about wellbeing. However, 40% of the children in Pakistan are visually impaired and 38% have some cognitive disability due to malnutrition and poor hygiene practices. Despite COVID-19 putting the focus on the significance of hand cleanliness to forestall the spread of illness, reports from different countries have shown that the hand hygiene compliance rate has been estimated at only 40%. Using a Universal Design of Learning (UDL) approach, this research developed and produced a UDL compliant interactive android e-book that teaches young minds about the importance of staying clean and sanitization, especially to those learners who respond better when materials are paired with lights, sounds and/or movement. The scripting, story layout, design, and development were implemented using the seven stages of action and Nielson’s design heuristics. Drawing upon the cyclic process of developing prototypes and then learners providing feedback upon each version, this e-book was designed to optimize learning by minimizing the cognitive load on the learners, providing ease for learners with visual or cognitive learning disabilities. Results showed that the visually challenged learners responded well to the minimal design interface and graphics. Major impact of the research was students developing the habits of handwashing and following healthy morning routines, as indicated in the interviews and surveys conducted from the learners. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Reflections on Distance Learning and Quarantine in Spring 2020: The Oxbow School's Pandemic Story

Located in Napa, California, the Oxbow School is a 1-semester boarding program for visual arts, critical inquiry, self-discovery, and community. Oxbow's pandemic story concentrates on a series of assignments designed to help students cope with the transition to emergency online instruction amid isolation and uncertainty. The images illustrating this article are excerpted from Oxbow's "Quaranzines," two online publications that celebrated student work and reflections. Curated by Oxbow faculty, the publications were playful takes on the zine (short for "magazine") art form and its ethos of do-it-yourself publishing and self-aware content. These digital zines shared students' philosophies for coping via creativity, vulnerability, and humor.

E-book Technology Facilitating University Education during COVID-19: Japanese Experience

UNESCO reported that 90% of students are affected in some way by COVID-19 pandemic. Like many countries, Japan too imposed emergency remote teaching and learning at both school and university level. In this study, we focus on a national university in Japan, and investigate how teaching and learning were facilitated during this pandemic period using an e-book platform, BookRoll, which was linked as an external tool to the university's learning management system. Such an endeavor also reinforced the Japanese national thrust regarding explorations of e-book-based technologies and using Artificial Intelligence in education. Teachers could upload reading materials for instance their course notes and associate an audio of their lecture. While students who registered in their course accessed the learning materials, the system collected their interaction logs in a learning record store. Across the spring semesters from April - July 2020, BookRoll system collected nearly 1.5 million reading interaction logs from more than 6300 students across 243 courses in 6 domains. The analysis highlighted that during emergency remote teaching and learning BookRoll maintained a weekly average traffic above 1,900 learners creating more than 78,000 reading logs and teachers perceived it as useful for orchestrating their course.