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In this paper, we explored the impact of course design elements that aim to support and sustain students' engagement during a 12-week online course. The course we analyzed targeted higher education, master-level students of Computer Science and Educational Technologies, and took place fully online during the COVID-19 pandemic. The course was facilitated by a Learning Management System (LMS), and due to the circumstances, the instructor's primary goal was to motivate students to actively participate during the course duration. To that end, the instructor implemented a course design focused on integrating elements such as interactive activities, short quizzes, hidden "easter eggs,” and real-time webinars. To study the impact of these elements on students' activity, we carried out an exploratory analysis of students' activity as recorded by the log files of the LMS and the qualitative feedback that students provided to the instructor. Our results suggest that the course design supported sustaining students' engagement. The level of students' activity varied for the learning materials and resources, but we confirmed a high usage of the quizzes over the course duration. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
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Derived from COVID-19 pandemic remote work is now a trend, involving new skills and variations on developers' wellbeing. Current students are going to live this new era in the labor market;it is needed to know if they are getting ready for this scenario. This paper presents an exploratory study based on a survey to assess how developers in industry and students in the academy experienced their wellbeing expressed in emotions during the pandemic, as well as how they practiced the soft skills involved in software development. The results of developers are considered as basis to assess how students are prepared for this context. The descriptive study has shown that developers experienced more positive emotions, while students had a mix of positive and negative emotions. In terms of soft skills, developers and students showed closer levels of practice, however students should reinforce some skills. © 2022 IEEE.
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Information resilience has become a topic of interest to the information science community in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the vulnerability of information and other networks and the impact on information providers and the information seekers who rely on them. In an exploratory study, we interviewed support workers who act as information intermediaries as part of their work roles about their experiences of providing information to vulnerable and marginalised people during the UK COVID-19 lockdown. We present findings organised in three themes: shifting client information needs and support provisions, adjusting information sharing and communication practices and workarounds for physical information work. Throughout the themes, information resilience is evident as information intermediaries adapt their work practices to ensure they can continue to serve their clients. In this first stage of research our findings provide insight into the changes to information intermediaries' information behaviour and information work during a crisis, as well as the impact of these changes on the services they provide. 85th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology ;Oct. 29 – Nov. 1, 2022 ;Pittsburgh, PA. Author(s) retain copyright, but ASIS&T receives an exclusive publication license.
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Purpose: Emerging technologies have the capacity to transform industries offering substantial benefits to users. Given the increasing demand for advanced logistics services, third-party logistic service providers (LSPs) face greater pressure to deploy and realise these technologies, especially given the demands and operational challenges created during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing upon the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework, this paper goes beyond just identifying drivers and barriers to technology adoption to understanding how LSPs and industry experts perceive these drivers and barriers and simultaneously confront and undertake actions to implement them. Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory study was conducted in three phases: (1) in-depth interviews with twelve stakeholders in the Australian logistics industry;(2) five in-depth interviews conducted with stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis and (3) a focus group discussion session. All interviews were analysed using content analysis and revealed several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies, including internal organisational factors that drive supply chain (SC) network optimisation. Findings: The analysis of the three phases identified several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies in logistics, including internal organisational factors that drive SC network optimisation. Also identified were external drivers including the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, along with barriers and specific actions that were considered and implemented by LSPs for sustainable operations, particularly in a post-COVID-19 environment. Originality/value: This study explores organisational and industry drivers for the implementation of emerging technologies. Explicitly, it extends the extant research by highlighting organisational and industry drivers and enablers that influence adoption and deployment of emerging technologies. Second, it advances the existing perspectives on LSPs in the Australian context on the development and implementation of technology strategies. The paper offers insights around implementation of technologies, directly obtained from industrial application for managers and practitioners. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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The current exploratory study investigated leadership styles adopted by Scottish micro-businesses during COVID-19. A qualitative research approach was employed on 20 owners/managers in Scotland, using semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed thematic variations across a range of leadership styles as the autocratic style was identified by businesses as the most common approach during the pandemic due to the influence of the external environment on rapid decision-making. In essence, the findings highlight the importance of recognizing the role of leadership approaches under uncertain and volatile market conditions. Based on the qualitative findings of the study, a novel framework presented as the "COVID-19 Leadership Framework” was proposed that addresses the contextualization of the findings to a specific and contemporary context. The results of the study presented theoretical and practical implications for micro-business, policymakers, and Small to Medium Enterprise support services. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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In an environment characterized by turmoil and unpredictability, by the digital transition and transformation, and by the economic and social effects caused by the global public crisis (COVID19), this study aims to analyze the motivations for using the internet and making online purchases, identifying the perceived benefits and consumer satisfaction. For this, an exploratory study with descriptive design was carried out, through the administration of a questionnaire (google forms). 385 consumers responded. The data show that there are significant differences between groups (buyers and non-buyers) in terms of motivation, perceptions of benefits and satisfaction. The use of online shopping platforms fosters a relationship that favors efficiency and enhances feelings of control and freedom in purchasing behavior. The experiences lived through technological intermediation, given the possibility of interaction and personalization, add value to brands, create an innovative identity, while contributing to obtaining a memorable and satisfying experience. © 2023, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.
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In recent times, the concepts of IT-enabled agility and digital resilience have gained increased attention. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a turbulent environment in its wake, thus providing an opportunity to study organizations' agility and digital resilience. This study examines retailers' strategies and IT's role in facilitating responsiveness to uncertainties in the marketplace. An analysis of the quarterly earnings call transcripts shows the increased reliance of organizations on IT to drive and sustain their strategies. This study supports the oft-made claim that IT capabilities can make an organization more responsive and agile in the face of disruptions. © 2021 International Association for Computer Information Systems.
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The emergence of the e-marketplace and the Pandemic have had both large and small effects, especially on the tourism and hotel sector. Although several studies have analyzed consumer satisfaction, the impact of the Pandemic on consumers' satisfaction in the e-marketplace environment has received much less attention. Therefore, this study aims to investigate consumers' perceived satisfaction with their accommodation during the COVID-19 outbreak by analyzing website information provided by consumers and hotels. This study examines star rating as a moderating effect on consumers' perceived satisfaction and the impact of the Pandemic. This study collected data from the Coupang travel platform, one of Korea's largest e-marketplaces, and 1,018 responses were used. Based on the OLS regression approach, the results state that consumers' perceived satisfaction differs before and during COVID-19. In addition, there is a moderating effect of star rating, and perceived satisfaction tends to decrease as the star rating increase. Furthermore, the volume of reviews and hashtags that consumers and hotels provide positively affect perceived satisfaction. This study provides new insights into the e-marketplace approach, considering website information in the tourism literature from an e-business perspective. © 2022 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.
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: The coronavirus COVID-19 swept the world in early 2020, working from home was a necessity. In the software industry, thousands of software developers began working from home, many did so on short notice, under difficult and stressful conditions. The emotions of developers can be affected by this situation. On the other hand, some well-known soft skills have been emphasized as required for working remotely. Software engineering research lacks theory and methodologies for addressing human aspects in software development. In this paper we present an exploratory study with a survey applied to practitioners in the west border area of Mexico-USA. It is focused on the developers' wellbeing during pandemic, expressed as emotions, and the perceptions of the level in which soft skills are practiced/required in the working from home mode. The results show that high percent expressed to experience positive emotions, however, a portion of respondents expressed to feel negative emotions. In general terms, 91.0% of respondents expressed to be satisfied working from home, but some conditions should be improved. In the case of soft skills, some of them are revealed as practiced in high level in working from home, but still there is not consensus. © 2022, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.
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Both the Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education announced in 2018 [1] and the 2030 Bilingual Nation policies emphasize the English communication competency in Taiwanese education. With the rise of the communicative language teaching approach, the greatest challenges faced by teachers are motivating students, initiating interaction and increasing learning efficiency. However, whether teachers could successfully transfer their accumulated experiences towards these challenges to the online environment due to the covid-19 pandemic is still unknown;everyone in education has been forced to participate in the world-scale action experiment. To put learning efficiency aside, the quality of e-learning or distance learning must be strictly monitored and gatekept. Thus, the present study aims to gauge the performance of college English courses and the problematic issues in common. The study adopted convenience sampling of the 39 English course applications from the Accreditation Center of E-Learning data of the Ministry of Education. Descriptive statistics were performed for categorization to establish basic information about the courses, followed by a detailed qualitative analysis of the result reports of 32 courses to reveal the passing rate and the issues faced by the applications. The findings displayed similar results in accordance with other applications. The most difficult issue to overcome is the interaction between the teacher and the students as well as among the students synchronously or not. In addition, the results also showed that timeliness and ways of providing assessment feedback can influence motivation. The present study attempts to preserve the actual characteristics of English courses in tertiary education, to indicate universal problems from the perspectives of the e-learning accreditation mechanism. It is hoped that these results may serve as a basis to facilitate future applications and course designs of English teaching in e-learning. © 2022 IEEE.
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Higher education institutions had to adapt to a new normal quickly brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. This research set out to explore the factors impacting the adoption of online learning by students and the implications of these factors on future learning. An online survey was conducted and analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods, guided by an extended technology acceptance model. The research was necessary as online learning is anticipated to continue to be used for education by higher education institutions. The findings showed the benefits of learning flexibility of online learning. However, social isolation resulted in low motivation and perception of lowering the quality of education. The research concludes that students need reassurance that they are getting an adequate education through structured learning materials and processes with timely lecturer support. Students need access to peers and must be encouraged to engage. Furthermore, students need to find their optimal learning spaces because, as life-long learners, they need to teach themselves effectively. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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In early December 2019, a new virus named "2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)" appeared in Wuhan, China. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. In the currentwork, we will propose a novel fuzzy softmodal (i.e., fuzzy-soft expert system) for early detection of COVID-19. Themain construction of the fuzzy-soft expert systemconsists of five portions. The exploratory study includes sixty patients (i.e., fortymales and twenty females) with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in (Nanjing Chest Hospital, Department of Respiratory, China). The proposed fuzzy-soft expert systemdepended on five symptoms of COVID-19 (i.e., shortness of breath, sore throat, cough, fever, and age).We will use the algorithm proposed by Kong et al. to detect these patients who may suffer from COVID-19. In this way, the present system is beneficial to help the physician decide if there is any patient who has COVID-19 or not. Finally, we present the comparison between the present system and the fuzzy expert system. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.
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The increasing number of food delivery riders (p-Hailing) in Malaysia has been recorded since COVID-19 took place. P-hailing riders are usually exposed to long hours in traffic and are more prone to get involved in traffic accidents. This matter has been one of the pressing problems in the transportation industry. This study focused on assessing the contributing factors of traffic accidents involving p-Hailing riders and determining the perception of p-Hailing riders towards the delivery time frame with regards to traffic accident involvement. A qualitative approach was used, and face-To-face/online interviews were conducted among p-hailing riders in Shah Alam, Selangor. Thematic and descriptive analyses were adopted, and it was found that several factors such as red light running, speeding and slippery roads were the factors of traffic accidents among p-Hailing riders. Delivery time frame did not have much impact on rider's accident cases;instead, it was the behavior of the rider itself. © 2022 IEEE.
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This article presents an exploratory approach to identify different clusters of employees’ perceived stress, work anxiety and self-efficacy according to their individual technological, organizational, and personal parameters. In more detail, our research focuses on the context of remote work during the Covid 19 pandemic to analyze which combination of these parameters co-occur with particularly high or low levels of resilience-related variables such as self-efficacy, work stress, and work anxiety. We conduct a two-step cluster analysis to present findings to resolve the ambiguity of previous research on the role and understanding of resilience in the context of remote work and in light of the pandemic. As a result, this study shows that study participants with different levels of experienced stress and anxiety have different technological, personal, and organizational contexts. Moreover, we were able to identify technological factors associated with work resources that are linked to less stress and work anxiety. A deeper understanding of the factors underlying lower levels of stress in remote work through this study can help identify potential areas of improvement for individuals and organizations and provides a basis for further research in this area. © 2022 15th International Conference on ICT, Society and Human Beings, ICT 2022, 19th International Conference on Web Based Communities and Social Media, WBC 2022 and 14th International Conference on e-Health, EH 2022 - Held at the 16th Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, MCCSIS 2022. All rights reserved.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of pandemic-related misinformation on social media has had a significantly adverse impact on society. The sources of such misinformation usually use not only well-tailored text but also eye-catching images to establish their credibility. In this paper, we present an overview of current efforts on the task of detecting online COVID-19 conspiracy theory and misinformation. We perform a review of multimedia misinformation datasets related to the topic and an exploratory study on the state-of-the-art approaches towards these tasks. These approaches fuse textual analysis with modeling of images, propagation graphs, user reputation and fact-checking to build a comprehensive multimodal understanding of online misinformation. Our analysis indicates that using modalities in addition to text has a significant improvement on the performance of detecting misinformation, and out of the modalities presented, modeling user reputation and graph with social data are the most effective approaches. We conclude that a dataset that unifies all modalities is needed, and we present several promising directions for future research. © 2022 IEEE.
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Traditional brick-and-mortar stores have had to endure competition the past years from various shopping channels, particularly online shopping, which is driven by mobile technologies and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers, restricted by COVID-19 lockdown regulations, had to increasingly make use of online shopping. The aim of this exploratory study was to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the online shopping behaviour of South African consumers and if the behaviour would continue in the post COVID-19 period. Factors were identified from literature that influence consumer’s online shopping behaviour. A national survey was conducted, using mixed methods research and the data from 673 respondents were statistically analysed. The findings indicate that only 12% of the respondents shopped online for the first time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and 87% indicated they shop online monthly. Sixty-eight percent indicated they will continue shopping online and 65% think online shopping is a safer option. The products purchased most during the pandemic period were fast foods and clothing and the preferred delivery method was receiving the goods at home. The factors that affected online shopping during the COVID-19 period most were Personal Experience of Online Shopping, Interaction with products and the Current impact of Covid-19 on shopping. The findings suggest that customers in South Africa will continue to make use of online technologies to purchase goods and services. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its highly cognitive features has been increasingly adopted by FinTech firms. With increasing market and economic fluctuations during the unprecedented times of Covid-19, AI offers high computational and easily accessible personalized financial solutions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, customers showed keen interest in AI-assisted financial services. AI in the FinTech industry is now gaining a lot of traction in terms of customer engagement and business prosperity. But with the benefits of availability of consumer data and automation for offering customized and personalized services, the black box effect of AI has a potential dark side affecting both consumers and employees. Lack of human intervention has questioned the accountability and transparency of these financial wealth management solutions that are susceptible to security threats and biased decisions. The purpose of this empirical study is to better understand the adoption of AI in the disruption of the FinTech ecosystem. A mixed approach of focus group and interviews for the purpose of data collection, and qualitative content analysis using natural language processing (NLP) for data analysis have been used to conduct this exploratory study. The findings of the study help to develop an understanding of the social, ethical, and economic consequences of strategic AI adoption for both consumers and businesses. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted society and engineering education as a whole. This paper describes the strategies and improvements that were implemented post COVID-19 pandemic to a two-credit hour engineering course targeted for first-year engineering and exploratory studies students at a Southeastern Public Research One Institution. It introduces the Grand Challenges and a corresponding scholars program defined by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) that link society and engineering to improve and maintain quality of life for the twenty-first century. This course was developed to enhance student development in the essential engineering mindset and interdisciplinary system thinking to address the prescribed global engineering grand challenges. It interweaves engineering with the social and political sciences, encouraging students to explore the interactions between society and technology, including the influences of human behavior, culture, economics, ethics, and policy on the development and implementation of technologies. The course delivery is hybrid in nature, where students meet and actively engage face-to-face once a week and participate in an asynchronous meeting in the other half of the week. The curriculum includes invited speakers and experts in the various engineering disciplines, recorded videos, a midterm research essay, and a final group poster presentation and one-minute video on one of the Grand Challenges. The final presentation encompasses the four themes of the NAE's Grand Challenges and showcases the students' gained and applied knowledge for exploring opportunities to solve complex engineering challenges. The course is offered in the fall and summer semesters to over 1,500 students per academic year. All students who take this course and matriculate into their engineering major then can apply to the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) to participate in the program as early as their sophomore year. Approximately 30 students are accepted into the university GCSP and may begin participating in the GCSP as soon as the summer prior to their sophomore year and have three years to complete the five required competencies of this program. Approximately 90 scholars actively participate in this program every year (sophomore, junior and senior engineering students). The five competencies include talent, multiculturalism, multidisciplinary studies, entrepreneurship and social cognition. Typically, the scholars start taking engineering classes and start working with research mentors to assist with the completion of the five competencies that prepare them to solve these challenges. Most incoming scholars lack experience in identifying specific research mentors. This program assists with that task. Through the first competency, also known as talent, the scholars engage in hands-on projects to help design innovative solutions through deep immersion in an academically rigorous environment. This paper describes the improvement efforts post COVID-19 to the course goals, structures, designs, and targeted recruitment efforts for the GCSP during the face-to-face and online course delivery, focusing on engineering research and introducing interested students to how to identify a research topic and choose a mentor. In addition, it includes reflections and insights gained from the course design, development, and facilitation, and offers future recommendations for improvements. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.
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The digital divide presented between the Global South and North has been exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic causing unequal access to technologies in education, public services, and healthcare. Through an exploratory study in the northeastern region of Mexico, a marginalized community used a hyperlocal network to engage in creative Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) activities. The study uses a qualitative methodology with a reflective approach, informed by sociocultural and dialogic concepts. Data collection primarily involved semi-structured interviews, observations, focus groups, and collection of artifacts. The findings present a rich framework of sociocultural factors and capital knowledge from the community. From the study emerged participants’ meanings in three categories: i) the use of offline mobile learning, ii) the educational practices in the non-formal context, and iii) the dialogic opportunities created among participants. From this non-formal context of education experience emerged creative lessons in innovation, agency from the learners, and genuine involvement from the participants. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
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Even though "Mainstream Media and E-Commerce Live Streaming"emerges as a new form of E-Commerce Live Streaming under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, its underlying mechanism in consumers' online shopping remains unexplored. Consequently, this paper explores this topic with a qualitative research through in-depth interviews with college students and graduate students. Based on the grounded theory and NVIVO 12.0 software, researchers explore the influences of mainstream media live streaming of consumers' purchase decision, and propose a framework of consumer purchased decision-making factors of 3 themes and 11 sub-themes. Overall, the findings contribute to the literature of E-Commerce Live Streaming and provide practical implications for mainstream media to better participate in E-Commerce live streaming platforms. © 2022 ACM.