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Teleconsultation is a type of medical practice similar to face-to-face consultations, and it allows a health professional to give a consultation remotely through information and communication technologies. In the context of the management of the coronavirus epidemic, the use of teleconsultation practices can facilitate healthcare access and limit the risk of avoidable propagation in medical cabinets. This paper presents the monitoring of international teleconsultation referrals in the era of Covid-19 to facilitate and prevent the suspension of access to care, the most common architecture for teleconsultation, communication technologies and protocols, vital body signals, video transmission, and the conduct of teleconsultation. The aim is to develop a teleconsultation platform to diagnose the patient in real time, transmit data from the remote location to the doctor, and provide a teleconsultation. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Goal. The aim of this paper is to determine the attitudes and opinions of the members of the Pensioners' Club of the city of Osijek after the education was carried out with the aim of training them in information and communication skills. Methodology. The paper presents the results of the research conducted through interviews and focus groups among retirees, the members of the Osijek Retirees' Club. The research examined the attitudes and opinions of 10 pensioners on the topic of education in terms of information and communication technologies during March 2022 using the interview method. After the interviews, the attitudes and opinions of the retirees related to the use of technology were examined in a focus group (1) in which 9 retirees participated (some of whom attended the education, some of whom did not). Finally, a focus group (2) in which 4 retirees participated examined their attitudes and opinions about virtual reality. The respondents wore VR glasses and observed the history of Osijek in the period from 1920 to 2020 by decades. More specifically, they observed how objects, houses, newspapers, furniture and similar things covered in the mentioned period looked. The paper presents the attitudes and opinions of the participants of the workshops, and is a continuation of the previous research, conducted before this training (Jakopec, Selthofer and Hocenski, 2022). Results. The results of the conducted interviews and focus groups indicate that the majority of retirees share the desire for learning and acquiring additional IT knowledge. They own at least one device (mostly a desktop computer or a smartphone) through which they visit social networks, search for necessary information and read the daily news. The respondents who participated in the research believe that they need more similar workshops in order to establish and expand their existing knowledge. After the workshops, the pensioners stated that they are fully aware of the advantages that IT knowledge brings them, and they relate this knowledge to the use of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, when physically going to certain places (for example, to the doctor) was not possible. The results of the second focus group in which 3D reality was observed using VR glasses have shown that the respondents were not previously familiar with the concepts of virtual reality. According to the participants, the workshop lasted too short, they felt disoriented, and the glasses did not impress them too much. They also pointed out that they wore them for too short a time to highlight something as an advantage, they did not remember much of the presented content, but they found it interesting. Most of them stated that they would like to repeat the experience, but with better instructions and extended time of wearing glasses. Limitations. The research sample is limited to a specific subgroup of the retired members of the Club, and is therefore not representative of the entire population of retired people in the city of Osijek and in the Republic of Croatia. Value. The results of the research indicate the attitudes and opinions of people of the third age towards education in the field of information and communication technologies and virtual reality. The results of the research contribute to the implementation of the "Active pension” project. © 2023, Hrvatsko Knjiznicarsko Drustvo. All rights reserved.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional office setups to remote working, driven by information and communication technology advancements. As a result, the metaverse concept is gaining popularity in modern organizations, allowing users to create avatars for virtual work, socializing, and other activities. While its corporate adoption is rising, managers must acquire the necessary skills to integrate and utilize the technology successfully. However, technological progress can be disruptive, making it essential to weigh the benefits and drawbacks.Methodology: This proposal aims to investigate metaverse skills that managers require for remote working using virtual realities, assessing the positive and negative risks for employees and management within business organizations. Using secondary data from reliable online databases, a qualitative research approach was used to understand the pros and cons of the metaverse and remote work.Purpose: The study examines the essential skills managers need to adopt metaverse virtual realities for remote working and how employees and organizations can implement it while maintaining a positive work environment. Keywords such as metaverse, remote working, virtual reality, and information and communication technology are critical. As technology evolves, managers and organizations must consider the metaverse's inherent advantages and disadvantages to ensure a successful transition to remote.Research Questions: What are the necessary skills needed by managers towards the adoption of metaverse virtual realities for remote working? How can employees and organizations adapt to implementing metaverse for remote work and sustain a positive work environment? © 2023 IEEE.
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The pandemic situation is affected in various ways in the education domain. The sudden transformation from offline to online teaching-learning process made students and teachers use different tools like WhatsApp for communication. The reason for this consideration is to investigate the impacts of WhatsApp utilized for instruction and decide the suppositions of understudies towards the method. The study is designed, keeping in mind the current COVID-19 situation and how it affected the education system turning it into online mode. On different questionnaires, regression and heatmap analysis is performed. The investigation showed that both learning situations have diverse impacts on the victory of understudies while supporting the conventional environment by utilizing WhatsApp is more successful for the increment of victory. The assessment moreover showed that students had superior pleasant reviews closer to the usage of WhatsApp in their courses. They requested the same workout in their one-of-a-kind courses as well. They expressed that picking up information can moreover take out unwittingly and the messages with pics were more prominent and viable for their picking up information. Be that as it may, some college understudies have communicated harming audits approximately the timing of a few posts and the repetitive posts within the bunch. At long last, it is supported that the utilization of WhatsApp within the preparing framework is to be energized as a steady innovation. . © 2023 IEEE.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-service teachers must devote time and effort to familiarizing themselves with the online educational internship system and adapting their pedagogy to the new internship mode that integrates information and communication technologies. Under such a circumstance, teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) plays a critical role in making them competent in online internships, and their self-efficacy can facilitate their TPACK development. Based on the data collected from 202 pre-service teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic in China through online surveys, this study investigated the association between their self-efficacy and their TPACK during the online internship. The results of multiple regression analyses suggested that pre-service teachers' personal and general teaching efficacies significantly predicted TPACK competencies to varying degrees. To be specific, pre-service teachers' personal teaching efficacy significantly and positively predicted all the TPACK dimensions;meanwhile, GTE only significantly and positively predicted Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). Also, the conclusions, implications, and suggestions for theory and practice were discussed. © 2023 IEEE.
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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is used to improve the quality of many people's lives. However, heavy reliance on ICT can lead to technostress, causing health and productivity problems. Technostress has been analysed in organisations, but not in a university context, especially under remote learning during COVID-19. The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanatory contribution to knowledge regarding university students' experiences of technostress and how it impacts their academic productivity and performance. The data for this paper was collected using an online questionnaire among the students of one leading research university in Africa and used to test hypotheses related to a technostress theoretical model. The data was gathered from a convenience sample of 100 student responses. A technostress model (based on transaction theory of stress) was formed for hypothesis testing. Some hypotheses were not supported, but those that were indicated that universities should ensure that techno-complexity is reduced, and remote learning environments are improved. It was also found that technostress has a negative impact on academic productivity and performance, and that coping mechanisms can moderate the relationship between technostress and academic productivity and performance. The findings related to student remote learning environments and the moderating effect of student coping mechanisms are unique to this study. © 2022 International Association for Computer Information Systems
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This study presents the salient perceptions of students and instructors in a master's program taught in a hybrid virtual format using the pocket Bipolar Laddering tool, a written open-ended electronic data collection system. Perceptions about the hybrid virtual format were tested on the participants of a master's program taught in the 2021-2022 academic year through a hybrid virtual format based on a Smart Classroom system developed as part of the digital innovations implemented to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. This work aims to shed light on the users' salient perceptions of the format, detect the positive elements mentioned by the surveyed participants and identify the negative items in a bid to minimize, or even revert, their effects for future editions of the master. As expected, the findings suggest that one of the main advantages of this format is that it allows students who have difficulty attending classes on campus to enroll on courses. However, the participants detected diverse elements that could be improved such as interaction, the degree of socialization, or the technical problems that arose during teaching sessions. It is hoped that these findings will be of use when adjusting new editions of the program and will help to determine the design and implementation of other hybrid virtual programs in the Institution.
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As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented crisis has been generated in all areas of life. In education, this emergency led to the massive closure of face-to-face activities in educational institutions of all levels to prevent the spread of the virus and mitigate its impact. In response to this situation, nine public research centers of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) of Mexico, CIDETEQ, CIATEJ, CIATEQ, CIESAS, CIMAV, CIO, CIQA, COMIMSA, and ECOSUR, proposed a project through which a set of virtual laboratories would be established, both for teaching and to improve their technological infrastructure for teaching. The project would take advantage of the tools of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) that allow remote access, which is the main challenge to develop educational tools that provide for distance education, and give continuity to graduate programs. © 2023 IEEE.
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significant recommender systems (RS) development has occurred along with the Internet of Things (IoT) development in recent years. Recommender systems have been widely spread across diverse fields, including environmental preservation, e-commerce, healthcare, social and governance systems. There has been a growing focus on e-government as part of smart city initiatives in today's world of connected devices and infrastructure, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. With the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the government can enhance the delivery of public services, increase transparency, accountability, and credibility, as well as engage citizens in the decision-making process. To facilitate 'smart' governance, one of a smart city initiative's objectives is integrating e-government into the city's governance framework. The lack of personalized services for particular stakeholders is one of the most significant limitations of e-governance. There are a number of open challenges coupled with interesting opportunities, making this a very promising and exciting area for research to shape recommendation systems for urban environments. Considering the overwhelming amount of information, services, and tasks available through smart government applications, it is a greater chance of providing personalized recommendations for different stakeholders and tasks within multi-faceted and multi-dimension. There is still a lot of research to be done on recommendation systems in the context of smart cities or smart government. This paper survey the existing studies on recommendation systems for smart governance. The study aims to address smart city challenges to considered when designing and implementing recommendations for e-governance and the target stakeholder's interests. © 2022 IEEE.
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Information and communication technologies are being used for the social connection of people living in residential aged care. However, in HCI research concerning technology use in aged care, the perspectives of care and technology providers have received limited attention. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 aged care workers and technology providers to investigate the challenges and opportunities of deploying technologies in aged care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings highlighted that technologies such as videoconferencing and smart displays connected residents with family and friends, kept families informed and reassured, and were used in small groups to meet individual needs. However, limitations in video calling, staff fatigue, volunteer availability, and infrastructural resources presented barriers to technology deployment. Future use of technology for social connection in aged care requires careful facilitation from staff, better resourcing and infrastructural support, collaborations with volunteers, and more attention to individual needs. © 2023 Owner/Author.
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The Covid-19 pandemic, which has swept around the world since the beginning of 2020, has had a significant impact on education. Overnight, there has been a transition from traditional to distance learning. Both teachers and students of all types and levels of education had to face a new, unknown reality for which, in the vast majority, they were not properly prepared. The paper attempts to comprehensively identified the determinants of geographic education online at the level of primary and secondary schools, and analyzed selected conditions that have the greatest impact on its implementation. Qualitative and quantitative data was provided by literature research and the results of a survey conducted among 123 geography teachers. The model of the determinants of the geographic education process in the distance form adopted in the study indicates the extraordinary complexity of the online education process. Three groups of determinants were subjected to in-depth analysis: technological, law, and the teacher's capacity, considering them necessary for the implementation of the distance learning process. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Research in Geographical & Environmental Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a study in capturing the impacts of the mandatory pandemic-induced telework practice on workers' perceptions of the benefits, challenges, and difficulties associated with telecommuting and how those might influence their preference for telework in the future. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in South Florida in May 2020. Survey data showed that telework indices (either measured through actual behavior or stated preference) before, during, and after the pandemic were heterogeneous across socio-economic, demographic, and attitudinal segments. Before the outbreak, males, full-time students, those with PhD degrees, and high-income people showed higher percentages of involvement in jobs with a telework option. They also had higher pro-technology, pro-online education, workaholic, and pro-telework attitudes. During the pandemic, professional/managerial/technical jobs as well as jobs with lower physical-proximity measures showed the highest telework frequency. In view of future telework preferences, our analysis showed that those who were more pro-telework, pro-technology, and showed less dislike of telework dislike preferred higher telework frequency. A structural equation model was developed to assess the impacts of different predictors on telework behavior before the pandemic and preferences after the pandemic. While telework frequency before the pandemic was highly affected by the pro-telework attitude, the after-pandemic preferences were influenced by several other attitudes such as dislike telework, enjoy interaction, workaholic, as well as productivity factors. This might confirm the assumption that the mandatory practice through the pandemic has provided employees more experiences with work-from-home arrangements, which could reshape decisions and expectations around telework adoption in the future. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2021.
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COVID-19 has shocked every system in the U.S., including transportation. In the first months of the pandemic, driving and transit use fell far below normal levels. Yet people still need to travel for essential purposes like medical appointments, buying groceries, and-for those who cannot work from home-to work. For some, the pandemic may exacerbate extant travel challenges as transit agencies reduce service hours and frequency. As travelers reevaluate modal options, it remains unclear how one mode-ride-hailing-fits into the transportation landscape during COVID-19. In particular, how does the number of ride-hail trips vary across neighborhood characteristics before versus during the pandemic? And how do patterns of essential trips pre-pandemic compare with those during COVID-19? To answer these questions, we analyzed aggregated Uber trip data before and during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic across four regions in California. We find that during these first months, ride-hail trips fell at levels commensurate with transit (82%), while trips serving identified essential destinations fell by less (62%). Changes in ride-hail use were unevenly distributed across neighborhoods, with higher-income areas and those with more transit commuters and higher shares of zero-car households showing steeper declines in the number of trips made during the pandemic. Conversely, neighborhoods with more older (aged 45+) residents, and a greater proportion of Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Asian residents still appear to rely more on ride-hail during the pandemic compared with other neighborhoods. These findings further underscore the need for cities to invest in robust and redundant transportation systems to create a resilient mobility network.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employers and employees to re-evaluate their attitudes toward telecommuting. This induced a change in the sheer number of people who have started to work from home (WFH). While previous studies highlight differences between telecommuters based on their level of telecommuting experience, these effects have not been studied in detail. This may limit the evaluation of implications for post-pandemic times and the transferability of models and predictions based on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study expands on previous findings by comparing the characteristics and behavior of those who have started to telecommute during the pandemic and those who had already telecommuted before. Furthermore, this study addresses the uncertainty that exists about whether the findings of studies conducted before the pandemic-for example about sociodemographic characteristics of telecommuters-still hold true, or if the pandemic induced a shift in telecommuters' profiles. Telecommuters show differences when considering their previous experience in WFH. The results of this study suggest that the transition induced by the pandemic was more drastic for new telecommuters compared with experienced telecommuters. The COVID-19 pandemic had an effect on how household configurations are considered in the choice to WFH. With decreased access to child care resulting from school closings, people with children in the household were more likely to choose to telecommute during the pandemic. Also, while people living alone are generally less likely to choose to WFH, this effect was reduced as a result of the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a huge disruption worldwide with direct and indirect effects on travel behavior. In response to extensive community spread and potential risk of infection, during the early stage of the pandemic many state and local governments implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions that restricted non-essential travel for residents. This study evaluates the impacts of the pandemic on mobility by analyzing micro panel data (N = 1,274) collected in the United States via online surveys in two periods, before and during the early phase of the pandemic. The panel makes it possible to observe initial trends in travel behavior change, adoption of online shopping, active travel, and use of shared mobility services. This analysis intends to document a high-level overview of the initial impacts to spur future research to dive deeper into these topics. With the analysis of the panel data, substantial shifts are found from physical commutes to teleworking, more adoption of e-shopping and home delivery services, more frequent trips by walking and biking for leisure purposes, and changes in ridehailing use with substantial variations across socioeconomic groups. The social and environmental implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for effective policy and directions for future research are made in the conclusion.
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Introduction: the COVID-19 has had direct implications for university education. The forced confinement has caused non-face-to-face education to remain the main viable alternative in the immediate term. Background: there is no history comparable to this pandemic due to its intensity and general impact, as well as the availability of technology. Despite this, there are still many practical constraints related to unequal access to information and communication technologies by social or economic groups (digital divide). Digital teaching at the university is analyzed here, focused on two economic subjects, through a study of strengths and weaknesses. Discussion: the will of students and teachers, as well as third-party agents, continues to be the determining factor for the success of digital education as non-face-to-face teaching and learning. Optimal conditions are given in economic subjects, by tradition and by the support of teachers and students. Digital adaptation, accelerated by the pandemic, must not be restricted to an emergency situation, but must be consolidated, in symbiosis with traditional face-to-face education.
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Information and communication technology (ICT) advancements have an impact on many aspects of life and society, including the educational system. A key component of smart cities and the educational system alike, the IoT (Internet of Things) is becoming increasingly crucial. The COVID-19 epidemic, which began in March 2020, has accelerated educational reform and compelled institutions of higher learning to integrate ICT. Despite this, the Internet of Things (IoT) is still in its infancy in the education system, and its influence is still largely unknown. The research is an attempt to explore the potential of IoT in architectural education pedagogy which is primarily relying on creativity and innovation. Re-thinking about the student-centered pedagogies which acquires critical thinking skills, polite communication skills, conflict resolution skills, perspective taking skills, and adaptability towards global competence is the demand of the time which is the focus of the research. The outcome of the article is to propose a conceptual framework for smart education environment integrating IoT in Architectural Education adapting Global Competence for the future generations. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The COVID-19 pandemic was the main reason why many organisations decided to include information and communication technologies in their processes to allow them to continue with their activities, be it providing services to users (food, medicine, etc.), training/education or disseminating culture. In the field of culture, some museums incorporated technology into their operating environment, moving from face-to-face visits to virtual visits. However, in many museums, the lack of apps designed to solve the problem of virtual visits caused some to stop receiving visitors during the pandemic. In this context, this paper describes the development of an application with a user-centred design that incorporates extended reality to allow virtual visits to the Remigio Crespo Museum in the city of Cuenca (Ecuador). The evaluation carried out to verify the application's usability and learnability is also included. The results obtained indicate that users/visitors found the application usable and easy to learn. © 2022 IEEE.
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During the Covid-19 pandemic, the shift to high-intensity remote work-three days or more a week-accelerated the digitalization of work processes and the blurring of boundaries between work and personal life through videoconferencing and the use of personal devices for work. This paper explores the relationships between high-intensity remote workers' information and communication technologies (ICT) privacy concerns, psychological climate for face time, and organizational affective commitment. Building on organizational support and social information processing theories, we argue that ICT privacy concerns and perceptions that an organization values physical presence in-office may undermine commitment to the organization. Based on a two-wave study of 1065 remote workers in a large multinational bank, we find that ICT privacy concerns and psychological climate for face time reinforce one another and are negatively associated with subsequent affective organizational commitment. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.
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The explosion of new business models is not only the consequence of the accelerated development of information and communication technologies but also of a global crisis. Disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic have made managers realize faster that change is necessary and has already taken place. Traditional Human Resources (HR) models were not ready to respond to the challenge of digital transformation. The "new normal” implies a new set of necessary skills, capabilities, and a different working environment. Companies face the challenge to innovate HR functions by developing new career paths and creating more flexible models and relationships with different stakeholders. Most business leaders have become aware that it is impossible to carry out a business transformation without quantifying HR functions. HR analytics is on the business agenda, and it is the fastest-growing area of HR Management today, driven significantly by global crises, and it will be more crucial for organizations' decision-making on how to proceed to the "next normal”. The paper defines HR 5.0 as the future of HR, in the framework of Industry 5.0. It attempts to study the state-of-the-art HR in order to explore the current status and perspectives of HR analytics in Serbia and points out the approach that radically transforms the use of human data by policymakers;moreover, it defines one set of conceptual recommendations for successful HR implementation. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.