Promoting College Student's Systems Thinking

This study examined how college students in a medical school in China engaged in learning in asynchronous online learning environments during the COVID-19 health crisis. A quasi-experimental design approach was employed to compare if a class of students had better learning outcomes and developed systems thinking when asynchronous discussion forums incorporated an inquiry-based pedagogical approach in one unit, whereas the other unit followed a traditional instructor-led approach. In sum, 25 junior students participated in this study. Quantitative results show that the students had statistically significant higher assessment scores and improved systems thinking when the unit incorporated the inquiry-based pedagogical approach. Qualitative findings also demonstrated how students engaged in learning and how the instructor scaffolded students' inquiries and learning. Practical implications for instructors' teaching online courses are also discussed. © The author(s) 2023.

A Tutorial on How to Set Up a System Dynamics Simulation on the Example of Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 virus has substantially transformed many aspects of life, impacted industries, and revolutionized supply chains all over the world. System dynamics modeling, which incorporates systems thinking to understand and map complex events as well as correlations, can aid in predicting future outcomes of the pandemic and generate key learnings. As system dynamic modeling allows for a deeper understanding of the manifestation and dynamics of disease, it was helpful when examining the implications of the pandemic on the supply chain of semiconductor companies. This tutorial describes how the system dynamics simulation model was constructed for the Covid-19 pandemic using AnyLogic Software. The model serves as a general foundation for further epidemiological simulations and system dynamics modeling. © 2022 IEEE.

Using Archetypes to Teach Systems Thinking in an Engineering Master's Course

Systems Thinking can help to solve complex problems in different domains. For an engineering master's program, we designed a seminar course to teach Systems Thinking. For the seminar we use qualitative models known as archetypes as conceptual models and the Covid-19 pandemic as problem context. In this paper we describe the course design and report findings from running it. Based on students' evaluation and the materials they produced throughout the course, our findings (1) support our design assumptions regarding student motivation, (2) give hints on students' struggling with Systems Thinking and understanding and applying archetypes in particular. With this we want to contribute to the discussion of how to teach Systems Thinking in Higher Education. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Exploring Covid-19 Survivor Perception Toward Government's Policies in Responding to Covid-19

Effective strategies could be generated by understand the problem through system thinking. Besides curing Covid-19, the government needs to formulate good risk communication to their society thus the society could accept the right message and act the right response. Before formulating the good risk communication, it is important to understand the society and their perception toward the pandemic. The understanding of perception is necessary to the balance response between risk and response. The exploration through Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) can show the structure of given system and help to capture a mental model. This study aims to develop CLD model of risk perception toward government attempts in handling Covid-19, so the government can formulate the strategies by proposing suggestion based in risk perception of society. © 2022 IEEE.

Care and Complexity: Designing for Holistic Understandings of and within a Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic spans multiple systems and dimensions - social, scientific, emotional, and axiological. This paper describes the collaborative design process of an elementary-age program addressing COVID-19, systems thinking, and photography from this multi-dimensional perspective. With the COVID-19 pandemic as both curricular content and design context, an educational design emerged that includes care as the centerpiece of both design structure and process. Using an ethnographic approach, we outline the evolution of the curricular theme - from relationships, to protection, to care - and how this theme is realized in our design. Through a perspective of care, we consider what it means to include socio-emotional elements in systems thinking, specifically axiological considerations. This paper contributes to the need for educational designs that consider COVID-19 from multiple dimensions, to understandings of how collaborative processes can shape design, and to (re)theorizations of systems thinking in the learning sciences. © ISLS.

IDENTIFYING AN OPTIMAL ECOSYSTEM MODEL OF REFUGEE-RELATED BUSINESSES VIA AN ONLINE SYSTEMS-BASED EVOLUTIONARY LEARNING LABORATORY: A CASE IN UGANDA

The number of refugees in the world peaked at 26.3 million as of mid-2020. More than 75 percent of these refugees are in a protracted situation, one in which refugees find themselves in a long-lasting and intractable state of limbo. However, the budget for refugee protection and care has not been sufficient for years. Due to the limited humanitarian and developmental budget, the role of refugee-related businesses is gaining more attention. The aim of this study is to show the feasibility of the partially online systems-based Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) approach in the COVID-19 era via a case study of Uganda and to identify the current systems model of refugee-related businesses, their leverage points, and the action plans necessary for the development of an optimal systems model for refugee-related businesses. The authors suggested the efficacy of the online system-based ELLab and provided new ways for the application of the ELLab method in the COVID-19 era. They also managed to identify the current systems model of refugee-related businesses, their leverage points, and their action plans through the ELLab process. © ISSS 2021. All right reserved.

E-learning Readiness in University of Lampung during Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper focuses on the state of readiness of Indonesian higher education to integrate online courses, particularly during study from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The case study was carried out at the University of Lampung (Unila), one of the state universities of Indonesia. The result shows the rapid increase in the number of visitors to Unila's learning management system during the beginning of studies from home regulations. The Aydin and Tasci E-learning Readiness (ELR) method is used to assess Unila's readiness to implement the online course. The study is also important to show the Unila readiness to support Merdeka Belajar regulation issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) of Indonesia. The result shows that the average ELR score is 4.43. This result indicates that Unila is in a state of readiness for the implementation of e-learning, and the application of e-learning can be continued. However, several things can be improved, especially with regard to ELR factors which have lower scores. © 2021 IEEE.

Systems Development in Pandemic Times: The Case of a Vaccination Registration Service: Some Well-Known Lessons Might Be Learned Again

There are several theoretical frameworks as well as practical experiences on how to improve the development, implementation, and operations of e-government services. The paper shortly describes the case of the Hungarian COVID-19 vaccination registration service for citizens that was inappropriately designed from the organizing point of view. Application of two general principles, that could have been used during the design of the service, are presented in the paper as an afterthought. Though the lack of reliable data does not allow to identify the root causes of the improper building of the vaccination registration service, it is argued that some well-known lessons could be learned again: e-government services are socio-technical systems that should be designed with systems thinking in mind. © 2021 ACM.