ABSTRACT
The spread of COVID-19 has encouraged the practice of using video conferencing for family doctor appointments. Existing applications and off-the-shelf devices face challenges in dealing with capturing the correct view of patients' bodies and supporting ease of use. We created Dr.'s Eye, a video conferencing prototype to support varying types of body exams in home settings. With our prototype, we conducted a study with participants using mock appointments to understand the simultaneous use of the camera and display and to get insights into the issues that might arise in real doctor appointments. Results show the benefits of providing more flexibility with a decoupled camera and display, and privacy protection by limiting the camera view. Yet, challenges remain in maneuvering two devices, presenting feedback for the camera view, coordinating camera work between the participant and the examiner, and reluctance towards showing private body regions. This inspires future research on how to design a video system for doctor appointments. © 2023 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Anatomy education that traditionally relies on face-to-face delivery is disrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19. Due to suspension of face-to-face instruction in schools, our institution adopted a video conferencing system with peer-assisted learning (VCS-PAL). The study objectives are to: 1) report our institutional experience in adopting blended VCS-PAL in anatomy teaching;2) describe perceptions towards this pedagogy during the pandemic among student facilitators and learners. In the mixed-method educational research, 139 year-2 biomedical engineering and pharmacy students were surveyed regarding their VCS-PAL learning experience. A total of 85 returned the survey, with a response rate of 60.7% (85/139). Most students found the live demonstration of plastinated specimens helpful in learning anatomy (82%). The general feedback from both student learners and student facilitators are positive. The blended VCS-PAL approach in anatomy education provides an excellent adjustment opportunity amidst the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Selfies have become a prominent means of online communication. Group selfies, in particular, encourage people to represent their identity as part of the group and foster a sense of belonging. During the COVID-19 pandemic, video conferencing systems are used as a tool for group selfies. However, conventional systems are not ideal for group selfies due to the rigidness of grid-based layout, information overload, and lack of eye contact. To explore design opportunities and needs for a novel virtual group selfie platform, we conducted a participatory design, and identified three characteristics of virtual group selfie scenarios, "context with narratives", "interactive group tasks", and "capturing subtle moments."We implemented Virfie, a web-based platform that enables users to take group selfies with embodied social interaction, and to create and customize selfie scenarios using a novel JSON specification. In order to validate our design concept and identify usability issues we conducted a user study. Feedbacks from the study participants suggest that Virfie is effective at strengthening social interaction and remote togetherness. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
The need for synchronous online classes in video conferencing is associated with the transition of many universities to distance learning during the coronavirus infection. This problem has been solved by universities in different ways: Some used internal video conferencing systems, some subscribed to third-party video conferencing systems, some used video conferencing systems on their own or rented servers. The increase in the number of video conferencing users during the pandemic led to technical failures in the operation of video conferencing systems. The expansion of communication channels and the increase in server capacity did not always lead to the desired result, since the software for the implementation of video conferencing has restrictions on the number of users. One of the ways out is to use a scheme with several video conferencing servers and a load balancer server. The article discusses the experience of the National Research University "BelSU" on the formation of a video conferencing system for providing synchronous online classes in the video conferencing classes based on the open software BigBlueButton and the Scalelite load balancer. This solution allows you to scale the number of simultaneous participants of synchronous online classes held in an educational organization in the video conference mode, due to the dynamic distribution of the load on several servers without changing the user's usual operating mode. © 2021 CEUR-WS. All rights reserved.