ABSTRACT
The COVID 19 crisis has highlighted the key role of the public health service (PHS), with its approximately 375 municipal health offices involved in the pandemic response. Here, in addition to a lack of human resources, the insufficient digital maturity of many public health departments posed a hurdle to effective and scalable infection reporting and contact tracing. In this article, we present the maturity model (MM) for the digitization of health offices, the development of which took place between January 2021 and February 2022 and was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health. It has been applied since the beginning of 2022 with the aim of strengthening the digitization of the PHS. The MM aims to guide public health departments step by step to increase their digital maturity to be prepared for future challenges. The MM was developed and evaluated based on qualitative interviews with employees of public health departments and other experts in the public health sector as well as in workshops and with a quantitative survey. The MM allows the measurement of digital maturity in eight dimensions, each of which is subdivided into two to five subdimensions. Within the subdimensions a classification is made on five different maturity levels. Currently, in addition to recording the digital maturity of individual health departments, the MM also serves as a management tool for planning digitization projects. The aim is to use the MM as a basis for promoting targeted communication between the health departments to exchange best practices for the different dimensions.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Public Health , Humans , Germany , Public Sector , Health ServicesABSTRACT
The transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic included almost all teachers and students. Digital (inadequate) skills and (in)competencies of both teachers and students have come to the fore. Accelerated adaptation, getting used to new forms of work, learning and teaching in these two years has introduced significant changes in the educational process and has shown the need to revise the educational system and the need for modernization and transformation. The study presents the results of a survey of a sample of 1,600 upper primary teachers in primary schools in the Republic of Croatia, which aimed to examine their attitudes and impressions regarding the implementation of online teaching during the pandemic COVID-19. The results of the research showed the following: The vast majority of respondents (94.1%) answered that the classic form of teaching is better than online teaching. Most of the respondents spent 2 to 4 hours in the preparation and evaluation of student materials. © 2023, Institute for Human Rehabilitation. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the move to virtual and remote consultations in clinical practice with digital technologies widely implemented. eHealth interventions and use of applications in a variety of conditions means that patients and their families, as well as healthcare professionals, can access and interpret data in real-time, as well as providing trends in various clinical parameters including blood pressure for instance. Despite the aim of digital transformation in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, this has not been fully realised and there is no consensus on the skills and competencies required for allied health professionals (AHPs). This qualitative study undertook two focus groups with twelve AHPs to evaluate the AHP Digital Competency Framework in the UK. The participants recognised the importance of a digital technology in their clinical practice and perceived digital literacy as essential for AHPs. In relation to the AHP framework, participants agreed that competencies in digital technology were clinically relevant, and assessment of these competencies should be performed regularly in practice. However, the majority were unaware of the AHP digital competency framework and suggested improvements to optimise its use in practice and identified areas for improvement. Overall, the AHP Digital Competency Framework has the potential, with better dissemination and further refinement of the wording, to become a useful tool to support the enhancement of digital competency in AHPs and improve the delivery of patient care.
ABSTRACT
This study aimed to determine the level of digital competencies among faculty members and students at the Northern Border University and to identify the obstacles and challenges imposed by the Corona pandemic. A mixture of survey and qualitative approaches was adopted. The study sample consisted of (86) faculty members and (406) students. The study's questionnaire is to measure digital efficiency at the Northern Border University consisting of seven dimensions of (57) paragraphs, in addition to two open questions about the obstacles and challenges of digital transformation. The results showed that the skills possessed by faculty members and students were of a high degree, and also showed a lack of statistically significant differences in the average digital competencies of university students, whereas there are statistically significant differences due to the impact of the achievement level in favor of the achievement level "excellent" versus "good". The obstacles to digital transformation were concentrated in four main axes: infrastructure, the lack of interest in digital transformation, resistance to change, and the lack of appropriate competencies for digital transformation. The challenges facing digital transformation were summarized in four main axes: providing infrastructure, developing the quality of communication between the educational process participants, controlling the quality of educational outputs, and raising the digital efficiency of the educational process.
ABSTRACT
Despite extensive efforts to support teachers with the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into their classroom practice, current research reports that teachers face immense challenges when integrating ICT into their teaching. This issue has become even more relevant with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus, forcing schools around the world to close for an indefinite period of time and thus to offer remote digital learning solutions. Against this background, this study focused on examining the predictors of pre-service teachers' prospective ICT use and investigated the heterogeneous results of previous research related to ICT use and gender. Following the ‘will, skill, tool' framework, the study examined relevant factors of pre-service teachers' (N = 103) prospective ICT use for teaching and learning processes by means of multiple regression analyses. The analyses included pre-service teachers' background characteristics, ICT profiles (attitudes and self-efficacy), digital competencies and use of digital tools in order to explore their role in future in-class use of ICT. They also show that there are no gender differences in pre-service teachers' prospective ICT integration. However, male pre-service teachers hold more positive attitudes towards ICT use than their female counterparts. Additionally, the findings reveal that the two strongest predictors of pre-service teachers' future ICT use are their attitudes and perceived competency to teach and implement technology in their teaching practices. Finally, the results provide important information about teachers' training needs. Implications of the results and further research are discussed.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, on-site classroom teaching became limited at most German medical universities. This caused a sudden demand for digital teaching concepts. How the transfer from classroom to digital teaching or digitally assisted teaching was conducted was decided by each university and/or department individually. As a surgical discipline, Orthopaedics and Trauma have a particular focus on hands-on teaching as well as direct contact to patients. Therefore, specific challenges in designing digital teaching concepts were expected to arise. Aim of this study was to evaluate medical teaching at German universities one year into the pandemic as well as to identify potentials and pitfalls in order to develop possible optimization approaches. METHODS: A questionnaire with 17 items was designed and sent to the professors in charge of organising the teaching in Orthopaedics and Trauma at each medical university. A differentiation between Orthopaedics and Trauma was not made to allow a general overview. We collected the answers and conducted a qualitative analysis. RESULTS: We received 24 replies. Each university reported a substantial reduction of their classroom teaching and efforts to transfer their teaching to digital formats. Three sites were able to switch to digital teaching concepts completely, whereas others tried to enable classroom and bedside teaching at least for students of higher edcuational levels. The online platforms used varied depending on the university as well as the format it was supposed to support. CONCLUSION: One year into the pandemic significant differences concerning the proportions of classroom and digital teaching for Orthopaedics and Trauma can be observed. Simultaneously huge differences in concepts used to create digital teaching are present. Since a complete suspense of classroom teaching was never mandatory, several universities developed hygiene concepts to enable hands-on and bedside teaching. Despite these differences, some similarities were observed: the lack of time and personnel to generate adequate teaching material was reported as the leading challenge by all participants of this study.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Educational Personnel , Orthopedics , Students, Medical , Humans , Pandemics , Universities , COVID-19/epidemiology , TeachingABSTRACT
This study aims to establish the relationship between instrumental digital competencies and virtual education in times of covid-19. Its approach is quantitative, descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional. The population consisted of 5940 students from 7 faculties of a public university in Lima and Valle, distributed in 53 study programs of the 2021-I academic cycle. A representative probability sample of 360 was established. It was found that there is a significant relationship between instrumental digital competencies and virtual education in times of covid-19. (With a p < 0.05) finding a Spearman's Rho correlation = 0.778 considerable positive correlation. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
ABSTRACT
One of the most popular strategies to develop skills such as collaborative work, critical thinking, and problem-solving is the application of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), in which Professors from at least two universities from different countries and cultures develop a period known as "Global Classroom” (GC) in which, through the Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) approach, they solve a real challenge, using digital communication tools. This study held four-week global courses between groups from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and groups from the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios in Colombia. The challenges were related to two fundamental issues in sustainability: 1) Management of natural resources and climate change and 2) Biomimetics. Students were able to solve the challenges, develop skills to communicate effectively through online interaction with people from different cultures and disciplines, and use technological tools that facilitate distance learning in multicultural virtual environments. Current teaching models involve active and experiential learning, developing soft and hard skills. The GC experience is a tool that allowed continuity in the preparation of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of GC is available to those interested as a valuable tool to provide students with the opportunity to live sustainable international experiences and promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
One of the most popular strategies to develop skills such as collaborative work, critical thinking, and problem-solving is the application of COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) through a Global Shared Learning Classroom in which professors from at least two universities from different countries and cultures develop a period known as "Global Classroom"in which, through the Challenge Based Learning didactic technique, they solve a real-life challenge, but from a distance, using digital communication tools. In this study, 4-week global courses were held between groups from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and groups from the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios - UNIMINUTO in Colombia. The challenges developed were related to two fundamental issues: 1) management of natural resources and climate change and 2) biomimetics. Students were able to develop skills to communicate effectively through online interaction with people from different cultures and disciplines and use technological tools that facilitate communication and distance learning in multicultural virtual environments. The use of Global Classroom in their respective areas of study is made available to those interested as a valuable tool to provide students with the opportunity to live sustainable international experiences and promote the sustainable development goals. Current teaching models involve active and experiential learning and developing soft and hard skills. The Global Shared Learning Classroom experience is a tool that allowed continuity in the preparation of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 by the authors of this article.
ABSTRACT
Drawing on the notion of professionalism and the role of emotions, this chapter examines teachers' work and lives based on data from two major research projects. Data were collected before and after the COVID-19 pandemic through two online surveys. Findings point to collaboration as one of the key dimensions of teachers' work. While individual and collegial professionalism were identified, managerial and functional issues have also played a role in how teachers deal with tensions and contradictions in their daily professional lives. Positive and negative emotions stand out in teachers' accounts as well as the relational dimension of teaching and the use of ICT. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The paper aims to analyze the digital transformation process's defining elements in the COVID-19 crisis. Starting from our main objective, which consists of a critical analysis of the defining elements of the digital transformation process in the conditions of the COVID-19 crisis, we formulate the following specific objectives: to analyze the contribution of external organizational factors to put into practice the new opportunities created by the organization's digital transformation;to evaluate the impact of digital competencies on the digital transformation of organizations;and to analyze the role of new technologies in developing digital competencies. We used the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and the bootstrapped method to evaluate the model fit, and the model was tested by SmartPLS4 software. Our research is based on information from 203 employees with authority for decision making about the digital transformation strategy in their organizations undergoing a digital transformation process. Our findings revealed that organizations, regardless of size, profile, or field of activity, are affected by changes induced by new technologies and the crisis generated by COVID-19. Therefore, formulating a digital transformation strategy must aim to minimize the risks of obsolescence and maximize the results from exploiting new digital resources. However, our results do not prove that COVID-19 crises directly and positively influence the development of digital competencies. This leads us to conclude that developing these competencies is a continuous process unaffected by disruptive factors such as crises. Instead, the development of digital competencies is influenced by new technologies. Therefore, the COVID-19 crisis directly and positively influences organizations' developing and implementing a digital transformation strategy and new technologies. The theoretical contribution of our research consists of an explanation of the role of perturbator factors, such as the crisis generated by COVID-19, in developing digital competencies and improving digital transformation. The practical contributions are dedicated to managers that should have a different approach to the negative phenomena that will be considered catalytic factors of the digital transformation and disruptive factors of the organizational climate. © 2023 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus challenged our everyday life and habits developed in our work and living environment. The highly contagious disease has led the whole world to unprecedented business, humanitarian and human challenges. But, as always, any risk can be recognized as a new opportunity. Thus, people around the world have redefined their understanding of health and well-being. However, it is important to recognize that people across the world and in different industries will continue to take advantage of this large-scale experiment caused by the pandemic and may choose to rethink established concepts, habits, and policies. This paper aims to explore students' Covid-19 digital health literacy (HL) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". A standardized questionnaire and scale were used, which aims in providing the ability to compare the results with other students from other countries, and specialties. The results so far show students reported high levels of digital HL, and an ability to use various sources of information. Our students have strong skills in searching for information; use reasonable criteria to perceive the information, but face some issues when sharing information on social media. The collected results can be used as an instrument to evaluate the current state and propose steps for the future improvement of lifelong learning priorities, both for students and the general public.
ABSTRACT
The growing problem of mental health in the university population, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, has generated the need to consider positive variables to address this situation. Life satisfaction and academic engagement are two constructs that emerge as conceptual tools oriented in this direction. The present study sought to describe the effect of academic engagement on life satisfaction in a sample of Chilean university students. A cross-sectional co-relational design was used. A total of 370 university students participated, 72.4% female and 27.6% male, aged beitive effect of engagement on life satisfaction was demonstrated, where the dimensions vigor (ß = 0.462; p < 0.01) and dedication (ß = 0.465; p < 0.01) acted as significant predictors (χ2 = 87.077, gl = 32, p < 0.01; χ2/gl = 2.721; CFI = 975; TLI = 0.964; RMSEA = 0.068). The proposed model showed factorial invariance according to sex. The usefulness of employing these constructs as a way to manage the well-being and mental health of students in university institutions is discussed.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Pandemics , Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Chile , COVID-19/epidemiology , Cross-Sectional Studies , Personal Satisfaction , Students/psychology , UniversitiesABSTRACT
This paper presents synthesized results from a rapid review based on a meta-analysis of evidence from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in 11 European countries in the context of the "emergency" transition of school systems to remote e-learning. The study sets out to answer two main research questions - 1) in the field of digital competences of participants in the school system (teachers, parents and students) and 2) in the area of contextual factors and conditions that have caused and/or reinforced educational inequalities during the emergency distance e-learning. The data and results of the review study lead to the conclusion that. regardless of the pre-pandemic levels (even at high ones) of digitalization and technological equipment of European education systems and the relatively well developed digital competencies of educational actors, the situation of an emergency transition to a fully digital modality of learning is accompanied by many challenges and is perceived by actors as highly stressful. The results of the meta-analysis outline several areas in which an increase in educational inequalities in the context of "crisis" distance e-learning has been reported. These are 1) an increasing of the digital divide between students based on the socio-economic situation of their families, with the effect being a risk of non-inclusion or outright drop-out from the e-distance learning process;2) age-related educational inequalities, with the result of a lack or a stagnation of self-regulated learning skills, which makes students at lower educational stages almost entirely dependent on parental support;3) an amplification of educational barriers for specific groups of disadvantaged students, such as children with special needs, migrant children, refugee children, etc., the effects of which lead to an accumulation of learning losses, lag in personal skill development and also in their socio-cultural inclusion through education.
ABSTRACT
Drawing on the notion of professionalism and the role of emotions, this chapter examines teachers' work and lives based on data from two major research projects. Data were collected before and after the COVID-19 pandemic through two online surveys. Findings point to collaboration as one of the key dimensions of teachers' work. While individual and collegial professionalism were identified, managerial and functional issues have also played a role in how teachers deal with tensions and contradictions in their daily professional lives. Positive and negative emotions stand out in teachers' accounts as well as the relational dimension of teaching and the use of ICT.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 is a new disease in human life and has become pandemic. Pandemic Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has been speeding up digital transformation in every sector. Implementation of digital technology in health should be supported by the community's readiness, such as digital health literacy to achieve the goals, optimize health service performance, and blockage infodemics and miss information. Implementation of digital technology in health should be supported by the community's readiness, such as digital health literacy to achieve the goals, optimize health service performance, and blockage infodemics and miss information. This study aims to develop a tool to measure digital health literacy in the community through three stages such as expert review, pre-test and field test. DHLC adopted the five competencies areas into 18 questions and put eight questions related to health literacy; the total items question of DHLC are 26 items questions. This study reveals that all of the score digital competencies areas below 4. Score 4 in DHLC indicates that the community still need guidance to doing activity in the digital environment. Elevating digital health literacy in the citizens is urgent to control the spreading misinformation and disinformation that could worsen pandemics. Future studies need to conduct to test the validity and reliability of DHLC in various settings.
ABSTRACT
The new times, marked by immediacy, globalization, and technological advances, has forced health professionals to develop new competencies to adapt to the new challenges. However, necessary skills such as using digital tools are primarily ignored by institutions, hospitals, and universities, forcing professionals to undertake training in these areas independently. This research aims to analyse if there is a transfer of what has been learned in the digital healthcare field to their professional practice and patients. To perform the study, 104 healthcare professionals, mostly nurses, who had completed online training in digital competencies answered a questionnaire with 17 questions. These questions were related to the transfer of learning to professional practice and its use for developing patient resources. Almost 60% of the professionals said that they have used what they learned in the course in their professional work, but only 16% of the participants use it daily. The main barrier to not having applied what was learned during the course, according to participants, was the situation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a lack of time and lack of resources. Only 23 people out of 104 developed patient resources after the course; the most created were infographics and videos. In addition, 38 people used what they learned to improve their personal productivity: searches, storage, calendars, etc. Only 11 used it for research purposes. People between 31 and 40 years old create the most patient resources and use what they learn most frequently. There is a need to improve e-learning to provide quality training that can transfer good behaviour to professional practice in the health field.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Workplace , Humans , Adult , Pilot Projects , Pandemics/prevention & control , COVID-19/epidemiology , Delivery of Health CareABSTRACT
Learning digital competencies can be successful if the information is also tried out immediately using interactive elements. However, interactive teaching poses a particular challenge, especially in large group formats. Various strategies are used to promote interaction, but there is little known about the results. This article shows different strategies and evaluates their influence on the interaction rate in a large group course over two terms that teaches digital medicine. Log files and participation in surveys as well as participation in chat were quantitatively evaluated. In addition, the chat messages themselves were evaluated qualitatively. For the evaluation, relation to the total number of participants was particularly relevant in order to be able to determine an interaction rate in the individual course sessions. A maximum average interaction rate of 90.97% could be determined over the entire term while the participants wrote an average of 3.96 comments during a session in the chat. In summary, this research could show that interactive elements should be well planned and used at regular intervals in order to reap the benefits.
Subject(s)
Learning , Medicine , Humans , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to examine the increase in digital competencies of PLA and PLAc teachers for their performance in the context of virtual teaching. Our interest arises from the challenges that this modality imposes on the classes due to the Sars-CoV-2 virus pandemic. We develop our proposal by reviewing studies of teaching areas in virtual environments and the teaching of foreign languages. Our methodological design considers the configuration of a case study, in a qualitative approach to the data tointerpret our object of study. The results point to how teachers face the pressures about their digital skills to respond to the immediate needs of their contexts. Also, they recognize a great dependence on digital literacy for their professional performance and for the training of their students, offering them opportunities to participate both in educational and social scopes in Portuguese.
ABSTRACT
Telecommuting in education field, enforced by Romanian Government measures as policy responses to COVID-19 pandemic, has had a tremendous effect both on teaching professionals and on students. This paper investigates the first group, namely the teachers and their perception of online education versus students’ academic performance during distance learning, with a particular focus on the negative factors impacting educational activities: objective ones, such as the limits of technology, and personal subjective ones, as in the phenomenon of negative affect. The study is based on quantitative research that assesses the relationship between personal subjective factors (skills, affect, difficulties in adapting, level of preparedness, professional satisfaction) and technological objective factors (inadequate electronic devices, faulty internet services), with a view to establishing if online education is genuinely sustainable as a valid educational system in the long run. 881 teachers from Romania were subjected to reflect on the effectiveness of online education during the pandemic, resulting in a correlational study with some interesting conclusions and directions highlighted as characteristic for a sustainable educational program. All in all, it can be concluded that when teachers become experienced in online teaching, the efficiency of online teaching is set to improve and when improvement happens, online teaching becomes sustainable as a proper method of training via online-facilitated means of communication.