Building Research Capacity in Primary Care Practices That Serve Predominantly Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations

In this commentary, we report on lessons learned over 2 years (2020-2022) from conducting primary care research through a novel alliance of an ACO consisting of independent practices, a health plan, and several academic researchers, with the support of a private foundation. Am J Manag Care. 2023;29(6):In Press _____ Takeaway Points The process of collaborating on research was mutually beneficial for a network of independent practices and a group of academic researchers. * The process benefited the practices by facilitating more precise thinking about quality improvement, motivating the staff, and enabling readiness for health system change. * The process benefited the researchers by illuminating nuances of clinical and organizational workflow and revealing the practices' in-depth understanding of the communities they serve. * If practices have more federally funded opportunities to consistently participate in research, it could help speed greater adoption of payment reform models to promote health equity at the state and national levels. _____ A 2021 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Implementing High-Quality Primary Care, has called out the persistent "neglect of basic primary care research" in the United States.1 A 2020 study by the RAND Corporation found that primary care research represents only 1% of all federally funded projects (including projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], and the Veterans Health Administration).2 However, innovation in primary care is central to advancing health care delivery. Leaders in health care innovation recently called for CMS to test a proposal for primary care payment reform in accountable care organizations (ACOs) composed of independent practices (ie, practices not owned by hospitals).3 By innovating in independent practices, these leaders argued that CMS would provide incentives for those practices to stay independent, thereby potentially decreasing the vertical market consolidation that contributes to rising health care costs.3 Yet these same practices may have less experience with the kind of systematic innovation that leads to generalizable insights, because what little funding is available for primary care research is mostly awarded to large academic medical centers.1 AHRQ's practice-based research networks have not fully addressed this gap, as they have struggled to find infrastructure and maintain funding.1 In this commentary, we report on the lessons we learned over 2 years (2020-2022) from conducting primary care research through a novel alliance of an ACO consisting of independent practices, a health plan, and several academic researchers, with the support of a private foundation. [...]ACPNY found that experience with research facilitates innovation and readiness for health system change (lesson 1C).

Digitalization of Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) Process of Accreditation of Nutritionist and Dietetics

With the recent global COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, accreditation delays have become inevitable in lieu of the strict travel restrictions. The usual accreditation inspection process conducted face-To-face was affected. Organizations are shifting to a reliance on technology to adapt to the national emergency. The study aims to bridge the gap by digitalization Professional Regulation Commission's (PRC) monitoring and accreditation system to conduct a virtual inspection and monitoring. With all of these said, the specific objectives of the researchers and developers are to develop an efficient digitized system that captures the original one. In developing the proposed accreditation and monitoring system and document management system (website) for PRC, the group will adapt and take inspiration from the Agile Development Lifecycle methodology, which will help the modification and other functionality of the system by using the iterative style in the development of the system. The proposed digital monitoring system undergoes a cross-browser test, and performance test, i.e., Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM). These tests show that the proposed system passed the compatibility for commonly used browsers like Chrome, Edge, Mozilla, and many more. The Final Test in Performance Testing showed that the system RTM functions had passed all final testing. © 2023 IEEE.

Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: A Handbook

Pope reviews Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: A Handbook edited by Amanda R. Scull.

Usage of digital library services during COVID-19 pandemic: a study of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)

Purpose: This paper aims to find out the digital services of management libraries provided during the library closure and the challenges and initiatives the libraries have taken up to fulfill the need of their user community during the pandemic crisis. Design/methodology/approach: To meet the purpose of the study, the investigators have used a survey method. An online questionnaire was devised and administered among the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) librarians using Microsoft Forms. Findings: The study's findings suggested that all the libraries under investigation must avail of various digital library services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Further, the investigators recommend that libraries formulate a disaster preparedness and management plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic so that libraries can prepare themselves for the future. Originality/value: The pandemic has affected every aspect of life and changed the digital library services scenario. Thus, it is essential to examine the role libraries have played during the COVID-19 pandemic and distinguish the challenges and initiatives libraries have taken to tackle the problems they faced. This study has been conducted on the digital library services that were provided by the libraries of IIMs. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for COVID-19 Information Service with Contrastive Adversarial Domain Mixup

In the real-world application of COVID-19 misinformation detection, a fundamental challenge is the lack of the labeled COVID data to enable supervised end-to-end training of the models, especially at the early stage of the pandemic. To address this challenge, we propose an unsupervised domain adaptation framework using contrastive learning and adversarial domain mixup to transfer the knowledge from an existing source data domain to the target COVID-19 data domain. In particular, to bridge the gap between the source domain and the target domain, our method reduces a radial basis function (RBF) based discrepancy between these two domains. Moreover, we leverage the power of domain adversarial examples to establish an intermediate domain mixup, where the latent representations of the input text from both domains could be mixed during the training process. Extensive experiments on multiple real-world datasets suggest that our method can effectively adapt misinformation detection systems to the unseen COVID-19 target domain with significant improvements compared to the state-of-the-art baselines. © 2022 IEEE.

The YOPP Final Summit: Assessing Past and Forecasting Future Polar Prediction Research

The successes of YOPP from the presentations and keynote presentations included * a better understanding of the impact of key polar measurements (radiosondes and space-based instruments such as microwave radiometers), and recent advancements in the current NWP observing system, achieved through coordinated OSEs in both polar regions (e.g., Sandu et al. 2021);* enhanced understanding of the linkages between Arctic and midlatitude weather (e.g., Day et al. 2019);* advancements in the atmosphere–ocean–sea ice and atmosphere–land–cryosphere coupling in NWP, and in assessing and recognizing the added value of coupling in Earth system models (e.g., Bauer et al. 2016);* deployment of tailored polar observation campaigns to address yet-unresolved polar processes (e.g., Renfrew et al. 2019);* progress in verification and forecasting techniques for sea ice, including a novel headline score (e.g., Goessling and Jung 2018);* advances in process understanding and process-based evaluation with the establishment of the YOPPsiteMIP framework and tools (Svensson 2020);* better understanding of emerging societal and stakeholder needs in the Arctic and Antarctic (e.g., Dawson et al. 2017);and * innovative transdisciplinary methodologies for coproducing salient information services for various user groups (Jeuring and Lamers 2021). The YOPP Final Summit identified a number of areas worthy of prioritized research in the area of environmental prediction and services for the polar regions: * coupled atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean models with an emphasis on advanced parameterizations and enhanced resolution at which critical phenomena start to be resolved (e.g., ocean eddies);* improved definition and representation of stable boundary layer processes, including mixed-phase clouds and aerosols;incorporation of wave–ice–ocean interactions;* radiance assimilation over sea ice, land ice, and ice sheets;understanding of linkages between polar regions and lower latitudes from a prediction perspective;* exploring the limits of predictability of the atmosphere–cryosphere–ocean system;* an examination of the observational representativeness over land, sea ice, and ocean;better representation of the hydrological cycle;and * transdisciplinary work with the social science community around the use of forecasting services and operational decision-making to name but a few. The presentations and discussions at the YOPP Final Summit identified the major legacy elements of YOPP: the YOPPsiteMIP approach to enable easy comparison of collocated multivariate model and observational outputs with the aim of enhancing process understanding, the development of an international and multi-institutional community across many disciplines investigating aspects of polar prediction and services, the YOPP Data Portal3 (https://yopp.met.no/), and the education and training delivered to early-career polar researchers. Next steps Logistical issues, the COVID-19 pandemic, but also new scientific questions (e.g., the value of targeted observations in the Southern Hemisphere), as well as technical issues emerging toward the end of the YOPP Consolidation Phase, resulted in the decision to continue the following three YOPP activities to the end of 2023: (i) YOPP Southern Hemisphere (YOPP-SH);(ii) Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (MIIP);of which YOPPSiteMIP is a critical element;and (iii) the Societal, Economics and Research Applications (PPP-SERA) Task Team.

Benchmarking on the fly and new ways of working: leveraging benefits from the pandemic experience

The University of Queensland (UQ) Library was a participant in the international benchmarking exercise reported in Part Two of this book. This paper is inspired by a question raised during the workshop "will our COVID-19 responses and experience remain relevant in the future?” This paper presents a case study of the UQ Library experience 2020–21. We position qualitative benchmarking as a social and immediate practice and share our new ways of working born in response to the pandemic. We believe that these new ways of working can persist. We share our reflections so that others can consider leveraging benefits from the pandemic experience. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Library and information services' reflections on emergency remote support and crisis-driven innovations during pandemic conditions

Crisis-driven innovation is needed to manage a scarcity in resources. The recent COVID-19 crisis exacerbated the prevailing digital exclusion in the education sector in particular. Sudden changes in otherwise stable higher education environments necessitated immediate and decisive innovation, particularly where education support services were concerned. This study reports on an academic library and information service's reflections on emergency strategies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conceptualised through the lenses of existing digital exclusion frameworks and information poverty frameworks. The findings from the qualitative data gathered via focus group interviews emphasise the importance of emergency remote library and information services. The pandemic conditions and sudden remote service delivery model highlighted the prevailing socio-economic and socio-technical inequalities and exclusions among students. The value of the study lies in the reflections made on the institution-wide crisis-driven innovation strategy implemented, and the realisation that library and information services must offer active academic support. The study offers a library and information services model to prepare for future eventualities. © The Author(s) 2023.

Health Systems and Telemedicine Adoption for Diabetes and Hypertension Care

[...]of shelter-in-place ordinances, adults with diabetes and/or hypertension were vulnerable because their routine care involves close monitoring and medication management. Some AMGA members contributed data to a common data repository managed by Optum and through a partnership with AMGA provided access to their data. Because the data elements are derived from EHRs, practice management systems, disease registries, and population health software, data are mapped and normalized to allow valid and reliable comparisons across organizations. Encounters without a practice site identifier were excluded (n = 361,745;8.7%). Because we were interested in examining weekly practice-level trends, which required multiple patients per week for reliable estimates, we excluded encounters from practice sites with fewer than 50 patients (184,003 encounters;4.4%) during the study period. The analytic sample includes 3,016,761 encounters from 764,521 adults with diabetes and/or hypertension. Because we were interested in telemedicine use among established patients of health care systems, we limited the analytic sample to patients with at least 1 visit and at least 1 diagnosis of diabetes and/or hypertension between January 1, 2019, and March 12, 2020.

Measuring the impacts of quantity and trustworthiness of information on COVID-19 vaccination intent

The COVID-19 crisis provided an opportunity for information professionals to rethink the role of information in individuals' decision making such as vaccine uptake. Unlike previous studies, which often considered information as a single factor among others, this study examined the impact of the quantity and trustworthiness of information on people's adoption of information for vaccination decisions based on the information adoption model. We analyzed COVID-19 Preventive Behavior Survey data collected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Facebook users (N = 82,213) in 15 countries between October 2020 and March 2021. The results of logistic regression analyses indicate that reasonable quantity and trustworthiness of information were positively related to COVID-19 vaccination intent. But excessive and less than the desired amount of information was more likely to have negative impacts on vaccination intent. The degrees of trust in the mediums and in the sources were associated with the level of vaccine acceptance. But the effects of trustworthiness accorded to information sources showed variations across sources and mediums. Implications for information professionals and suggestions for policies are discussed. © 2023 Association for Information Science and Technology.

Regional drug information center disseminates educational materials related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Drug information centers (DIC) play an important role in providing correct and scientifically supported information on medicinal products. In the pandemic scenario, this action is considered fundamental to the process of health education. OBJECTIVE: To describe and identify the dissemination of educational materials and their acceptance regarding the COVID-19 pandemic by a regional drug information center (RDIC) linked to a Brazilian public university. METHOD: The educational materials were disseminated in the communication channels (social media) of the RDIC and university. Seventeen educational notices were produced and disclosed from May to August 2020. The measure of reach was considered to be the number of "likes", sharing and number of people reached. RESULTS: Overall, 28.9% (n = 4071) of the online visitors "liked" the material about vaccines tested for COVID-19, followed by 12.9% (n = 1824) "likes" of the material about ivermectin for COVID-19 treatment, and 8.9% (n = 1250) "likes" of the material that explained the time necessary to develop and test a vaccine and the duration of the pandemic. CONCLUSION: The interest expressed by the "likes" of educational materials about vaccines indicates that the DIC in question has a strategic role in disseminating scientifically backed information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Infodemic: the epidemic of information during COVID19

India is one of the world's worst affected countries due to COVID-19 pandemic. The world is struglling to fight agaisnt centuries pandmemic. Globally goverments have been imposed lockdown and restrictions to control situation and minimise spread of infection. Social media was found the most practical and efficiant mediam to share information and opnions about pandmemic. At time of social distancing, social media helped people to share their feelings and find support. Same time overuse of social media palteform created panic and misinformation across countries. People sharing unconfirmed information about covid pandmemic and goverments were found it difficult to handle.

Wearing mask in children: do's and don'ts

Due to COVID-19 disease, children of all ages seem susceptible to COVID-19;thus, preventing children from COVID-19 disease is a serious duty. One of the preventive strategies in children is the behavior of mask-wearing. Recently, many parents have stated concerns to doctors and social media about whether masks may be harmful for their children. Incorrect news about the negative effects of face masks has also been increasing. Therefore, this letter aims at answering the most common and most important parents' worries about children's wearing face masks.

A Tool for Automating IT Management in Small Schools

The outbreak of COVID-2019 has resulted in the adaptation of the teaching and learning style in schools to become more online, conducting teaching and learning from any places without classroom meeting. Systems such as School Management, Online Meeting, and Online library, have been deployed to support all school members including students, teachers, parents, and administrators. These systems need to be properly managed. For business enterprises, this job falls on the shoulders of the IT department, which is usually well-staffed and well-equipped as companies realize their competitive edge depends on it. For educational institutions, especially in small schools, only 1 or 2 "computer specialists"assume the responsibility of the whole IT department. This can be overwhelming for them and, when IT tasks are poorly managed, dissatisfaction and productivity loss among school members ensue. This paper describes a system that we have designed and developed called Admin Task Management Center (ATMC). It aims to significantly reduce the manual workload of IT staff in small schools in document management, system monitoring, and other IT-related tasks. Our ATMC is currently being deployed at Satit Kaset IP (Kasetsart University Laboratory School, Center for Educational Research and Development, International Program). Our evaluation shows that the ATMC considerably raises the productivity level of IT staff, as well as other members of the school. We have released version 1 of our ATMC tool as open-source software. It is available on Github. © 2022 IEEE.

Implementing a State-Funded Peer-Run Mental Health Warmline During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The advent of COVID-19 was associated with an upsurge of "warmlines," or telephone lines staffed by non-clinicians that provide non-crisis mental health support. This paper describes a state-funded warmline initiative that was part of a public health approach to mitigating the harms of COVID-19 among people living with mental illness.

The Role of Network Slicing and Edge Computing in the Metaverse Realization

Metaverse is the latest technological hype in the modern world due to its potential for revolutionizing the digital visual perspective. With the COVID-19 pandemic, most industries have moved towards digitization, and the metaverse is identified as one of the most promising platforms for such a transition, as it provides a three-dimensional (3D) immersive experience for the users. Currently, most digital service providers and organizations are actively working on metaverse- based applications. In addition, there has been a rapid increase on research work involving metaverse realization. Launching a large scale metaverse in the real world is a challenging task. However, fifth-generation (5G) and beyond 5G (B5G) technologies are envisioned to improve the feasibility of pragmatic deployments. Although, there are several conceptual designs available, actual adaptations of the concepts are still limited. This survey focuses on providing a practical approach for metaverse realization using 5G and B5G technologies. Specifically, We discuss the importance of network slicing (NS) and multi-access edge computing (MEC) as emerging 5G technologies for enabling the realization of the metaverse. We first introduce the motivation behind metaverse for future envisaged technologies. Next, we present a holistic high-level framework for metaverse realization based on network slicing and edge computing. Moreover, we discuss the futuristic metaverse applications, their technical requirements, and methods to satisfy the requirements. Finally, we highlight the deployment challenges and possible approaches to overcome them for an actual metaverse realization. Author

La covid-19 y el espacio Schengen. Hacia un nuevo modelo de interdependencia europeo

Determinados elementos diferenciales de la arquitectura política-institucional interna de la Unión Europea (UE) y su propia naturaleza jurídica condicionan y determinan su comportamiento y la eficacia de sus decisiones, convirtiendo a esta organización internacional sui generis en un actor internacional de primer nivel. Esta condición ha hecho que, en el marco de las Relaciones Internacionales y, en concreto, tras la pandemia, deba estudiarse de manera diferenciada su impacto sobre conceptos de las Relaciones Internacionales como la interdependencia. Todas las restricciones a la movilidad durante la pandemia se adoptaron a nivel nacional, sin ser acordadas ni coordinadas previamente a nivel de las instituciones de la UE. En el marco institucional, la Comisión Europea se limitó a adoptar un conjunto de medidas de derecho indicativo o softlaw destinadas a coordinar las medidas nacionales y a subrayar la importancia de la no discriminación y la proporcionalidad en su aplicación que, en muchos casos, no se respetó. La UE es una entidad compleja y dividida que implica a muchos actores -sociales, regionales, Estados miembros, instituciones supranacionales- y por tanto los modelos que adopta en situaciones de crisis repercuten no solo en los Estados miembros, sino que muestra la importancia de la complejidad en la era de la globalización. Un estudio de estos modelos, en cierta medida, nos facilita la posibilidad de establecer patrones que, a pesar de la complejidad de la sociedad (internacional) y las relaciones internacionales, nos permitirían ofrecer múltiples canales que faciliten la colaboración global en la solución de fenómenos específicos. La presente propuesta pretende contribuir a esclarecer esos patrones y consecuentemente establecer nuevas líneas de desarrollo en la investigación sobre el concepto de la interdependencia tras la pandemia ocasionada por la covid-19 en el espacio Schengen. Este nuevo marco de interpretación de la interdependencia contribuirá a la comprensión de algunos aspectos actuales de las Relaciones Internacionales contemporáneas. Así, la interdependencia que se genera en uno u otro modelo de convivencia entre estados determina en última instancia la respuesta de estos a mutaciones tan excepcionales como la generada por la covid-19 en 2020 y su impacto en lo que siempre se ha considerado uno de los logros más notables de la integración europea, el mercado único.Alternate :This research starts from the situation generated by the pandemic in 2022 in the Schengen area. Paradoxically, a few days before the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Schengen area, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of Coronavirus, a global pandemic which forced the closure of most European borders. What seemed to be a guaranteed right, freedom of movement, was suspended in order to control the pandemic. The decisions taken by states unilaterally generated complex derivations in the framework of complex interdependence within which the European Union operates. National measures, far from guaranteeing the four fundamental freedoms, highlighted the discrepancies and lack of integration in this area. The temporary restrictions on free movement indirectly signified the proclamation that public health and those freedoms cannot coexist in critical situations, eliminating any pretense of EU leadership. Transnational relations, which on the one hand led to the increasing interconnectedness of societies, on the other hand also resulted in the restriction of states' foreign policy spaces for action. This has led to the emergence of international governance, a model that has a strong influence on the development and functioning of the EU. Most EU Member States reacted quickly to the risk of the exponential spread of the coronavirus and adopted stringent preventive measures that culminated in unprecedented restrictions on the free movement of persons within the EU, with important consequences for the functioning of the internal market. The narrative of Europe as a ma ket power emerges as an alternative. The normative approach to European identity assumes that the very nature of the EU as a market predisposes it to use its economic capabilities as a foreign policy tool. Thus, an approach that emphasizes this fact will be analytically more appropriate than an approach based on the normative identity of the Union. This points to the gestation of a new form of global governance and the design of new mechanisms for cooperation between states in the framework of interdependence and could be seen as a starting point for the debate on whether interfering in the internal market with restrictions and prohibitions on mobility was a reasonable alternative for member states to take, considering other competing interests. That is, whether the situation generated by the pandemic justified the degree of interference with free movement within the EU. The European system of governance, the most developed in contemporary international relations, showed many weaknesses and even a regression during the pandemic;that is, to a pre-eminently intergovernmental process, led by the most powerful EU countries. The EU's international cooperation systems, mechanisms and instruments must lay the foundations for a new agenda adapted to the reality of a post-Covid multipolar and interdependent world. This article is organized in three parts. The first part focuses on situating the concept of interdependence in both traditional and contemporary International Relations. This interdependence is generated for different reasons, each of which specifically defines the model to be followed by states in their transnational relations. The progressive redistribution of global power towards multipolarity and the deepening of interdependence between states have given rise to a transition towards interpolarity in which cooperation/integration, multilateralism and the role of the great powers or polarity occupy a prominent place. This is due to the increase in the number, quality and nature of the different interconnections that, at the international level, take place between different types of actors. Once the concept of interdependence has been placed in a global framework, the impact of this phenomenon on the Schengen area will be studied as an element common to all Member States, but for which different solutions were offered. The temporary suspension of the Schengen area affected the four fundamental freedoms and, although some were affected more than others, there is no doubt about its impact on European systems. This impact, far from being gauged by the European Union as an organization, was managed unilaterally by the states that persisted in their isolationist attitude, reinforcing the scarce integration that the Schengen area has always experienced but which was necessary in this context. The difference in scope and rigidity of national travel restrictions and bans resulted in a spectrum of diverse and sometimes inconsistent restrictions across the Union. As an example, most entry bans to national territories contained exceptions for domestic nationals and residents: some provided exceptions for nationals, residents, and persons confirmed negative for Covid-19, whereas others offered exceptions to nationals, residents, and persons entering the national territory for valid reasons. The second part of our research focuses on a qualitative analysis of the restrictions in the Schengen area and whether the interdependence experienced in this area and its lack of integration favour or harm the EU's behaviour on the international stage. Member States justified all travel restrictions -including entry and exit bans to and from national territories- on public health grounds. In this sense, the removal of multilevel governance elements in different EU policy areas elevated issues originally from the European framework to the international level without considering their long-term impact. Thus, some EU covid-19 measures, such as the severe restrictions on free movement that affected refugee and asylum rights during the pandemic s owed that the terms of solidarity underpinning the framework for the implementation of refugee and asylum rights in the EU, which does not go beyond the national level, are not commensurate with the real need for concrete solutions in this area. The human rights implications of all these border closures are alarming and put at serious risk vulnerable populations that should be protected by these national and international legal obligations. With regards to the internal aspect, the Schengen area is a space where interdependence between states is clearly visible in such obvious and important areas as global trade in goods and services, capital transfers, and information connectivity, thanks to the Internet and social networks. For example, we see that during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a direct link between, for example, the suspension of the Schengen area, the health systems of the Member States, and the health systems of the EU Member States.

Innovation in information services in libraries: Tik-Tok as a digital positioning proposal

The objective of this study is to propose usage strategies to effect a greater engagement of libraries in the social network TikTok, observing this platform as a potentially innovative tool. This is a study based on a descriptive and exploratory research with a qualitative approach, with a survey of research and experience reports in scientific databases about the use of TikTok in libraries, as well as the collection of profiles in the social network itself. The results observed identified a still expanding scenario of libraries in the strategic use of TikTok specifically directed to marketing and digital positioning. That said, a proposal for planning the strategic use of TikTok focused on improving the digital positioning of libraries on the social network was developed, based on three aspects: good practices of use, tactics for influencer marketing, and support-ing digital tools. It was concluded that TikTok offers a range of possibilities for innovation in social media, being necessary that libraries start to use this platform as a resource for the optimization of their digital positioning in relation to the user, having in mind, mainly, the social and technological changes that are being re-modeled from the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2023, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. All rights reserved.

Academic library services extension during the COVID-19 pandemic: considerations in higher education institutions in the Gauteng Province, South Africa

PurposeThis paper aimed to determine the extent to which academic libraries and information services were extended due to the emergence of COVID-19 in the Gauteng Province, South Africa.Design/methodology/approachFounded on a pragmatism paradigm, the sequential explanatory research design was adopted to engage with participants and respondents on their experience of library services extensions to support users during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected using online questionnaires and interviews. Cluster and purposive sampling were used and data for the quantitative part were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), whilst qualitative data were analyzed manually.FindingsFindings revealed that academic libraries operating in a higher education environment provided extensive support to remote users during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was done through the utilization of a variety of technology utilization, ranging from traditional e-mail support to the use of technology related to Artificial Intelligence such as the BOTsa, which is a Chatbot aimed to assist users in receiving speedy responses to library-related inquiries.Originality/valueThis study is unique in that it focuses on academic libraries that operate in higher education environments where support for achieving academic endeavors becomes imperative to ensure the smooth execution of teaching and learning activities within the restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Adaptions and improvements to academic library services during and post-COVID-19 era were successful in ensuring that remote users could obtain similar services and access to information as was the case before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual Laboratory in Electromagnetism: A Study of Instrumental Orchestration

The integration between virtual learning environments of recognized individual success, such as the PhET project and the Moodle Platform, presents itself as a path to be explored in the context of Instrumental Orchestration (IO), due to the broad benefits that this type of junction can bring to STEM teaching and learning. In this perspective, we conducted a purely interpretive study to investigate the role of IO, in different resources, on the academic success of students in a Bioengineering course, by comparing two activities, corresponding to the extremes of their scores, in electromagnetism laboratory practices, converted to Hybrid Teaching, by means of the COVID19 pandemic. For this, an evaluative framework was built based on the bibliographic reference, which underwent refinements adapting it to the available data, to finally analyze the IO dimensions referring to PhET, Moodle, proposed activities and interactions among participants. The main contribution of the research refers to the need for a better orchestration between simulated activities and laboratory practices, naturally accompanied by more productive interactions. This kind of research also contributes to the elaboration of new pedagogical practices, anchored in facts concerning the different approaches of IO and the way students learn. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.