How E-Government Can Help Societies during a Crisis: Implications of UTAUT Model in Lebanon

Introduction: Information and communication technology (ICT) usage has grown rapidly, with a significant rise following the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assesses the relationships among task-technology fit, sense of virtual community, and the continuous intention to use electronic government services (e-government). Methods: Through quantitative approach using surveys, a total of 390 data was obtained from registered citizens in Tripoli municipality during the pandemic. The data were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results: The mediating role of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model was observed, which shows that task-technology fit, sense of virtual community, and the consideration of society and its development are essential factors for citizens to use ICTs. Systems should entail features that meet the needs of citizens, community-building elements, and satisfactory performance. The importance of e-government ICTs in community development, particularly in a fragile state such as Tripoli, Lebanon, is the highlight of the current results. This can be beneficial for governmental authorities in the region of the Middle East, helping them to increase communication effectiveness by implementing appropriate digital means for the public during a crisis. Community development is a highly effective aspect that governments can implement in their digital services to provide opportunities for learning, awareness, and social progress to the public.

Emerging Virtual Communities of Practice during Crises: A Sustainable Model Validating the Levels of Peer Motivation and Support

The purpose of this study is to validate the role of social media among peers in a virtual community of practice, VCoP, by applying the Delphi technique of data collection and analysis. The study adopts the Grounded Theory methodology to identify the theoretical frame that is developed from the data analysis. The research design identified the areas of social and professional support from Maslow's hierarchy of human needs from the faculty members' responses that were chosen by "purposive sampling” rather than random sampling The qualitative data collection took three months, wherein 26 faculty members interacting on WhatsApp during COVID-19 were identified as experts: one of the corner elements of the Delphi technique. The thematic analysis of the results indicated that fulfilling Maslow's needs was an integral component of social media VCoP. However, unlike Maslow's model, expressions of the need for safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization took turns as the most important need depending on changing context, gender, and individual preferences. The answer to the research questions, thus, becomes embedded in the research methodology that involves instructors' perceptions as a validating element of the findings. The main recommendation is to replicate the study in various contexts to monitor faculty well-being to reach a sustainable educational environment. © 2023 by the authors.

Virtual community users' travel information-seeking continuance intention: an empirical study based on the cognitive load theory and flow theory

PurposeVirtual communities are useful sources of travel information for tourists. To better promote the sustainable development of virtual communities and provide theoretical guidance, this study aims to explore how the cognitive load generated by tourists in the information-seeking process facilitates the formation of their continuance intention.Design/methodology/approachBuilt on the cognitive load theory and flow theory, this study investigates the formation mechanism of virtual community users' continuance intention to seek travel information. A total of 328 valid questionnaires were collected and used for hypothesis testing.FindingsThe results show that perceived usefulness, perceived information consistency and prior experience positively affect continuance intention. Concentration and time distortion have significant effects on continuance intention. Moreover, concentration and time distortion mediate between prior experience and continuance intention.Originality/valueThis study clarifies the formation mechanism of virtual community users' continuance intention of travel information seeking from a new perspective. The conclusions enrich the research on consumer behavior in the information search field and provide a reference for virtual communities.

"Sharing Is Caring”: Participatory Storytelling and Community Building on Social Media Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

While most health communication studies tend to adopt an information-based approach to unpacking the communication issues around COVID-19, scant attention has been paid to the emerging narratives from local communities as a way of sensemaking, self-representation, and creative responses to the pandemic. Especially locally driven narratives that convey positive emotions and exhibit remarkable resilience of the great majority are underexamined. To narrow this gap, this study analyzed a Facebook-based, participatory storytelling program to reveal how local communities (co-)construct humanized narrative accounts of lived experiences and context-specific knowledge about pandemic responses. Data collection involved qualitative content analysis of 245 user-generated stories, associated with comments and engagement from the group members, for a 6-month period. Results show that open and participatory storytelling on social media affords a pathway of performing togetherness even though individuals narrate their lived pandemic experiences differently. Such performing togetherness somewhat facilitated virtual community building. This study contributes to the health communication literature with a refreshing perspective of understanding the grounded, participatory storytelling as a vehicle of collective sensemaking and community spirit-lifting. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of American Behavioral Scientist is the property of Sage Publications Inc. 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.)

Reflections of Six Student Teachers Enrolled in an Online Practicum-Case Study

The current qualitative research explores six student teachers' reflections on the online practicum after shifting from in-school to online delivery due to the COVID-19 quarantine. This research was undertaken with the application of quasi-structured interviews with six student teachers. The thematic analysis uncovered the student teachers' perceptions regarding the online practicum and highlighted opportunities afforded by an online practicum, including time and effort efficiency;accurate performance and rapid completion, significant development of planning skills, ability to understand students and deal with different teaching situations, stimulation of innovation and creativity in teaching;and promotion of self-learning. The findings also underlined potential difficulties, including weak or interrupted internet signal, distractions in the online learning environment;the lack of a quiet place designated for meetings;the lack of trainees' technical skills, and the absence of in-school experience. Several implications and suggestions have emerged in light of these findings. © 2023 NSP Natural Sciences Publishing Cor.

Virtual and In-Person Community-Engaged Learning: Is Student Learning Virtually the Same?

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted instructors of many community-engaged learning (CEL) courses to utilize virtual CEL as a replacement for in-person CEL. Few assessments indicate whether in-person CEL student learning outcomes (SLOs) can be achieved through virtual CEL. Purpose: This study assesses whether an in-person CEL cohort and a virtual CEL cohort achieved the SLOs for a CEL course. Methodology/Approach: The sample for the study is students in the 2019 in-person CEL cohort (n = 13) and the 2020 virtual CEL cohort (n = 13) of a CEL course. Students' reflective writing is analyzed using focused coding to evaluate the extent to which students achieved the SLOs. Findings/Conclusions: Findings indicate that both cohorts achieved the SLO about career exploration. The virtual CEL cohort did not as thoroughly achieve SLOs on cultural differences, community leadership, and working with others for local impact. The groups utilized reflective practices differently. In this case, virtual CEL was less effective than in-person CEL. Implications: Virtual CEL is not an exact substitute for in-person CEL. Effectiveness in achieving civic-oriented SLOs is likely to improve through further modification of pedagogical approaches and supplemental content and interactions.

Examining COVID-19 vaccine attitude using SEM-Artificial Neural Networks approach: a case from Reddit community.

As new coronavirus variants continue to emerge, in order to better address vaccine-related concerns and promote vaccine uptake in the next few years, the role played by online communities in shaping individuals' vaccine attitudes has become an important lesson for public health practitioners and policymakers to learn. Examining the mechanism that underpins the impact of participating in online communities on the attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines, this study adopted a two-stage hybrid structural equation modeling (SEM)-artificial neural networks (ANN) approach to analyze the survey responses from 1037 Reddit community members. Findings from SEM demonstrated that in leading up to positive COVID-19 vaccine attitudes, sense of online community mediates the positive effects of perceived emotional support and social media usage, and perceived social norm mediates the positive effect of sense of online community as well as the negative effect of political conservatism. Health self-efficacy plays a moderating role between perceived emotional support and perceived social norm of COVID-19 vaccination. Results from the ANN model showed that online community members' perceived social norm of COVID-19 vaccination acts as the most important predictor of positive COVID-19 vaccine attitudes. This study highlights the importance of harnessing online communities in designing COVID-related public health interventions and accelerating normative change in relation to vaccination.

A conceptual framework for clinical and translational virtual community engagement research.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a trend for clinical and translational community-engaged research in adapting to an increasingly virtual landscape. This requires a framework for engagement distinct from in-person research and program activities. We reflect on four case studies of community engagement activities that inform a conceptual framework to better integrate the virtual format into community-engaged research reflecting key tenets of health equity and antiracist praxis. Methods: Four projects were selected by community-engaged research stakeholders for an in-depth review based on how much the virtual transition impacted activities such as planning, recruitment, and data collection for each project. Transitions to virtual engagement were assessed across ten areas in which community engagement has been demonstrated to make a positive impact. Results: Our analysis suggests a conceptual evaluation framework in which the ten community engagement areas cluster into four interrelated domains: (1) development, design, and delivery; (2) partnership and trust building; (3) implementation and change; and (4) ethics and equity. Conclusions: The domains in this conceptual framework describe critical elements of community engaged research and programs consistent with recommendations for health equity informed meaningful community engagement from the National Academy of Medicine. The conceptual framework and case studies can be used for evaluation and to develop guidelines for clinical and translational researchers utilizing the virtual format in community-engaged research.

ASCE's Response to the Pandemic: A Virtual ExCEEd Community Exchange

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop (ETW) started in 1999, and it has produced 1035 graduates from 266 colleges and universities throughout the world. ASCE has conducted 44 week-long, in-person workshops without interruption for over two decades. ExCEEd graduates have returned to their home universities and applied the lessons of this workshop to the classes they teach. The details and success of the ETW have been reported in many venues. In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the nation and remained a persistent threat throughout 2021. As a result, the in-person workshops scheduled for Summer 2020 were canceled and in Summer 2021 was reimagined as a virtual offering. This paper is the first in a three-part series that describe and assess how ASCE modified and continued the ExCEEd program during this difficult period. This paper specifically overviews the response by the ASCE Committee on Faculty Development (CFD) to create the virtual ExCEEd Community Exchange (ECX) following the cancellation of the Summer 2020 ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshop. The ECX program is a virtual venue for civil engineering educators to meet and share their ideas and lessons-learned with a broader community. The paper covers the creation of the ECX program, including its motivation, vision, and implementation, and presents opportunities and challenges for the continued success of this virtual community program. Details are provided on the format of these ECX sessions and the topics discussed, along with feedback from ECX presenters, moderators, and attendees. Information from this paper will be helpful to professional societies and other organizations looking for meaningful ways to engage and strengthen communities of engineering educators through virtual professional development programming. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

A Deep Learning Approach for Public Sentiment Analysis in COVID-19 Pandemic

Sentiment analysis is a process of extracting opinions into the positive, negative, or neutral categories from a pool of text using Natural Language Processing (NLP). In the recent era, our society is swiftly moving towards virtual platforms by joining virtual communities. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc are playing a very vital role in developing virtual communities. A pandemic situation like COVID-19 accelerated people's involvement in social sites to express their concerns or views regarding crucial issues. Mining public sentiment from these social sites especially from Twitter will help various organizations to understand the people's thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic and to take necessary steps as well. To analyze the public sentiment from COVID-19 tweets is the main objective of our study. We proposed a deep learning architecture based on Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) to accomplish our objective. We developed two different corpora from unlabelled and labeled COVID-19 tweets and use the unlabelled corpus to build an improved labeled corpus. Our proposed architecture draws a better accuracy of 87% on the improved labeled corpus for mining public sentiment from COVID-19 tweets. © 2022 IEEE.

3D Modeling for virtual tour of a Higher Education Institution

The pandemic caused by COVID 19 has generated crowds of people, this becomes a critical point that leads to a safe contagion. And it is for this reason that the idea of a virtual tour was born so that people can get to know the physical facilities of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) through a virtual environment. Universidad Tecnológica Israel (UISRAEL), does not have a digital space where its different areas can be appreciated by means of a 3D virtual tour. In this sense, this work presents the development of a 3D model, offering the user a digital interaction of the physical space from his home on his computer. The main benefit is that the user can get to know the facilities in an almost real way, generating a sense of orientation. This work has given way to a future virtual community at UISRAEL, making it possible to diversify and face the new challenges that virtualization brings with it. It will not only be a new means of information and communication, but also a space for interaction, entertainment and learning. All this leaves the basis for an application that in the future could develop more functionalities and be used in other research projects. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Supporting Emergency Remote Teaching Due to Coronavirus Pandemic: Problem Solving Group at ICUDDR

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for all and has had a particular effect on university-level educators. Although the use of technologies in education is recognized as critical in developing transversal skills and preparing students for the needs of modern society, the COVID-19 pandemic crisis stressed the relevance of the digital medium. At the same time, the emergency hastened significant changes to universities’ main roles – teaching, learning, and evaluation. AIMS: In this article, we present research conducted by a Problem-Solving Group, a virtual community of practice formed by the International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction (ICUDDR) to support educators in addressing the challenges of the pandemic crisis. METHODS: Based on a problem-solving methodology, the virtual community of practice (Problem-Solving Group) provided synchronous group sessions and asynchronous individual support. The resulting analysis and discussion are based on the problem-solving methodology. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-two educators, including two facilitators, attended six virtual problem-solving sessions between September and December 2020. RESULTS: Participants were committed educators who shared their experiences, challenges, and best practices. The problem-solving methodology was effective in identifying critical areas in remote emergency university-level teaching. CONCLUSIONS: The results stress the importance of creating a common space where educators with similar problems and difficulties can share ideas, experiences, and best practices. The virtual community of practice was effective, although it requires more extensive development and research. © 2021, Sdruzeni SCAN. All rights reserved.

WhatsApp and Educational Continuity in the age of COVID-19: The Examples of Jean-Paul II International University and the Royal Baboutchka University Institute (Cameroon)

This article reports on the use of the WhatsApp social network in a context marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the face of the challenge of pedagogical continuity, it seeks to verify whether this application has ensured online teaching and learning during the closure of schools. The digital traces to be analyzed were collected from two WhatsApp groups, one from the JeanPaul II International University, and the other from the Royal Baboutcha-Nintcheu University Institute, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. The content analysis that we applied to this data reveals WhatsApp as a remote learning device that facilitates the completion of educational tasks. Moreover, this health crisis reflects the organizational, structural and technological deficits that still characterize our universities;hence the urgency to rethink schools in the digital age.

Virtual Community Mentoring Models for Middle School Underachievers’ Psychosocial Development and Well-Being During COVID-19

Recent studies highlight the outcomes of COVID-19 on the psychosocial skills of early adolescents. It shows the unavailability of virtual community mentoring models for teenagers' individual and interpersonal growth in the virtual scenario. Hence, there emerges a need to explore and apply the available virtual communication resources by facilitators, families, and other community professionals for teenagers’ self-development. This article reports the application of virtual resources like WhatsApp, graphic design platforms (CANVA and Adobe), graphic interchange formats (GIPHY App), all-in-one visual content editing forums (InShot App), and memes (Meme Generator App) in engaging and supporting community mentoring capacities leading to psychosocial development and well-being for teenagers during COVID-19. Through this article, contemporary virtual models are explored and executed with community guidance to integrate the personal developmental skills of middle school underachievers. There is also a need to work with community interventions by using virtual mentoring skillsets for positive youth development. © 2022, Commonwealth of Learning. All rights reserved.

Emergency learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: experiences and reflections from a virtual community of practice

Purpose: This study aims to reflect on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education and draw some tentative assumptions from the information and experiences gathered from participants in this community about their possible impact on the future of education. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a single-case descriptive case study that analyses some indicators of changes in teaching and learning that have taken place to date in the pandemic period as seen from Docentes en línea, a virtual community of practice of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. Findings: A number of shortcomings in the educational system, technological infrastructure and teacher formation in many of our members’ countries. Concurrently, rising interest in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education and a new awareness of possible changes. Research limitations/implications: Part of the data comes from informal sources;therefore, they cannot be completely systematised or quantified. Besides, the results are provisional because the pandemic has not ended. Originality/value: This analysis was conducted on the basis of first-hand data collected in the activity developed by the members of this virtual community of practice. There is little research on this type of activity at the moment. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Psychological Antecedents and Consequences of Social Integration Based on Self-Disclosure in Virtual Communities: Empirical Evidence From Sina Microblog.

INTRODUCTION: With the normalization of COVID-19 prevention and control, a large number of intergenerational audiences with different cognition preferences and value orientations have started to pour into non-acquaintance virtual communities (VCs) to address their social needs by disclosing their own thoughts, feelings and experiences toward certain topics. To avoid the negative impacts of self-disclosure, this study introduced the concept of social integration into cyber society among non-acquaintance VCs, such as the topic-based VCs. Our theoretical model considers both the psychological antecedents and consequences of VC audiences' social integration and our findings have implications for public online (and even offline) social life. Moreover, this research could play a guiding role in improving VC audiences' social integration status in future online learning and telecommuting scenarios. METHOD: To assess the theoretical model constructed in this manuscript, we conducted an online survey in two different topic-based VCs among Microblog and yielded 472 useable responses from intergenerational audiences, among which 28.81% were born before 1985, 26.67% were born from 1985 to 1995, and 48.52% were born after 1995. Our sample consisted of 208 individuals from Health Regimen VC and 264 individuals from Star Chasing VC, 200 (42.37%) were men and 272 (57.63%) were women. RESULTS: Our structural equation model (SEM) indicated that individuals' self-disclosure in topic-based VCs might not directly guide them to acquire social integration. However, intimacy and cognitive communion derived from VC audiences' self-disclosure might not only enhance their social integration, but also improve their psychological well-being. In addition, VC audiences' social integration mediated the relationship between intimacy and psychological well-being, and the relationship between cognitive communion and psychological well-being. Moreover, VC audiences' intimacy was found to have a direct influence on their cognitive communion. CONCLUSION: In the context of topic-based VCs, audiences' self-disclosure could significantly foster their intimacy and cognitive communion with others, and both intimacy and cognitive communion are conductive to VC audiences' social integration. Thus, audiences in topic-based VCs who wish to improve their psychological well-being need to disclose themselves and build corresponding psychological foundations (i.e., intimacy and cognitive communion) to enhance their social integration. Meanwhile, topic-based VCs should pay attention to the cultivation of intimacy and cognitive communion among audiences while encouraging them to reveal themselves.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF STRENGTH TRAINING INSTRUCTION VIDEO FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITY OF STUDENTS IN PANDEMIC ERA OF COVID19

The aim of this study is to develop an instructional video for strength training that can be used as a training media for members of virtual community students in the era of Covid19. This study uses the Design and Development (D&D) research method with 6 stages of research procedures, namely: (1) problem identification (2) describing objectives (3) design and development of the product (4) product testing (5) evaluation after testing (6) Conclusion. The research instruments used are the Expert Validity Test from the expert of multimedia and sport expert to test the validity and reliability of the product, and video view test to describe the rating of video material and display. The participants of this study are 18 student who are member of virtual community student in sport science program, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia. The results of the expert's assessment showed that this video categorized as a valid and reliable product to be used as training media. Video view test results showed that this product is pleasure and easy to practice with new techniques and add motivation to exercise, especially during the pandemic. This research concluded that the video product for strength training is excellent. The video contains material that is suitable for everyone, easy and safe to do, and can be done at home during the pandemic Covid19.

Non-participation in online Sacred Harp singing during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of Sacred Harp singers took their activities online, adopting and adapting various platforms for the purpose of participatory music-making. While many singers found online activity to be meaningful, others did not, and an additional group lacked access altogether. This study, which was conducted by means of an online questionnaire, surveys the experiences of Sacred Harp singers who were unable or unwilling to participate in online singing. It documents the practical concerns and negative experiences that contributed to non-participation and considers the impacts of non-participation on the Sacred Harp community. Although technological barriers denied access to some singers, dissatisfaction with the online singing experience was the most significant factor in non-participation. Even with the improvement of online platforms, however, many singers will remain unable to participate in virtual singing due to lack of access to a private domestic space.

Making the Most of Virtual Community Engagement for International Projects During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities project is a multi-country, interinstitutional, and interdisciplinary global research collaboration whose goal is to co-design socially responsible and sustainable gold mining practices with communities, engineers, and social scientists. A key component of this work is engineering education research that investigates how situated learning enhances undergraduate students' global sociotechnical competency, especially as it relates to their ability to define and solve problems with people from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and life experiences. Situated learning refers to how students learn under different a) configurations of social relations (e.g., graduate/undergraduate;expert/non-expert;US/non-US students, etc.);b) pedagogical strategies for engineering problem definition and solution (e.g., remote vs. in-person;in-class vs. in-field);and c) different geographical contexts (e.g., in the US vs. in Colombia) affect faculty and student learning. Global sociotechnical competency refers to having the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to define and solve engineering problems as socio-technical in different international settings. Knowledge is understanding how engineering problems are always socio-technical and shaped by the historical, cultural, economic, and physical dimensions of a place. Skills are learning to define and solve problems with perspectives different than their own. Attitudes are the desires to continue engaging other expert and non-expert perspectives, working abroad, and serving communities after graduation. In 2019 a diverse group of engineering undergraduate students from the Colorado School of Mines, United States Air Force Academy, and Universidad Nacional de Colombia - Medellín participated in a two-week field session in Colombia, where they visited mine sites and processing facilities, in addition to the partner university in Colombia. In 2020, however, the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic made international fieldwork impossible. This paper will describe how we developed and executed a meaningful distance-based fieldwork experience that maintained direct engagement with international students and community members. We will offer a preliminary assessment of these methods' efficacy for developing global sociotechnical competency through remote community engagement and learning. We will analyze the situated learning of the student participants as they differently identified stakeholders for engineering projects and changed their understanding of mining as a sociotechnical process as a result of the summer session. As a part of this analysis, we will also compare 2019 (in the field) and the 2020 (virtual) learning outcomes for the two different sets of students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Utilising a virtual community to practice Community Work theory during COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

In this practice note, I highlight the challenges practice lecturers overcame during a national lockdown midst the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. They continued with online teaching and learning, teaching community work to students by using a fictitious, virtual community which they created to enable students to apply the theoretical knowledge on community work in the practice module. I share the practical application on how students were able to ‘do’ community work in a virtual community during the practice module. © 2021 Whiting and Birch. All rights reserved.