An Evaluation Model of a Disruptive Technology During Covid-19 Pandemic

Disruptive Technologies have created radical transformations in different industry fields. They also changed principles governing market and competitions. This role was considered an advantage in different organizational aspects including performance, effectiveness and competitiveness. The attendance of these technologies was not bounded by these aspects alone, it has also flourished in crises and specifically Covid-19 pandemic. One of these disruptive technologies that caught interest in this crisis is cloud collaboration platforms (CCPs). CCPs were essential and critical in a key sector during the pandemic, which was education. The pandemic outbreak caused a mandatory conversion towards online education leaded by CCPs. Demonstration of these platforms during the pandemic was accompanied with their evaluation using different criteria. Still, these criteria were neither clearly justified in their reasons of use nor classified according to their importance during the pandemic. In this paper, a model of CCPs evaluation criteria during the pandemic is presented. This model is based on previous research criteria and applies inductive approach through discovering users experience regarding these criteria during the pandemic. Functionality, reliability and usability in addition to their sub-standards were the main criteria that have been assessed and ranked by users. The users who rated the criteria were academics and experts of a university in Jordan and they were engaged in online education using CCPs. Evaluation was conducted using a quantitative approach using an online questionnaire which was distributed to these academics. Findings show that security and understandability are the most significant criteria that we should look after during the pandemic. Fault tolerance, accuracy, suitability and maturity standards have the second priority and finally, compliance, recoverability, learnability and interoperability have the third priority. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Teacher Candidates' Communication and Collaboration with Family and Community During COVID-19

After schools were closed in AY 2019–2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were expected to continue two-way communication and collaboration with their students' families without much guidance. In this study, we focus on how five teacher candidates navigated and continued their efforts of communication and collaboration with students' families and the larger community during the pandemic. Through storytelling during interviews, the five teacher candidates provided valuable insight that focused on communication during the pandemic. Findings indicated that these teacher candidates struggled with establishing professional boundaries with students' families, wrestled with the unforeseeable challenges of "being” in the homes of their students' families, and experienced a disconnect from the community. Implications of this study suggest that lessons learned during COVID-19 could transform how teacher candidates and Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) practice future two-way communication and collaboration with students' families. © 2022 Association of Teacher Educators.

Reimagining Social Work Placements in the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how social work education is provided, and these changes are particularly pronounced in field education. Globally, the introduction of restrictions on mobility and social interaction have contributed to the cancellation, postponement and early termination of social work field placements. Accrediting bodies, social work field education departments and industry partner agencies have needed to rapidly adapt how placements are conceptualised and provided. This article examines the experiences of agencies who have continued to provide student placements throughout the pandemic. Interviews were conducted with placement supervisors employed at twelve human services agencies partnering with a university social work department in Melbourne, Australia. Whilst experiencing challenges, agencies outlined how they adapted to the environment to enable meaningful student placement experiences. This article contributes to an ongoing discussion around the trajectory of social work field education and the significance of agency-based placements in this evolution.

A NESTED APPROACH TO SUPPORTING SPECIAL EDUCATION NEED AND DISABLED STUDENTS IN ONLINE LEARNING

The COVID-19 global pandemic has affected the education sector in many ways. Institutions were forced to implement emergency remote teaching and learning as a preventative strategy to reduce the spread of the virus. Special education need and disabled (SEND) students were among those most vulnerable to dropping their studies because of a lack of support. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the support that was offered to special education need and disabled students at two universities in the United Arab Emirates. The study was conducted as a multiple case study of a federal and a private university in Dubai. We used a qualitative approach and the study's paradigmatic position was interpretive. Sixteen faculty members and support staff were purposely selected to participate in a semistructured interview and complete an open-ended questionnaire. Bronfenbrenner's Social Ecological theory was the theoretical framework for this study, which asserted that as a child grows, they interact with five nested systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. We found that the nature of support offered to students fell into four fundamental nests that helped students' access and succeed in online learning: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. The study concludes that implementing a collaborative working relationship is an indispensable way of enhancing students' access and success in online learning. © 2023, Grand Canyon University. All rights reserved.

Emerging perspectives and challenges for virtual collaborative learning in an institution of higher education: a case of Lesotho

Purpose: This study aims to investigate emerging perspectives and challenges which teaching staff and students in the Faculties of Business and Accounting, Health and Education as well as Computing encountered in using Virtual Collaborative Learning during their classes in one accredited institution of higher education in Maseru district Lesotho. Previously conducted studies reveal that although similar studies to the current one have been conducted in different countries across the globe, conducting them in another different country such as Lesotho and in a different context might provide new information. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on Lev Vygotsky's social constructivism as the theoretical framework because it is relevant and appropriate. The study was buttressed by constructivism paradigm, qualitative design as well as a qualitative case study. A purposive sampling technique was used in this study. A sample of 35 students and 11 teaching staff from the 3 respective faculties were used as participants of the study. This qualitative case study was based on online questionnaires issued to the participants using emails for data collection. Data were generated based on the themes which emerged. Findings: The findings of the study suggest that majority of students found Virtual Collaborative Learning helpful and a user-friendly tool. However, lack of resources, clear instructions from the teaching staff and cooperation, internet connectivity issues, as well as data expenses have been identified as stumbling blocks that discourage students' satisfactory engagement in Virtual Collaborative Learning. The findings further revealed various strategies including encouraging students to cooperate, grading students' participation on online platforms and consultations could be used to overcome the challenges encountered in using Virtual Collaborative Learning. For generalisability and understanding of the breadth of the students and teaching staff experiences and challenges of Virtual Collaborative Learning, the authors recommend further study to be conducted on a larger representative sample, using the established themes of the current study. Research limitations/implications: Using face-to-face interviews and classroom observations for data collection would have been more suitable for a qualitative methodology. However, due to COVID-19 regulations that restrict contact and limit lessons on online platforms, an online questionnaire was used for data collection. Originality/value: This research reveals emerging perspectives and challenges which are encountered by teaching staff and students while using Virtual Collaborative Learning in one institution of higher education in Maseru Lesotho. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Jam Session's Digital Transformation: From Improvisation to Collective Composition

In 2020 in Quebec, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of many musical events. In addition to the concerts, it was also the jam sessions that had to stop. These events usually bring together music lovers for collective improvisation sessions framed by rules that vary depending on the location, the participants, and the genre of music. This article focuses more specifically on a community of electronic music producers and fans who have chosen to transpose into the digital environment the jam event they used to organize. Our research aims to understand what digital transposition does to collective creation and through which technical devices it materializes. In the face of both technical and organizational constraints and limitations, the meaning of the jam is evolving from music played together to music produced and composed collectively. Thus, our research shows that the will to develop a temporary collective, common project encourages participants to negotiate with the potential format of the event.

RESEARCH. The ANMF National Policy Research Unit -- the first five years

The article focuses on the National Policy Research Unit of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) that was established in 2018 in partnership with the University of South Australia's Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre. Topics discussed include functions of the Unit, importance of nursing and midwifery research, and the Unit's accomplishments including its publication of evidence briefs on COVID-19.

Zooming into Feminist Family Therapy Telesupervision: Experiences of Supervisors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way feminist clinical supervisors provide supervision to family therapist trainees. This study explored the experiences of feminist family therapy supervisors who engaged in supervision remotely or had transitioned to virtual supervision. Using thematic analysis, four themes emerged from analysis of eight supervisors' answers to an online survey: using technology as a collaborative medium, self-of-the-supervisor process, intentional supervisory relationship, and supervisor responsibilities. In telling their stories, the supervisors described how they pivoted to support therapists, attended to parallel processes, and adjusted their own supervision techniques to maintain their feminist focus. The authors discuss implications of supervision adjustments and offer suggestions and considerations for remote feminist supervision and recommendations for future research.

Wearing leadership bi-focals in the post-pandemic university

Purpose: This paper aims to provide insight for higher education leaders about how to navigate the immediate needs and long-term needs of an institution. COVID-19 disrupted higher education in unprecedented ways, but the post-pandemic world is proving to be just as challenging – if not more so. Presidents and higher education leaders must be nimble, prepared and multi-skilled to address immediate challenges while making the tough strategic decisions to ensure that colleges and universities remain viable and sustainable for generations to come. Design/methodology/approach: This discussion focuses on the dual vision and the leadership skills that are essential in addressing both the short-term and long-term threats to colleges and universities resulting from the COVID pandemic (wearing leadership bi-focals). It analyzes the post-pandemic trends that are adversely impacting the future of higher education and details how the President is guiding her team at the University of La Verne through this generational crisis – a process she describes as wearing leadership bifocals. Findings: What began as a sudden global health crisis has shaken institutions of higher education to their core, challenging some of the very foundations upon which they were built. By adopting a bifocal strategy, the University of La Verne can more clearly assess the challenges it faces in the post-pandemic world and the new opportunities around the corner. While this approach ultimately is a team effort, effective implementation requires leadership from the top. The entire campus community is depending on the President to inspire and lead. Research limitations/implications: Much has been written about leadership during these troubling times in higher education. This paper is intended hoped to offer a best-practices approach for college and university Presidents in engaging their campus communities in addressing the short- and long-term challenges facing them. Originality/value: The author's lengthy experience as a University president and Provost – along with a focus on communication skills – provides a unique framework for addressing the complex challenges confronting higher education. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Incorporating the student perspective in designing a virtual team classroom environment: an elaborated action design science research approach

Purpose: This paper aims to address the long-standing problem of suboptimal student team experiences for instructors and students by incorporating the student voice by co-creating a virtual team collaborative environment to improve team collaboration in the online classroom. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents a novel design science research approach and relates two elaborated action design science research (eADSR) cycles that design, implement and evaluate the student team experience in online courses requiring teamwork. Findings: The outcome is a holistic view of a virtual team classroom environment specified with technologies and practices that may be employed to optimize the student team experience. The eADSR process yields non-obvious diagnoses and actionable steps for continually incorporating the ever-changing social aspects unique to students in addition to the evolving technological landscape. Practical implications: This paper is valuable to faculty members interested in applying eADSR processes to incorporate the student voice to address pedagogical and learning challenges in the classroom. Additionally, it provides a DSR-based model that can be implemented in the classroom to improve student team collaboration as well as transparency for the instructor and the students in terms of team member contributions with the goal to alleviate student and faculty frustrations. This topic is particularly relevant in light of COVID-19 as students and faculty alike are thrust into new online classroom environments. Originality/value: Employing eADSR in the classroom is a novel and unique approach to create a replicable model for virtual team collaboration that can be added to the classroom. © 2022, Diane Kutz, Barry Cumbie and Matthew Mullarkey.

View Types and Visual Communication Cues for Remote Collaboration

Over the last several years, remote collaboration has been getting more attention in the research community because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In previous studies, researchers have investigated the effect of adding visual communication cues or shared views in collaboration, but there has not been any previous study exploring the influence between them. In this paper, we investigate the influence of view types on the use of visual communication cues. We compared the use of the three visual cues (hand gesture, a pointer with hand gesture, and sketches with hand gesture) across two view types (dependent and independent views), respectively. We conducted a user study, and the results showed that hand gesture and sketches with the hand gesture cues were well matched with the dependent view condition, and using a pointer with the hand gesture cue was suited to the independent view condition. With the dependent view, the hand gesture and sketch cues required less mental effort for collaborative communication, had better usability, provided better message understanding, and increased feeling of co-presence compared to the independent view. Since the dependent view supported the same viewpoint between the remote expert and a local worker, the local worker could easily understand the remote expert's hand gestures. In contrast, in the independent view case, when they had different viewpoints, it was not easy for the local worker to understand the remote expert's hand gestures. The sketch cue had a benefit of showing the final position and orientation of the manipulating objects with the dependent view, but this benefit was less obvious in the independent view case (which provided a further view compared to the dependent view) because precise drawing in the sketches was difficult from a distance. On the contrary, a pointer with the hand gesture cue required less mental effort to collaborate, had better usability, provided better message understanding, and an increased feeling of co-presence in the independent view condition than in the dependent view condition. The pointer cue could be used instead of a hand gesture in the independent view condition because the pointer could still show precise pointing information regardless of the view type. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.

Identifying and understanding challenges to inform new approaches to improve vaccination rates: A qualitative study in Indonesia

Purpose: This study aimed to identify and understand challenges to inform new strategies to increase the COVID‐19 vaccination rate according to involved vaccinators' perspectives in Belitung, Indonesia. Design A qualitative descriptive study design was used. Methods: Online interviews and chatting were done among 11 vaccinators for data collection between August 2021 and January 2022. Data were analyzed using a content analysis model. Findings Four main themes emerged, including (1) communication strategies (evidence‐based, electronic‐based, and culturally based communication), (2) cross‐sectoral strategies (collaboration with police, religious leaders, customary leaders, heads of village divisions, and non‐governmental organizations), (3) "picking‐up the ball" system (home visits for elderly and people with disability and school visits for children), and (4) setting‐up priorities (between mandatory vaccines and boosters). Conclusion: Despite making vaccination mandatory, the roles of communication, cross‐sectoral innovations, "picking‐up the ball" system, and priority setting may have useful potential to improve vaccination rates. Clinical Relevance: The findings may serve as an input to overcome challenges and accelerate the vaccination coverage in Indonesia and beyond. However, further research is needed.

Evaluation of Online Teaching in the Covid Period using Learning Analytics

The article compares education at the Faculty of Economics Matej Bel University before the pandemic and during the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, it tries to outline what the education will look like after this situation is over. It finds out how the situation during the corona affected the education of economists and to what extent the changes it brought will be preserved in the future. The comparison of face-to-face and distance learning in 2019 and 2020 was made. This is because teaching in 2019 was carried out in a "classic ", face-to-face manner, and on the contrary, in 2020, after the closure of schools in March 2020, teaching at Matej Bel University was carried out only distance online method. To get the best possible view of the researched topic, several research methods were used: the examination of the LMS Moodle with using of various Learning Analytics tools and Questionnaire Research. The results showed that face-to-face education before the Covid pandemic and after this pandemic will no longer be the same because distance online education will also cause changes in face-to-face education in the post-pandemic period. Questionnaire research showed that up to 78% of part-time students and 61% of full-time students would like their study program to use elements of distance education in full-time study as well. Since this is a large group of students, their opinion will be considered in the future when fully returning to face-to-face teaching.

Analytics for WhatsApp chats: tracking and visualising students' collaboration in project teams

COVID-19 and remote learning have accelerated online collaboration. Capturing online collaboration in terms of quantitative and qualitative description of students' interaction to achieve learning outcomes remains a challenge. We introduce a framework for describing and visualising students' interactions in WhatsApp group chat. We present five studies (N = 123, N = 64, N = 106, N = 55, N = 46) in courses taken by mathematics and business students. We found that mathematics students wrote more messages and shorter messages than business students. We also found that average number of words per message correlated with the project mark positively in mathematics but negatively in business courses. We suggest a way to visualise a WhatsApp chat as a network and tested the hypothesis that the centralisation coefficient of this network correlated negatively with the project score. The hypothesis was not confirmed. Implications and suggestions for further study are presented.

An Intelligent Collaborative Image-Sensing System for Disease Detection

With the growth of smart medical devices and applications in smart hospitals, home care facilities, nursing, and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are becoming more ubiquitous. It uses smart medical devices and cloud computing services, and basic Internet of Things (IoT) technology, to detect key body indicators, monitor health situations, and generate multivariate data to provide just-in-time healthcare services. In this article, we present a novel collaborative disease detection system based on IoMT amalgamated with captured image data. The system can be based on intelligent agents, where every agent explores the interaction between different medical data obtained by smart sensor devices using reinforcement learning as well as targets to detect diseases. The agents then collaborate to make a reliable conclusion about the detected diseases. Intensive experiments were conducted using medical data. The results show the importance of using intelligent agents for disease detection in healthcare decision-making. Moreover, collaboration increases the detection rate, with numerical results showing the superiority of the proposed framework compared with baseline solutions for disease detection. © 2001-2012 IEEE.

COVID-19 Risk Perception and Support for COVID-19 Mitigation Measures Among Local Government Officials in the US: A Test of Cultural Theory of Risk

This study relies on the cultural theory of risk to examine how cultural biases (hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism, and fatalism) of local government officials affect their COVID-19 risk perception and support for COVID-19 mitigation measures. After controlling for partisanship, religiosity, and other factors, the analysis of survey data from county governments in the U.S. revealed that cultural biases matter. Officials with egalitarian and hierarchical cultural biases report higher support for adopting COVID-19 mitigation measures, while those with individualistic cultural biases report lower support. These findings highlight the need to understand cultural worldviews and develop cultural competencies necessary for governing traumatic events.

Feminist publishing against the pandemic

The special issue "Feminist Publishing Against the Pandemic” features essays from thirteen contributors whose work would have been presented at "FiMA2: Feminist Revolutions,” the second conference of the Feminist inter/Modernist Association (FiMA), originally scheduled for Spring 2020, rescheduled, and eventually canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. By soliciting snapshot essays of no more than 2000 words, the editors of the issue are able to showcase a wide range of feminist modernist scholarship in danger of being lost due to the constraints of the pandemic and a profession in crisis. Authors included in the special issue engage with modern women writers, artists, and culture-makers who navigated their own constraints such as fighting for suffrage, managing domestic and professional commitments, responding to two world wars, and continuing feminist work in the post-war years. This collection of essays highlights vibrancy and complexity in the field of feminist modernist scholarship. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Collaborative Networking in Education: Learning Across International Contexts

There is growing consensus on the need to prepare future generations in environments of collaboration and cooperation. This way of understanding education cross borders in the quest for networking. A wide range of theoretical bases supports networking, which underlines its potential in the educational arena. There are few comparative studies that explore the forms that networking takes in education at the international level. This article discusses a series of examples from various countries in order to add to the current knowledge about networking in education in different parts of the world. The examples selected were chosen after a review of the international specialist literature (prior to Covid-19). This was followed by a screening process of the documentary sources based on temporal and thematic criteria, notably including research published in the past decade with content directly related to collaborative networking in diverse educational contexts. Many initiatives have been carried out in a wide range of school settings over the last few years through a combination of top-down interventions, accountability measures and changes in governance arrangements. This article focuses on proposals from countries whose collaboration networks can boast long experiences, together with a synthesis of the main advances reported in the area.

Embedding Social, Community Projects Within Contemporary Curricular

Social media continues to influence the online behaviours of humans in some of the most profound ways. Furthermore, COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted immense opportunities that socialmedia provides to keep people connected and engaged through difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, it also attracts various dubious users, eager to take advantage to the anonymity of these platforms to conduct unethical and illegal practices. Typical computing studies courses do not focus on developing the skills and attitudes to enable students to work in a globalised environment, and certainly do not focus on exposing many of the social challenges in our societies. Authentic learning experience are not common. An activity was created between the UOW College Australia and UOW College Hong Kong where students from these respective institutions collaborated with each other to identify, explore and suggest a social media-based solution to challenges faced by a NGO located in a third country, that is, not located in Australia or Hong Kong. This gave students to experience working with each other, and through that navigate the various linguistic, cultural and other norms and differences. They also had to identify and communicate with a NGO from a third country, in many cases who had their own linguistic, cultural and other norms about work and communications. This paper will discuss some of the knowledge, skills and attitudes that can be gained from engaging in cross border collaborative social projects. It will also outline some of the challenges and opportunities that exist in establishing these types of learning activities.

The impact of government use of social media and social media contradictions on trust in government and citizens' attitudes in times of crisis

This study explores three issues with reference to times of crisis: the impact of government use of social media, and of social media contradictions, on trust in government, and on citizens' attitudes toward government use of social media. The crisis that provided the context of this study was the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the study explored the impact of trust in government and social media contradictions on citizens' attitudes toward pandemic prevention measures and vaccination. Data were collected from 379 respondents who were Facebook users in Jordan. PLS-SEM was utilised to validate the research model and analyse data. The results reveal a positive impact on trust in government of a number of dimensions of government use of social media, including transparency, participation, and collaboration. They also confirm that social media contradictions negatively impact trust in government and citizens' attitudes towards vaccination.