Crisis Readiness: Revisiting the Distance Framework During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

While CSCW researchers have studied collaboration across distance for more than two decades, the scale and context of geographically distributed work during the pandemic is unprecedented. Working from home as the default setting during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity for CSCW research to explore and develop new understandings of what it entails to engage in distributed collaborative work during a global crisis. In this paper, we revisit the distance framework, originally developed by Olson and Olson in 2000, through empirical data collected during the critical moments where COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and the world shut down: namely March 2020. We use the data to interrogate the distance framework and to extend it with a new dimension - Crisis Readiness. Crisis Readiness stipulates that for organizations to successfully respond to crises, four factors are required: 1) the ability to respond fast with dramatic measures; 2) the ability to supply adequate infrastructure to their employees; 3) the ability to adapt work practice responding to new work and life conditions; and 4) the ability to handle multiple and diverse interruptions both at the individual and organizational levels. Our contribution to CSCW research is a revised distance framework, which demonstrates that for geographically distributed work to be successful during a global crisis, cooperating actors need to achieve Common Ground, engage in different types of coupled work, be ready for collaboration and collaboration technology - and lastly, work in an organization which demonstrates Crisis Readiness.

Mobile apps for mood tracking: an analysis of features and user reviews.

Many mood tracking apps are available on smartphone app stores, but little is known about their features and their users' experiences. To investigate commercially available mood tracking apps, we conducted an in-depth feature analysis of 32 apps, and performed a qualitative analysis of a set of user reviews. Informed by a widely adopted personal informatics framework, we conducted a feature analysis to investigate how these apps support four stages of selftracking: preparation, collection, reflection, and action; and found that mood tracking apps offer many features for the collection and reflection stages, but lack adequate support for the preparation and action stages. Through the qualitative analysis of user reviews, we found that users utilize mood tracking to learn about their mood patterns, improve their mood, and self-manage their mental illnesses. In this paper, we present our findings and discuss implications for mobile apps designed to enhance emotional wellness.

Routine self-tracking of health: reasons, facilitating factors, and the potential impact on health management practices.

Despite a growing interest in self-tracking of one's health, what factors lead to self-tracking routinely (i.e., collecting data at regular intervals), and the effects of this behavior, remain largely understudied. Using data from the Pew Survey on Tracking for Health, we examined the patterns of self-tracking activity to understand reasons for this behavior and its impact on health management practices. We tested multiple logistic regression models to assess the influence of different predicting variables, and to find whether routine self-tracking leads to positive change to one's approaches to health management. Our results suggest that recent visits to emergency care and the type(s) of tracking tools used are significant predictors of routine self-tracking activities. Further, the results suggest that routine self-tracking, as opposed to occasional, event-triggered tracking, is more likely to result in positive changes to health management approaches. Our findings also highlight barriers to and opportunities for designing useful and usable tools to facilitate self-tracking and empower patients to become more proactive in managing their own health.