Technological, Educational, and Organizational Impacts of Pandemics
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ItemWhat Do We Know? A Bibliometric Analysis of Current Literature on COVID-19 and its Implications( 2022-01-04)The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into chaos by affecting people’s lifestyles and imposing immense pressures on healthcare professionals. Since its outbreak in Wuhan, China, back in December 2019, researchers all across the globe have been working tirelessly to provide reliable insights to understand and combat the virus. As a result, the number of publications related to the novel coronavirus has been increasing rapidly. This study aims to quantify and summarize the progress of SARS-CoV-2 related research from November 2019 onwards to January 2021 by employing a bibliometric analysis and topic modelling approaches. A total of 33,159 research publications, downloaded from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database, were analyzed. The key aspects of our study include identifying important publications, their distribution across countries and organizations, important journals and central authors who have made a significant contribution to the current literature. We have also delineated the major themes addressed in the academic community.
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ItemUsing Mobile Data for Understanding Population Movement and Disease Transmission during Covid-19 Outbreak in the Nordics( 2022-01-04)This study investigates the use of mobile data to understand patterns of population movements and disease transmission during the Covid-19 outbreak. It also focuses on understanding the implications of using this data for individual privacy. Using a mixed methods approach, we present 10 rich qualitative interviews and 412 survey responses from participants across the Nordics. Our novel results show that the use of mobile data can be characterized by two main categories: validation data and complementary data. We also identify five implications for practice: sharing resources and expertise between health agencies and telecom companies; extended collaboration with multiple network operators; cross-disciplinary collaboration among multiple parties; developing data and privacy guidelines; and developing novel methods and tools to address the trade-off between maintaining individual privacy and obtaining detailed information from mobile data. These implications may inform immediate and future actions to prepare for, mitigate, and control the spread of infectious diseases using mobile data. They also show privacy-driven limitations of mobile data in terms of data accuracy, richness, and scope.
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ItemTransitioning from University to Working Life: A Comparison of Business Graduates’ Perceptions of Skills before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic( 2022-01-04)The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted business schools and students. The unusual circumstances created by the pandemic situation have provided a unique occasion to look at challenges and opportunities facing business graduate students when transitioning from university to working life. Using a survey from business students who graduated before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study explores the role of skills (IT and non-IT skills) in the transition from university to working life as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business students’ skills and career decisions. It was found that non-IT skills were perceived as more essential than IT skills, and having IT skills such as data analytics and business applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) were more essential skills for students who graduated during the pandemic. Finally, business students who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic are considering acquiring new digital/technological skills.
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ItemCommunicating with the masses from isolation: What happened when local television journalists worked from home( 2022-01-04)In response to the COVID-19 crises, many local TV newsrooms decided to have employees work from home (WFH) or the field rather than from the newsroom. From a review of research on telework, we identified possible impacts of WFH on worker effectiveness, conceptualized as including output, individual satisfaction and growth, and group well-being. From a case study of a local TV newsroom and interviews with news directors, we found that WFH was successful in creating a newscast, albeit with some concerns about story quality. However, WFH did not seem to satisfy workers individually or as a group. The current lifting of restrictions on gatherings might mitigate some of the experienced problems, but we expect to see challenges to news worker learning with continued WFH.
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ItemAugmented Spaces: Introducing a Technology-Supported Home Environment to Improve our Mental Health during “Work from Home” Isolation( 2022-01-04)During the COVID-19 pandemic many restrictions were implemented to prevent the spread of the disease. These restrictions included working from home (WFH) and self-isolating as much as possible. However, this situation had a negative impact on our mental health, causing depression and anxiety in many employees around the world. In this context, we hypothesized that our home spaces could become a catalyst of positive emotions through the use of technology-supported home environments, which use cyber-physical systems to reduce mental health symptoms during the lockdown. We used a qualitative approach, through interviews and cultural probes, to understand the experience of people who were forced to work from home during the lockdown. Additionally, we used a design science approach to explore technology-supported solutions that could enhance our home spaces. The result is a system that mixes analog and digital elements to create interactive rooms, which have a positive impact on people’s well-being.
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ItemAgile Software Development during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Technology Company Survey( 2022-01-04)A common baseline is that Agile-based software development is conducted by co-located teams working in well-equipped office workspaces. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have cast new light on those assumptions. Suddenly, developers were no longer co-located with their teams and their well-equipped workspaces were vacant. How did the lockdowns, and the speed in which they were implemented, affect developers and development efforts? Did the lockdowns lead to diminished product quality? How was employee productivity impacted? A survey questionnaire was created to answer these questions.
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