Tag Archives: COVID-19

The new normal

March 14, 2021|Times Colonist via UVic News

We’re now a year into the pandemic, however, with vaccinations becoming more frequent, there is hope for a return to normal living. But what might “normal” look like? Numerous experts warn it will not be the same as before, and some of the changes may remain in place long-term. Including hybrid workplace programs (from both home and office).

Whatever the post-pandemic world looks like, [Saul] Klein said it’s not likely to be starkly different from what is happening now.

“We won’t see a big-bang solution,” he said. “There is likely to be a gradual resumption, and even once the rules start to diminish, the behavioural patterns we have established over the last year will not disappear.”

Saul Klein, Dean of the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria, is one of the many experts weighing in on what our post-pandemic world may look like and what will be needed for businesses to succeed and people to feel financially stable. The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to visit Dr. Klein’s publications through UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace, and browse his other works both in the repository and his ORCID profile.

KULA: CFP COVID-19, Online Instruction, and Open Educational Resources

Request for Proposals: COVID-19, Online Instruction, and Open Educational Resources

KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies is requesting proposals for a forum on the shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. We seek commentaries and teaching reflections (especially contributions that openly share syllabi and teaching materials with the broader community) from faculty members, librarians, and other staff working at post-secondary institutions who have transitioned to and developed pedagogical materials, especially Open Educational Resources (OERs), for online instruction in the last year. How has your teaching evolved? What are the demands and challenges of the digital environment? What has worked, and what has not? How have students responded?

As a multidisciplinary journal, we encourage submissions from scholars and practitioners across disciplines, and we are interested in experiences with both synchronous and asynchronous teaching. We also welcome submissions with student collaborators.

Please submit proposals of approximately 300 words under the section “Proposals: COVID-19, Online Instruction, and Open Educational Resources” here: https://kula.uvic.ca/index.php/kula/submission/wizard. We are accepting proposals until March 15, 2021.

The deadline for full submissions, which will undergo blind peer review, will be May 31, 2021

Rapid testing in Canada lagging behind

January 14, 2021|CTV News via UVic News

Although there are a number of researchers that are concerned about the effectiveness of self-administered rapid tests, there is still a push to distribute them to ensure Canada is staying on top of frequent testing.

“Health Canada has authorized the sale and importation of COVID-19 tests only for use by health care professionals or trained operators,” Health Canada wrote on its website. “However, we are open to reviewing all testing solutions. This includes approaches that use self-testing kits, to enable individuals with or without symptoms to assess and monitor their own infection status.”

Alexandre Brolo, a chemistry professor at the University of Victoria and acting chair of the department, told CTV News that he’s currently working with a team on the development of two rapid testing products. He reports that one will be an “at-home” test and should be commercialized in April if all goes well. The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to explore more of Dr. Brolo’s important work by visiting UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace.

Featured research: Emergency remote education and COVID-19

A global outlook to the interruption of education due to COVID-19 pandemic: Navigating in a time of uncertainty and crisis

By Aras Bozkurt, et al.

Two UVic researchers are co-authors on this open access paper: Valerie Irvine and Michael Paskevicius.

Abstract:

Uncertain times require prompt reflexes to survive and this study is a collaborative reflex to better understand uncertainty and navigate through it. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic hit hard and interrupted many dimensions of our lives, particularly education. As a response to interruption of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this study is a collaborative reaction that narrates the overall view, reflections from the K-12 and higher educational landscape, lessons learned and suggestions from a total of 31 countries across the world with a representation of 62,7% of the whole world population. In addition to the value of each case by country, the synthesis of this research suggests that the current practices can be defined as emergency remote education and this practice is different from planned practices such as distance education, online learning or other derivations. Above all, this study points out how social injustice, inequity and the digital divide have been exacerbated during the pandemic and need unique and targeted measures if they are to be addressed. While there are support communities and mechanisms, parents are overburdened between regular daily/professional duties and emerging educational roles, and all parties are experiencing trauma, psychological pressure and anxiety to various degrees, which necessitates a pedagogy of care, affection and empathy. In terms of educational processes, the interruption of education signifies the importance of openness in education and highlights issues that should be taken into consideration such as using alternative assessment and evaluation methods as well as concerns about surveillance, ethics, and data privacy resulting from nearly exclusive dependency on online solutions.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

This article was originally published at:
10.5281/zenodo.3878571

Bozkurt, A., Jung, I., Xiao, J., Vladimirschi, V., Schuwer, R., Egorov, G., Lambert, S. R., … &
Paskevicius, M. (2020). A global outlook to the interruption of education due to COVID-19
pandemic: Navigating in a time of uncertainty and crisis. Asian Journal of Distance
Education, 15(1), 1-126. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878572.

To read more, visit UVicSpace