Marion Lara Tan, Oshada Senaweera, Asanka Gunawardana, Mohamed Rasith, Mohamed Suaib, Theepika Shanthakumar, et al. (2023). New Zealand COVID Tracer App: Understanding Usage and User Sentiments. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 89–102). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The NZ COVID Tracer app is a part of Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) Government’s strategy to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper investigates people’s usage and sentiment on the app from its release in May 2020 to the end of 2021. Descriptive analysis of app data and sentiment analysis on user review data were used. The results show that before March 2021, the overall sentiment on the app was negative but gradually improved over time. The passive Bluetooth-tracing feature is utilised more consistently than the anual features. However, the increased proportion of positive sentiments is seen to increase with active app use. Results highlight the consistency of the Bluetooth-tracing feature but do not discredit the importance of manual interaction, as active use can improve the perception of the app. Insights from this study will be helpful as apps adapt to the changing context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
|
|
Sojen Pradhan, Sanjay Lama, & Deborah Bunker. (2023). ICT Adoption for Tourism Disaster Management: A Systematic Review. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 215–227). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The tourism sector is not new to disruptions from natural disasters or human induced crises and has been recalibrating the way they operate and sustain. The scale and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has highly impacted global tourism and the economies that rely on tourism. It has brought phenomenal challenges to humankind and many tourism organisations are on the brink of collapse and this will have a cascading effect on countries and their citizens for years to come. This paper presents the systematic literature review on the adoption of ICTs in tourism when preparing for and managing disasters. This review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Flow diagram. Out of 585 articles from four databases, 35 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles were included for analysis. Research on potential adoption of ICT and associated tools for tourism disaster management, remains scarce. With the world coming to terms with the “new normal” of social distancing and increased use of ICT tools such as virtual reality, virtual guides, chatbots, social media and contact tracing apps due to pandemic, the investigation of adoption of such tools is long overdue. Within limited empirical studies, this review shows some trends and opportunities for the development of a critical research agenda in this area. Other innovative tools such as AI, GIS, IoTs, and visual story telling have been adopted for managing disasters related to tourism. This research demonstrates the potential adoption of ICT tools for effective disaster management and the subsequent support of global tourism. To counter the catastrophic effect on the tourism industry from COVID-19 pandemic, it is paramount to recognise cultural sensitivities and study how advancement in technology can be harnessed in all contexts. In addition to this, further exploratory research should be conducted to better understand crisis as an opportunity to develop and adopt foundational and critical ICT systems for the tourism industry.
|
|
Omar A. Owais, Ali Ghaffarian Hoseini, Hamzah E. Alqudah, & Mani Poshdar. (2023). Deployment of Autonomous Vehicles to Support Emergency Response During Crisis. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 56–67). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: Emergency response services face massive pressure during global crises, such as COVID-19. The food supply logistics sector is one of the pressures that impacted the emergency response services, due to crisis restrictions. A regulatory framework to deploy autonomous vehicles, in any nominated country, has been presented to boost the food supply logistics as an emergency response to critical situations to serve isolated areas. This framework resulted in three steps to deploy AVs in the nominated country, which are evaluating their legislation, modifying their existing regulations accordingly, and ensuring the full deployment of the innovative technology. This is done by minimising person-to-person contact during the transportation and distribution phase. In conclusion, fully autonomous vehicles can help lift the pressure from the emergency response teams in the food supply transportation and distribution phase to meet the basic living requirements for human needs during global crises.
|
|
Hannes Restel, Eridy Lukau, Sebastian Sterl, & Lars Gerhold. (2022). Detecting Covid-19 Relevant Situations using Privacy-by-Design based Mobile Experience Sampling. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 506–527). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: To observe psychosocial effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the population, multiple retrospective studies have been performed in Germany. However, this approach may lead to response bias regarding affective and cognitive processes as it fails to capture situations as they occur (‘in situ’). Identifying those situations in daily life where individuals are emotionally and cognitively affected by Covid-19 can provide valuable insights for mobile experience sampling method studies (MESM) that evaluate participants’ affective and cognitive processes. This study presents an MESM solution (a self-developed smartphone app and server backend) to detect Covid-19 induced ‘in-situ frames’ which was successfully used in a long-term psychosocial study in Berlin (Germany) from November 2021 to January 2022. As highly sensitive personal data (e.g., emotional state, vaccination status and infection state, socio-demographics) have been collected, the solution places a strong emphasis on privacy, pseudo-anonymization, data-minimization, and security. To support long-time motivation for the participants, good usability and user experience containing gamification elements were also realized. The results indicate that Covid-19-related situations expressed by means of a high emotional risk perception could be identified even though participants located themselves in “rather Covid-19 free” private spaces.
|
|
Carole Adam, & Hélène Arduin. (2022). Finding and Explaining Optimal Screening Strategies with Limited Tests during the COVID-19 Epidemics. In Rob Grace, & Hossein Baharmand (Eds.), ISCRAM 2022 Conference Proceedings – 19th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 102–115). Tarbes, France.
Abstract: The COVID-19 epidemics has now lasted for 2 years. A vaccine has been found, but other complementary measures are still required, in particular testing, tracing contacts, isolating infected individuals, and respecting sanitary measures (physical distancing, masks). However these measures are not always well accepted and many fake news circulate about the virus or the vaccine. We believe that explaining the mechanisms behind the epidemics and the reasons for the sanitary measures is key to protect the general population from disinformation. To this end, we have developed a simple agent-based epidemic simulator that includes various screening strategies. We show that it can be used to compare the efficiency of various targeting strategies, starting date, and number of daily tests. We also ran an optimisation algorithm that proves that the best strategies consist in testing widely and early. Our simulator is already available to play online, to raise awareness in the general population.
|
|