Analyze

When I read the commentary on COVID-19 and Higher Education, it reminded me an article published in the early days of the transition to online teaching. In this article entitled "The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning," the authors emphasize the importance of naming (what we regularly refer as) online teaching as "emergency remote teaching": 

"Online learning carries a stigma of being lower quality than face-to-face learning, despite research showing otherwise. These hurried moves online by so many institutions at once could seal the perception of online learning as a weak option, when in truth nobody making the transition to online teaching under these circumstances will truly be designing to take full advantage of the affordances and possibilities of the online format."

"Researchers in educational technology, specifically in the subdiscipline of online and distance learning, have carefully defined terms over the years to distinguish between the highly variable design solutions that have been developed and implemented: distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning, and others. Yet an understanding of the important differences has mostly not diffused beyond the insular world of educational technology and instructional design researchers and professionals. Here, we want to offer an important discussion around the terminology and formally propose a specific term for the type of instruction being delivered in these pressing circumstances: emergency remote teaching."

Let's re-read a quote in the commentary by Robert Pose in the light of above notes: 

"The sudden brutal switch to online learning is the most obvious consequence for higher education of the pandemic. Everyone now accepts online teaching because everyone regards it as necessary to reduce serious health hazards. But after the pandemic recedes, it is likely economic forces will seek to keep online learning in place, because it is far cheaper than education before the pandemic."

I think we need much more nuanced and careful approach to the possibility of continuing online teaching in the aftermath of COVID-19 without reducing the discussion to the terms of economics. Since many universities have shifted to emergency remote teaching without necesarily having the required experience and infrastructure in online teaching, there appear many concerns beyond economics, at least in my university, e.g., the lack of regular communication between students and educators appear as a concern of the authorities beyond of teachers.  

Climbing this "disposal" cell was the main event of our guided tour of the Weldon Spring's Interpretive Center. It represents the "finished product" of the toxic waste clean up project and Legacy Management site. Engineered and constructed with 8 layers of strategically chosen materials, the cell is expected to "deter the migration of [its] contaminants" for up to 1000 years. Thus, it is really more of a storage cell than a disposal cell...

Some of the questions coming from our group concerned the criteria of assessment used to determine the cell's long term durability and functionality. For instance, the cell was designed to control and treat leachate--water that has become contaminated from seeping through the cell--but this capacity has its limits. Though the cell has been designed to handle well-over the historical record of rainfall in the area, climate change has rendered history an ineffective means of predicting the severity of weather in the future.

Another concern is the transfer of knowledge about the cell and its toxic contents. How do we make sure no one opens it up (or blows it up) over the course of 1000 years? The strategy of the DOE is to monitor the cell by testing the local area for contaminants, maintaining strict military surveillance over the area, and by using the interpretive center to educate tourists and the local community about the cell, i.e. Legacy Management. But the US federal government's (or any institution's) ability to keep this up for 1000 years is obviously questionable, at the very best. What is certain here is that, by managing nuclear waste, with its inhuman time scales and the correlate amplification of complexity, we are venturing into uncharted waters. The DOE wants to create the impression that everything is under control and it may be, for the time being. It is also reasonable to take pains not to incite widespread fear and panic. But it is similarly important to recognize that we, in this moment, simply cannot be in control over 1000 years of possibility.

The system was built to serve organizations and individuals with humanitarian goals. The system gathers data from report, reviews, and users and compiles it into comprehensible information to help inform decision-making for humanitarian concerns. Portions of the app also focus on education and technical support for field researchers looking to collect large quantities of data.

The system is primarily used by researchers, scholars, and organizations with humanitarian interests. The app also has functions which would attract users that are beginning research and do not have established connections within the field as the app provides a support system.

The development of Twine was funded primarily through donations from individual investors interested in the data sharing aspects of the software and humanitarian aid organizations who benefit from the accessible data.

Twine provides information and software to set up compatible data collection systems that pool information into the larger system, which the app then makes available to its users. The system also includes a publishing and collaboration aspect which allows groups of people from all over the globe to access the same data and report on the findings together.

Data visualization is primarily determined by the type of data being gathered and the system for data collection being used. The app integrates data in order to both make large quantities of data easily viewable and understood, as well as compare studies with existing data stored on the system.

Users must be registered with the site to access any of the available features, and the registration is free. Once registered, users can immediately begin gathering their own data, analyzing the existing information, publishing reports or reviewing existing publications. The system also has several active data collection locations that are only available to registered users.

The technical aspects of the site are quite complex, as the system has over 1,000 active data sites to compile in addition to the reports and reviews stored. The data collection software is the main function that the software supports as it relieves the users from needing their own data bank to work off of.  The publication functions are also supported by the storage system of the app allowing all users to access all publications.