The ways in which epidemics interact with human society suggest that much can be learned from previous epidemics. Drawing on the historical response to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, Donald Nicolson describes four parallels between the responses to these outbreaks and suggests what lessons can be learned by public health authorities responding to COVID-19.
School closures are widely seen as a quick fix for COVID-19 transmission. The UK government’s resistance to this measure has provoked considerable concern, including a petition to Parliament that has gathered over a half-million signatures at the time of writing. In practice, argues Robert Dingwall, the effects would mainly be risky for children and the consequences would other institutions’ efforts to work as normally as possible.
It’s also common to encounter people who are misinformed but don’t know it yet. It’s one thing to double-check your own information, but what’s the best way to talk to someone else about what they think is true – but which is not true?
Crises rarely see human decision-making operating at its best. Politicians and policymakers have to make important decisions in unfamiliar circumstances, with vast gaps in the available information, and all in the full glare of public scrutiny. The psychology of decision making doesn’t just tell us a lot about the potential pitfalls in our own thinking – it alerts us to ways in which some of the world’s governments may go astray.
Editor’s Note: As a means of supporting those attempting to do their best under trying circumstances, SAGE Publishing has drawn from its […]
The call for ‘social distancing’ in the wake of the coronavirus and its attendant COVID-19 disease has seen schools and universities around the world hurriedly attempting to turn their physical classrooms into virtual ones. While this may be best immediate reaction from an epidemiological point of view, from a pedagogic perspective, it has left instructors desperately trying to retrofit and reformat their courses while trying not to unduly disadvantage large numbers of their students. As a means of supporting those attempting to do their best under trying circumstances, SAGE Publishing has drawn from its large body of published and peer-reviewed research to offer the resources below — free of charge — to serve teachers and students around the world.
Most of the articles and advice out there about quickly switching to online education in the wake of COVID-19 is aimed at educators, but we should bear in mind that it is an unfamiliar experience for many students, too.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has seen many universities closing campuses and shifting learning online. It’s unprecedented and suddenly puts ed tech front and center in a way it hasn’t been before. For those of us who have been doing online learning or distance ed for a while it can seem a bit irritating to have been seen as second class for so long and then suddenly deemed worthy of interest. So here’s some useful bits for those without that pedigree.
The creation of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) has led to a heated debate on the balance between peer review and evaluative metrics in research assessment regimes. Luciana Balboa, Elizabeth Gadd, Eva Mendez, Janne Pölönen, Karen Stroobants, Erzsebet Toth Cithra and the CoARA Steering Board address these arguments and state CoARA’s commitment to finding ways in which peer review and bibliometrics can be used together responsibly. Psychologists Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and Keith E. Stanovich have a history of publishing important research papers that resonate for years. Whether you’re in a research leadership position, working in research development, or a researcher embarking on their project, creating a culture of […] Title of course: Space/Power/Species What prompted the idea for the course? A few years ago, I came across the architect Joyce Hwang’s […] The slow, relentless creep of computing is currently in overdrive with powerful artificial intelligence tools impacting every aspect of our lives. What […] Philosophy has been instrumental to AI since its inception, and should still be an important contributor as artificial intelligence evolves..
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