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Making the Most of Virtual Community Engagement for International Projects During the COVID-19 Pandemic
... This was the third, two-week summer session we have hosted [1]. In 2019, all US students and faculty visited our counterparts in Colombia. ...
... The other 5 undergraduates could not complete the surveys and interviews due to policies internal to their institution that prevented them from doing so. We also discuss in [1] how the time and energy demands of intensive sessions likely dampened students' desires to participate in the assessment activities. ...
... We are particularly interested in exploring whether and how the summer sessions influenced the students' global sociotechnical competency [1] and their confidence in their abilities as engineers. Engineering students' confidence in their technical and professional abilities is most often studied through the lens of self-efficacy [2], or an individual's belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments. ...
... While this workshop was a preparatory exercise for students' upcoming virtual community visit with Colombian stakeholders, an assessment of the actual interactions with those stakeholders and the development of prototypes was beyond the scope of this study, as these were outcomes of the more comprehensive two-week summer session. Publications focusing on the broader summer course can be found in Rivera et al. and Schwartz et al. [50], [51]. That said, as shown in Table III, the questions students generated for Colombian stakeholders in the post-workshop prompts were within the scope of the HE-RAP workshop and are analyzed in detail in the "Results" section of this article in order to evaluate students' preliminary attention to front-end sociotechnical factors. ...
... The students had all selfselected to participate in the intensive summer session which focused on marginalized Colombian mining communities, indicating prior interest in transdisciplinary, community-based research that other engineering students and practitioners may not share. In addition, previous workshops in the first week of the summer session were geared toward community-based research and stakeholder engagement [50], [51], likely enhancing students' abilities to think sociotechnically. Finally, in the mini-HE-RAP, engineering students were accompanied by professors and OJSE-22-0006.R2 graduate students who were trained in HE principles and community-based research. ...
Front-end stakeholder needs analysis is increasingly recognized as an essential component of sustainable engineering projects, yet most engineering curricula only cover this topic superficially. Fields like humanitarian engineering have long recognized the importance of stakeholder needs analysis for the success of development interventions, and researchers have developed best practice frameworks for engaging stakeholders that can be applied to systems engineering. These frameworks rely on established social science techniques, such as ethnography and inductive reasoning, and humanitarian engineering principles, such as contextual listening and sociotechnical thinking, to facilitate comprehensive needs assessments. While conventional ethnographies are often incompatible with engineering projects' timelines and expertise, anthropologists have developed methodologies to overcome these limitations, such as Rapid Assessment Procedure. While widely applied in the public health sector, Rapid Assessment Procedure has been seldom integrated with engineering projects. Rapid Assessment Procedure, combined with humanitarian engineering principles, can help researchers quickly gain a nuanced understanding of relevant aspects of complex sociotechnical systems. This paper seeks to introduce systems engineers to Humanitarian Engineering - Rapid Assessment Procedure as a concrete technique for conducting comprehensive front-end stakeholder needs analysis. A case study is presented on the teaching and implementation of Humanitarian Engineering - Rapid Assessment Procedure in a workshop with a group of undergraduate engineering students. We sought to analyze students' perceptions of and learning outcomes from the workshop. Student engagement and learning exceeded expectations, positioning Humanitarian Engineering - Rapid Assessment Procedure as a potentially valuable tool for systems engineers to analyze stakeholder needs to inform system design.
Background. The topics of the molecular physics department study the main fundamental demonstration experiments that confirm the existence of atoms and molecules and their movement. Purpose. These experiments make it possible to determine physical quantities such as the size, mass, speed and concentration of atoms and molecules. The existence of atoms and molecules is no longer just a hypothesis, but is concrete evidence confirmed by the experimental and practical activities of people. Method. In school conditions, it is an important educational task to provide new knowledge using experimental methods with the help of available tools and equipment to form these facts in the minds of students. Results. Also, experiments are important for a deeper explanation of the theory in topics such as hydrostatic pressure and pressure transmission in liquids. Conclusion. The article deepens the theoretical foundations of molecular physics and hydrostatic pressure, highlights the role of demonstration and laboratory experiments in teaching these topics, and provides information about modern experiments.
Despite the adversity presented by COVID-19 pandemic, it also pushed for experimenting with innovative strategies for community engagement. The Community Research Advisory Council (C-RAC) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), is an initiative to promote community engagement in research. COVID-19 rendered it impossible for C-RAC to conduct its meetings all of which have historically been in person. We describe the experience of advancing the work of the C-RAC during COVID-19 using digital and virtual strategies. Since March 2020, C-RAC transitioned from in person to virtual meetings. The needs assessment was conducted among C-RAC members, and individualized solutions provided for a successful virtual engagement. The usual working schedule was altered to respond to COVID-19 and promote community engaged research. Attendance to C-RAC meetings before and after the transition to virtual operation increased from 69% to 76% among C-RAC members from the community. In addition, the C-RAC launched new initiatives and in eighteen months since January 2020, it conducted 50 highly rated research reviews for 20 research teams. The experience of the C-RAC demonstrates that when community needs are assessed and addressed, and technical support is provided, digital strategies can lead to greater community collaborations.
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