Information School News

Why you should never use Microsoft Excel to count coronavirus cases Professor Paul Clough Public Health England has admitted that 16,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK were missed from daily figures being reported between September 25 and October 2. The missing figures were subsequently added to the daily totals, but given the importance of these numbers for monitoring the outbreak and making key decisions, the results of the error are far-reaching. Not only does it lead to underestimating the scale of coronavirus in the UK, but perhaps more important is the subsequent delay in entering the details of positive cases into the NHS Test and Trace system which is used by a team of contact tracers. Although all those who tested positive had been informed of their results, other people in close contact with them and potentially at risk of exposure were not immediately followed up (ideally within 48 hours). This was a serious error. What could have caused it? It emerged later that that...

Media: iSchool Video Blog with Professor Peter Bath Professor Peter Bath Interview with Peter Bath, iSchools European Regional Chair, University of Sheffield - #4 from iSchools Inc on Vimeo . iSchools European Regional Chair and Executive Committee Member, Prof. Peter Bath, discusses the effects on working practices for academics during the COVID-19 pandemic and explains how it impacts his research and supervision of his PhD students.

Faced with an ‘infodemic’ of fake news about Covid-19, most people are checking their facts – but we mustn’t be complacent Dr Paul Reilly Photo by  Hello I'm Nik 🎞  on  Unsplash As fake news spreads about Covid-19, early evidence suggest that most people are responding sensibly, and double-checking the information they receive. However, given trust in journalism remains low, it remains vital, argues Paul Reilly, that we all act responsibility, and verify what we read and watch. Read Dr Reilly's article in the Democratic Audit here.

Long live local journalism: the 'first responders' in the fight against COVID-19 fake news  Dr Paul Reilly There has been much ‘fake news’ about COVID-19 over the past month. This has included disinformation about the virus being ‘manufactured’ in the US, as well as false claims that drinking methanol and bleach cures its victims. While there is certainly some evidence to suggest that social media are turbocharging the sharing of this false information amongst citizens across the globe, politicians have also contributed to misinformation about the pandemic through their media appearances. Most notably, President Donald Trump has repeatedly misled US citizens about the availability of vaccines and the effectiveness of new treatments in his daily televised news briefings. Closer to home, Cabinet Ministers have also made a number of false or misleading statements to the press. In the past week, Michael Gove erroneously claimed that efforts to ramp up COVID-19 testing ...

7 Top tips for working from home!! #workfromhome #stayhomesavelives  By Sheila Webber Our Senior Lecturer, Sheila Webber, has written a blog about working from home during the current pandemic. It's full of some great tips... and a little giggle!  "I am working from home. I would rather not be. I have never, ever, fantasised about delivering online lessons in althleisurewear from my kitchen table or from under a duvet." To raise a much-needed smile at this time, you can read more on Sheila's Information Literacy blog here. 

Digital Data Flows and the COVID-19 Pandemic - should we be paying more attention?  As a third of the global population experiences some form of lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world are adapting to new ways of living and working, and looking for radical solutions to live with the virus until some form of immunity develops. Digital technologies and the data they process have been central to this response. The production and circulation of digital data is constrained by a complex web of deeply politicised social, cultural, legal, economic and technical factors. These constraints – or, “data frictions” - can be beneficial or problematic, and whether a particular friction is one or the other is often subject to significant debate. Shifts in the nature of data frictions have the potential to influence how societies function at the most fundamental level – they shape the relationship between state and citizens, the management of worker...

Loneliness and Covid-19: Social Distancing Versus Social Isolation Professor of Health Informatics, Peter Bath, was asked to write a piece for Inside Government, on loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article draws on research Professor Bath has undertaken for the Space for Sharing project  on online sharing for people in extreme circumstances, a portion of which was on loneliness amongst older people. You can read the full blog post here:  https://blog.insidegovernment.co.uk/loneliness-covid-19-pandemic-social-distancing-versus-social-isolation

Now Wash Your Hands Good hand hygiene is necessary to control and prevent infection, but how do we get our children to adequately wash their hands? Dr Sophie Rutter, Lecturer in Information Management at The University of Sheffield has worked alongside colleagues from the University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett and Glasgow School of Arts to determine whether persuasive graphics are the answer to encouraging children to better wash their hands. You can read the full post here on the Social Sciences blog.

Tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and the loneliness epidemic together Peter A. Bath, Information School and School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), University of Sheffield. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the current advice from the government is that we should all be taking social distancing measures and reducing our interaction with other people as much as possible to avoid spreading the coronavirus. Some groups in particular, for example, people aged 70 and over and those with long-term health problems, are being asked to limit their contact with friends and family to protect themselves. Whilst it is good that this can help reduce the spread of the virus, and protect vulnerable people, it also runs the risk of making people feel more isolated and lonely.  We live in an age in which there is what has been called “an epidemic of loneliness”. Older people and those with long-term health problems are not only more vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19, but they are also ...