Kehidupan Pendidik saat Pandemi COVID-19 (Part I)

Tulisan ini saya kembangkan dan terjemahkan dari Author - Jay Liebowitz yang berasal dari Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. Beliau menguraikan dan menggambarkan bagaimana ideal nya seorang tenaga pendidik yang profesional (dalam level Professor) mampu beradaptasi selama pandemi COVID-19 yang  terjadi saat ini.  

Artikel ini pun disebarluaskan melalui email dalam keanggotaan IEEE Computer Society.

Berikut esensi tulisan yang sangat menarik ini:

Abstract

Sejak Maret 2020, kita menghadapi sebuah pengalaman dan waktu-waktu yang 

sangat sulit karena persebaran dari COVID-19 di seluruh dunia. Kelas-kelas 

keilmuan menjadi online; ketidakjelasan keberlanjutan fall semester (antara 

Bulan Agustus  - Desember) dan banyak lagi masalah lainnya yang akan menanti.

Artikel ini memberikan highlight transformasi apa saja yang diperlukan untuk 

professor atau tenaga pendidik dibawah terminologi "normal baru".

Pandemi COVID-19 secara global telah menciptakan disrupsi antara kehidupan 

pekerjaan yang biasanya dilakukan di rumah maupun kantor. Dari sebagian 

banyak organisasi dan institusi tersebut, universitas-universitas adalah institusi 

yang juga sebagian besar telah secara cepat menyesuaikan dan beradaptasi ke 

lingkungan pembelajaran secara virtual untuk para mahasiswa dan professor 

mereka.  

Beruntungnya, kebanyakan dari kita, dimana sebagai professor atau 

tenaga kependidikan dalam bidang computer science/IT telah banyak sebelumnya mengajar dengan metode online atau dalam pengajaran blendid untuk mengganti atau sebagai suplemen tatap muka (face to face - F2F) pada lingkungan di ruangan kelas. 

Sebagai contoh, saya (Jay Liebowit) telah cukup lama mengajar dengan metode online dengan juga melakukan blendid learning (termasuk F2F) sejak tahun 2002 menggunakan enam sistem manajemen pembelajaran yang berbeda (meliputi Blackboard, Canvas, Sakai, Moodle/Adobe Connect, WebTycho, and D2L).  

Sebagai fakultas yang berfokus pada bidang teknologi, kami mungkin memiliki persiapan yang lebih baik dibandingkan beberapa kolega bila dibandingkan dengan disiplin yang lain. Namun, kami harus juga melakukan transformasi untuk menyesuaikan pada dilema coronavirus yang terjadi saat ini.

Salah satu adaptasi terbesar untuk membangun strategi lingkungan virtual ini adalah bagaimana membangun kedekatan komunikasi dua arah (engagement) atau mengeratkan hubungan interaksi pembelajaran kepada mahasiswa khususnya dalam konsep virtual dan kursus berbasis online. 

Sebagai contoh, jika anda mengajar kelas IT yang biasanya melakukan studi kasus, bagaimana kita dapat memastikan level partisipasi dan interaksi selama kelas virtual tersebut berjalan? Banyak daripada sistem menajemen pembelajaran yang ada sebelumnya tidak mendukung dan mengizinkan kita untuk melihat mahasiswa untuk menilai komunikasi nonverbal dan keseriusan mereka dalam belajar. 

Namun, sangat berterima kasih atas kehadiran Zoom, Teams dan aplikasi perangkat lunak lainnya yang bisa mengizinkan mahasiswa dan professor untuk melihat satu sama lain dan melakukan pemisahan ruangan secara virtual (break out room) jika diperlukan untuk aktifitas seperti diskusi tim. 

Kelas-kelas tertentu seperti khususnya pada level Sarjana (graduate) adalah 3 - 4 jam lamanya, dimana banyak mahasiswa diajarkan dengan metode secara synchronously dan asynchronously. 

Untuk metode synchronously yang dijalankan pada kursus online, waktu yang lama ini mungkin membuat ketidaknyamanan untuk berinteraksi dengan mahasiswa selama mereka duduk di depan komputer. Namun dapat dipastikan penggunaan polling (kuisioner). forum diskusi, pembicara tamu, video singkat, podcast, dan teknik-teknik lainnya dapat digunakan secara efektif untuk meningkatkan kedekatan pembelajaran dan komunikasi dua arah.

Sebagai bagian dari  Advertising Education Foundation Virtual Visiting Professors Program (https://aef.com/)  selama 1 - 5 Juni 2020, beberapa diskusi oleh pemimpin senior seperti dari IBM, Facebook, R/GA, Ogilvy, dan McCann yang memiiki bahasan diskusi seputar fitur "normal baru", mengemukakan bahwa perlunya terobosan dalam menghadapi isu besar ini. 

Berikut beberapa tren yang diantisipasi selama COVID-19 maupun setelahnya:

• Digitalisasi akan menjadi sebuah norma dan kebudayaan baru
• Individual akan menjadi kita (saling berkolaborasi)
• Berfikir cepat dan kualitas kompetensi akan sangat diperlukan
• Perbedaan dan penambahan kelimuan baru akan menjadi kebutuhan yang tinggi
• Mahasiswa harus memiliki keuletan dan berfikir cepat, seperti beradaptasi dengan kemampuan-kemampuan baru yang berkaitan dengan keilmuan mereka
• Orang-orang akan merasa bosan dan kelelahan dengan aktifitas digital (digital fatigue), dengan demikian kebutuhan dan penyerapan akan isi teori dan pengalaman praktik menjadi sangat diperlukan daripada sebelumnya
• Kita akan melihat perusahaan seperti Apple, Google, dan partner pengembang lainnya akan mendukung universitas dalam pembelajaran online
• Teknik-teknik mahir berkelanjutan seperti data analytic,  artificial intelligence, dan machine learning akan digunakan sebagai bagian dari proses pembelajaran online.

Cont.

-ZA

#pendidikCOVID19

#professorCOVID19

#belajarSaatCOVID19

#virtualLearning

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Tipe-tipe "bias" dalam penelitian ilmiah

Dalam konteks menjalankan tahapan penelitian riset yang objektif dan konsisten, sebagai peneliti (akademisi) yang profesional sudah seharusnya kita memahami beberapa tipe "bias" (penyimpangan) yang seringkali terjadi. 

Pertanyaan mendasar timbul, mengenai mengapa kita harus menyadari penyimpangan (bias) ini. Tentu, jawabannya adalah untuk menghindari "Research Misconduct".

Merujuk pada Smith (2006), dalam "Jornal of The Royal Society of Medicine " menjelaskan bahwa:

Research misconduct is defined as fabrification, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.

1. Fabrification is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.

2. Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.

3. Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit.

Dalam Smith (2006) tersebut, mendefiniskan bahwa perbuatan yang tidak jujur dan salah dalam riset dikategorikan pada 3 jenis, secara umum yaitu: (1) Fabrikasi, (2) Falsifikasi dan (3) Plagiarisme. 

Ketiga "Research Misconduct" ini menjelaskan adanya kecenderungan etika yang dilanggar ketika menjalankan riset, utamanya adalah upaya memalsukan data, dimulai dari ide, pernyataan masalah,  objektifitas, desain riset, metodologi, pengumpulan data, analisis dan sampai kepada kecenderungan memanipulasi hasil penelitian.

Hasil penelitian yang dikonsumsi secara konstruktif atau bahkan disitasi oleh banyak peneliti lainnya (dalam koridor "Research Misconduct" ), justru pada akhirnya akan menyesatkan, menimbulkan kerugian dan menciptakan yang namanya Scientific Fraud.

Berikut beberapa tipe "bias" yang saya rangkum dari Enago Academy , khususnya untuk penelitan dengan desain kualitatif yang membutuhkan ketajaman analisa dan pengalaman extra dari peneliti. Serta mempertimbangkan bahwa penelitian kualitatif, memiliki tipe data yang di dominasi bersifat subjektif dan unik pada situasi tertentu.

Untuk menghindari "bias", pada tahap awal sebaiknya kita lebih dahulu mengenali tipe bias seperti apa yang biasanya terjadi pada studi yang kita lakukan, dan mencoba untuk mendeteksi dan menghindari nya sedini mungkin.

1. Design Bias

2. Sampling Bias

3. Procedural Bias

4. Measurement Bias

5. Interviewer Bias

6. Reporting Bias

Adapun uraian singkat dari 6 kategori tersebut adalah:

1. Design Bias

Ketika peneliti tidak dapat menentukan metodologi yang tepat untuk diterapkan sesuai dengan objektif penelitian,  faktor seperti pemilihan desain riset yang bersifat kualitatif, kuantitatif atau "mix method" , harus ditentukan di tahapan awal guna berkaitan untuk memahami bagaimana cara mengumpulkan dan mengukur data yang nantinya akan diteliti.

2. Sampling Bias

Bias ini berkaitan dengan ketika peneliti cenderung untuk mengabaikan sumber sampling penelitian, contohnya ketika peneliti hanya memilih partisipan dengan umur yang lebih muda daripada yang tua, grup yang hanya memiliki kesamaan identitas atau partisipan yang memiliki kesamaan latar belakang etnis dan suku.

3. Procedural Bias

Dimana ketika peneliti menjalankan risetnya dengan keterbatasan prosedural, contohnya ketika peneliti hanya mengalokasikan waktu yang sangat sedikit untuk task eksperimen yang kompleks pada seorang partisipan, dapat dipastikan  partisipan tersebut akan terburu-buru dan data yang akan dihasilkan menjadi sangat prematur, definisi hubungan yang tidak jelas dan tidak komprehensif.

4. Measurement Bias

Bias ini terjadi ketika peneliti memiliki keterbatasan pada saat mengukur dan menganalisa data penelitian, seperti kurang atau rusaknya nya peralatan, atau peneliti tidak memahami cara penggunaan sebuah instrumen atau alat bantu.

5. Interviewer Bias

Ketika proses interview (wawancara) kepada partisipan atau sumber dipengaruhi oleh faktor penganggu, seperti lingkungan yang tidak nyaman, keadaan emosi dan mental partisipan atau peneliti ketika dilakukan wawancara, serta unsur psikologis yang mempengaruhi jawaban responden membuat peneliti memiliki opini yang relatif berbeda dan menyebabkan hasil wawancara menjadi tidak objektif.

6. Reporting Bias

Bias ini terjadi ketika peneliti dipengaruhi oleh kecenderungan memiliki minat atau ketertarikan (fanatisme) yang lebih pada suatu topik, atau karena topik memiliki bobot isu atau pernyataan masalah yang secara keyakinan memiliki kesamaan dengan peneliti, sehingga terkadang peneliti memanipulasi hasil laporan penelitian.

Demikianlah beberapa tipe-tipe "bias" dalam penelitian ilmiah, semoga bermanfaat.

Salam sukses.

-ZA

#tipetipebiasdalampenelitian

#tipetipebiasdalamriset

#biasdalampenelitian

#biasdalamriset

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Cyberspace

Cyberspace is widespread, interconnected digital technology.

The term entered the popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, government, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment. Others consider cyberspace to be just a notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs.

The word became popular in the 1990s when the uses of the Internet, networking, and digital communication were all growing dramatically and the term "cyberspace" was able to represent the many new ideas and phenomena that were emerging.

It has been called the largest unregulated and uncontrolled domain in the history of mankind,and is also unique because it is a domain created by people vice the traditional physical domains.

The parent term of cyberspace is "cybernetic", derived from the Ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder), a word introduced by Norbert Wiener for his pioneering work in electronic communication and control science. This word cyberspace first appeared in the art installation of the same name by danish artist Susanne Ussing, 1968).

As a social experience, individuals can interact, exchange ideas, share information, provide social support, conduct business, direct actions, create artistic media, play games, engage in political discussion, and so on, using this global network. They are sometimes referred to as cybernauts. The term cyberspace has become a conventional means to describe anything associated with the Internet and the diverse Internet culture. The United States government recognizes the interconnected information technology and the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures operating across this medium as part of the US national critical infrastructure. Amongst individuals on cyberspace, there is believed to be a code of shared rules and ethics mutually beneficial for all to follow, referred to as cyberethics. Many view the right to privacy as most important to a functional code of cyberethics.^[5] Such moral responsibilities go hand in hand when working online with global networks, specifically, when opinions are involved with online social experiences.

According to Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, cyberspace is defined more by the social interactions involved rather than its technical implementation. In their view, the computational medium in cyberspace is an augmentation of the communication channel between real people; the core characteristic of cyberspace is that it offers an environment that consists of many participants with the ability to affect and influence each other. They derive this concept from the observation that people seek richness, complexity, and depth within a virtual world.

The term "cyberspace" first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist Susanne Ussing (1940-1998) and her partner architect Carsten Hoff (b. 1934) constituted themselves as Atelier Cyberspace. Under this name the two made a series of installations and images entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human movement and the behaviour of new materials.

Atelier Cyberspace worked at a time when the Internet did not exist and computers were more or less off-limit to artists and creative engagement. In a 2015-interview with Scandinavian art magazine Kunstkritikk, Carsten Hoff recollects, that although Atelier Cyberspace did try to implement computers, they had no interest in the virtual space as such:

To us, "cyberspace" was simply about managing spaces. There was nothing esoteric about it. Nothing digital, either. It was just a tool. The space was concrete, physical.

And in the same interview Hoff continues:

Our shared point of departure was that we were working with physical settings, and we were both frustrated and displeased with the architecture from the period, particularly when it came to spaces for living. We felt that there was a need to loosen up the rigid confines of urban planning, giving back the gift of creativity to individual human beings and allowing them to shape and design their houses or dwellings themselves – instead of having some clever architect pop up, telling you how you should live. We were thinking in terms of open-ended systems where things could grow and evolve as required.

For instance, we imagined a kind of mobile production unit, but unfortunately the drawings have been lost. It was a kind of truck with a nozzle at the back. Like a bee building its hive. The nozzle would emit and apply material that grew to form amorphous mushrooms or whatever you might imagine. It was supposed to be computer-controlled, allowing you to create interesting shapes and sequences of spaces. It was a merging of organic and technological systems, a new way of structuring the world. And a response that counteracted industrial uniformity. We had this idea that sophisticated software might enable us to mimic the way in which nature creates products – where things that belong to the same family can take different forms. All oak trees are oak trees, but no two oak trees are exactly alike. And then a whole new material – polystyrene foam – arrived on the scene. It behaved like nature in the sense that it grew when its two component parts were mixed. Almost like a fungal growth. This made it an obvious choice for our work in Atelier Cyberspace.

The works of Atelier Cyberspace were originally shown at a number of Copenhagen venues and have later been exhibited at The National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen as part of the exhibition "What’s Happening?"

The term "cyberspace" first appeared in fiction in the 1980s in the work of cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, first in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and later in his 1984 novel Neuromancer.^[10] In the next few years, the word became prominently identified with online computer networks. The portion of Neuromancer cited in this respect is usually the following:

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.

Now widely used, the term has since been criticized by Gibson, who commented on the origin of the term in the 2000 documentary No Maps for These Territories:

All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.

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How can academics contribute to tackling disinformation?

BY NIAMH KIRK ON 31ST JANUARY 2019ARTICLES

This week the European Commission hosted a day-long conference on Countering Online Disinformation which featured the Director of the FuJo Institute, Dr Jane Suiter. The panel discussed how academic research can contribute to a better understanding of disinformation patterns.

Introducing the FuJo Institute Dr Suiter described how the cross-disciplinarity membership draws on social, political and computer sciences as well as engineering and humanities to research the most critical issues facing journalism, media and citizens and society.

There is a particular interest in developing research projects that address the need for a vibrant public sphere. Right now, the focus is on re-establishing trust in credible information sources such as journalism and news media. But this is not to say that it is about trusting authority figures.

“We should expect some rise in distrust which would grow alongside rising education levels. Because people learn to ask questions and not to be so trusting without thinking about it. We don’t want a society where everyone completely trusted everything they are told by the media or the government. We need societies where people ask questions and have some levels of distrust,” she said.

Drawing attention to the need to find new ways to measure trust, Dr Suiter said that by relying on simple survey methods such as the World Values Survey which ask whether an individual trusts the media or not, is problematic. “We don’t really know what people mean when they answer that they do trust or they don’t. Do they trust them to be reliable? To be accurate?,” she asked. The work of cognitive scientists could be particularly informative for developing new systems of measurement she added.

Dr Suiter argues the solution to falling trust is not to ask people to trust more but to enable them to measure the quality of the information they receive. To this end, FuJo is leading PROVENANCE, a project that will enable digital media users to trace the origin and manipulation of the content they receive. “It is a tool that will find content at the pre-viral stage, loaded into a blockchain and records its journey around the internet. It will also track manipulation. In the end, a user will be able to identify the origin, route and manipulation of material and make the decisions regarding trustworthiness by themselves,” she said.

“We are not telling people that this information is good, or bad, correct or incorrect. We are showing people this is where it came from and the extent it has been manipulated. It is important to let people make the decisions. You cannot say to people that you have to trust us, you have to enable them to measure the trustworthiness of the content they get,” she added.

Critical to the development of these types of tools are databases. Training the algorithm requires a large dataset of original and manipulated images. These are databases that the platform social media companies hold and could support researchers by providing access.

But neither the problem nor the solution is entirely technological. Dr Suiter discussed the need to develop more resilient citizens and societies through cultivating healthy political and social discourses. Citing examples of the citizens’ assemblies and constitutional conventions in Ireland leading to marriage equality and better health care for women, which she researched, she addressed the need for people to be able to be enabled to deliberate, ask questions and challenge ideas respectfully.  In addition, she stressed there is a need to find measures to support quality journalism.

Finishing up, Dr Suiter stressed the need for better cooperation between digital platforms and the research community as well as recognition of how the proactive and predictive nature of academic work can help support citizens and media in a rapidly evolving environment.

A recording of the conference can be watched here, with the panel beginning at 7.30.

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