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1. COVID-19 and documentary linguistics: Some ways forward

   Nicholas Williams, W. D. ( January 2021 , Language documentation and description)

   In the wake of widespread and ongoing travel restrictions that began in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many documentary linguists worldwide shifted to remote work methods in order to continue or, in some cases, begin new projects. This pandemic situation has prompted questions about both methodological and ethical considerations in doing remote fieldwork. In this paper, we discuss the pros and cons of working remotely and discuss ways of working remotely based on our experiences working on projects in West Africa, northwest Amazonia, and Indonesia. We argue that elements of remote fieldwork should become a permanent part of linguistic fieldwork, but that such methods need to be considered in the context of decolonizing language documentation and centering the community’s needs and interests. 

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2. The Shifting Stress of Working Parents: An Examination of Dual Pandemic Disruptions—Remote Work and Remote Schooling

   https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010036  

   Fan, Wen ; Moen, Phyllis ( January 2024 , Social Sciences)

   Working remotely at least some of the time has long been seen as promoting a better integration of work and care obligations, even though prepandemic research is mixed as to the extent to which parents benefit emotionally from remote work. We exploit dual social experiments in schooling and work spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic to understand any stress-reducing effects of working from home under different school-closing state policy contexts. The pandemic led to an unprecedented shift to (and subsequent away from) remote and hybrid work but also to the implementation of various containment policies, most notably school closures driving a shift to remote learning that were put into effect to different degrees across U.S. states. Drawing on parents’ data from a U.S. nationally representative panel survey of workers who spent at least some time working from home since the pandemic onset, we use mixed-effects models to examine whether and in what ways cross-state and over-time variations in school closure policies shape any stress-reducing impacts of remote/hybrid work. Results show that when schools were not mandated to close, remote/hybrid work largely reduces parents’—especially mothers’—stress. However, an opposite pattern emerges in the face of closing mandates. These patterns are especially pronounced among white mothers and are not observed among nonparents. 

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3. Power, Stress, and Uncertainty: Experiences with and Attitudes toward Workplace Surveillance During a Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v21i1.15571  

   Vitak, Jessica ; Zimmer, Michael ( March 2023 , Surveillance & Society)

   There is a rich literature on technology’s role in facilitating employee monitoring in the workplace. The COVID-19 pandemic created many challenges for employers, and many companies turned to new forms of monitoring to ensure remote workers remained productive; however, these technologies raise important privacy concerns as the boundaries between work and home are further blurred. In this paper, we present findings from a study of 645 US workers who spent at least part of 2020 working remotely due to the pandemic. We explore how their work experiences (job satisfaction, stress, and security) changed between January and November 2020, as well as their attitudes toward and concerns about being monitored. Findings support anecdotal evidence that the pandemic has had an uneven effect on workers, with women reporting more negative effects on their work experiences. In addition, while nearly 40% of workers reported their employer began using new surveillance tools during the pandemic, a significant percentage were unsure, suggesting there is confusion or a lack of transparency regarding how new policies are communicated to staff. We consider these findings in light of prior research and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of various approaches to minimize surveillance-related worker harms. 

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4. Synchronous and collaborative online concept mapping of membrane transport

   https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21430  

   Choe, Keith P. ( August 2020 , Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education)

   The rush to remote learning during the COVD‐19 pandemic has caused instructors to rapidly adapt mechanisms of learning. Here, I describe an online concept mapping activity for membrane transport mechanisms that can be accomplished by students working together remotely and either synchronously or asynchronously.

    

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5. Teaching Parasitology Lab Remotely Using Livestreaming

   https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2022.84.5.312  

   Hawdon, John M. ; Bernot, James P. ( May 2022 , The American Biology Teacher)

   Teaching biology laboratories remotely presents unique problems and challenges for instructors. Microscopic examination of specimens, as is common in parasitology labs, is especially difficult given the limited quantity of teaching specimens and the need for each student to have access to a microscope at their remote location. Observing images of parasites on the internet coupled with written exercises, while useful, is unrepresentative of real-world laboratory or field conditions. To provide a more realistic microscopy-centered synchronous experience for our parasitology class during the coronavirus pandemic, we used a smartphone mounted on a student microscope to livestream examination of parasite specimens to remote students via the Webex meeting app. This allowed two instructors, working from separate locations, to present and narrate the view of the specimens through the microscope in real time to the remotely located class. While less than ideal, livestreaming microscopic views of parasite specimens together with simultaneous instructor narration provided a reasonable remote substitute for a hands-on parasitology lab experience. 

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