Dealing with COVID-19 and Saving People’s Lives in South Asia (SA) Areas and Beyond

A Health Informatics Project on COVID-19 from ASIS&T South Asia Chapter

About the Project

The South Asia Chapter (ASIS&T) has been granted the ASIS&T Special Project Fund of $7000 for the year 2021-22 on the project ‘Dealing with COVID-19 and saving people’s lives in South Asia (SA) areas & beyond - A health informatics promotion project’. The Chapter has set up a YouTube channel to host multilingual videos for disseminating awareness on a variety of topics on COVID-19 in the South Asia region. We have collaborated with the Asia Pacific Chapter and European Chapter to bring their experiences in dealing with similar viruses in the past. Through this channel, we propose to help in fighting misinformation and disinformation regarding COVID-19 information by citing accurate and reliable sources of information.

Aim & Mission

The goals of this health informatics project are:

  • To spread awareness about COVID-19 issues and behavior.
  • To share the experience of countries with experience of dealing with similar viruses.
  • To help inform people by identifying pertinent topics to deal with COVID-19 highlighting the importance of reliable and accurate information.
  • To identify and share accurate and reliable information from authoritative information sources to fight misinformation and disinformation regarding COVID-19 information.

Through these videos, the Chapter will be able to reach out to the masses in the South Asia region highly impacted by COVID-19. The videos will help in spreading awareness about critical COVID-19 care precautions. The topics of the videos will provide accurate & reliable information thereby helping to fight misinformation and disinformation regarding COVID-19. These videos will act as a bridge connecting information with practice- a core principle of ASIS&T.

A total of 10 videos on a wide range of topics related to COVID-19 such as ‘Myths about COVID-19 vaccines’; ‘Stay safe from COVID1-9 without or before vaccination’; ‘Vaccine Facts: All you need to know about them’; ‘Myths about COVID-19’ will be added. These multilingual videos are available in five languages- Bangla, English, Hindi, Urdu, and Sinhala. We further collaborate with the creator of ‘Buddysuaurs’ to incorporate videos on the topic ‘Things to do in self-isolation’.

To capture the experiences of children during COVID-19 the project will organize a series of workshops that will culminate in creative writing and drawing competitions in the South Asia region for primary and secondary school children.

Project Team

The project team has members from five countries representing both the Asia Pacific and South Asia regions:

  • Bhakti Gala, PhD, Chair, ASIS&T South Asia, Central University of Gujarat, India
  • Sam Chu, PhD, ASIS&T Chapter Assembly Director, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Md. Anwarul Islam, PhD, Past Chair, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter, Dhaka University, Bangladesh
  • Syeda Hina Batool, PhD, Social Media Manager, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter, University of the Punjab, Pakistan
  • Helen Chan, ASIS&T Asia Pacific Chapter, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Raj Kumar Bhardwaj, PhD, Member, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter, University of Delhi, India
  • Manika Lamba, Newsletter Officer & Webmaster, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter, University of Delhi, India
  • Prasadi Kanchana Jayasekara, Member, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka

We acknowledge the participation of Crystal Fulton, ASIS&T European Chapter, and Jiban K Pal, Member, ASIS&T South Asia Chapter during our initial discussions.

Different Tasks Performed

  • Video transcripts were prepared by the following ASIS&T members in English:
    • Video 1: Hina Batool, Manika Lamba, and Prasadi Kanchana Jayasekara
    • Video 2: Sam Chu, Athena WL Hong, Helen Chen, and Xiangning Li
    • Video 3: Bhakti Gala, and Raj Kumar Bhardwaj
    • Video 4: Md. Anwarul Islam, and Bhakti Gala
    • Video 5: YC Chan, and Sam Chu
    • Video 6: YC Chan, and Sam Chu
    • Video 7: Raj Kumar Bhardwaj, and Bhakti Gala
  • The transcripts were translated into four different South Asian languages by the following ASIS&T members:
    • Hindi: Bhakti Gala, Raj Bhardwaj
    • Bengali: Md Anwarul Islam
    • Urdu: Hina Batool
    • Sinhala: Prasadi Kanchana Jayasekara

  • Digital Story Competition was organized by Sam Chu and Helen Chen

  • Marketing of the project was done by Manika Lamba which included

    • updating the ASIS&T SA chapter’s website with project updates and events,
    • sending out emails to NGOs and LIS professionals introducing the projects and recent activities, and
    • disseminating the information regarding the projects and event on various social media platforms.
  • Webinars/Workshop to Promote the Project were organized by various project members: - IFLA STL Panel Discussion on Health Information Literacy - Content Creation during the COVID Infodemic by Manika Lamba on 5th February 2022 - Acceleration of Health Information Literacy by Md. Anwarul Islam on 18th December 2021 - International Workshop for School Librarians on “Fostering the Next Generation Authors and Helping People Stay Safe from COVID-19” by Bhakti Gala on 11th December 2021

Media Coverage

The Project has been featured in

  • Inside ASIS&T Newsletter
  • ASIS&T SIG-Knowledge Management (KM) Newsletter
  • Newsletter of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka
  • Advanced Information Network of Libraries in Gujarat (ADINET) Newsletter
  • Information Matters
  • ASIS&T South Asia Chapter News
  • ASIS&T South Asia Chapter Blog
  • The Librarian Times Blog

Appreciation

The ASIS&T South Asia Chapter received the Chapter Innovation of the Year Award for the year 2021.

Publications

  1. Manika Lamba, Bhakti Gala, Md. Anwarul Islam, Raj Kumar Bhardwaj. In-depth Analysis of Indian MTurkers’ Perceptions of COVID-19 Misinformation (Under Preparation)

  2. Bhakti Gala, Manika Lamba, Syeeda Hina Batool, Md. Anwarul Islam, Raj Kumar Bhardwaj. (2024). Duelling Health Misinformation: Perceptions and Behaviour of COVID-19 by Rural Population from South Asian Countries. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.

  3. Man Yi Helen Chan, Kai Wah Samuel Chu, Bhakti Gala, Md. Anwarul Islam, Syeda Hina Batool, Raj KumarBhardwaj, Prasadi Kanchana Jayasekara, and Manika Lamba. (2022). Equipping Students and Beyond with Sound COVID-19 Knowledge to Survive and Thrive Despite the Pandemic. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59:633-635. [Poster]