Abstract
In this article, the authors discuss the different digital contact tracing solutions and address the data privacy and ethical guidelines of implementing such solutions. They also present a detailed case study for how The American University in Cairo leveraged wi-fi big data streams to improve the efficacy of the questionnaire-based contact tracing approach and demonstrate how the use of digital solutions have supported the plan of a safe return to the campus. They present the detailed technical design of the solution, address the solution challenges and limitations, the testing results, and discuss the cultural awareness efforts to ensure community acceptance and approval of the solution.
TopIntroduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the discovery of the new coronavirus: SARS-Cov2 or COVID-19, in January 2020. By March 2020, COVID-19 had spread worldwide and was declared a pandemic (Marinoni, van't Land, & Jensen, 2020). By April 2020, more than 3.4 billion people were in lockdown in around 80 countries worldwide. This represented a complete standstill of approximately 43% of the world's population. During the following months, COVID-19 continued to impose a new normal that has disrupted nations, industries, and businesses to an unprecedented level. The World Economic Forum declared that the pandemic had changed education forever (Li & Lalani, 2020). Higher education institutions’ characteristics of vibrant campuses, where students experience an engaging, buzzing learning and cultural hub, experienced dramatic challenges (Times Higher Education [THE], n.d.). According to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in April 2020, around 185 schools and higher education institutions closed their doors. The response of higher education institutions at the outset of the pandemic to rapidly adopt technology to maintain academic and operational continuity could be described as heroic, and it most certainly displayed a level of organizational agility that burst traditional stereotypes regarding educational organizations' ability to change. However, this shift to what is now generally recognized as “remote learning,” while very impressive, has proven to be no replacement for the campus experience that so many students covet. Many learners had challenges with accessibility, inclusion, and engagement. A vivid reminder that the digital equity gap unfortunately persists—and has continued to widen—during the pandemic (Curtin, 2021).
Founded in 1919, The American University in Cairo (AUC) is an independent, not-for-profit, American-accredited, chartered institution of higher education and center of the intellectual, social, and cultural life of the Arab world. Its community of students, parents, faculty, staff, trustees, and alumni represents more than 60 countries. The University stands as a crossroads for the world’s cultures and a vibrant forum for reasoned argument, spirited debate, and understanding across the diversity of languages, facilities, and human experiences (The American University in Cairo [AUC], n.d.).
The COVID-19 pandemic imposed new challenges to AUC’s ability to maintain its standards of excellence in delivering on its mission of teaching and learning. Similar to other institutions in higher education worldwide, AUC took this as an opportunity to challenge its functions and work towards operational excellence. In March 2020, AUC started preparing its faculty and students for online teaching then shifted its teaching and operations online effectively and efficiently before any higher education institution in Egypt. From the beginning, AUC focused its plans and decisions to overcome the pandemic around two guiding principles, capitalizing on its solid Digital Transformation resources. Those principles are:
- 1.
Health and Safety: A commitment to prioritize the health and safety of students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding community in every decision.
- 2.
Deliver Quality Education: A commitment to ensuring that the teaching, learning, and research of students, faculty, and postdoctoral fellows will continue at the highest levels of excellence.
In parallel, efforts to ensure the safe and healthy return of the AUC community were necessary. This chapter discusses how AUC leveraged its Wi-Fi infrastructure and Big Data technologies to offer a digital contact tracing solution that respects data privacy and ethics at an insignificant cost.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Time to Flight: A method of calculating the distance between two radio transceivers. It measures the distance by multiplying the time of flight of the signal by the speed of light.
Confusion Matrix: A table that summarizes the performance of a classification model on a set of labeled data. It compares predictions to actuals and summarizes the model’s performance in terms of True Positives, True Negatives, False Positives, and False Negatives.
Clustering: Automatically organizing the content of a table based on the content of one or more columns such that related data is stored on the same block for faster data retrieval.
Contact Tracing: Contact tracing is used by health departments to prevent the spread of infectious disease. In general, contact tracing involves identifying people who have an infectious disease (cases) and people who they came in contact with (contacts) and working with them to interrupt disease spread (Neale et al., n.d. AU28: The in-text citation "Neale et al., n.d." is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
Recall: The fraction of relevant instances retrieved. It answers the question: “How many correct instances were retrieved?” It is the fraction of the True positives out of the total True cases.
Received Signal Strength: The strength of the received signal at the receiver’s antenna. It is used for measuring the distance between the signal transmitter and receiver.
Precision: The fraction of relevant instances out of the total retrieved instances. It answers the question: “How much of the retrieved instances are correct?” It is the fraction of True positives out of the total positive cases.