Future Toolkits Research Articles

Toolkitting: an unrecognized form of expertise for overcoming fragmentation in inter- and transdisciplinarity

A growing number of inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) toolkits provide methods, processes, concepts, heuristics, frameworks, and other resources for designing and implementing ITD research. A brief overview of the currently fragmented toolkits landscape is provided, fleshed out through descriptions of four toolkits. Fragmentation means that researchers are unaware of, and do not have access to, the full array of tools that could benefit their investigations. Overcoming fragmentation requires attention to toolkitting, which is the relatively overlooked bundle of practices involved in the creation, use, maintenance, funding, and study of toolkits. In particular, the processes and expertise involved in the creation, maintenance, and study of toolkits are described. Toolkitting as metawork can make resources more accessible, useful, and rigorous, enhancing ITD research. Future toolkitting can be strengthened with attention to key questions that can guide the activities of, respectively, toolkit creators and curators, scholars, and funders. Examining the toolkits landscape through the lens of toolkitting suggests that the development of a comprehensive, ongoing inventory is a first step in overcoming toolkit fragmentation. An inventory could also be the foundation for an even bolder initiative—a federated knowledge bank—that connects and develops the range of existing and future toolkits. The inventory and federated knowledge bank also provide a shared project to bring together the expertise of ITD toolkit creators, curators, users, funders, and scholars to achieve a step-change in enhancing ITD research.

DigiTRAC: Qualitative insights from knowledge users to inform the development of a Digital Toolkit for enhancing resilience among multiple sclerosis caregivers

BackgroundResilience-promoting resources are critically needed to support positive caregiving experiences for multiple sclerosis (MS) caregivers. A digital toolkit offers a flexible way to access and use evidence-based resources that align with MS caregivers’ interests and needs over time. ObjectiveWe explored the perspectives of key knowledge users regarding content areas, features, and other considerations to inform an MS caregiver resilience digital toolkit. MethodsTwenty-two individuals completed a demographic survey as part of this study: 11 MS family caregivers, 7 representatives of organizations providing support services for people with MS and/or caregivers, and 4 clinicians. We conducted nine semi-structured individual interviews and two focus groups. Data were analyzed using content analysis. ResultsParticipants recommended that a digital toolkit should include content focused on promoting MS caregivers’ understanding of the disease, its trajectory and available management options, and enhancing caregiving skills and caregivers’ ability to initiate and maintain behaviours to promote their own well-being. Features that allow for tracking and documenting care recipients’ and caregivers’ experiences, customization of engagement, and connectivity with other sources of support were also recommended. Participants suggested a digital toolkit should be delivered through an app with web browser capabilities accessible on smartphones, tablets, or laptops. They also acknowledged the need to consider how users’ previous technology experiences and issues related to accessibility, usability, privacy and security could influence toolkit usage. ConclusionThese findings will guide future toolkit development and evaluation. More broadly, this study joins the chorus of voices calling for critical attention to the well-being of MS family caregivers.

Exploring perceptions of and attitudes towards tanning with school children, parents/carers and educators in Wales: A mixed methods study protocol for the SunChat study.

Skin cancer comprises half of all cancers in England and Wales. Most skin cancers can be prevented with safer sun exposure. As over exposure as a child can greatly increase future skin cancer risk, early and accessible sun safety education and promotion of sun safe behaviours is critical. Scientists agree there is no such thing as a 'safe tan', yet the public, including children, often have positive perceptions of tanned skin. To protect against future skin cancer, it is important to understand and address these misconceptions. The Curriculum for Wales with its area for Health and Well-being, and autonomy for schools in designing curriculum content, presents an ideal way to facilitate this exploration. Gather data regarding perceptions towards tanning to explore the perceived effects of a tan on health.Inform the development and testing of an educational toolkit for integration within the Curriculum for Wales to encourage positive health behaviours and attitudes of school children towards tanning and sun exposure. SunChat is a mixed methods exploratory study comprising three work streams: Workshops with school children to understand their perceptions on tanning.An online multiple-choice survey with parents/carers to understand perceptions, attitudes and behaviours towards tanning both for themselves and their children.An informal focus group with primary school educators to explore challenges in engaging with the school community around the Health and Well-being Area in the Curriculum for Wales. To date, there has been no work in Wales exploring children's, parents/carers', and educators' perceptions of tanning and how healthier attitudes can be encouraged. This study will engage with participants to scope current perceptions on tanning and the perceived effects tanning has on health. Findings will feed into future toolkit and curriculum development for health in schools in Wales and beyond.

Anxiety, concerns and COVID-19: Cross-country perspectives from families and individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the mental health and well-being of children with neurodevelopmental conditions (NDCs) and of their families worldwide. However, there is insufficient evidence to understand how different factors (e.g., individual, family, country, children) have impacted on anxiety levels of families and their children with NDCs developed over time. We used data from a global survey assessing the experience of 8043 families and their children with NDCs (mean of age (m) = 13.18 years, 37% female) and their typically developing siblings (m = 12.9 years, 45% female) in combination with data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the University of Oxford, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook, to create a multilevel data set. Using stepwise multilevel modelling, we generated child-, family- and country-related factors that may have contributed to the anxiety levels of children with NDCs, their siblings if they had any, and their parents. All data were reported by parents. Our results suggest that parental anxiety was best explained by family-related factors such as concerns about COVID-19 and illness. Children's anxiety was best explained by child-related factors such as children's concerns about loss of routine, family conflict, and safety in general, as well as concerns about COVID-19. In addition, anxiety levels were linked to the presence of pre-existing anxiety conditions for both children with NDCs and their parents. The present study shows that across the globe there was a raise in anxiety levels for both parents and their children with NDCs because of COVID-19 and that country-level factors had little or no impact on explaining differences in this increase, once family and child factors were considered. Our findings also highlight that certain groups of children with NDCs were at higher risk for anxiety than others and had specific concerns. Together, these results show that anxiety of families and their children with NDCs during the COVID-19 pandemic were predicted by very specific concerns and worries which inform the development of future toolkits and policy. Future studies should investigate how country factors can play a protective role during future crises.

Transparency to Visibility (T2V)

Advances in network visualization technologies have the potential to humanistic inquiry devoted to better understanding the circulation of power and influence within cultural systems. While new technologies have made generating high-quality and even dynamic network visualizations relatively easy, key challenges remain for humanities researchers. Creative, historiographic, biographical, and similar artifacts are usually not easily transformed into the kinds of data structures necessary for network visualization. The Transparency to Visibility (T2V) Project was initiated to develop new methods and toolkits that can support humanistic researchers who need to transform unstructured textual datasets into data structures that support useful and informative network visualization. The T2V team used bioethics accountability statements to pilot and evaluate different methods for transforming and visualizing relational networks based on data in unstructured text. The resulting machine-learning-enhanced natural language processing (NLP) and metadata-assisted approaches offer promising potential pathways for contemporary digital humanities and future toolkit development.

Understanding practices and needs of researchers in human state modeling by passive mobile sensing

Passive mobile sensing for the purpose of human state modeling is a fast-growing area. It has been applied to solve a wide range of behavior-related problems, including physical and mental health monitoring, affective computing, activity recognition, routine modeling, etc. However, in spite of the emerging literature that has investigated a wide range of application scenarios, there is little work focusing on the lessons learned by researchers, and on guidance for researchers to this approach. How do researchers conduct these types of research studies? Is there any established common practice when applying mobile sensing across different application areas? What are the pain points and needs that they frequently encounter? Answering these questions is an important step in the maturing of this growing sub-field of ubiquitous computing, and can benefit a wide range of audiences. It can serve to educate researchers who have growing interests in this area but have little to no previous experience. Intermediate researchers may also find the results interesting and helpful for reference to improve their skills. Moreover, it can further shed light on the design guidelines for a future toolkit that could facilitate research processes being used. In this paper, we fill this gap and answer these questions by conducting semi-structured interviews with ten experienced researchers from four countries to understand their practices and pain points when conducting their research. Our results reveal a common pipeline that researchers have adopted, and identify major challenges that do not appear in published work but that researchers often encounter. Based on the results of our interviews, we discuss practical suggestions for novice researchers and high-level design principles for a toolkit that can accelerate passive mobile sensing research.

Methods for Extracting Relational Data from Unstructured Texts Prior to Network Visualization in Humanities Research

Network modelling methodologies in the digital humanities have been be used to advance inquiry in a variety of areas—most commonly those having to do with correspondence, citation, and social media networks. While new technologies have made generating high-quality and even dynamic network visualizations relatively easy, key challenges remain for humanities researchers. Many common objects of humanistic inquiry, such as literary, historiographic, and biographical texts are often not easily transformed into the kinds of data structures necessary for network visualization. The Transparency to Visibility (T2V) Project was initiated to develop new methods and toolkits that can support humanistic researchers who need to extract relationship data from unstructured texts to support network visualization. The T2V team used bioethics accountability statements to pilot and evaluate different methods for extracting relationship data. The resulting machine-learning-enhanced natural language processing (NLP) and metadata-assisted approaches offer promising potential pathways for contemporary digital humanities and future toolkit development. Funding statement: Funding was provided by a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement grant (HAA-261070).

The Gears of Knowledge Translation: Process Evaluation of the Dissemination and Implementation of a Patient Engagement Toolkit.

Patient engagement is a key tenet of patient-centered care and is associated with many positive health outcomes. To improve resources for patient engagement, we created a web-based, interactive patient engagement toolkit to improve patient engagement in primary care across the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). To use the knowledge translation (KT) framework to evaluate the dissemination and implementation of a patient engagement toolkit at facilities across one region in the VHA. Using a mixed-methods approach, this process evaluation involved phone monitoring via semi-structured interviews and group meetings, during which we explored barriers and facilitators to KT. Outcomes were assessed using a structured rubric and existing patient satisfaction measures. We enlisted implementers at 40 VHA facilities primarily serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware to implement patient engagement practices at their sites. Sites were randomly assigned into a high or low coaching group to assess whether external support influenced implementation. Sites with high rubric scores employed and possessed several elements across the KT trajectory from identification of the problem to sustainment of knowledge use. Key factors for successful implementation and dissemination included implementer engagement, organizational support, and strong collaborators. The most frequently cited barriers included short staffing, time availability, lack of buy-in, and issues with leadership. Successful implementers experienced just as many barriers, but leveraged facilitators to overcome obstacles. While sites that received more coaching did not have different outcomes, they were more likely to revisit the toolkit and indicated that they felt more accountable to local personnel. Because leveraging available resources is a key component of successful implementation, future toolkits should highlight the type of facilitators necessary for successful implementation of toolkit content in healthcare settings. The ability to tailor interventions to local context is critical for overcoming barriers faced in most healthcare settings.

Review of Web-Based Toolkits for Health Care Practitioners Working With Women and Girls Affected by or at Risk of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting.

Increased migration has given rise to more advocacy efforts against female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C), legislation that criminalizes the practice, and guidance to the health sector for managing care of affected groups. More women and girls who have been cut or who are at risk of FGM/C are migrating from regions where it is common to countries where it is not and interacting with health professionals and other community practitioners in these host countries. Despite numerous studies on the negative health impacts of FGM/C, little is known about toolkits on FGM/C that providers can use in their prevention and response efforts. We sought to explore the nature of Internet-based products referenced as toolkits and materials characteristic of toolkits aimed at different service providers who may interact with women and girls affected by FGM/C. Through an online search, we identified 45 toolkits and collected data about each one. We found that the toolkits targeted different audiences and offered a diverse set of information and resources. The majority of toolkits were aimed at health professionals and provided factual and epidemiological-focused content, yet many did not include research evidence, skills development application, or approaches for implementing the toolkit in practice. This review is the first completed in the area of FGM/C to show a rich diversity of online materials. Future toolkits can be improved with the provision of evidence-based information and practical skills development for use by health professionals in implementing best practices in working with women and girls affected by FGM/C.

A new model for handling input

Although there has been important progress in models and packages for theoutputof graphics to computer screens, there has been little change in the way thatinputfrom the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices is handled. New graphics standards are still using a fifteen-year-old model even though it is widely accepted as inadequate, and most modern window managers simply return a stream of low-level, device-dependent input events. This paper presents a new model that handles input devices for highly interactive, direct manipulation, graphical user interfaces, which could be used in future toolkits, window managers, and graphics standards. This model encapsulates interactive behaviors into a few “Interactor” object types. Application programs can then create instances of these Interactor objects which hide the details of the underlying window manager events. In addition, Interactors allow a clean separation between the input handling, the graphics, and the application programs. This model has been extensively used as part of the Garnet system and has proven to be convenient, efficient, and easy to learn.