COVID Study Circle: An Experiment in Forming a Digital Collective During a Pandemic
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© Indian Institute of Science 2020.
COVID Study Circle: An Experiment in Forming a Digital Collective During a Pandemic Chitra Pattabiraman1* and Bhagteshwar Singh2,3* In this article, we reflect on a multi-institutional diverse digital collective, and its contribution to sifting fact from fake during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic in India (March–June 2020). In March 2020, many parts of India were just beginning to see cases of COVID-191. We were hearing from our colleagues in Italy and the UK about the scale of the crisis. Data were sparse, hard to translate to our context and general understanding about the virus and the disease was just emerging. The WHO team had just released its report from China and the prime minister cancelled his Holi celebrations2,3. Data were being generated and transmitted rapidly (via Twitter and preprint servers such as Medrxiv and Biorxiv—bypassing the traditional publication lag); however, many areas were data-poor. This was also countered by a rapid spread of misinformation4,5. We needed to organize data into information6, explore its reliability/uncertainty, and start to both construct the big picture and identify the missing details (Fig. 1). This unprecedented situation threw up some immediate challenges: 1. Social media was polarized and rife with misinformation4,7. Even with grounding in scientific thinking and critical analysis, we were struggling to separate facts from fiction. 2. We were unprepared for the spotlight that was suddenly put on scientists. There was an urgent need to be better informed to communicate effectively8,9. 3. We needed to identify gaps in data and figure out how best to contribute.
One way to address these challenges was to come together as a group or collective with diverse expertise and have open discussions. Indeed, in India, multiple such groups emerged. These include “Indian Scientists’ Response to COViD-19 (ISRC) started as a group of Indian
J. Indian Inst. Sci. | VOL xxx:x | xxx–xxx 2020 | journal.iisc.ernet.in
scientists who came together voluntarily in response to the COVID-19 pandemic”10 and COVID19India.org—“A volunteer-driven crowdsourced effort to track the coronavirus in India”11. The former has made important contributions to modelling of COVID-19 in India and the latter group continues to aggregate and provide up-todate information on positive cases across India. These collectives are unique/novel in that:
Digital collective: A group of people united for a specific purpose, using digital methods of communication and working.
1. They have institutional links, but no institutional anchoring. 2. They came together particularly to address the challenges of the pandemic.
The COVID Study Circle which we co-ordinated was an experiment in forming a digital collective during a pandemic. It was to be a safe space in which we could discuss what seemed odd or rumour or potentially fake. We would focus on the science, continuously updating what we knew. We sought to contextualise the information we were collating to
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