BATTLE OF THE COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING APPS

Malaysians love politischeissing everything, even something as basic as two popular brands of bread as being "Pakatan Harapan" bread and "Barisan Nasional" bread, based upon who owns the bread company.

Since early last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic became serious in Malaysia, apart from running from pillar to post looking to buy facemasks and gloves, Malaysians also began to politischeisse the two COVID-19 contact tracing apps - i.e. MySejahtera deployed by the Federal Government which had just fallen to the Perikatan Nasional and the SELankah deployed by the Selangor state government controlled by the Pakatan Harapan, which had lost control of the federal government due to infighting which led to the pact's fracture and its government's collapse.

As any data scientist worth his or her salt will tell you, computing and information systems work best when there is a single centralised database for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and so forth to work on, rather than having multiple databases and systems which tend to become separate silos of data and information.

To overcome this problem, the federal government mandated that all establishments in Malaysia use the MySejahtera app for contact tracing, which would centralise all the data, so their processing tools can produce the clearest picture of the COVID-19 situation.

More recently, there were some problems with SELankah and it was taken down for a while and it was recently relaunched with features which make it more like MySejahtera.

However, according to Malaysia Now of 22 February 2021, there have been complaints about the revamped SELankah app:-

Frustrated users, no answers: Selangor's SELangkah contrasts with MySejahtera amid low ratings, downloads

The app has had fewer than 6,000 downloads on Google Play, and unlike MySejahtera, users' concerns do not receive a direct response.

MalaysiaNow Feb 22, 2021 12:18 PM 

Selangor's SELangkah app, which the state government relaunched on the back of controversy over its ability to carry out the same functions as Putrajaya's MySejahtera, appears to be dogged with problems as users of its Android version highlight bugs and weaknesses without any reply from its developers.

Checks by MalaysiaNow on Google Play, the official app store for devices running on the Android operating system, showed that SELangkah is listed under the "Lifestyle" category, with fewer than 6,000 downloads since it was relaunched by Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari with a special appearance by a television personality two weeks ago.

At press time, there were about 60 reviews from users, most of whom complained about incomplete features, cumbersome form-filling and an absence of critical contact tracing needs such as registering on behalf of dependents.

The complaints had received no response from SELangkah, other than one self-review by the app's developer Dr Helmi Zakariah who hailed his software as an effort to "bring an integrated, holistic pandemic response in Malaysia", adding that "we thought this will help tremendously".

Checks also found that some users who gave the app a good rating had also noted problems they faced when using SELangkah.

"The longer you delay the feature to add dependents into this app, not many people will be using this to scan the qr code. Update 22/2/21: No response from app developer. Like not bothered," said one user, referring to the absence of interaction from the app's developer.

Another user, who gave a four-star rating, complained that users are forced to fill up forms each time they use SELangkah's newly added feature to scan MySejahtera as well.

"You should not release a section if the section is not ready. The home tab has so many ads and buttons which are not ready. Plus I think as of now, we do not need the first bottom tab as it just says coming soon when we click on it. I think this is messy," said a user.

"Not as much useful functions as MySejahtera despite the re-launch," said Lyn Chan, who added that unlike Putrajaya's app, SELangkah would not allow users to register a disabled family.

"This is very important as the person under my care is of a high risk classification. Please look into improving the app for its core intended purpose. Prove it in the application!" she wrote.

In contrast, checks found that MySejahtera has been constantly interacting with users on Google Play, attending to their complaints.

Replies to feedback are given by "Government of Malaysia", with frequent apologies for any inconvenience caused to users and a promise of a solution to come.

Unlike SELangkah, MySejahtera is grouped under the "Health and Fitness" category, and in the number one spot for free apps in the same genre.

With more than 420,000 reviews, MySejahtera has a rating of 4.6 stars compared to SELangkah's 3.8 stars despite only a little more than 60 reviews.

MalaysiaNow had earlier reported that the app lacked basic functionalities needed for any Covid-19 contact tracing, and was found to be inferior compared to MySejahtera.

This was followed by a discovery that SELangkah permits the use of personal data for uses other than contact tracing, despite assurances of data safety from the state's Covid-19 task force chief Dzulkefly Ahmad.

Dzulkefly had angrily scoffed at suggestions that the SELangkah app is inferior, and even claimed that Putrajaya had lagged behind the state in automatic contact tracing.

SELangkah came under scrutiny following a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state, proportionately much higher than neighbouring Kuala Lumpur which dwarfs Selangor in terms of population density.

Repeated attempts in the past by MalaysiaNow to obtain a response about problems encountered in the app from its developer Helmi had fallen on deaf ears.

When MalaysiaNow turned to Dzulkefly for answers, he said he had instructed that all queries on SELangkah should be directed to Helmi.

https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2021/02/22/frustrated-users-no-answers-selangors-selangkah-contrasts-with-mysejahtera-amid-low-ratings-downloads/

The bottom line, folks, is that politischeiss cannot beat objective reality.

So keep your politischeissing to preaching to the converted in echo-chambers such as WhatsApp groups, comments sections, hours of useless, idle chatter over teh tarik or beers.

Call me anti-social but thanks to COVID-19, I've not had to suffer being dragged to join people in these idle chatter sessions in 24-hour eateries until the early hours of the morning.

Yours truly

IT Scheiss

WHY NOT ALLOW SCHOOLS TO OPEN ONLY IN AREAS WITH LOW DAILY NEW COVID-19 CASES ?

According to this Free Malaysia Today article, several parents' groups wonder what is the rationale is behind the government's announcement that all schools across the country will open from 1 March 2021, starting with students in years 1 and 2, followed shortly after those in higher years.

The government had ordered all schools to close from 9 November 2020, due to a rising number of daily new COVID-19 cases which had risen to 972 nationwide that day, and the parents' groups wonder why the government is opening schools when the number of daily new cases was at 2,936 nationwide on 19 February 2021.

Well, the answer is pretty obvious from my earlier IT.Scheiss blog posts on the issue of e-education and online learning and in several media articles about problems with availability of broadband Internet access at home, of availability and affordability of smartphones, tablets, notebook or desktop PCs for children to use for online learning faced especially by parents in the smaller towns and villages, as well as urban, lower-income parents.

Also, from my own direct experience this year itself, even more affluent parents for whom money is no object when it comes to buying whatever devices and accessories their children need for online learning, however some of these parents still lack the tech-savviness to know how to operate and operate online learning platforms and services such as Google Meet, Google Classroom and their children's unique Ministry of Education-assigned e-mail account to receive the notices, assignments and so forth submitted by the teachers.  Some of these parents don't even know how to download a PDF copy of lesson submitted by teachers, how to access a PowerPoint slide and so forth, whilst some have problems guiding their children to operate the objective question and answer form online and I have noticed that relatively few children in the class my neighbour's son is in had submitted their answers to questions online.

This may not be much of a problem for children in more senior years or in secondary school who should have acquired sufficient skills to intuitively navigate and operate online learning applications, but this has proven to be a problem for children in more junior years, as I have highlighted in an excerpt in the article below.     

From a health perspective, Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy, said it made sense for younger students to return earlier as they have the "lowest risk" of catching Covid-19 and are also "seriously challenged" when it comes to remote learning – which they find harder to adapt to.

"We don't have local studies to show what has been the impact of the movement control measures imposed as an effort to control the spread of Covid-19, but what we have heard is that some students have lost basic skills such as reading and writing," he said.

"Children learn and retain better when they're in school and when they're face-to-face. I can only imagine that for exam-age students, in particular, this must have been a difficult and distressing year of disruption and lost learning."

So the answer to the question these parents' groups have raised is pretty obvious - i.e. ONLINE LEARNING HAS PROVEN TO BE INFERIOR TO CLASSROOM LEARNING - FULL STOP.

I wrote several cover features about online learning, distance learning and computers in education during my early years with In.Tech, the now defunct weekly ICT pullout of The Star, way back in the late 1990s.

Back then, the concept of online learning was very new, especially in Malaysia, and all I could rely on as material for my articles was what I was told by vendors of online and distance learning systems and the opinions of academics who were advocates of online learning.

However, now that I can look back with a perspective of over 20 years, when I read my cover features about online learning which I wrote back then, I realise what rubbish I wrote. 

Moreover, academics worldwide now admit that after 30 years of its promotion, the benefits of computer-based and online learning have shown mixed results as to claims of their superiority over traditional physical attendance in classroom learning.

Well, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the limitations of computer-based and online learning over physical classroom learning have been further exposed.

So reality trumps the hype, hoohah, BS and ballyhoo of the computers in education and online learning system vendors and its starry-eyed proponents in academia.

However, a dilemma still haunts parents with schoolgoing children - i.e. keep them safe from COVID-19 at the expense of the quality of their education or attend classroom learning and risk being infected with COVID-19, with the added risk that infected children, who may be mildly affected or asymptomatic, however infecting more vulnerable adults at home. A tough decision for parents to make.

Perhaps the government could have allowed schools in areas with low daily new COVID-19 numbers to open, whilst those in areas still with high new daily COVID-19 numbers remain closed and students continue to learn online, until when the daily new COVID-19 cases have dropped sufficiently for schools to be reopened.

    

The Free Malaysia Today article referred to follows in full below:-

What's the rationale for reopening schools, ask parents' groups

Jason Thomas - February 21, 2021 11:15 AM

PETALING JAYA: The government's announcement that schools across the country will reopen from March 1 has not exactly been welcomed with open arms by two parents' groups.

When all schools were ordered to close on Nov 9, the daily number of fresh Covid-19 cases was 972. By comparison, there were 2,936 new cases yesterday – a fact which a parent from Penang said topped most parents' minds.

"The number of cases is very high and worrying. It makes no logical sense to send kids to school," said Rowen Tan, whose son is in Standard 1.

Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education chairman Mak Chee Kin said he was unsure about the rationale behind the move.

"Parents need more than just the announcements of opening," he said. "Please tell us why schools are reopening and why Standard 1 and 2 will be the first?," he asked.

Mak added it would be better if classes were held on a rotational basis so as to prevent overcrowding in schools, a view shared by Tunku Munawirah Putra, secretary of the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE).

While the group agreed with the re-opening of schools, Munawirah said there are several issues that need to be addressed to ensure classes can be conducted safely to prevent outbreaks within schools.

Apart from the appropriate preventive and protective health measures, she hoped to see classes scheduled to ensure schools are not overcrowded.

Among the other issues to be considered include ensuring adequate teaching staff for Form 4 and 5, considering that the same teachers will be teaching three cohorts since there are currently two SPM cohorts (2020 and 2021).

She also stressed that the mental well-being of students and those falling behind in their learning must be taken care of, with adequate support and guidance from teachers and schools to cope with the challenges brought about by the pandemic.

At a press conference earlier, education minister Radzi Jidin said Year 1 and Year 2 pupils will be back to school on March 1 while those in Years 3 to 6 can return on March 8.

Secondary schools will be opened in two groups on April 4 and 5 according to the school calendar in respective states.

Thousands of Form 5 students returned to school on Jan 20 ahead of the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination which starts tomorrow.

From a health perspective, Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy, said it made sense for younger students to return earlier as they have the "lowest risk" of catching Covid-19 and are also "seriously challenged" when it comes to remote learning – which they find harder to adapt to.

"We don't have local studies to show what has been the impact of the movement control measures imposed as an effort to control the spread of Covid-19, but what we have heard is that some students have lost basic skills such as reading and writing," he said.

"Children learn and retain better when they're in school and when they're face-to-face. I can only imagine that for exam-age students, in particular, this must have been a difficult and distressing year of disruption and lost learning."

While reinforcement of health control measures and reasonable physical distancing are necessary, he also pointed out there is a need to also look at proper ventilation in schools.

Stating it is crucial that students are able to return to school in a way that is safe and sustainable, he said it also has to be done in a way that "inspires the confidence" of educators, school staff and the public.

"Therefore, the education ministry must be able to communicate continuously on this issue, giving as much information as possible to address concerns and anxiety among students, parents and guardians."

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/02/21/whats-the-rationale-for-reopening-schools-say-parents-groups/

Yours truly

IT.SCHEISS

https://itsheiss.blogspot.com/

GLORY TO KPIs AND PROMOTIONS ! STUDENTS BE DAMNED.

This is what happens when we adopt American-style management practices such as KPI (key performance indicator).

Lecturers at graduate factories pay more attention to publishing in journals to make their KPIs than teaching students well.

I know a young person who graduated with an first class honours degree in Chemical engineering from a university in the UK and continued to obtain a masters degree in chemical engineering from the same university before he returned to Malaysia.

However, from his Linked-IN profile, he does not mention any work expereince in chemical engineering but instead, he joined an international management consultancy firm, or might I say an international management CON-sultancy firm.

Why does a highly qualified chemical engineering graduate not practice chemical engineering?

And, the government tells us that Malaysia needs more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) graduates.

Are there enough work opportunities in STEM graduates in Malaysia?

Do STEM jobs pay well enough in Malaysia?

Are STEM professionals valued enough by Malaysian industry?

Well, it seems that arty-farty management types are valued more highly than hands-on STEM practitioners and professionals. I suppose that is what they mean when they say "upskill to be more relevant to employers".

MBA = Masters of Nothing Better, though you need one to advance in your career these days.

And, this is how Malaysia will become a "knowledge-based", "information-rich", "high-income", "developed" nation by the Year 2020 - oops! Pardon me. That was by last year. Vision 2020 has since been postponed to Shared Prosperity Vision 2030.

At the rate we are going, I don't think we will make it even by 2100, yet all this kok-talk will continue long after all of us here are dead and gone.

A very revealing article follows. However, will the relevant authorities and parties act on the suggestions by practicing academics thmselves?

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'Publish or perish' mentality driving academicians to questionable journals

Some Malaysian professors and lecturers are publishing their research in questionable scholarly journals that allow them to pay to be published and over time this will weaken the overall reputation of our universities, academicians say.

Malaysia was ranked as among the fifth-highest contributors in the world of countries surveyed by two Czech Republic economists Vit Machacek and Martin Srholec, who mapped the infiltration of so-called "predatory" scholarly journals into the citation database Scopus over a period of three years from 2015 to 2017.

The data was obtained from research involving 172 countries in four fields, namely health sciences, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences and indicated that some academicians who are seeking 'shortcuts' to be promoted to associate professor and professor.

"This is not new and we have to look at the root cause," Dr Mohamad Hussain Habil (above) of Mahsa Universiti told Malaysiakini.

"The pressure on professors and lecturers to publish in order to get promotions is quite large. When I was in Universiti Malaya, the mantra was 'to publish or perish'.

"The problem is that to be republished in a reputable journal – and these journals require high standards – your work must be groundbreaking.

"So, there is stiff competition and when people are under pressure, they look for loopholes," Mohamad Hussain said.

He said that the proliferation of unscholarly academic journals rose to meet the demand.

"It's simple capitalism – they are businesspeople and they spot the demand for this. They can charge up to US$1,000 to publish the article, it's not cheap also. Another factor is that in reputable journals you also have to wait. When you wait too long, you might not be getting your promotion, or someone else publishes the paper.

"Apparently not only junior lecturers but senior professor are doing this," he added.

"When they find out that there are predatory journals, for them it's an opportunity. But after some time, articles from cooked-up data get exposed in the industry. The objective of the research is to improve our scientific understanding, but an article that is full of mistakes – statistics skewed for a false conclusion – it serves no purpose.

These days, with social media, you can't hide if someone exposes it, Mohamad Hussain said.

"It's not difficult to expose, go to Google Scholar and it can be found," he said.

"When I first started, we never had these predatory journals. They only came out when universities became so worried about rankings, not more than 15 years ago."

In the Czech survey, a total of 324 predatory journals were found to have infiltrated Scopus, a Netherlands-based global citation database made up of more than 30,000 journals covering life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences and health sciences.

Kazakhstan is the most culpable, with 17 percent of such articles, followed by Indonesia, Iraq, Albania and Malaysia.

Former deputy education minister P Kamalanathan served from 2013 to 2018, which is the period covered by the study.

Kamalanathan said that while the government consistently focused on academicians achieving higher recognition and and came up with hundreds or millions of ringgit of quality spending towards this aspiration, the Ministry of Higher Education would have to investigate the claims of predatory research papers.

"They should verify its authenticity and if culpability exists, then I'm sure they will take stern action to protect the integrity and the reputation of Malaysian academicians," he told Malaysiakini in a text message.

Reflection of a corrupt system

Prof Zaharom Nain, chairperson of the Malaysian Academic Movement (Gerak) didn't pull his punches when discussing the matter.

"It's a sad consequence and reflection of a corrupt system, both nationally and globally. Much of higher education and much of research in higher education – in Malaysia and elsewhere – have become exercises in gaming a system that emphasises rankings and ratings (national, regional and global).

"The higher your university goes up the rankings or is rated – the more attractive and prestigious will be your university. There'll be higher student intake and quality faculty and, hence, more income to succeed in a wider neo-liberal system," Zaharom said.

He said that are many good, honest and hardworking academicians in contemporary Malaysian universities, some of them even world-class.

"But there are also those who are pressured to meet uncompromising KPIs often set by pen-pushing university administrators hell-bent on playing a system that seeks to quantify scholarly output, often at the expense of quality."

Zaharom said there are also those really not qualified to teach or research in universities.

"They get into the public universities through a system of, say, 'kulitocracy', given our quota system. And, let's not forget, the same system brings in the administrators, whose idea of administrating is to openly and uncritically receive ideas from the top.

"Combine these – a leadership that is more politicised than wise, an administrative class that believes that it must menurut perintah (follow orders) and largely-clueless academicians bereft of a public service ethos, and only wishing to get to the top of the university ladder – and you get the sad state we are in now," he said.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, a former professor at University of Nottingham Malaysia, urged academicians to be careful where they publish their work.

"It has been a steep learning curve for many academicians. There is certainly a lot of pressure on meeting publishing KPIs.

"Over the last few years, there have been a lot of information on predatory academic journals and academicians should do the due diligence on a publisher before they submit their work. You cannot plead ignorance," Malachi said.

UMT vice-chancellor denies emphasis on publishing

In contrast, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) vice-chancellor Prof Nor Aieni Mokhtar responded to the recent study, saying that journal publication is not the main criteria for a lecturer to be promoted to associate professor or professor.

In a statement yesterday, Nor Aieni said other criteria for promotion as a professor at UMT include teaching trust, supervision, research, publication of indexed journal books and articles, knowledge transfer as well as academic and management leadership.

She said every promotion application submitted by UMT academicians must go through various strict vetting processes to meet the academic excellence requirements set by the Senate, as the highest academic body at the university, and approved by the University Board of Directors as the university's highest authority body.

"Candidates must submit an application through the dean, the director of their respective institute or centre and if it is supported by the head of the department, a committee consisting of professors at the faculty, centre or institute will screen and evaluate the application.

"If a candidate fails to pass this internal screening, the application will not be extended to the censorship committee at the university level. However, when the application is brought to the censorship committee, it will be screened and evaluated by a committee composed of professors," Nor Aieni said.

Her views appeared to be firmly in the minority, with another former UM lecturer telling Malaysiakini that the predatory journal phenomenon was not surprising considering the university's obsession with rankings.

This academician cited other dubious practices, like forcing PhD students to put the names of their supervisor on their journal articles as co-writers.

"This may be normal in pure sciences, but in social sciences, it can be highly unethical," said the lecturer, who did not want to be named.

Zaharom concurred: "Academic dishonesty – in the form of plagiarism, supervisors (and now even universities) pressuring post-graduate students to put them as the main authors of the students' publications, and, yes, universities coming up with their journals of questionable quality – is the end result.

He called for serious and sincere academic reform.

"But such reform won't come about when the system – nationally and internationally - is headed by clueless and self-serving individuals and institutions, like our current Ministry of Higher Education," Zaharom added.

Mohamad Hussain said that if the problem was left unchecked, it would undoubtedly bring down the reputation of the country's higher learning institutions.

"Universiti Malaya was recently ranked number 59 in the world according to the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, and we have other good universities, so there is a lot of good work that could be undone.

"If there is any reason to suspect the publications of academicians, the authorities must order an investigation and not sweep it under the carpet," Mohamad Hussain said. - Mkini

http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/2021/02/publish-or-perish-mentality-driving.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MalaysiansMustKnowTheTruth+%28Malaysians+Must+Know+the+TRUTH%29

Yours Truly

IT.Scheiss