PRE2019 4 Group10
Authors: Ezra Leeuwenhage, Paulien Teuwen, Yorn Thijssen, Ries van de Ven, Kim Wintraecken
General description of the plan:
In these turbulent times, Corona has been affecting our daily lives. It has been such an impactful disease, that the government had to come up with a solution on how to create awareness of those who have had COVID-19 and those who do not. One of the most widely discussed option in the Netherlands would be a Corona Mobile Application (Corona App).
However, there is still a lot of discussion surrounding this app and its applications. The goal of the Corona App is to give an insight into the current spread of the virus, such that regulations can be implemented or improved, based on this spread. In this project, however, the focus will lie solely on the effectivity of such an app and it’s requirements for this. Effectivity will be the focus because if an app can’t be efficient enough, it would be useless to implement. This is also the reason why there will be no focus on other social questions such as privacy.
Based on literature reviews, simulations, and user-testing, these requirements will be listed and a proposal will be formed about the effectivity of such an app.
Problem statement and objectives
TThe issue capturing global attention in recent months is the Covid-19 pandemic, causing great disruption throughout the world in both in terms of health care and economy. Many governments have since the outbreak opted for an approach to combat the virus through limiting all social interactions within society (commonly referred to as a lockdown), putting a halt to its spread at the cost of national economy. In the long term this approach is not sustainable however, leading to the need to find ways to reduce restriction on social interaction in all aspects of society without losing grip of the spread of the virus. To this end, the Dutch government has suggested the nation-wide employment of an application designed to predict/ detect infection with Covid-19 of civilians, enabling them to accurately manage the virus’s impact on society without the need for a type of lockdown. The need for such an app is still being questioned, since it brings a lot of difficulties with it, regarding the violation of the Dutch privacy legislation.
However, there would be no need to check all social implications in detail, if such an app is simply not efficient enough to contribute to the curbing of the virus. Since in this scenario, it would be fruitless to implement such an app. This project will shed light on the requirements that need to be met, to make the app efficient enough to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
The objectives of this project will be to determine through literary research what the relevant requirements are to the problem and what exactly the desired effectiveness of the application is in order to meet its requirements. Finally, the objective of practical research done thereafter will be to determine what type of implementation of the app satisfies the requirements set by the results from literary research.
Who are the users?
Users:
- Smartphone users
- Dutch citizens (who own a smartphone)
Other stakeholders:
- Government
- Public health authorities
- Hospitals
- Healthcare personnel
- Outbreak Management Team
What do they require?
Users require:
- Safety check
- Did I come in contact with anybody who is registered with the virus, or who has recovered from the virus?
- Raise own awareness of spreading possibilities
- How can I prevent the spread of the virus myself?
- Current information about situation
- News-updates
- Latest governmental conferences
- Current national measurements
- Healthcare issues and prevention methods
- How can I protect myself?
- What to do if I need to leave the house for necessity?
Stakeholders require:
- Additional data about the spread of virus
- New data can be used to make estimations or inform the country
Approach, milestones and deliverables
Approach
Solving the problem around the corona app has a difficult set of objectives: first the group should evaluate the existing research about the corona app and the current simulations that exist regarding the efficiency of such an app. Next, different simulations must be compared an analyzed to specify a list of requirements and parameters. Based on these requirements, a new simulation will be created that solely focusses on the efficiency.
These results should confirm or deny earlier research and the goal is to determine if a corona app would be suitable to achieve the combat of the virus.
Milestones
A certain milestone is composing the requirements for the corona app. Choosing the requirements depends on the research and the type of app. The requirements must ensure the app is efficient. Another milestone would be making the simulations for testing.
Week number: Tasks
Week 1: Background study
Week 2: Requirements
Week 3: requirements and parameters
Week 4: Requirements and parameters. Comparing different existing simulations. Contacting different organizations to discuss their results
Week 5: Start making simulation. Continue research in requirements and parameters
Week 6: Continue Simulation
Week 7: Testing (survey) & Simulation testing
Week 8: Final presentation and demo (recorded video)
Deliverables:
The output of the project should be an analysis of two implementations of the corona app. This analysis will be done on two apps. So, another deliverable is the software of these two apps. Furthermore, a wiki page containing all information on the process of the project and the final presentation of week 8 will be delivered.
Who is doing what?
To create a full detailed planning for the hole course is difficult, especially in situations like these where we do not know what we are capable of and things can change every week. Therefore, we have chosen to divided tasks after each meeting or every week just like in an OGO project. These assigned tasks will be published weekly on the wiki in a table. However, to keep track on the schedule, some team members will be assigned to have a leading role over a part in the project. This leading role will consist of managing all tasks and making sure everybody stays on track and finishes their tasks on time.
The leading roles will be as follows:
Part: Student
The research: Kim
App 1: Ries
App 2: Paulien
Results: Ezra
Deliverables: Yorn
Furthermore, because we are doing the project like an OGO project, we also assigned roles for Chairman and Minute taker for each meeting. This will be according to the following schedule:
Meetings per week:
Monday - 09:30
Thrusday - after tutoring session
Date Chairman Minute taker
27/04 Kim Ries
30/04 Ries Yorn
04/05 Yorn Ezra
07/05 Ezra Paulien
11/05 Paulien Kim
14/05 Kim Ries
18/05 Ries Yorn
21/05 Yorn Ezra
25/05 Ezra Paulien
28/05 Paulien Kim
01/06 Kim Ries
04/06 Ries Yorn
08/06 Yorn Ezra
11/06 Ezra Paulien
15/06 Paulien Kim
18/06 Kim Ries
Notes on literature
After meeting with our tutor adjustments to the planning above were made. In summary, the project was scaled down to a concise and reachable set of goals and tasks and the emphasis for the first few weeks was shifted towards setting valuable, precise and well-founded requirements for an implementation of the corona app. Details of that particular meeting have been recorded here:
File:Notities conference call 1.pdf
The requirements to be set were discussed in meeting 4 (File:Minutes 04 05 20.pdf) and these were the main results in terms of type of requirements to be investigated en quantified: - Users & habits (of dermatological application software) - Combatting virus spread
Other useful leads in advancing the project that were explored: - Viability and reliability of employment of simulation software (by TU Delft) for testing effectiveness of corona app
More detailed information on the requirements can be found in the minutes and the research below.
File:Bestrijding van verspreiding.pdf
- insert progress by Paulien (simulation software viability)*
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4