Adult and Kid-friendly Illustrated courses on COVID-19

We will be working with scientists (in virology and immunology), science artists, writers and educators to create kid and adult-friendly illustrated primers about COVID-19, on the Lifeology platform.

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Inspiration

There is currently a dearth of expert-reviewed information about COVID-19 that is accessible to people with low science literacy, children, non-English-speaking Americans and people in other countries. Lifeology is a platform that brings scientists, communicators, writers and broader audiences together in the creation of more accessible science and health communication, in the form of Lifeology courses composed of illustrated flashcards. Lifeology was created by LifeOmic, a health software company. The company’s technology underpins the Precision Health Initiative at the Indiana University School of Medicine it has created health tracking apps that reach 2M users globally.

What it does

Lifeology courses are composed of illustrated digital flashcards (up to 40 per course) that present bite-sized information in the format of a visual story. People can access courses for free (no login required) on any device where they can access a browser with internet connection. Course cards can also be printed for offline access. Lifeology courses are simple to use; users swipe or click through cards naturally and can submit feedback on the final card of each course. Lifeology collects analytics and user feedback on courses via Mixpanel.

How we built it

Lifeology is a community and content delivery platform built through collaboration between scientists, artists, and experienced cloud software engineers. The aim is to present complicated science in a simple, bite-sized, easy-to-understand format. By leveraging secure and cutting-edge AWS tools, the platform provides use and access on a massive scale, as well as quick iteration and time-to-market with content. Lifeology aims to reach a global audience by composing content in multiple languages and enlisting the help of scientists, artists, and translators from all over the world.

The Lifeology platform delivers content as Lifeology courses composed of illustrated flashcards in an animated format to help people learn complicated science in a bite-sized manner. Lifeology courses can be accessed into many languages with a drop-down menu, offers access to experts and artists, collects analytics including open-ended feedback and time on each “flashcard,” etc.

More on how Lifeology courses are created, as a collaborative process from content creation to publishing on the tech side, here: https://lifeology.us.lifeomic.com/static/ologies/tech/how-is-a-lifeology-course-created/index.html#/

Accomplishments we are proud of

Lifeology has already created several Lifeology courses and other illustrated resources on COVID for adults and kids, available at https://lifeology.io/coronavirus-center/. Our courses have over 20k views over the last week, in many languages.

What's next

We are looking for other experts and partners who would like to help create, distribute and use Lifeology courses on COVID / virology / immunology topics. We already have a team of science artists and storytellers ready to help create these courses. We can help re-purpose other teams' communication products around COVID into interactive Lifeology courses.

We would like to create courses such as: What can I do to limit the spread of COVID-19? (2 courses, one for children <12 years old.) What is a virus? (2 courses, one to be created for children <12 years old.) What is a pandemic and how do we stop it? What really happens when I wash my hands? Does soap kill viruses? Why are some people at higher risk of coronavirus infection and complications? How do vaccines work? Is there a vaccine for COVID-19?

We would like for others here to work with us on their own Lifeology course ideas or research projects to evaluate outcomes of courses on attitudes, behavioral intentions, etc.

Practicality and Feasibility

Lifeology courses created for this hackathon and afterwards can quickly and directly impact people affected by this pandemic, including patients, caregivers, broader audiences and even healthcare providers. We create, illustrate and publish our courses with 1-2 weeks in collaboration with scientists, fact-checkers, illustrators and writers. We can target any range of education level and publish courses in many languages that can be accessed easily in a web-app drop-down menu. We have the technology in place already to create and publish and distribute courses widely.

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