Discussion: View Thread

Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

  • 1.  Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 01:53:00 PM
    Edited by Wietske Van Osch 05-21-2020 08:21:02 AM

    There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on academics and this forum is evidence of the fact that there is a need and desire for such discussion in our Information Systems community also. One aspect that has received limited coverage, but deserves awareness and attention, is the disproportionate effect COVID-19 seems to be having on female academics. Indeed, several news outlets have highlighted this unequal impact, including:

    Both articles cite editors of respected academic journals across disciplines-ranging from Philosophy of science, political science, astrophysics-who "have started noticing a trend: Women - who inevitably shoulder a greater share of family responsibilities - seem to be submitting fewer papers." But what is fascinating is that the self-quarantine seems to be benefiting male academics, as the same editors highlight a significant increase ("more than 50 percent") in the submissions by male academics. 

    Dr Elizabeth Hannon, deputy editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, who is one of the cited editors that noticed a drop in female submissions, is quoted saying "I have now heard many stories from women of abandoned projects, collaborations they have felt unable to continue with, and so on."

    Prof James Wilsdon, director of the new Research on Research Institute based at the Wellcome, also is quoted in the Guardian article saying "We have to be very cautious that we are not privileging those who are able to use the coronavirus situation as time to race ahead of their peers, who are held back not by talent or aspiration but by the need to do homeschooling and put three meals a day on the table." He argues that research is not really compatible with family life in lockdown. "Research requires headspace and the ability to immerse yourself over a prolonged period."

    While the evidence in these articles is anecdotal, they are consistent with "broader patterns in academia (…) If men and women are at home, men "find a way" to do more academic work. When men take advantage of "stop the clock" policies, taking a year off the tenure-track after having a baby, studies show they'll accomplish far more professionally than their female colleagues, who tend to spend that time focused primarily or solely on childcare."

    While institutions around the country are allowing people to extend their tenure clock, these measures are applied equally to male and female colleagues, as they should. But the article points out the concern that female colleagues experience, which is that tenure committees will think, "Oh it was hard for everyone, we were all home and nervous." If men experience a gain in productivity due to self-quarantine, they may not need to request these extensions. Women may then be reluctant to request them. Will such a request create the wrong impression? ("How does it look to ask for an extension?") Will universities and departments operating on tighter budgets be eager to deny tenure? And for those who will lose their jobs, will it be harder to find a job elsewhere? 

    Within the AIS Women's Network, several of us have been discussing what we can do in our discipline (@Cathy Urquhart, Eleanor Loiacono, Jacqueline Corbett, Dawn Owens, Cynthia Beath). We agreed the best thing would be to first analyze the submission trends in our own journals: are the Editors in Chief of our journals seeing similar drops in (particularly sole-authored) submissions by women and increases in submissions by men? Or not? Should submitters with extra family burdens be explaining this in their submission letters? Should the journals fast track submissions from submitters with extra family burdens or at least ensure they get assigned quickly to SEs/AEs/reviewers? Should editors reduce the service burden on women, by not asking them to review the increased number of submissions by men? Or will that backfire on women by taking them out of the research loop? Who in AIS could take on the role of disseminating evidence and insights about any disproportionate impact in our field, if there is one, that could be cited in promotion and tenure cases by committee members and external reviewers?

    Two silver linings. One, I'm sure all mothers will agree with me that the quality time we are spending with our children is precious and priceless, despite the (almost complete) loss of productivity. Two, as pointed out in the Guardian-"All the juggling and the hidden labour of domesticity that is part of many academics' real lives is now being brought into view  (…) Maybe when those things are raised in the future, universities will be better at understanding."

    Wietske Van Osch

    Associate Professor in Digital Transformation, HEC Montreal
    Associate Professor, Michigan State University
    Full-Time COVID-19 Mother of an 18-month old boy

     

     

     

     



    ------------------------------
    Wietske Van Osch
    Associate Professor
    HEC Montréal
    Montreal QC
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 02:46:00 PM
    Hi Wietske

    Another journal discusses the issue.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01294-9?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=0f2156291a-briefing-dy-20200520&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-0f2156291a-45290934



    ------------------------------
    Richard Watson
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  • 3.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 03:16:00 PM

    My heart breaks for the women and men taking care of kids, parents and households during this time.  It disturbs me, too, to be reminded that women's lack of the trust in "the system" extends to worrying about whether taking an extra year on the clock will raise expectations for their productivity.  Sigh.   

     In my opinion, in the two articles Wietske cites, "women" is a proxy (but a very good proxy) for "people on whom falls all of or the bulk of the responsibility for households and housekeeping." These days that household can include not only children but parents, too, and not only your own children but their friends. So, while comparing submissions from women to submissions from men is probably doable, the conceptual comparison is between those with householding burdens and those without.  Unfortunately, those burdens are often not transparent to department chairs and are almost never transparent outside the department, to the associate dean for faculty, the dean, the P&T committees up the ladder, or the provost. And while the department chair might become aware that a faculty member or a member of her household had the virus, they are not going to know how much time was spent homeschooling, entertaining and distracting kids, taking care of parents, or doing the housework, errands or gardening formerly outsourced to others.

    I do think it would be very important to have field-specific data on this. How might we accomplish that?

    I've always said that we should all pat ourselves on the back - or have a martini  - for EVERY submission, not every acceptance, because submissions are the only things that we really have control over.  So if the Covid-19 hit is to submissions, that's really significant. And I'm not just thinking "fewer martinis."

    Who should be doing what about this?


    Wietske, thanks for taking good care of your baby and still having the time to think about your colleagues.



    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emerita
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-29-2020 05:48:00 PM
    Edited by Blake Ives 05-29-2020 05:51:52 PM

     

    Pandemic 'risks reversing' Australia's research gender equity gains

     

    [May 21, 2020]  "Women's careers suffer as they pick up the pieces at work and home"

    Article highlights findings from a May 17, 2020 report from the Chief Scientist of the Government of Australia in answer to the following ministerial request: 

    "What impact is the COVID-19 pandemic having on women in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) workforce?"

    The key findings included the following

    • "Women are a minority in STEM professions. Based on disparities in the distribution of domestic workloads and reduced career opportunities compared to men, this pandemic is expected to disproportionately hinder women's STEM careers."
    • "Early evidence on the impact of the epidemic suggests women face disproportionate increases in caring responsibilities and disruptions to working hours, job security and paid work capacity. This is most acute for those with children under 12."
    • "Job insecurity is emerging as an even more troubling issue for women in STEM than for men. High proportions of women employed in short-term contract and casual jobs are likely to be threatened by cuts to research and teaching jobs."
    • "Women from diverse backgrounds face additional barriers to entry, retention and progression in the STEM workforce. Anticipated COVID-related funding cuts to equity programs would set back gains in STEM workforce diversity."
    • Evidence demonstrates the benefits of diverse research workforces and the risks of homogenous research workforces, highlighting the need to hold gains made "by women in STEM in recent years."
    • "Hard-won gains by women in STEM are especially at risk. This risk will be even greater if STEM employers do not closely monitor and mitigate the gender impact of their decisions."

     

    https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pandemic-risks-reversing-australias-research-gender-equity-gains - Paywall



    ------------------------------
    Blake Ives
    bives@mac.com
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-29-2020 06:28:00 PM
    Edited by Cynthia Beath 05-30-2020 08:36:20 AM
    Aargh! This is so painful to read.  dr. boo
    ***********************************************
    Professor Emerita Cynthia Beath   
    IROM Department  
    2001 Speedway Stop, B6500, CBA 5.202
    University of Texas  at Austin
    Austin, TX 78712-0212
    ***********************************************


  • 6.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 04:01:00 PM
    Edited by Manju Ahuja 05-20-2020 04:02:17 PM
    Thank you for starting this discussion! 

    I have seen several such articles recently and imagine that this is happening across disciplines. Many universities are adding one year to tenure clocks but comparisons across tenure and promotion candidates invariably happen. Since these are all options, people will wonder why one person chose to do X, but someone else chose to do Y. Talking about it raises awareness of and may help build safeguards against biases that might get introduced with regard to these choices (e.g., "they both had one extra year but he was able to produce more than her"). 



    ------------------------------
    Manju Ahuja
    Professor and University Scholar
    University of Louisville
    Louisville KY
    502-852-4678
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-04-2020 05:14:00 PM
    Yes, Manju!  It appears that many schools are considering offering extended clocks for tenure or other "up-or-out" employment decisions to faculty who request them or "opt in" (U. Washington, Ohio State, Creighton, UC Santa Barbara, Michigan State, Northwestern, Syracuse).  Some people may worry about the career impacts of opting in to the tenure clock extension.  There is actually some evidence that what may be construed as a "flexibility stigma" may attach to taking an extra year.

    I recently read an excellent article in the Academy of Management Review that might help researchers think through this decision.  The article centers on the "work devotion attribution" made by the supervisor (or, in the academic setting, think "department chair") about the employee.  A positive attribution leads to good outcomes, a negative attribution leads to negative outcomes. The antecedents of this attribution include the employee's pre-existing "work devotion" reputation, as well as (unfortunately) proxies for reputation, such as gender, race, or class stereotypes; the supervisor's own work ethic and their own or vicarious experience with tenure-clock extensions; and the degree to which the organization (think, "school") is (or is not) supportive of life outside work. 

    I've been at schools where life outside work was acknowledged and valued and schools where life outside work was ignored and negated. I've known department chairs with biases that made it impossible for them to see beyond gender, race or class and others who worked hard to understand what made each faculty member tick. And I've had colleagues with well earned "work devotion" reputations and others with excellent reputation-management skills.  After reading this article, I see better why it's hard to say whether taking an extra year on your clock is or isn't a good idea and a choice whose outcome would be hard to explain or hard to predict.  But if you have to make this decision, I strongly recommend reading this article. Here's the citation:

    Sarah Bourdeau, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Nathalie Houlfort, "Not All Work-Life Policies are Created Equal: Career Consequences of Using Enabling versus Enclosing Work-Life Policies, Academy of Management Review, 44:1, 2019, p 172-193.  https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0429



    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-06-2020 01:04:00 PM
    After giving this a little more thought, it seems to me that faculty should be lobbying their schools and universities for more on-campus child-care, even during the summer.  This would help at least some people get back to work and will be crucial in the fall when teaching starts.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 04:14:00 PM
    I wonder if this problem is the same all over the world?  Is it better or worse where you are?

    Here is an article from the New York Times about disparities in domestic work in Japan during coronavirus times:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-household-work.html

    The opening photo says it all -- she is hanging laundry, he is staring off into space.  The article describes how he presented her with a list of the 21 tasks he was helping with.  She responded with a spreadsheet of the 210 tasks she was attending to. The spreadsheet now hangs on the refrigerator, so he can pick a task if he finds he has time on his hands.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emerita
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-25-2020 06:26:00 AM
    Edited by Isabel Ramos 05-25-2020 08:20:56 AM
    Thank you Cynthia for this question! As past-president of PTAIS I will look for this information about the PT community.
    From the experience of other crises, the situation should be similar although the confinement here in Portugal implied that the family stayed at home. As a result, children have limited working time to both parents. Women are often involved in university management activities, which at this stage is taking up a lot of their time. It will have consequences on scientific production as well.
    On the other hand, with a national focus on research projects, coordinating our teams also takes a long time to ensure that deadlines continue to be met.
    In summary, I suspect that the the situation in Portugal will be a lower performance in publication for men and women and a greater workload for women as they are trying to coordinate family management with academic management.

    But will check!

    ------------------------------
    Isabel Ramos
    Associate Professor
    Universidade do Minho
    Guimaraes
    352000000000
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 04:40:00 PM
    Dear all,
    I have been very concerned about this issue, particularly for our young colleagues, many of whom are parents. The stress of emergency distance teaching, homeschooling, chores, the uncertainty of the virus is also compounded by new service requirements as we try to plan for summer and fall. I am concerned about additional service - which often falls unequally on women . COVID planning has meant extra service work.  If women take the brunt of it, this will also have an impact on research productivity.  The AIS Women's Network has done a great job of creating a mentoring network.  Managing service requests during COVID is something we should help out mentees navigate.

    ------------------------------
    Monica Tremblay
    Associate Professor
    William & Mary
    Williamsburg VA
    757-221-1887
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 05:11:00 PM
    Back when I was an assistant professor and already being asked to take on many service jobs at the University of Minnesota ("because we need a woman on the committee!"), my friend John King gave me some excellent advice: "When they call, just tell them that you'll get back to them after you run it by your dean. Then run it by your dean." I did run some of the requests by my dean, and others by my department chair, and others by someone else with clout elsewhere.  Should I, an assistant professor take on this role, or not? I got excellent advice, which I mostly listened to. Once the dean even asked me to take the service role as a favor to him. Of course I did. I actually think this lowered my service burden overall, even though I developed a reputation for doing a lot of service.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emerita
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-27-2020 04:28:00 PM
    Can anyone think of a way to assess whether women have taken on more of the burden of moving classes online?  Will it take an AIS survey? If this is the case, we should all be aware of it.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 05:14:00 PM
    I think it's worth noting that we will likely see this discrepancy between female and male graduate students as well as faculty.

    I don't have children, so I can't comment on the element of childcare. However, it's certainly my experience that as a female grad student, most of the other household duties fall on me - the cooking, cleaning, and general emotional and cognitive labor to keep the house running - and there seems to be a lot more of that during COVID. I'm cooking almost all meals at home, and even if we do decide to order in, someone (me) needs to think about that order and place it an hour ahead of when we'd like to eat. We're going through more dishes and laundry than ever, and although my husband is willing to help with household chores, I almost always have to ask him to do them. This leaves me with the small but taxing effort of monitoring the dirty dishes in the sink, how many eggs are left in the refrigerator, did we cancel the flights from that trip we had planned, did I remember to buy Mother's Day cards two weeks early at my monthly trip to the grocery store, etc.

    I think COVID has compounded a challenge we were facing before: that because I'm "only" a graduate student, I am responsible for more of the home upkeep tasks. Even before COVID, if someone needed to stay home to meet the cable installer or the plumber, it was always me because my schedule is so much more flexible and my salary is so much lower. This is not at all unreasonable, but also not a recipe for successful and dedicated research work. This attitude has carried into this new COVID landscape, even though both of our schedules have now become equally flexible and we're spending equal time at home: when someone needs to stop working to cook lunch, it falls to me. This is my experience with a very supportive and understanding spouse who, like me, is struggling to adjust our family from the models in which we both grew up, so I know I'm understating the challenges for female grad students with spouses who are less understanding, less supportive, and more dedicated to the "traditional" family model in which many of us grew up. I wonder if now-adults who were raised in families with two working parents are more adept at equally shouldering the household load? 


    ------------------------------
    Cassandra Collier
    Ph.D. Candidate
    University of Houston
    Houston TX
    816-7866864
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-27-2020 04:38:00 PM
    I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Cassandra, but years from now when you are the breadwinner and your evolved husband is home taking care of your children, some of this will persist.  I've found it helpful to enumerate, during the cocktail hour, the household chores that I have taken on that day, even some that are considered "naturally" mine.  I confess to milking this for all it's worth, including, for example, the remembering, scheduling, rescheduling and executing, for example, of a visit by the dog to the vet. At first my highly evolved, feminist husband listened but did not respond much, but now he always says thank you, and then he follows suit with his own list. I offer my thanks as well. His list often contains surprises (as does mine, I suppose) that make me feel better.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-20-2020 10:30:00 PM
    Cynthia asked if I can provide some data in my role as EinC of the ISJ, one of the AIS basket of 8 journals.

    My general comment is that I have *not* noticed a reduction in submissions from women. But this may be because it is too early to notice such changes - as we know, papers take months and years to craft.

    I have seen requests for extensions of deadlines - from authors, reviewers, AEs, SEs - but no more so than usual and no more from women than from men.

    The ISJ does have deadline for all stakeholders. I will extend a deadline if given fair warning, but I am reluctant to grant extended deadlines when asked in the minutes before (or after) a deadline expires. 

    I can dig up data on actual submission numbers over the last 6 months. However, determining whether an author is male or female is much more tricky because this kind of demographic data is not collected as far as I know and thus I need to parse names - which themselves are often open to gender (mis)interpretation. Data privacy laws prevent me from giving real examples from ISJ submissions but if you look at just the original names of your international students you may get an idea. However, I will ask my journal manager @ Wiley if gender data is captured and if I can see some data.

    Other points... (responding to Cynthia's email to me)

    I think that the quality of recent submissions is down, but this is largely because of simple opportunism: I am seeing a lot of papers that ostensibly reference the current pandemic situation and argue for quick publication. But the vast majority of these submissions are weakly thrown together collections of notes and anecdotes. I have not seen serious IS research on the topic with careful reviews of the literature, theorisation, data collection/analysis, etc. I have also seen a spate of special issue proposals, many from opportunists who aim to get papers in, reviews done, papers revised and the whole lot published by October (2020). Hmm. 

    Timeliness of reviews is always a problem. Delays are often delayed. But I do not see this situation as being worse at the moment than usual. Review quality also is generally not affected - there are always better or worse reviews, but no more so now than usually. Likewise, securing reviewers is very hard. In the last few years (not months) we find that we often need to ask 10 people to get 2 to agreed to review. The other 8 are happy to submit, of course, but ... 

    A demographic that may be of interest to this thread concerns the ISJ itself. I understand that 33% of the academic members (excluding PhD students) of the AIS are female. At the ISJ, 37% of our AEs, SEs and EAB members are female. I won't comment on the proportions for other journals. I suppose that, at least from reading through the arguments in this thread, the ISJ might inadvertently be penalised because of this over-representation. However, I don't have any evidence that this is the case. I can also try to collect data on the timeliness of SEs/AEs at processing their tasks - comparing men and women (I am not aware of any non-binary SEs or AEs) - but from memory, I can't recall any significant differences.

    Robert


    ------------------------------
    Robert Davison
    Professor
    City University of Hong Kong
    Kowloon
    852-3442-7534
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-22-2020 05:38:00 PM
    Thanks to all of you (and for Wietske for starting it) for making this issue salient to me.  I have now gotten our USC provost involved to decide what this means for reviews in the Fall. (as well, of course, as the Faculty Dean for Marshall who is looking to the Provost for leadership on the issue).   Keep pointing out the articles and you come across them since I'll just overload the provost with evidence from a variety of sources.  I'll let you know if any policies or practices are instituted.  

    Ann Majchrzak

    ------------------------------
    Ann Majchrzak
    Professor
    University of Southern California
    Los Angeles CA
    213-7404023
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 02:20:00 PM
    Dear Ann and who who have contributed to this thread,

    Thank you for your many interesting comments. 

    When I was researching an editorial (co-authored by Susan Winter) as a part of John King's policy section in JAIS, I was surprised --- and disheartened --- at the quantity of research substantiating gender inequality in academia. It is clear the gender inequality is deeply embedded in the structure of academia. It is so deeply embedded that it makes one wonder what we can do to reduce that inequality.  I applaud your efforts, Ann, to provide your provost with documentation.

    Susan Winter and I provide some documentation of the inequality in our editorial in JAIS's November issue. We also make some suggestions about how each one of us can work to create a policies to deal with the inequality.  Please see: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol20/iss11/1/  

    The article by Bird, S.R. (2011) in Gender, Work & Organization (and reference in our editorial) about policies adopted by Iowa State University might be especially useful to you.



    ------------------------------
    Carol Saunders
    Dr.
    University of South Florida
    Tampa FL
    407-280-9174
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 03:35:00 PM
    Carol, Susan Winter pointed out your editorial in a facebook comment. I have just read it and thank you both for writing it!

    I completely agree that gender inequality is deeply embedded in not just the structure of academia. So, I strongly believe we have to keep talking and writing about this issue. Patriarchy doesn't just hurt women (nor is it perpetuated just by men), it hurts everyone and it certainly hurts the discipline and the overall mission of higher education.

    ------------------------------
    Manju Ahuja
    Frazier Family Professor
    University of Louisville
    Louisville KY
    502-852-4678
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 03:26:00 PM
    Ann, that is really effective step!

    What if we, as a group of concerned scholars, collectively develop a call for action, which we can each send to our a respective university administrators? We can provide data, outline issues, and recommend specific actions. Perhaps it can even be done at the association level (as an official statement from AIS) if we can get agreement?

    ------------------------------
    Manju Ahuja
    Professor and University Scholar
    University of Louisville
    Louisville KY
    502-852-4678
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 04:22:00 PM
    sign me up!��





  • 22.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 11:21:00 AM
    Wietske,
    Thank you for bringing this issue up. I for one have had to take on a new position during this pandemic. Besides my "regular" job, I am now  teaching third grade. My son is 9 and receives work to do everyday via email. There are different technologies he is asked to use, which means I have to download and set them up before he can use them. He also has online meetings with different teachers and groups, which I need to keep track of. This back and forth breaks-up my work day and makes it more difficult to have blocks of time for deep thinking and writing. 

    I would love to hear how others are dealing with this issue and if they have found balance.

    ------------------------------
    Eleanor Loiacono
    Professor
    Worcester Polytechnic Institute
    Worcester MA
    (508) 831-5206
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-24-2020 01:15:00 PM
    Edited by Richard Mason 05-24-2020 01:20:19 PM
     The unfair burden on women scholars is a very important issue that university administrators must take into account.

    This leads me to a very radical suggestion for AIS and this series. It's likely to be shouted down, but here goes.
    Several leading medical journals like Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine are releasing articles on Covid-19 and related issues to the public, without subscription. They consider it to be a public service at a time of need.  Yesterday via Zoom I heard the President of our local college discuss to broad set of issues he and is staff and faculty were facing. He said that everything the school does has to be reviewed, discussed and likely changed. "Everything is on the Table." I have talked to a couple of people and read a few articles that express much the same concerns. While they often do not come out and say it: They need Help!

    I understand why AIS wants to keep this series, which I assume is popular, in house -- a perk for membership. Nevertheless, I think that that this set of experiences and reflections and the issues and insights they raise would be of potential use to all leaders in higher education. My suggestion is to make the contributions in this series -- and not other papers etc-- be made available to the public. In fact I suggest further that a campaign to inform Presidents and other Higher Ed leaders of their availability be undertaken. I recognize that each author would have to agree to the release since some contributions contain personal experience and thoughts.  And, it may seem presumptuous  to suggest that these leaders need our help. But, if just a few leaders benefit from reading these contributions AIS will have provided a service and, perhaps, bolstered its reputation and that of our discipline.

    ------------------------------
    Richard Mason
    PROFESSOR EMERTIUS
    Southern Methodist University
    Durango TX
    ------------------------------


  • 24.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-26-2020 10:39:00 AM
    As Editor of ISJ, I took the trouble (and time) to look at the genders of the submitting authors to the ISJ over the last 17 months. I only looked at original submissions (not revised papers) . Scholar One does not currently provide the means to collect gender data, so I had to code each author manually. That's fairly easy in some cases, and very problematic in other cases. Not all authors have home pages (even if I want to check hundreds of home pages, which I don't). What I found is that males first authors occur approximately twice as frequently as female first authors. Bearing in mind AIS data that shows there are twice as many male academic members as female, this ratio is what I would expect. What is also salient is that this ratio did not change much over the 16 months of data I examined, i.e. women are not less likely to be submitting papers as first authors in the last few months (due to C19) compared to earlier time periods. In fact, the opposite is true - there were more women first authors in the last 4-5 months than previously. More does not mean as high as a 1-1 ratio, but quite close. In January 2020, the ratio was 0.87-1. The average across 16 months is 0.52-1.

    I suppose that if I had the time, I could do more sophisticated analyses, e.g. examining the country where the authors work. For your information, 20% of the first submissions came from authors in the US. No other country exceeded 10%. But a total of 64 countries are in the data, i.e. a  long tail.

    Robert

    ------------------------------
    Robert Davison
    Professor
    City University of Hong Kong
    Kowloon
    852-3442-7534
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-26-2020 02:19:00 PM
    Edited by Blake Ives 05-26-2020 02:20:23 PM
    This is interesting data and I hope I will not be alone in thanking Robert for taking the time and effort to collect it.  His data seems to reflect well on ISJ in regards to the representativeness of women authors,  though ISJ may  or may not be representative of the rest of the Senior Scholars basket or of other journals regularly publishing IS work.  I wonder, however, if it is a fair assessment of the current concern - the impact of C-19 on the productivity of female scholars?  Might it instead be  an early data point on a continuum that started in mid-March of 2020 and may go on for a year or more?  It takes time, often many months to design and execute research and  to then write a paper. Can the impact on productivity - male or female, good or bad - be effectively evaluated in just two months? 

    I am not suggesting Robert's effort was misspent; he offers us compelling, albeit ISJ-centric, data on the broader issue of  discrimination against women scholars and an initial data point for a longitudinal examination of the potential problem this thread is addressing,  Thanks for that Robert!  

    Perhaps in a few months other EIC's may share with us their own journal's records.

    ------------------------------
    Blake
    ------------------------------


  • 26.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-26-2020 07:39:00 PM
    The data provided by Robert are indeed interesting. As Blake suggested, they may not be answering the question that seems to be at the heart of the discussion, i.e. in the wake of COVID-19, are women *being* negatively affected in their ability to submit manuscripts to Basket journals (in addition to other professional activities, such as reviewing for Basket journals, teaching, submitting grant proposals, mentoring students, etc.) significantly more so than men?

    Considering the behavioral sequence of what is involved in a manuscript submission process, those research endeavors that were nearly completed by ~mid-March (as a point in time when lockdown measures were starting to be implemented by governments around the world), were likely to be submitted - perhaps later than originally planned, or with less attention to quality in the final editing of the manuscript (sort of a "no time to polish" situation), but submitted nonetheless.

    However, the professional disruption caused by COVID-19 is likely to affect projects in earlier stages, as early as initiation to as late as data analysis or even early writing stages. Considering how long a 'typical' research project lasts, and that the disruption will persist at least through the end of this calendar year, it is more likely that the dip may be observed in the months and years to come, depending on the stage of the project at this time. As Blake suggests, the ISJ data provided by Robert can be a useful benchmark (internal to the journal, or in aggregate with data from other Basket journals) in evaluating the severity of the disruption for women I.S. scholars. Moreover, the analysis would be better informed if it somehow incorporated Cynthia's great point early on, i.e. it is about "house-holding burdens", which have only compounded because of COVID-19. Even in the absence of such data, I would be surprised to learn that Basket submissions, say, over the next 24-months are not significantly different between men and women, especially at the early- and (possibly) mid-career stages, where the balancing act between research and and new course preparations (especially as they are to be re-developed or initially designed for online delivery) is likely to be an elusive goal particularly under the current conditions.

    The other piece that stood out to me was the effort that was needed by Robert to pull, clean, and analyze the data as a contribution to this discussion. I greatly appreciate his time, and it should be easier to generate such reports. As the recently appointed AIS Assistant VP for Research Publications, I will be connecting with Rajiv Kohli, AIS VP Publications, to explore if we could do something to facilitate a more efficient data collection and subsequent analysis, a service that could be scaled once launched and extend into other areas also likely to benefit our professional community.

    ------------------------------
    Constantinos Coursaris
    Associate Professor
    HEC Montreal
    Montreal
    514-314-6902
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-27-2020 08:52:00 AM
    To reply, briefly, to Blake and Constantinos

    Yes, of course, this is early data and the true effects may not be known for some time to come. But just as great papers take time to come to fruition, so we have to start collecting data early! I expect that I will do this on an annual basis from now on and will thus be able to report somewhere how the various numbers change over time as measured in months and years. If Rajiv can persuade Clarivate/Scholar One to record gender data of submitting authors, that would be excellent. But I suspect that it is somewhat controversial and there will be arguments for and against. Indeed, at the journal level it will not only be what the editor wants but also what the publisher wants. 

    Like Blake, I can't comment on the representativeness (or otherwise) of the ISJ, vis-a-vis the other AIS basket journals. It will be useful if the editors of the other journals could undertake a similar analysis of their data. My procedures are simple, if a little tedious, and I am happy to share them on request. I did find a programme that will guess the gender of a name for free. This is genderize.io. You can upload a csv file to the API and off it goes, at a rate of about 10 names per second. The problem, however, was that the accuracy level dropped very quickly for Chinese names in particular. As you may surmise, there are a lot of Chinese names in my list - about 16% of the total. To wit, I know personally many individual males and females who have Chinese names and many appeared in my list of contributors, yet many had an incorrect gender assigned by the API. As a result, I decided to check all the Chinese names by hand - and probably 50% were not correctly assigned by the API - that's too large a margin of error for my taste. If I had the characters for the names, and if the software took Chinese input, then the accuracy level would be higher, but we don't collect Chinese names in Chinese at source. Only an extended Latin set is possible AFAIK, i.e. with diacritics, but no non-Latin alphabets. That may also be a ScholarOne setting.

    Finally, yes, I agree, it would also be useful to collect data about changes in time management that result from the current situation, and thus of the amount of time available to contribute to research activities. Collecting that data needs a survey of the contributing authors or perhaps the wider AIS community. I suppose that each editor could send a quick survey (ideally centrally designed and agreed upon by us) to all the submitting authors for each journal and see if we can persuade them to give us some quick answers. I am wary of consuming any more of their time than is absolutely necessary, so 2-3 questions would be better. If they have already responded to the survey for one journal, they should not submit a second time because of an invitation from another journal. But for reasons of GDPR, data privacy and the fact that they did not consent to have their personal contact details distributed, I don't think we can create a single integrated list.

    Robert

    So, it is imperfect, like much of research, but I felt that it was a worthwhile exercise and one that is worth repeating in the years to come.


    ------------------------------
    Robert Davison
    Professor
    City University of Hong Kong
    Kowloon
    852-3442-7534
    ------------------------------



  • 28.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-27-2020 05:08:00 PM
    Thank you so much, Robert, for analyzing ISJ's submissions. I know it was a lot of work, and I appreciate it. It's not exactly good news -- it's too soon to tell, but it's not terrible news either. It would be so terribly frustrating if the negative impact on women in IS was already showing up in the data. So that's good to know.

    I'd like to add a couple of thoughts: I think that in this case "women" is a rough proxy, albeit a good one, for researchers with overwhelming home and family responsibilities (like being, as Eleanor Loiacono notes, becoming a third-grade teacher and a sys admin).  As Constantinos mentions, the missing data element is the size of this burden. It would be good if we could create a social norm that would make this burden (or the lack of it) more transparent.

    That is, it would be nice (I know I am dreaming here) if submission forms asked everyone to reveal the number and ages of children they had at home, whether or not they were caring for parents or grandparents or siblings, whether they or anyone in their family had been or was sick, how many online classes they had converted in the last 6 months, how many students they taught in the last year, and the size (in work-year equivalents) of their university or AIS service burdens.  It would be nice if we had all this information about our colleagues, too. (I was sometimes surprised in the past to learn that some of my male colleagues not only were actually married, but had several children, and I had one female colleague who hid the fact that she had three children from her department chair until all the children were in school.) Let's get this information out in the open where we can get a better handle on it!

    I know that when authors ask for extensions, it's frustrating. Under the present circumstances, I'm asking that you inquire of ALL authors (not just women) requesting extensions, with an open mind, to please describe their home circumstances and their Covid-19 situation.  We all need to get a clearer picture of what our colleagues are dealing with at home. I hope doing so will make you less frustrated with some requests and way more frustrated with others!

    Thank you again for all you do for our field!

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 29.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 05-31-2020 12:55:00 PM
    Edited by Wietske Van Osch 05-31-2020 12:56:31 PM
    Dear all!
    Sorry to be late in my replies. My productive time is only during nap time or late evenings and with ongoing work commitments, this was my first opportunity to respond in a meaningful way.
    Overall, I am thrilled by the amount of activity this post generated and to see the engagement of so many scholars, male and female, and across different ranks and age groups! I am very appreciative of each and everyone of you taking the time to respond, share additional resources and/or initial data, as well as personal experiences and your individual efforts in making a difference!
    @Richard Watson: Thank you for sharing this article from Nature. It also shows some real data, albeit from different disciplines. If pre-print was a thing in our discipline, perhaps it would be faster to observe the impact as well!
    Also love the suggestion about making these discussions public in the hope that our contributions and discussions as AiS Scholars can have a broader impact!
    @Cynthia: Thank you for being so involved as a senior scholar! I totally agree that ultimately it is about "housekeeping" or "caregiving". There might be men in similar situations, however, as you point out too, I think "women" is a pretty good proxy (at least for now).
    Loved the article about Japan - clearly it is not just a problem for academics! :-)
    @Blake: Thank you for sharing the report from the Chief Scientist of the Government of Australia. Some very inter findings. I think the insight that is also important is that the disparity will be greatest for women with children under 12. This underscores Cynthia's point about housekeeping (and I would add caregiving responsibilities) being ultimately what we are interested in. However, as of now, this is hard to measure (when looking at submission data).
    Thank you also for your response to Robert - I agree with the need for longitudinal assessments - but also understand this will be a lot of work/burden for EiCs!
    @Manju: Thank you for this perspective! 
    Love the idea of a call for action! This is my hope that using data (in addition to anecdotes/stories) we can maybe create policy recommendations for how tenure and promotion committees should evaluate candidates following Covid-19 (and maybe more generally).
    @Isabel: Interesting perspective about Portugal. Two of the big reasons for the disparity in North-America are that it appears thar the brunt of domestic/childcare still falls on women and that many men in academia have stay-at-home/part-time working partners whereas women academics are married to full-time working partners. I wonder if these circumstances are different in Portugal. In the Netherlands, I can see how some circumstances might be different, but my guess is that #2 still persists. 
    @Monica: Thank you for sharing the importance of mentorship! The AIS Women's Network has done a great job in this regard and I hope will continue to play this role even in these difficult times and in the absence of our face-to-face network activities. 
    @Cassandra: Thank you for sharing your perspective and experiences as a graduate student! Wishing you success and strength in these difficult circumstances!
    @Robert: Thank you for taking the time and effort to get some real data. I really appreciate it! I also find your observations about quality, opportunism, and review timeliness very insightful! 
    @Ann: Thank you for raising this issue with the Provost at your institution!
    @Carol: Thank you for your insights! Gender inequality is a deeply embedded issue and unfortunately is amplified during these times! I will be reading your editorial with interest in particular in regards to the policy suggestions you make.
    @Eleanor: Thank you for sharing your experience! Mine is fortunately not school age yet (that sounds like a very busy schedule and a lot of IT multi-tasking), but still find it hard to find balance as an 18-mo needs constant attention!
    @Constantinos: Excellent points and thank you for being willing to raise this with Rajiv. Cynthia and I have been working on creating a process description for analyzing gender data based on existing academic resources and our own trial as well as creating sample spreadsheets for analysis and reporting. Happy to share if of interest/help!


    ------------------------------
    Wietske Van Osch
    Associate Professor
    HEC Montréal
    Montreal QC
    4383463134
    ------------------------------



  • 30.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 06-07-2020 01:36:00 AM
    Edited by Jan Recker 06-07-2020 01:36:19 AM
      |   view attached
    Cynthia and Wietske asked me to provide some data from the Communications of the Association for Information Systems. I was happy to do that. The reason we waited with our analysis until now is that we wanted to have more Covid-related submission data available (i.e., including submissions from March to May 2020).

    I am attaching a brief report we created in analogy to the reported data in the Nature article referenced above and the stats provided by Robert from ISJ. I hope it is self-explanatory, if not we can provide help. Note that coding data for gender can be error-prone and we did not take steps to verify our (subjective) coding. We do not offer interpretations of the data. We tried to put context around the data so everyone can draw their own conclusions.

    Beyond the reported data, at CAIS we noticed a slight decrease in general review turnaround times but nothing to be concerned about. I believe this is entirely appropriate in a period where many if not all of us had to make adjustments to life and work.

    Jan

    ------------------------------
    Jan Recker
    Professor
    University of Cologne

    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)



  • 31.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 06-07-2020 12:56:00 PM
    Edited by Wietske Van Osch 06-07-2020 12:57:05 PM

    Dear Jan, 


    Thank you very much for taking the time, with Roman, to analyze the data, create this insightful report, and post your data to the forum.


    I think it tells a story similar to what various articles (including the one in Nature) have reported, albeit perhaps less dramatic and (most likely) not statistically significant, given the limited data points. This is why it will be so helpful and important to have data from multiple journals and why I appreciate you and Robert being so proactive on this topic!


    One interesting data pattern and observation is that the drop in the ratio of female to male (first) authors during COVID-19 is similar to the drop we see around the holiday/winter break, which would underscore the role of "householding"  (as Cynthia refers to it) and childcare in lowering - in particular - female productivity. 


    Thank you again! 


    Wietske



    ------------------------------
    Wietske Van Osch
    Associate Professor
    HEC Montréal
    Montreal QC
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-01-2020 04:23:00 PM
    Edited by Blake Ives 07-01-2020 04:26:36 PM
    Our "In the News" Section includes two new articles regarding the impact of the pandemic on the productivity of female scholars - with an acknowledgment in one that, "Of course, there are men doing childcare out there..."

    I am duplicating the entries below:


    Juggling childcare with academia: female experiences in lockdown

    [June 25, 2020]  "Female academics with children say they fear the pandemic lockdowns have affected their careers" 

    https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/juggling-childcare-academia-female-experiences-lockdown



    Pandemic lockdown holding back female academics, data show

    [June 25, 2020]  "Unequal childcare burden blamed for fall in share of published research by women since schools shut, but funding bodies look to alleviate career impact"

    This article's conclusions are substantiated by references to survey data.

    https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pandemic-lockdown-holding-back-female-academics-data-show

     



    ------------------------------
    Blake Ives
    bives@mac.com
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-08-2020 01:04:00 PM
      |   view attached
    A fascinating thread.  I co-edit Information Technology and People and we have seen a marked increase in submissions since March this year (although this should also be seen as part of a broader trend of increased submissions for the journal). Our Manuscript Central configuration has recently been tweaked to require all accounts to include gender (with the option of prefer not to say) but I haven't done the kind of author gender analysis on the older data that Robert and Jan have done.

    Edgar

    ------------------------------
    Edgar Whitley
    Dr
    London School of Economics
    London
    (44)2079557410
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)



  • 34.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-08-2020 05:05:00 PM
    Hello Edgar, would you consider doing a gender-based analysis at some point? It could help track if any patterns are emerging.

    ------------------------------
    Manju Ahuja
    Professor and University Scholar
    University of Louisville
    Louisville KY
    502-852-4678
    ------------------------------



  • 35.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-09-2020 07:19:00 AM
    Of course.  

    We should be careful about the distinction between first authorship and contribution as the norms / expectations / requirements vary considerably across institutions.  For example, my institution "recognises that co-authorship is the norm for some disciplines and where this is the case, jointly authored work will be considered of equal standing. However, the [Promotions] Committee has found statements concerning joint authored work to be somewhat ambiguous. In
    some disciplines it is now commonplace to record contributions to joint work in percentage terms. Candidates are required to provide a numerical indication in percentage terms of their contribution(s) to joint work on the CV, alongside the requirement to state the respective contributions of co-authors in regard to the initiation, conduct and direction of the work. Candidates should also provide details of the degree of intellectual contribution made to the work (e.g. indicating their involvement in the formulation of key themes, concepts and theories")(see 
    Krasnova, H., Henfridsson, O., Riemenschneider, C., Schäfer, K., Trkman, P., Veltri, N. F., and Whitley, E. A. (2014). Publication Strategy for Junior Researchers: Quantity vs. Quality, Importance of the First Authorship and Collaboration, Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS) 34(Article 33) (available at http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3756&context=cais).

    This means that we should be considering *all* authors - which then, of course, emphasizes the problem that Robert found about determining the gender for non-Western names (and the limited (=biased) "training sets" that many such automated tools use).

    Edgar


    ------------------------------
    Edgar Whitley
    Dr
    London School of Economics
    London
    (44)2079557410
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-09-2020 08:03:00 AM
    Edited by Wietske Van Osch 07-09-2020 08:05:02 AM
      |   view attached
    Thank you Edgar for sharing your insights and being willing to conduct a similar analysis for Information Technology & People. The point about considering first vs. all authors is an interesting one, in particular given that IT&P is an interdisciplinary journal, hence, I could imagine authorship practices are more diverse compared with a core IS journal. Boo and I have been conducting both sets of analyses, but reporting them separately along the lines of the report shared by Jan Recker for CAIS. I believe reporting them separate could be more insightful, while still shedding light on both first and all authors. As for the names, yes, there are many issues with non-Western names. Boo and I created a document that captures the manual process we followed for any names that were associated with a confidence level lower than 95% using the genderizer. Please find it attached in case you find it useful. Also, by now, we have generated a database of about 1600 (manually) genderized names, which we could share *by email* if it might be helpful. 


    ------------------------------
    Wietske Van Osch
    Associate Professor
    HEC Montréal
    Montreal QC
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)



  • 37.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 07-17-2020 04:14:00 PM
    "A survey of principal investigators indicates that female scientists, those in the 'bench sciences' and, especially, scientists with young children experienced a substantial decline in time devoted to research."

    COVID-19 has not affected all scientists equally, finds a survey with 4,535 respondents published in Nature Human Behaviour.


    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0921-y.epdf?sharing_token=jr-bmbTH7Ir3hY6JCogn8NRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O7PVg9T73ioZLt1op0rTpbhhrLBBeXkW-6PCT9mExKFRuKMEFluQCVFF6WARgIE13b4QHwW3H46ADR2dlQdMkoYnC67wwI1107KSWSw4tLU1lHvheYQc-jP0b6H6k7B7s%3D

    ------------------------------
    Richard Watson
    University of Georgia
    ------------------------------



  • 38.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 08-20-2020 07:00:00 PM

    Highlights:

    "Months later, journal submission rates for women have improved in some cases. But the general outlook for women remains poor, with K-12 schools still closed in many communities, childcare options and other services still greatly reduced, and a bumpy teaching semester ahead."

    "Without meaningful interventions, the trend is likely to continue." and
    "... the challenge "needs more thinking about and a bigger public conversation, because this situation is not going away fast.""

    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/20/womens-journal-submission-rates-continue-fall#.Xz7wZa0Mie0.link



    ------------------------------
    Manju Ahuja
    Professor and University Scholar
    University of Louisville
    Louisville KY
    502-852-4678
    ------------------------------



  • 39.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 09-17-2020 07:19:00 AM
    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/09/17/the-pandemic-is-making-it-harder-for-researchers-but-women-are-hit-the-hardest-4-findings-from-80-countries/
    "Conducted over May 2020 across 80 countries, the research found that the pandemic had left academic authors with less time for their research and busier than ever. We also uncovered a worrying trend that female academics and those with caring responsibilities were struggling the most"

    ------------------------------
    Edgar Whitley
    Dr
    London School of Economics
    London
    (44)2079557410
    ------------------------------



  • 40.  RE: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS

    Posted 06-03-2021 04:46:00 PM
    News Flash!  Wietske and I have written a paper on this topic that is Forthcoming in CAIS.  The title is "COVID-19 and Caregiving IS Researchers: In the same storm, but not in the same boat."  Here's the abstract: 

    In early 2020, reports emerged about the negative effects of COVID-19 on the productivity of female researchers who were taking care of their families during the pandemic, while male researchers spent their time in lockdown writing more papers and increasing their productivity. We wondered if the pandemic was affecting caregivers (mostly female) in the Information Systems (IS) discipline in the same way. If it was, we hoped to be able to suggest what actions caregivers might take in response. As an approximate way of distinguishing caregivers from non-caregivers in our analysis, we used gender. The results of our analysis are mixed, but they do suggest that COVID-19 has had some negative impacts on IS researchers who are caregivers. We offer 14 recommendations to caregiving IS researchers for mitigating the effects of the pandemic on their professional lives.

    We'd be happy to share a copy of it.  Just send me an email.

    ------------------------------
    Cynthia Beath
    Professor Emeritus
    University of Texas - Austin
    cynthia.beath@mccombs.utexas.edu
    ------------------------------