COM3278
Deliverable 1 - Summary of the Health Crisis Challenges
Assignment Content
Create a summary of the challenges in health crisis communication across national and cultural boundaries.
Competency
Summarize the issues that have been encountered in developing a global lingua franca.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Scenario
As a new employee with the Infectious Disease Task Force (IDTF) of the World Health Organization (WHO), you have been tasked with expanding and improving communication across the Eastern Hemisphere regional offices (Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia). The WHO has become increasingly concerned with viral outbreaks and other health threats—like anti-microbial resistance—that easily transcend borders.
As diseases do not respect national interests, vulnerability for one nation is a vulnerability for all. The Spanish flu in 1918 killed 50 million people. The SARS outbreak cost the global economy over €50 billion. Dengue fever cost €10 billion to treat 58 million victims worldwide. ZIKA: €3 billion so far in health care and lost productivity (all costs are shown in euros). More recently, the world has seen the return of cholera and yellow fever.
With over 70% of all countries lying within the Eastern Hemisphere and 3 billion air travelers per year, a global pandemic could occur within hours, not days.
Mapping the WHO's capacities for communication and response requires preparing the world for global responsibility and leadership. With roughly 7,000 world languages and several hundred shared or second languages that would need to be bridged to provide rapid response information, development of a means to communicate across national and cultural boundaries is a top priority.
Instructions
Your first task as IDTF's Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director is to create a backgrounder (a short informational document) on lingua francas to be included in the WHO's media kit. The backgrounder should give the press and other interested people essential detail on lingua francas, their usefulness, and their historical natural and constructed development.
Since the backgrounder is an executive summary of the larger media kit, it is expected that it consists of a minimum of three pages and a maximum of five pages, double-spaced, APA format.
Topics you are expected to cover in the backgrounder are:
Analyze the historical and current reasons for creating a lingua franca.
Trace the history of lingua francas across the Eastern Hemisphere.
Describe the use of lingua francas in trade and diplomacy.
Contrast contemporary global lingua francas.
Discuss the advantages of a global lingua franca.
Contrast natural language lingua francas with constructed languages meant to be used as a lingua franca.
Categorize the issues in creating a global lingua franca.
Discuss how language affects culture and vice-versa.
Describe two major issues facing the deployment and use of any global language.
NOTE - APA formatting and proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling are required. APA help is available
COM3278
Deliverable 2 - Custom Markup Language Presentation
Assignment Content
Create a presentation explaining how a custom markup language for documents might style digital content to provide better access to medical content.
Competency
Illustrate how markup languages can be used as a lingua franca.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane
Scenario
WHO's multilingual web site, publications, and other resources help ensure that health information reaches the people who need it, as soon as they need it, in the languages they can understand.
Unfortunately, many WHO documents are not sufficiently multilingual, being produced and distributed in only the six official United Nations languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese.) Only a few dozen other languages are supported, as needed, by external partners.
The WHO website content is carefully selected to meet the needs of different readers and linguistic groups, but, due to financial constraints, technical content—including critical information for medical personnel — is only published in some of the six official languages. The 2008-2013 Strategic Plan was unable to resolve the language disparity.
This has left the WHO with two major issues:
Not all of the content is provided in sufficient quantity or timeliness to be effective, especially during health crises.
Many WHO publications exist only as PDF documents, making online access in other non-official languages problematic.
Instructions
The WHO recognizes that risk communication is one of the first and most important public health interventions in outbreaks, and the Director-General is increasingly concerned about potential global pandemics. You have been tasked, as the Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director of theInfectious Disease Task Force (IDTF), to prepare a summary PowerPoint presentation to the Executive Board of the UN's World Health Assembly on how to most efficiently implement a pilot program to "provide instant online access to all of WHO's content needed in a health crisis."
The board is aware that documents need to be scanned to text and metadata added to allow multilingual searching of the entire collection, and the previous Strategic Plan suggested basing multi-language support on extensible markup language (XML).
Your presentation should focus on how markup languages, like HTML and XML, could be used in addition to or in collaboration with the main WHO website to provide instant access to training, prevention, and treatment information—in multiple languages—during a health crisis.
The WHO has secured the funds to provide regional centers with mobile devices and remote Internet access along with translation of several hundred thousand documents into another 25 significant languages, from Polish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish to Swahili, Berber, Hausa, Yoruba, Hindustani, Bengali, and Tamil.
What they need to understand is how markup languages—along with the metadata the translation services will provide—can allow health services to receive and distribute information digitally in the native languages of the communities they serve. If the pilot is successful, the WHO intends to expand the capability to at least 200 global languages.
Topics you are expected to cover in the PowerPoint are:
Summarize the history of markup from proofing to markup languages.
Compare markup language structure to human language structure.
Describe how markup can help categorize content.
Appraise the value of human physical, social, gestural, or psychological markup languages, like HUML, in teaching disease prevention or treatment.
Analyze what markup languages communicate.
Discuss how markup languages could be used to display content in a local (non-official) language.
Explain how XML can be used to mark up translations, rather than have the documents be saved in multiple, individual-language PDF documents.
To complete your assignment for the task force, you will need to create a PowerPoint presentation of at least 10 slides:
Introduction Slides (3 + slides):
The history of markup, from print to digital
How markup compares with human language structure (3+ slides):
How markup languages would be used to display local languages digitally on mobile devices instead of through printed (PDF) documents
Explanation of how extensions of XML (e.g., HUML, EML) might be used to augment the normally technical content of disease prevention or treatment
How markup languages are used to change and differentiate content, including (3+ slides):
how major topics/sections can be visually differentiated from content
how to include photos and videos in online documents
how the XML format can mark up copies of each document to provide content in different languages
A separate, last slide for a Summary and list of references (in APA format)
COM3278
Deliverable 3 - An Executive Summary Regarding Mobile Games for Medical Information
Assignment Content
Illustrate how a game might be used to communicate medical information across language barriers.
Competency
Illustrate how programming languages can be used as a lingua franca.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Scenario
The Executive Board of the UN's World Health Assembly has voted to fund a pilot program to "provide instant online access to all of WHO's content needed in a health crisis," but has expressed concern that this limits access to public health information only to those people able to read the language. People who can speak the language might not be literate enough to read the publications.
The WHO's Director-General is also concerned that, in an expanding health crisis, information on preventative measures might not reach the general population quickly enough to prevent a pandemic. She feels that providing critical information orally would be more effective in smaller, isolated communities, most susceptible to infection and transmission. However, it is also clear that the WHO cannot send hundreds of staff to individual communities, remaining long enough to answer questions or train responsible individuals.
Fortunately, one of the Executive Board members has seen the TED talks by Institute for the Future's research fellow Jane McGonigal about casual and social games in solving global problems, and he has read the IFTF report on Innovation in Games for Better Health and Healthcare.
IFTF_SR-1494_Innovations_in_Games.pdf
That Board member also spoke at a recent Meaningful Play Conference at Michigan State University about the issues facing the WHO in a world with a population exceeding 7 billion—and speaking 7,000+ languages. He has requested a briefing for the Board on how "serious games" might be used to reach—and teach—less-educated populations in Third World countries ahead of any major health crisis.
The Director-General believes that you, as Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director of the IDTF, know something about programming languages and how they might be used to meet the WHO's global prevention and treatment mission. She would like you to prepare a three-page Executive Summary for the Board, discussing the pros and cons of a simple casual game, which might be created to explain prevention techniques for a community or train part-time aid workers in proper safety techniques during a possible outbreak.
She cited statistics that she hoped would suggest solutions: while fewer than 10% of Africa's population is connected to the Internet, over 60% (nearly 750 million people) have smartphones that might be able to download a FREE mobile game. A major manufacturer of smartphones has developed a very inexpensive Android phone for distribution in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has committed to the WHO to provide incentives for game players, if the WHO can provide the content.
Instructions
Since disease outbreaks can happen anywhere, at any time, cost estimates for a single, SMALL casual game would enable the WHO to budget emergency funds for production. While games can take months to create, the urgency of a health crisis precludes time frames longer than a couple of weeks. The WHO is aware that accelerated production times generally generate higher costs, but ways to create quality content at a reasonable cost within a short time has a high priority.
The Executive Board is open to any type of mobile game. Suggestions or recommendations are welcome.
For your 2 ½ - 3 ½ pages long summary, you may choose one possible outbreak from a list of the most-recent crises:
Meningococcal disease
Zika virus
Ebola virus
Cholera
Yellow fever
Dengue fever
WHO training references
Topics you are expected to cover in the Executive Summary are:
Analyze how programming languages (specifically, simple, "serious," casual, or social games) might be used to communicate health information in multiple languages (assume at least 50 different languages for a major outbreak).
How might a game explain preventative measures in a game format?
How might a game be used to train local aid workers in safety measures that need to be taken to help prevent the spread of the disease?
Compare the pros (advantages) and cons (disadvantages) of using programming (i.e., a "serious" game) to communicate across multiple languages and multiple cultures.
Estimate the cost and time to program a simple game [Assume 2D, Android platform, small game (3-5 levels)].
Discuss possible ways to prepare content applicable to multiple health risks or different training tools ahead of time to avoid rapid or hurried development.
COM3278
Deliverable 4 - Speech Outline Regarding Cross-Cultural Communication
Assignment Content
Create an outline for a speech to the Executive Board, explaining the issues which need to be addressed in cross-cultural communication.
Competency
Contrast computer and markup languages with human languages as a lingua franca.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Scenario
The Executive Board of the of the UN's World Health Assembly is still considering a pilot program to "provide instant online access to all of WHO's content needed in a health crisis." The debate has evolved into two camps: those who think the UN's six languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese) are sufficient for most communication needs versus those who believe technology is the solution to all communication ills.
The debate became more heated after reading the Director-General's Executive Summary (which you prepared as Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director of the Infectious Disease Task Force) regarding the use of games to communicate medical information across language barriers. As a result, the Director-General has been invited back to more fully explain the problems experienced in cross-cultural communication.
Instructions
As busy as she is in dealing with the current major health crisis, the Director-General has asked you to work up an outline for an informative speech to the Board that will explain not only why 6 (six) languages are not enough in the event of a pandemic, but also why technology is problematic across much of the globe. She has also explained that she believes "instant online access" is not the only solution to the problem of dealing with a global health crisis. The Director-General would like you to provide context for any comments she might make to that effect.
Topics you are expected to cover in the Speech Outline:
Illustrate the development of language as a means of communicating concepts.
Outline the development of language from gestures to speech.
Examine the reason for the development of lingua francas.
Compare the use of non-alphabetic symbols in communicating across human languages.
Differentiate signs from symbols from icons.
Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of non-alphabetic symbols.
Differentiate between markup& programming language.
Contrast human language with technical, constructed languages (i.e, markup and programming languages).
Illustrate the constraints of both markup and programming in communicating across cultures, especially for those cultures which may be less familiar with technology.
To complete your assignment for the Director-General, you will need to create a written outline of her talking points. It is important to understand that you are NOT writing her speech; you are merely outlining the important points to be covered.
However, assume the Director-General is not as familiar as you are with the history of language, the development of lingua francas, the types of signs and how they are used to communicate, and the advantages and disadvantages of using markup and programming "languages."
The purpose of the speech is to inform the Board about the paths that the WHO believes need to be taken to respond to major disease outbreaks, which the Director-General is certain is beyond simply "instant online access" to publications.
She has provided a skeleton of the speech she would like you to outline with talking points and data for her to present. She has also noted what she will take care of and on which topics she wants you to provide the short detail.
"Please," she added in an email, "don't write my speech for me; just give me the important talking points, the basic background, a pithy sentence or two per topic, and any notes on research with references I can refer the Board to afterward. Bullet points or a couple of sentences per each point you think I need to make will be fine." Well, she does have a PhD in Healthcare Management for a good reason.
Introduction
opening greeting [Director-General]
attention getter [you]
summary of what the speech is about [you]
brief overview of the need for crisis communication (training/prevention/treatment) [you]
Body
transition between introduction and body [Director-General]
main ideas with supporting ideas [you]
examples and details of the above "...to cover" points [you]
Conclusion
summary of main points [you]
closer or call to action [Director-General]
A separate, last page for a list of references (in APA format).
NOTE - APA formatting for the References page and proper grammar, punctuation, and form are required. APA help is available from this link — APA.
If you are new to creating a speech outline you can find examples here:
COM3278
Deliverable 5 - Podcast of Global Health Crises Language Issues
Assignment Content
Prepare for a podcast interview on the importance of language education as it relates to global health crises.
Competency
Analyze the value of computer coding and markup languages as a replacement for foreign language requirements.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Scenario
After the success of the WHO Director-General's speech to the Executive Board of the UN's World Health Assembly, she was contacted by The Center for Global Health about recording an interview for the CGH's regular weekly podcast. The Director-General suggested a topic near and dear to her heart: global lingua francas, and she suggested the CGH communications team talk to you, as Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director of the Infectious Disease Task Force (IDTF), instead.
The Director-General was very pleased with herself for avoiding an interview, and she was delighted to give you this opportunity to shine on your own. Because of everyone's tight schedules, the podcast producer has arranged for you to talk from the communications room at the headquarters of the IDTF. The podcast host will interview you from CGH-America's offices in Boston. The Director-General is aware that you are from the U.S. Midwest and thought you would enjoy reconnecting with "the colonies across the pond."
To give you time to prepare, the host has prepared the topics and a set of questions that he will ask you. The Director-General, an old hand at interviews, has suggested that you write out your complete answers to the questions—writing text for the purpose of being spoken rather than read silently. While you are free to ad-lib during the actual interview, having fully written answers means you will not forget anything.
Instructions
As a rule of thumb, a single page of text—double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman (standard APA format) can be read aloud at a normal pace in slightly less than two minutes. You should, therefore, write 2 ½ to 3 pages for your 5-minute segment of the podcast. Answers to each section—of the 6 topics below—would run roughly 125 words.
The Director-General provided the following topics she would like to have addressed in the interview to both the interviewer and you:
Topics to be covered in the podcast:
Analyze the purpose of foreign language requirement.
Outline the History of Foreign Language Study in the U.S.
Asses the advantages of foreign language in a global community.
Evaluate computer languages as an educational requirement.
Explain how programming languages are structured.
Evaluate the usefulness of learning coding as an educational requirement.
Compare the advantages and disadvantages of programming and markup to the study of foreign languages.
Contrast human languages with markup and programming languages.
Illustrate the advantages of human languages as Lingua Francas in building bridges between cultures.
The podcast host has thoughtfully created questions he will ask to lead into your answer. After a brief greeting and introduction, he will ask you these questions:
1a) While Europe and Asia consist of many countries with many languages, it seems like English is the "foreign" language most studied by citizens of the Eastern Hemisphere. In the U.S., we have traditionally only taught French or Spanish or Latin in our high schools. Has that always been the case?
1b) So, then, what's the advantage of learning one of the romance language? So many cultures seem to speak English already. Would there be other languages—Arabic, maybe, or Mandarin—that might be more useful for Americans to learn?
2a) One of the topics frequently discussed across the U.S., particularly in light of continued technological advancements and the rapid growth of the tech sector and the Web, is the substitution of a programming language as a substitute for foreign language requirements. Are the programming and global languages that similar in syntax and usage?
2b) Several US states, though, have proposed—or passed—laws to allow high schools to substitute coding for foreign language learning. Coding would be more useful in uniting a global community it has been said. Does the WHO agree?
3a) Perhaps you could discuss the differences between human languages and programming languages as a means to communicate across cultures. The Director-General of the WHO is an outspoken proponent of the development of a global lingua franca. Is that a better path for global communication? Wasn't the original lingua franca essentially just a trading language?
3b) Speaking of lingua francas... to wrap up the conversation... how might human languages as lingua francas be useful in the event of a global health crisis? Do these bridge languages still exist, and wouldn't English—since it's used so widely around the world—be sufficient as a universal lingua franca?
Again, a normal APA formatted page takes just under two-minutes to read out loud, so considering that you will not really be reading word for word, but will provide in the interview the passion that you are known for, the Director-General suggests (and you know how strong her "suggestions" are) that you limit your answers for each question to no more than half a page (about a minute). If you go too much over a half a page per question, you might run out of time in the interview and that would not be good, so keep your answers clear and concise.
The Director-General would like to see your prepared response before the interview, so make sure you write well and that you pay scrupulous attention to detail in your spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Moreover, read it out loud to yourself, she has "suggested," so you do not end up with a lot of short or run-on sentences and that you have proper noun-verb agreement. (She is a great boss, but she is a stickler for detail.)
You may either separate your responses with the question number (e.g., 1a, 3b) or include the entire interview question. Just do not include the lengthy question in your page/word count.
NOTE — Even though the intent is to talk extemporaneously from the script outline, proper grammar, punctuation, and form are required.
COM3278
Deliverable 6 - Memorandum Regarding Verbal and Non-verbal Communications
Assignment Content
Create a memorandum detailing the issues for both verbal and non-verbal (symbolic) communications—with and without technological support—as an efficient method of communicating during a global infectious disease outbreak.
Competency
Evaluate the impact of critical thinking, communication, and diversity in the creation and use of coding as a language.
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Scenario
The Director-General of the WHO has told you that the response to your podcast on "Foreign languages vs. programming languages as a high-school requirement" was well received by the Executive Board of the UN's World Health Assembly—who listened to it during a session at UN Headquarters in New York.
But, as you might expect, despite your strong defense of the importance of human languages in communicating across cultures, there are still a few board members who believe that technology is the solution to preparing for a major infectious disease outbreak. The Director-General would like to address these members directly, refuting their belief that coding has limitless possibilities and that, as a constructed language, it could be rapidly deployed in a crisis.
The Director-General—as well as you—knows that this is not true, and that whenever a major outbreak occurs, as it will, eventually, the resources of the WHO will be stressed to the limit. To address the Board-level stalemate, she has requested that you write a memorandum requesting funding for a pilot program to "research the best cross-cultural communication." While explaining the potential and limitations of coding as a language, and the technical issues in translation, she also wants the Board to be reminded of other communication solutions including utilizing existing languages or constructed languages as lingua francas.
In her guidance to you, the Director-General added that one of the more stubborn Board members brought up the Wong-Baker FACES® pain rating scale—which evolved into dozens of 10-level, graphic-based pain assessment scales—as an example of a graphic lingua franca. "Create medical emojis or universal symbols," he suggested, "like the biohazard symbol or the symbols OSHA uses for a health hazard or workplace safety pictograms."
When he compared creating a symbolic language that could explain how to prevent an infectious disease to the pictograms created for sports events at the Olympics, the Director-General knew she needed to refocus the Board's attention on practical rather than blue-sky solutions.
Instructions
She asked you to create a two-page memorandum to be circulated only to the Board requesting immediate funding of a pilot program to explore several methods of cross-cultural communication, including technological solutions, lingua francas, and non-verbal (symbolic) methods.
She would like you to explain that while pictograms do have advantages for simple communication, such as IKEA instructions or pain scales, they quickly become problematic for complex explanations for treatment, prevention, or training. The pilot program she wants you to advocate in the memorandum would provide concrete data on the best methods of communicating health risks during a pandemic.
She provided you with instructions on how to develop specific sections of the memorandum:
Subject in the header: Pilot Study: Crisis-level healthcare needs—communication methodologies. Address the memo to: Members of the Executive Board of the World Health Assembly.
Opening paragraph: In two or three sentences, address the problem of communicating cross culturally during a medical crisis where the people do not speak one of the six formal UN languages—or a lingua franca based on them. In another sentence or two, explain the limitations of symbolic languages (including programming languages) compared to human languages.
Context: Acknowledge that technology offers future possibilities, but note the hurdles that might be faced in third-world countries. Address the challenges of communicating quickly in any of the hundreds of different languages by any means, whether lingua francas, constructed languages, or symbology.
Task: What the pilot study hopes to accomplish is to investigate the level of success of the different approaches to healthcare crisis communication in controlled settings.
Summary: Request authorization for a budget to perform the pilot study in selected cultures in Central Africa.
The memorandum should be clear and concise while still delineating the known issues and potential usefulness of the different cross-cultural communication methods.
The Director-General has suggested a minimum length of 350 words (excluding the header) and a maximum length of 500 words. "Make the points clearly and concisely," she texted you, "ask for the funds to be approved (don't worry about how much), and wrap it up."
"Let them think we're going to prove their own pet method is the best," she concluded, "while we acquire the funds we need to prepare for the inevitable pandemic."
Topics you are expected to cover (succinctly) in the Memorandum:
Summarize coding as a language.
Evaluate the usefulness of programming as a lingua francas.
Assess the usefulness of technology in creating a lingua franca.
Assess the advantages and disadvantages of an auxiliary language.
Discuss the issues technology still has with translation.
Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of symbology as a lingua franca.
Reflect on the difficulty of creating symbolic healthcare communication.
COM3278
Deliverable 7 - The Cost of a High-Risk Disease Outbreak Presentation
Assignment Content
Create a presentation on the cost of an outbreak of a high-risk disease.
Competencies
Summarize the issues that have been encountered in developing a global lingua franca.
Illustrate how markup languages can be used as a lingua franca.
Illustrate how programming languages can be used as a lingua franca.
Contrast computer and markup languages with human languages as a lingua franca.
Analyze the value of computer coding and markup languages as a replacement for foreign language requirements.
Evaluate the impact of critical thinking, communication, and diversity in the creation and use of coding as a language
Student Success Criteria
View the grading rubric for this deliverable by selecting the “This item is graded with a rubric” link, which is located in the Details & Information pane.
Introduction — Pandemic!
A new and extremely deadly Ebola-like hemorrhagic virus has been discovered along the Chari River in The Republic of Chad, Africa, infecting volunteers for Médecins Sans Frontières before anyone knew how serious the infection was. Unfortunately, infected team members traveled from N'Djamena's International Airport to other African cities, including Cairo, Addis Ababa, Casablanca, and Khartoum, as well as Paris, where the disease was finally isolated. Like Ebola, the Chari virus is only spread through contact with bodily fluids, so it was easy to isolate in France, but the African continent is altogether a different story.
By the time the WHO (World Health Organization) could react, the disease had already spread to Algeria, Zanzibar, and South Africa. It is the pandemic the WHO Director-General has feared for months.
The WHO not only has to coordinate medical centers across the entire continent, but integrate the disease control team and local authorities to find and isolate populations infected with the Chari virus as well as improving the reporting of possible breaches and new infections.
Because of the virulence of the disease, warnings and restrictions must also be quickly and easily communicated and obvious to international travelers caught in the infectious areas from Egypt and Morocco on the north of Africa, to South Africa on the south end of the continent.
The WHO needs to communicate prevention and treatment techniques efficiently and swiftly with local clinics across the entire African continent in areas where the official UN languages (English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese) have proven only partly successful, if at all.
The Executive Board of the World Health Assembly, which oversees the policies of the WHO, has finally agreed with the Director-General that some more universal form of communication—a lingua franca—be developed to enable communication with hundreds of different communities to slow (and stop) the spread of the disease.
Scenario
The Director-General of the WHO has ultimate confidence in your knowledge and experience as the Eastern Hemisphere Communications Director for the Infectious Disease Task Force (IDTF), and has asked you to take point in proposing the solution to this communication nightmare.
She knows that you will have to consider general communication between different cultures and languages, but also provide for more technical communication among diverse and multilingual medical staff across the continent, as well as between any individual doctor and patient. Even rapidly drafted local medical assistants will need to understand how to properly put on Personal Protective Equipment—specialized clothing to provide protection against infectious materials.
"Chari virus is 'laughing' at us," the Director-General wrote you in an email. "It's defying us to communicate fast enough and well enough to manage infections and explain preventative measures before it engulfs the entire continent."
What she wants you to prepare, as fast as possible, is a best-case scenario for communicating across cultures. She knows there is no one-size-fits-all solution... certainly not under these crisis conditions... nor instant fixes, but the WHO needs something organized and useful—and quickly—for medical personnel to teach and treat the epidemic, from major population centers to isolated villages.
You are aware of the history and uses of lingua francas, and you have investigated constructed languages; you have learned what markup and programming languages can and cannot do; and you have key knowledge about symbolic languages.
The Chari virus has spread to areas that speak Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, Bantu, and Indo-European languages. Many radio and television stations broadcast in multiple languages (the BBC Worldwide Service, for example, broadcasts in over a dozen languages in Africa, including English, French, Arabic, Berber, Hausa, Somali, Swahili, and Nigerian Pidgin), but remote communities may not have radio reception or Internet access.
Each of these smaller communities is just as important to the WHO as the larger cities. And neither broadcast nor Web services are sufficient for training aid workers, explaining prevention in rural areas (including safe funeral and burial rites), and providing treatment information. The Director-General believes that most of the communication during the initial critical period will be verbal, but also expects signage to be necessary at medical centers and for communicating with isolated villages.
Instructions
The Director-General needs a SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of your best plan to communicate quickly and effectively in all of the affected areas. A SWOT analysis, you are aware, defines the project objective and determines the advantages and disadvantages of the plan, as well as elements that might affect the plan either positively or negatively. The Director-General needs to be able to explain the plan to the Board and wants you to provide:
How the WHO should communicate across multiple cultures and languages both quickly and efficiently in order to best respond to this infectious disease crisis
Strengths and Weaknesses - human and physical resources of the WHO and any other current internal systems or processes you think might help or hinder your plan (you can let her take care of the financials, so do not worry about costs)
Opportunities and Threats — demographics (particularly the multiple cultures that need to be supported), physical environment, and local or national resources
Topics you are expected to cover in the SWOT analysis are:
Proposed Communication Methodology
Explain the communication method the WHO should use to respond to this crisis. (Could computer coding, markup languages, or symbolic languages be used in place of human languages?)
Describe how this method will be implemented, and how will it improve training and prevention communication better than the current plethora of lingua francas, especially in situations where there are no bridge languages.
Create a 4-square summary table with titles and 3-5 bullet points of Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. Expand on the bullet points in paragraph format in subsequent labeled sections for each part of the SWOT.
Strengths & Weakness (internal factors)
Describe what resources (financial, human, or physical) will be needed to implement the method.
Contrast the advantages of the communication method you chose and the disadvantages of the others (include existing lingua francas, computer and markup languages, human languages, and symbolic languages).
Delineate the problems you foresee in the implementation of your method - Technical? Social? Cultural? Training? Support? Difficulty? Time?
Opportunities & Threats (external factors)
List any restrictions or issues with local or national health care infrastructure, or local cultures that this method might encounter.
Identify how the method might be expanded beyond the initial implementation; especially should the outbreak spread beyond the African continent.
When researching opportunities and threats, you only need to explore the cities/countries affected by the Primary and Secondary transmission zones, as shown on the map. Consider all six (6) of the primary transmission cities (endangered by infected travelers) and at least six (6) different cities that are secondary transmission sites.
Be sure the analysis has correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation with minimal or no errors. Include a Reference page in APA format as the last page of the analysis.
