Fighting with the COVID-19 pandemic: How information research can help?

The outbreak of COVID-19 quickly grows into a global pandemic, imposing tremendous challenges beyond healthcare sectors. For example, empowered by the Internet, COVID-19-related information spread quickly around the world. The enhanced connectivity contributes to real-time information sharing transcending geographical, temporal, and cultural barriers, while it also reveals the dark side of effects on bringing an “infodemic”, which is characterized by false news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, imposes extra uncertainties and threats on people's daily lives. Nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a “new normal” situation of working, learning, and living. For example, millions of employees are required to telework, which reshaped the nature, procedure, and mode of work and employees' cognitions; government agencies in different countries or areas exert great effort to perform information disclosure and distribute high-quality information related to the pandemic online or offline. Furthermore, online learning experiences impose new opportunities and challenges on both teachers and students, yet understudied. These events raise and discuss important issues on how information research can contribute to the post-pandemic era and serve citizens daily life better.