Big Data Dashboards to Help US Colleges Track COVID-19 Spread

To help track and monitor the spread of COVID-19 on college campuses, leaders across the country are implementing big data dashboards to promote transparency and comfort among students, faculty, and staff.  

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Boston University recently went live with its BU COVID-19 Testing Data Dashboard, a data visualization resource that allows users to see the number of tests conducted and the number of individuals who have tested negative, positive, or inconclusive.

Leaders will update the dashboard daily, and will include daily and cumulative numbers as well as seven-day averages and comparative figures from the local county. The university expects that the dashboard will enable proactive measures to stop further spread of the virus.

“The dashboard data will provide everyone with a snapshot of BU’s community health on a daily basis, serving as a daily pulse check on the community. But for BU’s administration and health officials, they will have access to a wealth of other information that will also help them track the virus and interrupt the spread of it,” BU leaders who developed the dashboard told BU Today.

“As an example, data collected by BU’s health professionals will be used to create so-called heat maps that will be used to show a cluster of positive tests, a so-called hot spot, in one specific part of campus, or one building even, like a residence hall. Knowing that information can allow BU health officials to step up contact tracing there and quarantining or isolating individuals or groups to contain the cluster from spreading.”

The dashboard will help track and monitor the spread of COVID-19, bringing awareness to everyone on campus and ensuring students and staff take necessary precautions.

“There will be cases—that is inevitable for a disease that has infected more than five million people nationwide,” university leaders noted.

“What’s important is encouraging awareness of what is happening on campus and using the dashboard information as a reminder of the importance of how critical it is to adhere to the individual health practices of hand hygiene, consistent use of facial coverings, and physical, social distancing.”

At West Virginia University (WVU), leaders are taking a similar approach. The institution launched a public big data dashboard on August 3, 2020 to track and compile COVID-19 information collected during testing across the WVU System.

“As part of the University’s commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of its campuses and surrounding communities, the dashboard will be updated Monday-Friday by 11 am and include information regarding students and employees broken out by campus. Updates will also be provided by the University on WVU Safety social media accounts,” WVU officials said in a statement.

“Additionally, the University will share trends and other COVID-19 related updates with the public each week or as necessary via WVUToday.”

WVU students who do test positive for the virus will be contacted by their local health departments to learn more about their symptom onset, receive public health recommendations for isolation and testing, and conduct contact tracing, the process of reaching out to those who have had close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

“In general, if an individual is not contacted during contact tracing, health officials have determined they were not exposed to COVID-19 through someone who has tested positive,” WVU stated.

“However, everyone is encouraged to continue to self-monitor for symptoms and follow WVU’s safety precautions (e.g., wear a mask/face covering, practice physical distancing and exercise good hand hygiene).”

Officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) are also ramping up their efforts to track coronavirus using big data visualization tools. The UNC-Chapel Hill COVID-19 Dashboard will help students, faculty, and staff remain updated on COVID-19 data related to campus, as well as local and state communities.

“The dashboard is updated weekly and pulls data from multiple sources to illustrate and track various metrics which will help inform our decision making related to campus operations and possible off-ramps in consultation with the UNC System and local health officials,” UNC said in a statement.

“Weekly updates allow the University to protect the privacy of student and employee information while enabling us to observe campus trends.”

With classes starting and students moving back to campus, the university expects to see a spike in positive cases.

“As we have more students that are congregating closer together, even if they’re following community standards, they’re just in different kinds of environments,” Ken Pittman, campus health executive director told The Daily Tar Heel. “I would anticipate that we could see a slight increase over the next week or two just by virtue of that.”

Data visualization models and big data dashboards have played an integral role in tracking and monitoring the spread of COVID-19. Since the pandemic began, institutions across the country have collected data on confirmed cases to give individuals an idea of the virus’s prevalence in specific counties, cities, or states.

As the pandemic wears on, these tools will continue to be critical in understanding the impact of COVID-19.