The effects of Covid-19 pandemic home confinement on higher education research facilities. A case study of laboratories, scholarly journals and scientific events in Algerian universities.

Abstract

The present study deals with the effects of confinement on Algerian higher Education research facilities. Nearly, all sectors were affected because of Covid-19 confinement providing that results were catastrophically enormous, when so many workers left their jobs and stayed home. This has affected the economic situation of the country at all levels since though Algeria is an oil-exporting country, and oil prices fluctuation has made the situation worse. This study focuses primarily on investigating the overall effects of home confinement and lack of university funding sources whether governmental or private on research facilities including laboratories, journals and scientific events.  A comparative analytical study was conducted before and during confinement to compare the research achievements of laboratories, journals and scientific events. Therefore, a comparison between the results of research productivity before (2019) and during (2020) confinement is made to evaluate its effects on the on-going process of research and publications. The analytical study is based primary on some governmental information obtained from ASJP and the ministry of Higher Education and scientific research.  The statistical measures are based on Pearson correlation coefficient (R) which is used to calculate the correlation between the variables. The results show that due to confinement research activities has been reduced to about 20% for laboratories, and scientific events because activities were abandoned and private sponsors stopped some sorts of funding for research activities.