During COVID-19 pandemic, PES UFCG SB Chapter created the people management coordination and later arranged an online mini-course on ANAREDE via remote access.

People Management Coordination

According to the data from the World Health Organization (WHO), before the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil already had the highest incidence of depression in Latin America. During social isolation, cases of depression, anxiety, insecurity, loneliness and fear increased, according to the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), based on case studies, about 90% of the Brazilian population reported problems of mental health. From this, the IEEE PES Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) Student Branch Chapter created the People Management Coordination, which aims to promote activities that provide better interpersonal relationships and well-being of the team and a more effective integration within the Chapter.

The responsible coordinator carries out internal activities (only with Management members) and external activities (with Chapter volunteers and those interested in the content). In the interns, it makes available every month a google form on some subject related to daily life, such as: family, college, friendships, etc. The form has questions and the member must answer with a grade (1 to 5, with 1 being very bad, and 5 excellent). Based on this information, the coordinator will assess the situation of each member, if the form does not get good grades, he/she should seek a solution to resolve what is going on. It is noteworthy that all responses are provided by the coordinator and no other member of the Management has access to the result of the form. To resolve the situation, depending on the case to be analyzed, lectures and roundtables were organized and activities were also open to the public- with psychologists, administrators, teachers, doctors and any other professional on the related subject.

The lectures given were “Participative leadership and motivation for teamwork”, “Time planning and management tools” and “Procrastination”, all given by trained professionals in the area. Furthermore, interaction activities with the team were also carried out, such as group dynamics, game night, series/film night, in which participants can connect the camera and the audio as a way to make this occasion more intimate and relaxed, providing the feeling of everyone being close even though they are far away. Therefore, based on the performance carried out in the coordination, a greater and better engagement, motivation, satisfaction, transparency and communication of the team members was noticeable.

Organizing Mini-course on ANAREDE via Remote Access to Lab

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, access to the UFCG was totally restricted to students, making it absolutely impossible to make use of the university’s laboratories. However, with the arrival of the vaccine in Brazil and with the advance of the vaccination rate, in July 2021 the group was allowed to have access to one of its laboratories, to perform remote access to computers, making it feasible to carry out the Mini-course on ANAREDE (Analysis of Electric Networks). The ANAREDE computational program is the most used software in Brazil for the analysis of Electric Power Systems in steady state. Among the main users of ANAREDE are: sectoral entities, such as the National Electric System Operator (ONS) and the Energy Research Company (EPE); Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), among others.

Considering the license agreements, as the university holds this license, ANAREDE was installed in the computers of the Undergraduate Computerized Teaching Laboratory (LEIG), which is an integral part of the Department of Electrical Engineering (DEE) at UFCG. Thus, through the free remote access software AnyDesk and through all the organization logistics on the part of the chapter’s board, it was possible for the participants of the mini-course to use the program remotely, putting into practice the lessons learned during the first day of the course. The short course was divided into three stages: in the first stage, an introduction to electrical systems was given, and soon after, the content addressed in relation to the software in question was started. The second stage was the remote access phase, in which participants had 5 days to remotely access the software, during the afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm. The third stage was programmed for questions and exercises. After taking the short course, the professor who teaches the subject of electrical systems, decided to make use of the software also in his classes in that laboratory.

Gameiro, Nathállia. Depressão, ansiedade e estresse aumentam durante a pandemia. Fiocruz Brasília, 2020. Disponível https://www.fiocruzbrasilia.fiocruz.br/depressao-ansiedade-e-estresse-aumentam-durante-a-pandemia/. Acesso em: 12 de dezembro de 2021.

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