BU Research Blog

November 17, 2015

Development for New and Aspiring Principal Investigators

Guidance, Post-award, Research Training, Training sastringer

HEFCE funded a project to provide online resources to help principal investigators develop their skills, these excellent resources are hosted by Vitae. This collaborative project involved colleagues at a number of universities across the UK, RCUK, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, ARMA and Universities UK.

The resources can be found here and include some fantastic sections on:

Intellectual Leadership which looks at demonstrating research impact and the research environment.
Leading a research project which looks at understanding and developing your leadership ability, applying for and managing a research project
Building and managing a research team which looks at strategies for successfully forming, motivating and developing a team.
Developing individual researchers which looks at performance management, appraisal, mentoring and coaching.
Developing yourself as PI which looks at self analysis, 360 feedback, skills and characteristics of a PI and networks
Useful Contacts for PIs everyuseful contact a PI could need!
and PIs Frequently Asked Questions

November 2, 2015

BRAD Upcoming Opportunities – 16th November 2015

BU research, Research Training, Training apekalski

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

Research Application Process- 16th November 2015, 9:30- 10:30.
This session will provide a presentation on the process of costing your research at BU and the research application process. Additionally, Q & A session and the opportunity for a one on one discussion with the facilitators.

Justifying your funding request workshop – 16th November 2015, 10:45-13:00 (including Lunch)
Many funders require you to justify the funding you are requesting in a research bid. But how can you best approach this? This session will outline how to structure a justification for funding for the major funders (research councils, other government funders, main charities) and provide some examples of good and bad practice.

Financial Management Workshop – 16th November 2015, 12:00 -14:30 (including Lunch)
This workshop will cover several topics ranging from; financial management, income and funding budgeting, financial resourcing and strategic financial planning.

For more information about the above workshops and to book – CLICK HERE

October 19, 2015

RKEO Academic Induction

BU research, Funding opportunities, Guidance, Info Days, Knowledge Exchange, Post-award, Public engagement clyons

October 6, 2015

CMMPH editorial in today’s Nepal Journal of Epidemiology

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Fusion, Global engagement, open access, Post-award, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

The current issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published today carries an editorial by a BU-led team of researchers and development workers. The editorial Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal highlights the intervention funded by THET which aims to improve the knowledge and attitude of maternity care workers in a rural district in the south of Nepal. The BU authors include Visiting Faculty: Padam Simkhada, Samridhi Pradham, Jillian Ireland and Bibha Simkhada, the other co-authors are affiliated with the charity we work with in Nepal (Ram Chandra Silwal), the Buddhist charity based in London Green Tara Trust (Padmadharini Fanning), and our Tribhuvan University based colleagues (Lokendra Sherchan, Shyam K Maharjan, and Ram K Maharjan.

This THET-funded project will involve over 15 UK short-term volunteers. It is important to bring UK volunteers, who as health professionals will bring their experience of, and training in, the provision of mental health and maternity/midwifery services including the area of mental ill health prevention and health promotion. These experienced health workers (such as midwives, family doctors, mental health nurses, health visitors, psychiatrists) from the UK are invited to volunteer for two to three weeks at a time to design and deliver training. The mixture of training staff abroad (= Education) by UK professionals (=Practice) through an intervention which is properly evaluated (=Research) is a perfect example of BU’s FUSION in action.

This project is supported by the Tropical Health & Education Trust (THET) as part of the Health Partnership Scheme, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and runs from this year May 1st until the autumn of 2016. The paper is freely available on line, click here!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Refererence:

van Teijlingen E, Simkhada P, Devkota B, Fanning P, Ireland J, Simkhada B, Sherchan L, Silwal CR, Pradhan S, Maharjan KS, Maharjan KS. Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal. Nepal J Epidemiol. 2015;5(3); 499-501.

September 21, 2015

Uploading your full text to BRIAN – 3 easy steps!

BRIAN, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment, staff profile pages Pengpeng

If you are unsure of how to upload the full text of your publication onto BRIAN to be deposited in BURO, these are the three easy steps you can follow!

Step 1 – Ensure publication record already exists in your BRIAN account. If it does not, click on the ‘+’ sign next to it –

You will see a search box on the following page. Enter the title of your publication in the search box. If the record of your publication already exists within BRIAN, you simply need to scroll to it and ‘claim’ it. Otherwise, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘create manual entry’. You can then populate all relevant information of your publication on the following page. Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom to ‘save’ your record!

Step 2 – Once the publication record exists within BRIAN, click on the the blue arrow up icon, and you will be taken to the deposit page

Step 3 – Locate the correct version of your full text in accordance with the policy advice from Sherpa romeo; and then click ‘upload’.

When the upload is complete, you will be notified on the screen that your full text is under review by the BURO team. Once approved by the BURO team of its legality, the link to the full text in BURO will be created and the link will also appear on your Staff Profile Page. If at any point you are unsure of this process, please send an email either to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk or BURO@bournemouth.ac.uk for assistance and advice.

September 17, 2015

Leadership development for principal investigators (PIs)

BU research, Post-award, Research Training, Training sastringer

Not too long ago HEFCE funded a project to provide online resources to help principal investigators develop their skills, these excellent resources are hosted by Vitae. This collaborative project involved colleagues at a number of universities across the UK, RCUK, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, ARMA and Universities UK.

The resources can be found here and include some fantastic sections on:

Intellectual Leadership which looks at demonstrating research impact and the research environment.
Leading a research project which looks at understanding and developing your leadership ability, applying for and managing a research project
Building and managing a research team which looks at strategies for successfully forming, motivating and developing a team.
Developing individual researchers which looks at performance management, appraisal, mentoring and coaching.
Developing yourself as PI which looks at self analysis, 360 feedback, skills and characteristics of a PI and networks
Useful Contacts for PIs everyuseful contact a PI could need!
and PIs Frequently Asked Questions

September 17, 2015

Concordat on Open Research Data

BU research, Post-award, Publishing, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Research news sastringer

As mentioned by Emily in her August HE Policy post, a draft concordat has been published which seeks to make research data in the UK more openly accessible for use.

The concordat has been drafted under the auspices of the UK Open Research Data Forum [Note 1] by a multi-stakeholder working group, which includes HEFCE, Research Councils UK (RCUK), Jisc, the Wellcome Trust and Universities UK. It aims to help ensure that the research data gathered and generated by members of the UK research community is made openly available for use by others wherever possible, in a manner consistent with relevant legal, ethical and regulatory frameworks and norms.

The concordat aims to establish a set of expectations of good practice, with the intention of making open research data the standard for publicly funded research over the long term. It recognises the different responsibilities of researchers, their employers and the funders of research, although the intention is not to mandate, codify or require specific activities.

The full draft concordat can be found here – http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/opendata/

Key principals are outlined below:

Definition of Research Data used:

“Research Data are quantitative information or qualitative statements collected by researchers in the course of their work by experimentation, observation, interview or other methods. Data may be raw or primary (e.g. direct from measurement or collection) or derived from primary data for subsequent analysis or interpretation (e.g. cleaned up or as an extract from a larger data set). The purpose of open research data is to provide the information necessary to support or validate a research project’s observations, findings or outputs. Data may include, for example, statistics, collections of digital images, sound recordings, transcripts of interviews, survey data and fieldwork observations with appropriate annotations.”

Principle #1

Open access to research data is an enabler of high quality research, a facilitator of innovation and safeguards good research practice.

Principle #2

Good data management is fundamental to all stages of the research process and should be established at the outset.

Principle #3

Data must be curated so that they are accessible, discoverable and useable.

Principle #4

Open access to research data carries a significant cost, which should be respected by all parties.

Principle #5

There are sound reasons why the openness of research data may need to be restricted but any restrictions must be justified and justifiable.

Principle #6

The right of the creators of research data to reasonable first use is recognised.

Principle #7

Use of others’ data should always conform to legal, ethical and regulatory frameworks including appropriate acknowledgement.

Principle #8

Data supporting publications should be accessible by the publication date and should be in a citeable form.

Principle #9

Support for the development of appropriate data skills is recognised as a responsibility for all stakeholders.

Principle #10

Regular reviews of progress towards open access to research data should be undertaken.

September 16, 2015

Where Numbers met Narratives: A Final Review of the BU Datalabs Fusion Project

BU research, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Exchange, Post-award afeigenbaum

Carried out between January 2015 and July 2015, our Fusion CCCP and RKEO Small Grant funded BU Datalabs project explored the possibilities and challenges associated with the communicative power of visualizations, maps and related interactive digital media for telling data stories on sensitive subjects of societal importance.

We use the term Data Storytelling to refer to the process of creating data-driven stories, from data collection all the way through to crafting the visual and contextual narratives that give data meaning(Greshon and Ward 2001).

Through a series innovative Datalabs events and workshops, we used a hands-on, participatory approach to teaching that combined principles of scaffolded technology learning and hacklabs (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007). Activities included:

Data Scraping & Cleaning – Monday March 16 and Tuesday March 17, 2015
Data Visualisation with Mapping – Monday April 27 and Tuesday April 28, 2015
Digital Storytelling with Data – Thursday May 14 and Friday May 15, 2015
Mapping for Justice – 2 June 2015, w/ Richmond, American University in London
Interdisciplinary Research Week: Turning Numbers into Narratives: An introduction to digital storytelling with data –14 May 2015, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University
Festival of Learning: Datastorytelling: How to Give Narrative to Numbers –13 July 2015, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University
Civic Forensics Design Workshop – 20 July 2015, Friends House, London

Prioritising collaborative exchange, we brought together researchers, students, journalists and NGOs to generate key insights and co-create tangible outputs. Partners included the Omega Research Foundation, who co-author reports with Amnesty International, and Minute Works, whose sustainable design roster includes Greenpeace. Together with our partners we co-created visualisation outputs including the Data Distortion Layer Cake, the Reclaim Brixton map, and the #RiotID civic forensics project. Partners also went on to put their new visualisation skills into action. Our partner IRIN, a humanitarian news agency, created infographics and maps, including this interactive map of migrant deaths.

Feedback from our survey of Datalabs participants showed that most people’s familiarity with the tools and concepts taught during the workshops increased substantially, with most participants leaving the workshops feeling ‘familiar’ or ‘experienced’ with the basic tools and techniques of Data Storytelling.

Challenges and Opportunities

The emergent area of data storytelling provides both opportunities and challenges. Like any new digital skill, visualising data requires time and resources. This puts NGOs and small organisations at a disadvantage in terms of their ability to tell compelling data stories with visualisation. This disadvantage does not only manifest itself in the lack of resources to afford certain technologies, but also to afford know-how in the form of data visualization designers that are being “snatched up” by the corporate sector to work under Non-Disclosure Agreements (Wilson 2015).

In addition, while the rise of digital tools and techniques certainly diversifies the kinds of narratives we can tell with numbers, not all data stories are easy to capture. Sensitive subjects often have no straightforward data source, documents are scattered across agencies and organisations.

Our BU Datalabs project contributed to broader initiatives to bridge the emerging ‘big data divide’ that stands to leave the third sector and SMEs behind. Here at BU, we can help to narrow this divide by bringing together our skills and resources with stakeholder partners, to co-create visual resources and data stories for public engagement.

What’s Next?

Our BU Datalabs Report reflects on the key insights that arose out of this co-creation project. The aim of the final report is to show how other universities and organisations can use our model as a template, enabling their organisations to co-create data stories with public stakeholders. A preliminary version of the report was presented at the Data Power conference in Sheffield in June 2015. A further presentation is scheduled for November 2015 at the Media Education Summit in Boston, USA.

This year we are working to institute Datalabs activities and Data Storytelling education at BU through continuing collaborations between the Faculty of Media and Communication, the Data Science Institute, and the GIS Lab. We also continue to work with our partners as we prepare for larger bids.

Our next public Datalabs event is scheduled during the ESRC Festival of Social Science. This day long workshop on Datastorytelling will take you through the full process of creating a data story, from scraping and cleaning to crafting the narrative.

To find out more about the Datalabs project you can visit civicmedia.io or email: afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk or ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.uk

References

Gershon, N. and Ward P., 2001. ‘What Storytelling Can Do For Information Visualization’. Commun. ACM, 44 (8),pp.31-37.

Hmelo-Silver, C.E., Duncan, R.G. and Chinn, C.A., 2007. Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006). Educational Psychologist, 42(2), pp.99-107.

Wilson, M., 2015. What Killed The Infographic? Fast Company, [blog] 6 May, Available at: <http://www.fastcodesign.com/3045291/what-killed-the-infographic> [Accessed 27 July 2015].

September 15, 2015

Research ethics updated forms

BU research, PG research, Post-award, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, student research Eva Papadopoulou

New academic year, New forms!

New versions of the ethics forms available now, have a look at the research ethics page for the full details, under useful documents.

The new forms are the Participant Info Sheet and the previously titled Consent form, now titled Participant Agreement Form.

Please make sure you start using the new versions from now on, and please do let us know how you find them.

BU Ethics team

August 4, 2015

OpenAIRE2020 National Open Access Desk

EU, Post-award, Publishing Pengpeng

Back in July, Mafalda Picarra from JISC wrote a blog post on the Jisc Scholarly Communications about OpenAIRE2020 National Open Access Desk. If you are involved in or are interested in an EC Horizon 2020 project, this blog post will be of interest to you.

Since the start of the OpenAIRE2020 project in January, Jisc became the UK National Open Access Desk (NOAD). This means that Jisc is now providing support and information to help UK HEIs and researchers to comply with the EC’s Horizon 2020 programme OA policy, the Open Research Data Pilot and the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot.

Jisc has been working closely with UK national associations – SCONUL, ARMA, RLUK and UKCoRR – to ensure that information about the EC’s Horizon 2020 OA policy and the Pilots is disseminated through the most appropriate channels to multiple stakeholders. Back in June, the national associations sent a first communication to their members. Today, we will disseminate more detailed information to HEIs research librarians, research managers, open access contact points and EU research, policy and funding teams on the EC’s OA policy and the two pilots.

In a nutshell, the Horizon 2020 OA policy requires that all peer reviewed publications resultant from Horizon 2020 and European Research Council funded projects be made open access. In addition, a Pilot on Open Research Data is being run in some core areas of Horizon 2020 which aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by projects. Finally, OpenAIRE is running a Pilot on FP7 Post-Grant Open Access where eligible FP7 projects can apply for funding to publish their research outputs on open access.

OpenAIRE has developed relevant resources (factsheets, guides and webinars) that can be accessed online (https://www.openaire.eu/) and provides helpdesk support to those that require more information on compliance with the EC’s OA policy or on how to participate in the pilots.

For more information contact the National Open Access Desk (NOAD), Mafalda Picarra, on info.openaire@jisc.ac.uk

July 24, 2015

Understanding Open Access workshop

BRIAN, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Training Pengpeng

Following the Finch Report, the Open Access movement has gained significant momentum in the UK. Most major funders now have open access policies and mandates. HEFCE’s post-REF2014 policy states – ‘To be eligible for submission in the post-REF2014, journal articles and conference proceedings (with ISSN) accepted for publication after 1 April 2016 must be made open access.

RKEO currently provides a series of Open Access and BRIAN development workshop to help academics understand Open Access and what needs to be done to comply. In this ‘Understanding Open Access’ workshop, you will:
– Gain a background and understanding of Open Access
– Understand what it means for Bournemouth University
– Know how to comply with the Open Access Policies (via BRIAN)

The next workshop will take place on 4th August, from 10am to 11am, at EB202, Lansdowne.

To book a place, please send an email to Organisational Development.

For queries about the workshop, please direct them to Pengpeng Hatch at RKEO.

July 15, 2015

From Stour Valley to Silicon Valley-Dr. Dinusha Mendis on Research Leave in Stanford University California

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Featured academics, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, PG research, Post-award, Public engagement, Research news cippm

In January 2015, Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Associate Professor in Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) in the Faculty of Media and Communications was awarded a period of research leave funded by the Fusion Investment Fund which commenced on 1 January 2015. The study leave was granted to further Dr. Mendis’ research into the digital aspects of Copyright Law and the Intellectual Property (IP) Implications of 3D Printing.

Since 1 January 2015, Dr. Mendis has held appointments as Visiting Fellow at University of Bocconi in Italy and as Lord Provost Fellow at University of Tasmania in Australia. For further information about the collaborative work carried out by Dr. Mendis during this time, please see here (BU Research Blog post dated 13 March 2015).

Dr. Mendis will complete her research leave in July 2015 having spent two months as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School, Stanford University California.

During her time as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, Dr. Mendis was involved in working with Professor Mark Lemley of Stanford Law School, to further her research into the intellectual property implications of 3D printing. Sponsored by Professor Lemley, Dr. Mendis utilised the time at Stanford to complete two research papers (to be published in Autumn 2015) and collaborate with IP experts from University of California, Berkeley; Emory University; Georgia Tech University and Indiana University in taking forward a project in the area of 3D printing and intellectual property implications.

The Research Leave was made possible by the generous support of Bournemouth University’s Fusion Investment Fund which in turn led to the Visiting appointments for which Dr. Mendis is very grateful.

The appointments have all proved to be very productive and rewarding in taking forward the research on the IP implications of 3D printing. The final appointment, which involved being a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School was a very positive experience – and will be an unforgettable one.

June 2, 2015

BRIAN training dates now available!

BRIAN, BU research, Post-award, Publishing, Research communication, Training Pengpeng

Following the recent BRIAN upgrade, we are happy to inform you that the system is now functioning as normal. In the unlikely event that you do encounter any problems following the upgrade, please do email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of the team will be able to assist you.

We have also lined up a couple of BRIAN training dates in June and July. Please see details below:

28 Jan 2016 – 9.00am to 10.30am – S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

24 Feb 2016 – 2.00pm to 3.30pm – C203, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus

16 Mar 2016 – 2.00pm to 3.30pm – S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

5 April 2016 – 9.30am to 11.00am – C203, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus

25 May 2016 – 10.00am to 11.30am – S102, Studland House, Lansdowne Campus

Please get in touch with Organisational Development to book a place in this training. If you have further queries regarding this training, please get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (01202 961354).

May 18, 2015

BRIAN Announcement to Faculty and Staff

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research communication, Training Rhyannan Hurst

We are happy to inform you that Bournemouth Research Information and Networking System (BRIAN) will be upgrading to a new version. The system will be offline from 8.30am, 20^th May 2015 on Wednesday, and will hopefully be restored and functioning fully on the 26^th May 2015, 8.30am.

Some of the benefits of this upgrade are:

Re-designed Deposit Page

The page shown when you deposit a publication to BURO has been completely redesigned to improve the flow through the page, to allow entry of an Open access location and to provide more visible guidance.

Assistance when adding publications, including duplicate prevention

This is a completely new mechanism designed to assist you and your co-authors when manually adding new works to BRIAN. The first step in this process is to perform a search using the title, partial title or identifier (ISBN or DOI). Using this information, records that already exist in BRIAN may then be claimed by you or your co-author, thereby avoiding the creation of unnecessary manual records.

The new mechanism applies to all publication types. In addition, for Books and Journal articles, searches are also performed against a number of external data sources (including Google Books).

Harvest publications using Scopus Author Identifier

We are happy to announce that in the new version of BRIAN, it is now possible to add a verified Scopus Author Identifier to your account (through ‘search settings’) which will result in all publications linked to the Scopus ID being automatically imported to BRIAN in a claimed state.

Improved Photo Cropping Mechanism

This new photo crop mechanism allows you to drag and drop photos in for use and it will also allow you to crop the pictures to the desired style.

We do apologise for the inconvenience but we hope that these exciting new features will be up and running for you to use on the 26^th May.

All relevant guidance notes on the Staff Intranet will be updated in due course. If you need any help using the new system or if you encounter any problems after the upgrade, please do send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.

Monthly BRIAN training sessions will also start taking place beginning June 2015. Please watch out for announcement on future dates on the RKEO Research blog.

In the meantime, if you do have queries relating to the upgrade, please feel free to get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch at pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk (01202 961354).

May 15, 2015

BRIAN Announcement to Faculty and Staff

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research communication, Training Rhyannan Hurst

We are happy to inform you that Bournemouth Research Information and Networking System (BRIAN) will be upgrading to a new version. The system will be offline from 8.30am, 20^th May 2015 on Wednesday, and will hopefully be restored and functioning fully on the 26^th May 2015, 8.30am.

Some of the benefits of this upgrade are:

Re-designed Deposit Page

The page shown when you deposit a publication to BURO has been completely redesigned to improve the flow through the page, to allow entry of an Open access location and to provide more visible guidance.

Assistance when adding publications, including duplicate prevention

This is a completely new mechanism designed to assist you and your co-authors when manually adding new works to BRIAN. The first step in this process is to perform a search using the title, partial title or identifier (ISBN or DOI). Using this information, records that already exist in BRIAN may then be claimed by you or your co-author, thereby avoiding the creation of unnecessary manual records.

The new mechanism applies to all publication types. In addition, for Books and Journal articles, searches are also performed against a number of external data sources (including Google Books).

Harvest publications using Scopus Author Identifier

We are happy to announce that in the new version of BRIAN, it is now possible to add a verified Scopus Author Identifier to your account (through ‘search settings’) which will result in all publications linked to the Scopus ID being automatically imported to BRIAN in a claimed state.

Improved Photo Cropping Mechanism

This new photo crop mechanism allows you to drag and drop photos in for use and it will also allow you to crop the pictures to the desired style.

We do apologise for the inconvenience but we hope that these exciting new features will be up and running for you to use on the 26^th May.

All relevant guidance notes on the Staff Intranet will be updated in due course. If you need any help using the new system or if you encounter any problems after the upgrade, please do send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.

Monthly BRIAN training sessions will also start taking place beginning June 2015. Please watch out for announcement on future dates on the RKEO Research blog.

In the meantime, if you do have queries relating to the upgrade, please feel free to get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch at pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk (01202 961354).

May 14, 2015

Fusion Fund – Study Leave – Manuscript submitted

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Post-award, Publishing, Research communication, Research news Christopher Pullen

A little while back (August 2014-Jan 2015) I had Fusion Investment study leave to work on my manuscript ‘Straight Girls and Queer Guys: the Hetero Media Gaze in Film and Television’. Just wanted to follow up from this, to advise that the manuscript has now been submitted to Edinburgh University Press, and its on its way for production. I expect it will be a few months before its eventually published, but its such a relief to actually finish it. The research process was most engaging, and as with all concepts it changes and modifies, as a ‘work in progress’.

Here is a taster of the agreed back cover:

“Exploring the archetypal representation of the straight girl with the queer guy in film and television culture from 1948 to the present day, Straight Girls and Queer Guys considers the process of the ‘hetero media gaze’ and the way it contextualizes sexual diversity and gender identity. Offering both an historical foundation and a rigorous conceptual framework, Christopher Pullen draws on a range of case studies, including the films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, the performances of Kenneth Williams, televisions shows such as Glee, Sex and the City and Will and Grace, the work of Derek Jarman, and the role of the gay best friend in Hollywood film. Critiquing the representation of the straight girl and the queer guy for its relation to both power and otherness, this is a provocative study that frames a theoretical model which can be applied across diverse media forms.”

Now I am on to my next book project, the educational biography of Pedro Zamora.

May 1, 2015

CIPPM Co-Director publishes three Reports for the UK Government detailing the IP Implications of 3D Printing

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Business Engagement, Featured academics, Post-award, Publishing, Research news, Research themes cippm

CIPPM Co-Director Dr. Dinusha Mendis together with Dr. Davide Secchi (From April 2015, Associate Professor, University of Southern Denmark) and Dr. Phil Reeves of Econolyst Ltd have published a sequence of three reports on the intellectual property implications of 3D printing resulting from a project commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office. The three reports can be accessed here.

In 2012, the Big Innovation Centre, in their Report ‘Three Dimensional Policy: Why Britain needs a policy framework for 3D Printing’ provided a number of recommendations. A key recommendation was to review the intellectual property (IP) implications of 3D printing.

In 2013, the UKIPO highlighted the lack of empirical evidence relating to 3D printing and the difficulty in determining whether this emerging technology will have an impact on IP laws. The aim of the current project was therefore to respond to this limited research. In doing so, the Studies adopted a legal, quantitative and qualitative approach.

Study I titled ‘A Legal and Empirical Study of Online Platforms and an Analysis of User Behaviour’ explores 17 online platforms dedicated to 3D printing and provides a legal and empirical overview of how the online platforms operate and aims to provide a clearer understanding of ‘how’ the sharing happens. In this context, Study I provides an understanding of the ‘parameters’ for sharing, e.g. terms and conditions, rules and regulations that apply, together with restrictions and bounds that apply to the user behaviour and file-sharing. As such, Study I evaluates the extent of this phenomenon amongst users. In doing so, the research examines the price, downloads, licences, type of physical objects, which are shared and the implications for intellectual property laws and in particular analyses the legal provisions arising from the sharing and the copyright implications relating to software. As such, Study I presents new findings on the current status of 3D printing relating to online platforms.

Study II titled ‘The Current Status and Impact of 3D Printing Within the Industrial Sector: An Analysis of Six Case Studies’ explores the status, impact and adoption of 3D printing in the Replacement Parts, Customised Goods and High Value Small Status Goods Industries.

To map the impact that 3D printing technology is having on the UK’s economic and legal landscape, Study II represents six case studies which consider the current and future consequence of 3D printing. The first two case studies address issues relating to Replacement Parts and consider how 3D printing will affect the supply of aftermarket parts to the consumer. The two case studies within the Customised Goods theme address how 3D printing enables unique products to be manufactured that are tailored to consumers’ needs, and the IP challenges that arise from this. Finally, the two case studies within the High Value Small Status Goods theme look at the impact that 3D printing is having on consumer products that have a low functional purpose, such as collectible figurines or sculptures.

The third publication – an Executive Summary – brings together the findings and conclusions from the two Studies and provides recommendations.

The Studies concluded that there is no urgency to legislate at present as 3D printing is not a mass phenomenon yet. It warned that a premature call for legislative and judicial action in the realm of 3D printing could stifle the public interest of “fostering creativity and innovation and the right of manufacturers and content creators to protect their livelihoods”.

However, as 3D printing continues to grow it is important to address the IP issues arising in this area in order to cultivate a climate better suited to tackling impending IP issues more successfully and in a manner, which takes into account the interests of all stakeholders.

As such, the Studies make some important recommendations to Government, the Industry and Intermediaries (online platforms) about how to regulate 3D printing without resorting to legislation.

Recommendations to Government suggest the setting up of a Working Group to review the technology and the IP status particularly the position in relation to the software (Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Files) and the traceability of spare parts. The Reports also suggest that the Government should adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ approach.

The Studies conclude that 65% of users engaged in the activities of 3D printing on online platforms do not license their work, leaving their creations vulnerable and open to infringement whilst losing the ability to claim authorship. The Study therefore recommends that online platforms provide more awareness and understanding of the different types of licences. The Study suggests that this aim can be achieved by explaining the nuances relating to each licence in clear and simple language, rather than simply ‘encouraging’ the user to adopt a particular type of licence. Furthermore, online platforms can assign the most appropriate licence as a default with ‘opt-out’ as an option.

Finally, in relation to Industry, the Study recommends the adoption of new business models and provides a number of suggestions in this regard. The Reports also suggest the licensing of CAD files more widely, thereby opening up doors to a range of outlets selling 3D CAD files. This will avoid locking the manufacturer into an agreement through a system such as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for (spare) parts. Although a one-stop-shop may take away the costs of manufacture, transportation and storage whilst reducing potential infringement of IP laws, it can lead to a monopoly-situation, which should be avoided.

A press release led to the research being picked up by various media outlets including IPP Pro, Pan European Networks, Phys.org, Nanowerk and 3Dprint.com amongst others.

A further write-up of the research was published by the UKIPO following the publication of the reports. Bournemouth University’s Research Chronicle also presented a feature article in March 2015 on the research and its findings.

Following the publication of the reports, Dr. Dinusha Mendis, the Principal Investigator of the project, was invited by the Australian Government to present the research in March 2015, highlighting the impact of this research in another jurisdiction. Dr. Mendis also presented the research in March at the University of Tasmania in Australia and the Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.

April 29, 2015

Open Access and the research lifecycle: a guide for researchers

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment Pengpeng

With recent requirements imposed by major research funders, researchers are presented with both opportunities and challenges – opportunities to re-use and re-purpose published outputs and datasets, and challenges in making one’s own work legally and ethically available to others.

Last year, thirty Northampton researchers contributed to focus groups looking at open access publications and data, with a particular focus on compliance with funder requirements. From the outcome of the focus groups, University of Northampton developed an Open Access and the research lifecyle guidance, which has been adapted to fit in with BU’s institutional policies.

This guide, which is part of a JISC-funded Open to Open Access project, is intended for researchers who wish to engage with the open access agenda, but aren’t entirely sure how best to achieve this. This short guide highlights some of the issues to consider at each stage of the research lifecycle and the tools that are available to support you.

Please click here – Open Access and the research lifecyle guidance to access a printable version of the guidance. For further queries, please get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk) at RKEO.

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Open Access and the research lifecycle: a guide for researchers

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