BU Research Blog

Well, the weather may now be very reminiscent of a muddy Glastonbury year, but we still have some amazing events lined up for the last three days of the Festival of Learning! Before I give you a sneaky preview of these, I just wanted to share one element of the fantastic feedback that have received in the Festival office. A recent attendee to the Story Stew event emailed: “Just wanted to say my daughter and I found this event to be excellent. Mary had exactly the right balance of humour, learning, participation, adult/child balance. She did an excellent job and really enthused my already avid writer child into wanting to write even more (just not at the moment as she has a broken wrist – made Kira’s day that Mary wanted to sign her cast!) We were really impressed”. Congratulations to Mary Evans for her fantastic event (and all my colleagues that helped the event run smoothly).

If you still haven’t been to an event, why not take a break from marking and come along to:

• Five go Killing
• Social sensing: Are you happy to work as a monitor?
• Rufus Stone the movie: Community screening and feedback
• Engaging the public: Effective public engagement
• Digging deeper in Dorset: Introduction to zooarchaeology (animal bones)

But what about that have happened before? Below are some reflections from the Research and Knowledge Exchange office:

Story Stew – Saturday 8 June, Reflections from Natalie Baines:

Mary Evans led a fantastically fun and entertaining event at BU enjoyed by children and adults alike. A funny poem about smelly dads, which dads in attendance helped to bring to life by acting out different parts, was very well received by their children! Following the recipe for the perfect story, the audience helped Mary with the ingredients to create an amazing story stew and with her they chanted:

Somebody tries

To get what they want

Oh no! What’s in the way?

Rescued now. What happens next?

You’ll have to see-Hooray!

The main principles of story writing were covered in a humorous, light-hearted and exciting way which made for lots of smiling, happy faces on yet another bright and sunny festival day.

Engaging young women with sun safety: the learning from a research study. Organised by Liz Norton. Reflections by Jenny Roddis

This exciting event organised and presented by ‘the sun lady’ (so called by study participants) considered a research study which developed a theory as to why young women adopt the approaches they do to sun safety. The talk focused on the propensity to forget about sun protection and to inadvertently get sunburnt – categorised as slipping up. Although getting sunburnt is perceived as bad (others would laugh at them and it is painful), young women get burnt inadvertently. They also confuse heat with radiation, and if it is windy or cloudy, they are unlikely to realise they can get burnt. They perceive the sun as being hotter abroad, and don’t realise that the sea or a pool – where they go to cool down – actually intensifies the radiation. Contrary to adults’ opinions, young women don’t get sunburnt just because they like to take risks!

How to Self Publish (Staying Solvent and Sane): reflections from Natalie Baines

Valuable advice and knowledge about self-publishing was shared during this event by Mary Evans. The world of self-publishing can be overwhelming with the array of possibilities out there in this digital age. Mary’s lecture helped to address and make sense of self-publishing so that attendees had some valuable information to go away with. The formats of books and e-books were explored as well as options such as printing on demand and publishing your work yourself. The pros and cons of each were highlighted along with the costs and different packages available from companies such as Amazon, Lulu and more. Another informative and entertaining event from the Festival of Learning which was very well received by attendees.

Mobile Momentum, reflections from Natalie Baines:

Elvira Bolat led the first session providing background to the academic understanding of mobile technology, business practice in deploying mobile technology, an overview of the methodological approach and research context along with the results of her research. Leading the second session was guest speaker, Mike Read, from Taptiva, a company who specialise in touch-screen websites. How the mobile experience could be improved was explored and discussed in detail and it was emphasised that user experience should be the focus. Attendees participated in discussions where they exchanged knowledge, experience and their opinions. This event gave a great introduction into the world of mobile technology.