BU Research Blog

Well, it is hard to believe that it is the final day of the Festival of Learning, and what a two weeks it has been! Fear not, we’ll be writing up all the amazing experiences that have been taking place, and in the meantime you can already find the events recaps on the website. Tomorrow we are packing ready for the Open Day on Saturday, but there are a few things still on – so why not take your picks:

• Digging deeper in Dorset: Big Dig open day
• Social media strategy
• Healthy lifestyles made easy. Fitness innovations: not just for the young

To give you a flavour of what has been going on so far, read on for some inspiration:

Digging Deeper in Dorset: Introduction to Zooarchaeology (animal bones). Reflections by Matt Northam

At the start of this event, Mark Maltby warned us that we’d go home at the end of the day and bore our friends and family with talk about the differences between sheep and dog neck bones, and how to distinguish a cows tooth from a horses; I am pleased (and sad!) to say that he was very right. The day started off with a trip to the Big Dig site for a guided tour from Dr Miles Russell, where we saw an Iron Age settlement, a Roman Villa (a bit of imagination was required for that one as only the foundations are left), and the wonderfully named ‘Wall of Death’ (a photo gallery of the dozens of human remains found at the site). It was great to see the archeology students at work, and we got a chance to look at some recently unearthed skeletons – freshly cleaned by toothbrush – including cats, deer and moles! Afterwards, we headed back to the bone lab to dry off and learn about identification techniques and start to piece together various skeletons. My proudest moment of the day was finding some knife marks on a sheep’s neck, indicating that it had likely been butchered; it wasn’t quite an Indiana Jones-esque discovery but it was enough for me! Dr Ellen Hambleton then walked us though the bone cataloging process which was much more interesting than you might think(!) and then we all had a bit more time to put our newfound skills to the test. All in all, it was a really great day, and well worth braving the weather for! One of the other participants said that it was just like Time Team, but Ellie and Mark were much better hosts than Baldrick and it was great to get a bit of hands on experience rather than just watching it on TV!

The Impact of Technology on Children: Reflections from Emily Cieciura

Over 40 people crowded into a classroom at Winton Primary School to hear academics and practitioners discuss the physical and behavioural impacts that technology can have on our growing children. The morning brought together key research and practical advice to parents and those working with children. They key message is that, with all tools, they can be used for good…. But it is up to the responsible adults around them to ensure that children interact with technology appropriately for their age and stage of physical development. Part of this is applying the boundaries that we have in real life to this virtual one. Practical tips included uses parental controls including DNS controls, where the internet goes through an external filter (so covering all devices used on home wireless) and setting up privacy settings on devices. The session also video clips useful for starting a conversation with a teen or pre-teen including Think before you post. Plentiful resources are available from The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and from providers themselves. This was an insightful and valuable session which was well balanced in its views and vital to all involved with the care of children. As a parent, I’m going to take time to follow these links and do my ‘job’ a little bit better.

Nutrition and Healthier Living: reflections from Julia Taylor

This interesting and engaging event started off with each presenter discussing their specific interests related to nutrition and healthy living. The presenters (Jane, Fotini, Tim, Gillian and Joanne – the core team representing BU’s Nutrition course) included registered nutritionists, dieticians, exercise physiologists, food scientists and psychologists. Following the short presentations, the audience took part in a food myths quiz asking questions such as, ‘is ice cream a good source of dairy’ and ‘is organic food healthier than non-organic.’ Everyone really enjoyed the quiz as it helped to confirm and deny several questions we see in the media on a regular basis. Next, there were several demos to test muscular strength and resting metabolic rate, which the audience found most interesting. The session ended with a healthy eating quiz, so we all got to try full fat cheese and low fat cheese to try to tell the difference. If any of this sounds of interest, the team will be in the Poole House Atrium Friday morning! Fun fact: STRESSED is DESSERTS spelled backwards!

Children’s sleep. What goes wrong? What can we do? Reflections from Eva Papadopoulou 

This very well attended event included presentations and interactive workshops, led by experts in children’s sleep across the country. Panel members and individually presenting: Dr Andrew Mayers (BU), Emma Janes (The Children Sleep Charity), Deborah Sugden (Savvy Tot Sleep), and Sue Atkins (Parenting expert).  The highly successful children’s sleep workshops at Winton Primary School have received a great deal of national and local media attention (TV, radio and newspapers), which Dr Mayers wanted to share with the public. Also the experts’ work within their own background recently seen at the Channel Four BedTime Live and the appearances in This Morning from the parenting expert, all attributed in a very strong panel, that answered individual queries and also lead to group discussions. The day was a good opportunity for parents, educators and clinicians to find out how to tackle the all too common of getting children to sleep well. The event provoked vibrant discussion throughout the day and looked at tools and techniques that parents and professionals can use. A very positively received event.

Five Go Killing- 12^th June: Reflections from Sarah Katon and Natalie Bates

A packed auditorium gathered for the compelling portrayal of ‘Five Go Killing’. This chilling and inspirational performance was written by BAFTA award winner John Foster. This was a unique one woman show that was inspired by a true event that occurred in France but was transposed into the Bournemouth area. This story uncovers a group of five young middle class professionals who embark upon a killing spree involving the murder of old people. This play was gripping and captured the audience. A question and answer session followed where attendees had the opportunity to address the director, producer, writer and actress with questions about the drama.

Motion Capture: Reflections from Emily Cieciura

If you thought VHS and Betamax or CVD vs. Blu-ray was confusing, finding out about all the different methods of motion capture (or Mocap) was an eye-opener. Zhidong Xiao talked us through all the methods currently available and their relative pros and cons in terms of accuracy, space, cost and time. At BU, Passive Optical is used but even this state of the art system still has disadvantages in terms of cost, heavy data usage and set up time. It does though, allow of multiple actors in a convenient space. The most obvious uses are in the entertainment industry for gaming, films and advertising but mocap is also found in the life sciences for sports’ performance analysis, injury prevention and rehabilitation. Use is also made of this technology in performance art, image heritage preservation, robotics and 3D visualisation. The session ended with one of the attendees donning the mocap suit and seeing their ‘stick-man’ image instantly on screen. A very impressive ‘YMCA’ dance ended a very technical but highly enjoyable introduction to this fascinating technique.

Binge Bournemouth?- 13^th June: Reflections from Sarah Katon and Natalie Bates

This was a very interactive event held by Will Haydock  with Dorset Police as a guest speaker. There were a variety of stakeholders in attendance such as Bournemouth Borough Council, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bournemouth Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT), A & E nurses, The Bournemouth Brief Intervention Team as well as the general public. This was an informative event that dealt with the issue of binge drinking in the local area. This was a great opportunity for these organisations/service providers to debate the issue and to discuss initiatives already in place and potential future actions to combat this problem

Social Sensing: Are You Happy to Work as a Monitor? Reflections from Paul Lynch

Dr Raian Ali’s thought-provoking presentation introduced the concept of Social Sensing and outlined the nature of research happening at BU and elsewhere in this very current area.  The session concentrated on what motivates people to participate or to not participate and how best to get feedback from them.  The greater part of the session was taken up in a discussion come feedback event enthusiastically engaged in by a very diverse audience.  Technology is so present in everyday life now that everyone had a pertinent contribution to make. The discussion crystallised worries around privacy and data usage but equally recognised our apparent willingness to forgo these worries where pleasure or gain is obtained in return.  Quite what reward is required to make one say “Yes” when asked “Have you five minutes spare to provide your valuable feedback?” was a trickier question still to be resolved.  A very relevant session for all.

Incredibly, we are very nearly at the end of the Festival of Learning. But if you’ve missed out already, fear not – there are some fantastic events that you can still come along to on Thursday. There is a really diverse selection which you can choose from, and don’t worry if you don’t have a ticket – come and see us at the welcome desk and we can point you in the right direction. So, how about your take your pick from:

• Your community matters
• Public engagement in renewable energy and technology issues
• Doppelganger dialogues
• Third sector skills: Visual communication
• The impact of technology on adolescents: Drawing on psychological research to inform practice within schools and the home
• Binge Bournemouth? Making changes in young people’s drinking practices
• Nutrition and healthier living
• The impact of technology on children
• Digging deeper in Dorset: Introduction to ancient artefacts

But what about has already has taken place? As ever, take a look at some of the reflections from the lovers of learning, the Research and Knowledge Exchange team:

Waiting for the Monsoon: Nepal through my lens, a photo and storytelling exhibition of research fieldwork experience in rural Nepal reflections by Eva Papadopoulou

An Interactive event  of photographs, artefacts and storytelling of life in rural Nepal – a fieldwork diary of an HSC PhD student, Sheetal Sharma, during the summer monsoon. The camera as a research tool is well documented in disciplines such as anthropology and sociology. The process of photography often leads to uncovering misconceptions. These photographs ‘tell a story’ of the reality of fieldwork, among holy cows, sacrificial goats and cultural practices. Nepal is an ideal setting due to its riot of colour: where the Ancient world thrives in the Modern one. There was a good turn up for this event, which took place Monday 3^rd June, with 3 one hour presentations, there was a good discussion during and after the event, with a variety of ages of attendees. Very positive feedback was received for this colourful and exiting presentation.

Social Media Monitoring  – reflections from Philip Leahy-Harland

A very well presented and facilitated session with Ana Adi covering the rationale for social media and how to measure what it does. Although the social media landscape has evolved greatly over the last five years, the what, why and how questions to understand how social media can work for you and/or your business remain the same. So what are your objectives, how will you recognise success, what are your key performance indicators,  what should you monitor and how frequently should you monitor it? Over the social media landscape there are recognisable and bespoke social media tools. If you are ‘expressing’ then Twitter and blogs will feature highly, if you wish to provide ‘content’ then YouTube and FlickR may be the right tools for you, what about ‘networking’, well there’s LinkedIn and Xing amongst many and if you are firmly in the ‘social’ arena then Facebook, Bebo etc. are for you. Overall, know what you want, how to measure and analyse it. There are many free analytical tools  available to you. Facebook has Insight built in for example. External tools such as Google Trends look at trends in search terms (who, where from, when?). This type of analysis helps identify language used by others as well as common typos which could be used in web site optimisation and marketing. Tools such as Social Buzz and Topsy look at FB, twitter and Google+, but beware such systems are not ‘human’ and capture data based on programming, so sentiment in message analysis can be misleading So what’s good to measure? Well, that is down to you, however there are many tools and approaches, you just need to pick the ones that are right for you.

In attendance was Luke Williams, a very experienced social media ‘geek’ (to use his introduction). Luke works for the RNLI and use many social media tools and outlets covering RNLI HQ and all UK RNLI stations (200+). He spends around an hour a day on analysis and an hour responding. This is a busy role but does offer a guide to the amount of time an organisation could spend using social media effectively.

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.

We are now well into the second week of the Festival of Learning – how did that happen so quickly? Despite the amazing weather at the weekend, we had a great turn-out on Saturday with colleagues enjoying learning about how to build the Perfect Sandcastle, Story Stew (it did involve a large stew pot), How to Self Publish (Staying Solvent and Sane), a field trip to Russell Alfred Wallace’s home (complete with nature walk and talk), a theatre performance to help us learn about Russell Alfred Wallace’s life and not to mention over 250 people visiting Bioblitz over in Poole Park. Amazing stuff and the fun continued on Monday… more reflections from my fantastic colleagues in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office below. Before, we move to them, what do we have happening on Tuesday 11th June? Lots and lots, so take your pick:

• The fastest men on no legs: Disability, prosthesis and the role of technology in elite sport – no need to book in advance, come to the Loft at 7pm to hear from our award winning science communicator!
• 20 years of law at BU 
• Social media monitoring 
• Community cohesion
• Equipping the business leaders of the future 
• Engaging young women with sun safety
• Mobile technology: Distraction or touch point in education and professional development?
• An introduction to motion capture
• Intervention in childbirth: What’s wrong with letting women choose?
• Children’s sleep: What goes wrong? What can we do?

So, what has been happening at the Festival so far… my colleagues from RKE provide their reflections:

Power of the placement year: Reflections by Emily Cieciura

Following a networking breakfast, Mark Ridolfo and Linda Ladle outlined the power of the placement to a gathering of local businesses. The benefits to the company and to the placement student were highlighted along with how the scheme works and is supported by BU. The session also included talks by BU students. Attendees also enjoyed the opportunity to talk with BU staff, including key Placements and careers staff, and network with other local companies. To find out more visit BU’s Business Services Webpages (http://bu.bournemouth.ac.uk/business-services/graduate-and-student-recruitment/index.html) and follow links to all the services we offer.

The perfect sandcastle: Reflections by Emily Cieciura

Professor Sandcastle himself (aka Professor Matthew Bennett) told us the enthralling story of sand and introduced us to the big and little ‘sedi-people’ who make up sand, which is especially wonderful along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. Matthew used the audience to demonstrate the importance of size, shape, friction and water in making great sand. He explained the physics behind making glass sheets stick together with just water and how water can go uphill, revealing how these scientific feats are vital for having fun at the beach. Using samples of local Bournemouth sand, we worked out the best proportion of sand and water to make that perfect sandcastle. Staking his reputation on it, Matthew told us all the secret of the perfect mix but sorry, you had to be there…. Now, where is my ice-cream?

Reading, writing and eye movements, event organised by Sine McDougall and Julie Kirkby, report by Jenny Roddis

Attendees at this well attended event heard about the history of written language, beginning with pictures and including the English language (did you know that yacht was spelt yot until the advent of the printing press in the Netherlands?). Consideration was also given to the future of English, which is changing as a result of text messaging, emails and Internet chat rooms – should we be able to spell however we wish? Individuals then separated into groups, where they heard about research using the eye tracker and assessing reading skills. An engaging final discussion was held about how dyslexia can be spotted in the classroom.