Yearly Archives / 2016

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” – Dr Phil Crowther (Sheffield Hallam University) visiting BU

innovation

Dr Phil Crowther, from Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield Business School), will be on a short visit to BU where he will meet researchers from the Department of Events and Leisure to exchange and explore potential research opportunities (8th March 2016).

“Designing ‘Playful’ Business Events” is the title of his guest lecture, where Dr Phil Crowther explores the very serious nature of play in the design of business events.

We invite you to join this session, to the limit of seating capacity, on the 8th March 2016, Allesbrook Lecture Hall (Talbot Campus), 1 p.m.

For a little bit more on Dr Phil Crowther, please read below his story in the first person.

Would you like to know more details on this visit or to join us in the research meeting programme, please email Dr Lenia Marques, lmarques@bournemouth.ac.uk .

Phil Crowther

My first degree was in Recreation Management from Loughborough University, graduating in 1995. Since then I have enjoyed a career in recreation / leisure / tourism / event management for eleven years, running cinemas, theme parks, and health and racquet clubs as General Manager.  During this time I had the pleasure of designing and delivering such highlights as film premiers, celebrity birthday parties, and large team building events.  During my industry career I completed a part-time MBA in Executive General Management which was my pathway back into universities. Since then I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching, researching, and delivering continuing professional development (CPD) events and consultancy in the area of Event Management.

My teaching focuses heavily on strategy and events, leading teaching on modules such as Event Policy and Planning, Strategic Event Design, and Strategic Event Creation.  My research focusses specifically upon Marketing Events, part of the Experiential Marketing eruption, and I have published a number of journal papers.  I have recently edited a book entitled Strategic Event Creation with colleagues which sets out an agenda for the practice, and teaching, of events.   Most recently completed my PhD entitled ‘Strategic Application of Marketing Events’ which continues to be my main interest.   

 Beyond that I have two fabulous daughter, a wonderful partner, and two amazing dogs called Baxter and Will.  I also have a passion for running and was most recently, in January this year, running the Hong Kong Marathon in pouring rain.

Fair Access Research: Learning Together

The BU Fair Access Research (FAR) project is an innovative project which seeks to make a difference to students by transforming practice through collaborative research.

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We are co-creating research with students and practitioners (both professional and academic) as part of the university’s commitments to widening participation to higher education. We want to make a sustainable difference to students accessing, succeeding and progressing through university by undertaking co-creative research to transform practice.

Our approach to fair access research centres on learning together with students, colleagues from different academic and professional backgrounds and with stakeholders from across the higher education sector. By learning together we aim to:

  • support the student journey of people from underrepresented backgrounds
  • develop a transferable methodology, combining quantitative and qualitative methods
  • implement continued improvement  and social capital for organisational learning
  • establish targeted and reflexive dialogue inform and transform policy, practice and community engagement

Our research is concerned with process, with ways of thinking about and doing widening participation research to change behaviour within BU and beyond. Through learning together, our practice-led research will shape new understandings and changes in policy and practice for fair access to higher education. This Fair Access Research strategy aligns with Bournemouth University’s commitment to a fusion of research, education, and professional practice.

What we’re doing:

In addition to analysing data focusing on retention and attainment, some of the work we’re doing at the moment includes:

  • Working with colleagues from across the sector to develop new approaches to evaluating outreach
  • Undertaking research to enhance understanding of additional assessments in the admissions process
  • Co-creating research with two Undergraduate Research Assistants to explore student perceptions of disability
  • Finding out how academics understand their role in supporting students’ health and wellbeing
  • Working with Grow@BU to explore their impact on student’s lives.

The challenges facing widening participation are complex, educational disadvantage exists in a world where inequalities intersect and hierarchies are entrenched. We know that “without equity in education, inequality in society is reinforced and perpetuated”.

We can find ways to make participation in higher education more equitable if we harness our collective expertise and experiences.

We want to learn from and with you to support underrepresented and marginalised learners across the whole learning journey (from outreach through to graduation and beyond).

The Fair Access Research project is a catalyst to create a community of practice. If you are doing any work in this area, want to share ideas, test findings, evaluate interventions or embed social justice into your teaching and learning, get in touch! 

For more information about the Fair Access Research project and to share your ideas, please email the Principal Investigators, Dr Vanessa Heaslip (vheaslip@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr Clive Hunt (chunt@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

 

New HEIF project commences: The Wessex Portal and the Dorset Coast Digital Archive

Knowledge Exchange

The Wessex Portal was created three years ago and it is an online community to better promote the environmental and heritage assets of the region. The purpose of the website is to highlight work undertaken in Wessex and allow a platform to promote events, volunteering and job opportunities with key stakeholders. Alongside the website, The Wessex Portal promotes the content to a wider audience using social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Mailchimp which are regularly updated to engage with, and reach out to the public and the local community.

Dorset Coast Digital Archive

The Dorset Coast Digital Archive (DCDA) is part of the Wessex Portal. The DCDA is an extensive archive of photographs, newspaper articles, aerial images and historical maps of the Dorset coast that date back as far as 1740. The aim of the DCDA is to showcase this archive and ask members of the public to contribute their own photos to this collection.

A sample image from the archive of a stranded whale on Bournemouth beach from 1890 (Source: Bournemouth University Library)

A sample image from the archive of a stranded whale on Bournemouth beach from 1890 (Source: Bournemouth University Library)

The Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (SciTech) is leading this project. The Archive will promote information and understanding of how the Dorset coast has changed over time. Through support from the HEIF 5 + 1 funding, it will be possible to fully develop the Archive and make is accessible on the internet. The Archive will also be a valuable teaching tool. The current stage of the project involves categorising over 3000 images to make them available online.

Any questions regarding the project can be addressed to Professor Genoveva Esteban gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk or Research Assistant Katie Thompson i7430967@bournemouth.ac.uk

“Flip it!” –Kip Jones’ most frequent workshop advice

Attendants at the Creative Writing for Academics Workshop at Bournemouth University. Some hold copies of the photograph from which they created a story.

Attendants at the Creative Writing for Academics Workshop at Bournemouth University. Some hold copies of the photograph from which they created a story.

The most frequent advice from Kip Jones to participants was “Flip it!”

“Flip it!” –Kip Jones’ most frequent workshop advice.

 

Recently, 27 academics, some from as far away as upstate New York and Dublin, gathered for the Creative Writing for Academics with Kip Jones at Bournemouth University (BU). Their goal was two days of experimentation with writing techniques to engender more creative outputs in their academic writing.

The conclusion of one participant reflected the sentiments of many: “The Creative Writing for Academics workshop turned out to be a great experience, more than expected!!”

The two-day workshop was organised by BU’s Centre for Qualitative Research, and was promoted thusly:

“This unique event isn’t a typical writing retreat (with trees to hug and lots of time to ruminate), but a very active experience with exercises, suggestions and supportive feedback on participants’ work…”

KimballFrontCover-216x300Instead of taking 30 minutes or more to go round the room and let everyone make an introduction (listing job titles, universities, theses topics, etc. ad infinitum), Jones asked attendees to take 15 minutes and write their life story on a postcard instead. This is an exercise that comes directly from Michael Kimball’s work, Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard). Kimball is an American novelist whose writing Jones admires. A few examples from Kimball’s postcard book were shared with the group. Each participant then wrote her/his own life story on a postcard; afterwards, some of the attendants then shared their stories with the group.

Jones then explained tags, log lines and treatments—copywriting techniques used in advertising and filmmaking.

The Workshop as a Logline: Participants were challenged to write their “Life on a postcard”, they were introduced to creating tags and log lines; homework was to write a poem based on a dream. Next, they created a story from a photograph. Finally, they shared their stories with others who had used the same photo. (50 words)

Tag: “Artistic types take their time … in an Italian trattoria.”

Participants then had a go at creating tags and loglines for academic articles that they brought with them. This was an exercise in using simple sentences, reducing content to its essence and creating copy that could be used in titles and the body of articles, in blogs and on Twitter.

Jones used a relaxed and open-ended process throughout the workshop. Francesca Cavallerio’s extended feedback report captures the essence of the responses of many to this approach to the workshop:

I enjoyed the freedom that came from writing creatively, without prescriptions. Having no other goal than the story/poem itself was intimidating initially, but then turned into an amazing experience. I think (the workshop) allowed me to discover a few things about myself and the way I write. Also, by listening to what others wrote, and realizing how many different ways of writing exist, and how much I enjoyed each of them, gave me an increased sense of freedom and possibility.

I was expecting more “directions”, tips on “how to use creative writing in academia”. But now that we are at the end of the workshop, I think I can see why it was organised in this way. Yesterday, I would have said, “Yes, I wanted to be guided more”. Today, I am actually very happy of the structure and everything I learned, felt and experienced here. –Francesca Cavallerio, St. Mary’s University, Twickenham.

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The last morning of the workshop consisted of reading some of the poems that were written overnight. Attendants then chose from amongst 11 black and white photographs. The brief was to write a story about what the photograph was about. The only instruction was that often a photograph could represent the moment between what led up to the event captured and what might happen next. The group took the rest of the morning to write the photo-based 1,000 word stories. After lunch, they assembled in groups of three (each group having chosen the same photo) and compared stories and outcomes.

Creative Writing Photo exercise

“I feel a sense of satisfaction in having written a life-story postcard, a poem and a short story—all very personal.” –Anne Quinney, Bournemouth University

The workshop was envisaged as a way to help academics with publishing in the wider world of blogs and online outlets, moving work to mixed media, auto-ethnography, and even fiction, radio and film. Jones gave ideas of the kinds of blogs and even journals that are receptive to creative academic work. He shared experiences with his own outputs and finding like-minded editors with whom to work.

The intellectual exchanges encouraged joint exploration on how academics can engage with principles and tools from the arts in order to expand and extend their possibilities of dissemination of their work. Concepts of creativity itself evolved and were transformed by participants’ outlooks and willingness to engage with unfamiliar territory. These processes comprised a ‘facilitated learning’—in that knowledge was gained as a secondary goal through a process of developing new relationships. This was achieved through individual and small group problem-solving and self-examination, grounded in personal past experience and knowledge.

 

 

Cloud and Weather Simulation for Computer Graphics

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

Speaker: Leigh McLoughlinresults_cumulo_2

Title: Cloud and Weather Simulation for Computer Graphics

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 2nd March 2016

Room: P302, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

In this talk I will discuss my work on cloud simulation for computer graphics. This work was designed to provide a means of simulating clouds and weather features, such as rain, using desktop graphics hardware. This involves elements of meteorology, numerical weather simulation and computational fluid dynamics, taken from the sciences and adapted to meet the more artistic requirements of computer graphics in which an element of control is required and the laws of physics may be wilfully disobeyed. The result is a lightweight physically-inspired cloud simulation scheme, capable of emulating the dynamic properties of cloud formation and weather effects.

We hope to see you there.

 

Post-Doc Research Opportunities in Politics at BU

The Centre for Politics and Media Research in the Faculty of Media & Communication, Bournemouth University welcomes interest from recently qualified post-doctoral researchers to come and work in the Centre as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow.

Research projects of interest are:

  • Political talk and the online public sphere
  • Global citizenship, public engagement with global affairs and political participation (particularly engagement via digital media)
  • The media framing of politics and its impacts
  • The politics of public space
  • Extremist politics, security and social cohesion, fundamentalism, freedom of speech

Specialist skills training we can offer at Bournemouth University:

  • Quantitative and qualitative methodologies
  • Web platform and social media data capture and analysis
  • Mass media data capture and analysis
  • Psychological and sociological approaches to the study of politics
  • Consumer behaviour/psychology approaches to the study of political participation

Full details about the call can be found at the below link.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/2226-msca-if-2016.html

Initial expressions of interest should be sent to the Centre Director, Dr Darren Lilleker (dlilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk) including a summary of the proposed research project and accompanying curriculum vitae.

The planned opening of the call is April 12th 2016 with a submission deadline of 14th September 2016.

Film Screening : How To Change The World – Part of British Science week

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Date: Thursday 17 March
Time: 7.30pm
Location: Shelley Theatre
Synopsis: A very special British Science Week solar powered screening of this radical environmental film. Charting the success of eco-activist pioneer Richard Hunter and his unorthodox methods to challenge the establishment that gave birth to the organisation known as Greenpeace. Director Jerry Rathwell has drawn on over 40 years of behind the scenes, draw-dropping and dramatic archive footage to make this one of the must-see documentaries of the decade.

Ecotainment! in collaboration with Greenpeace are proud to present this inaugural Green Screen cinema. An environmental film night & social event to pull together like minded individuals from across society.

For more information: Check out Facebook

To book: Click here

Political Studies Association: Sport and Politics Conference 2016

conferences

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Political Studies Association: Sport and Politics Conference 2016

Conference theme: Social Justice

Sport, Politics and Social Justice

The Department of Sport and Physical Activity are pleased to be hosting this years PSA Sport Special Interest Groiup Conference on the 4th and 5th March at the Executive Business Centre.

This is the 10th anniversary of this academic group and the conference has gradually grown to become an international event with papers being presented by academics from the USA, Turkey, Poland, Hong Kong and the UK.

The conference will aim to unpack and interrogate some of the ideas concerning Sport, as a cultural form par excellence, its inherent political nature, andwhat can only be described as an ambiguous relationship with social justice. Governments and international sports organisations often cite the commonly held precepts of social justice – fairness and/or entitlement – as key aspects and determinants of political bargaining and policymaking concerning sport.

Some might claim that it is the supposed virtue of justice that sits at the heart of sport that gives it such special value manifest in the use of sport in initiatives such as crime prevention, community development and health promotion.

Others might argue that within a wider cultural politics, sport can be understood as an insidious site through which various discourses are appropriated and mobilised in regard to the organisation and discipline of daily life and, from this perspective, that sport may do very little to champion an orientation towards social justice, equality and inclusion.

The Sport, Politics and Social Justice Conference 2016 will provide a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of these issues and more. The conference will explore the inter-relationship between sport, politics and social justice by drawing on research from a variety of academic fields, including: politics, political science, sociology, social policy, political philosophy, criminology, community and youth work, history, law, geography, and sport studies.

If you are interested and would like to attend please contact the conference Chair Andrew Adams +

 

Dementia Awareness Sessions for staff

BU are working towards becoming a dementia-friendly university: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2016/02/17/bu-working-towards-becoming-a-dementia-friendly-university/

As part of this work we are running a number of dementia awareness sessions for staff:

Thursday 25th February 2016 13:00-14:00 Talbot Campus
Thursday 17th March 2016 13:00-14:00 Lansdowne Campus
Monday 25th April 2016 14:00-15:00 Lansdowne Campus
Wednesday 25th May 2016 13:00-14:00 Talbot Campus
Monday 20th June 2016 10:00-11:00 Talbot Campus

Sign up for a session here: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/workingatbu/staffdevelopmentandengagement/ddeevents/budementiaawarenesssession/

SURE BU Conference – join us to celebrate undergraduate research

Our annual undergraduate research conference – SURE BU – is returning for its second year on 2 March on Talbot Campus.  We’ve had some fantastic submissions, which show how our students are getting involved in research, improving their skills and developing new knowledge.

SURE BU is an excellent way to celebrate research being undertaken by our students, learn more about how their ideas could make a difference and how research is shaping their future careers.  The conference is open to students and staff to attend: you can drop into a session or stay all day.  Attending the conference is a great opportunity to meet with other students, find out about the research going on at BU and support our students as they take their first steps into the world of research.

We’re keen for staff to attend as next year, BU will be playing host to the British Undergraduate Research Conference, which we hope you’ll encourage your students to get involved in.

Students will be presenting throughout the day and prizes will be awarded to the best contributors at a drinks reception in the evening.

The conference will take place on Wednesday 2 March in Kimmeridge House, Talbot Campus.

Tickets can be booked via Eventbrite.

Big Data in Health and Care – ‘Using data to gain new insights’

Business Engagement, conferences, Knowledge Exchange

Data-science-history

Date: Tuesday 19 April

Location: St. Mary’s Stadium – Britannia Road Southampton, Hampshire SO14 5FP GB – View Map

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm

About the event:

Big Data in healthcare is being used to cure disease, improve quality of life, avoid preventable deaths and more importantly plan primary prevention strategies. With the UK population increasing and all of us living longer, through initiatives such as the Vanguards, models of care are rapidly changing, and many of the decisions behind those changes are being driven by data.

This Big Data conference, chaired by Richard Samuel, (Fareham and Gosport, South-Eastern Hants CEO) will provide an overview of Big Data from experts within the field, as well as practical examples of how Big Data is being used to improve the way that we deliver services. A Big Data expo will be accessible throughout the day and in the afternoon a variety of plenary sessions will gather feedback from participants to help shape future actions.

To register: Click here

If you have any questions or queries regarding the event or any specific access needs please do not hesitate to contact Katie Cheeseman – Digital Health Programme Manager katie.cheeseman@wessexahsn.net                                                                                     

 

RKEO Drop-in session tomorrow

Guidance

research lifecycleAs previously posted, RKEO will be holding monthly drop-in sessions throughout 2016. The full schedule of sessions can be found here.

The first session will be held on 24 February 2016 between 2-4pm in Bournemouth House Cafe. Anyone can attend with any queries for RKEO. The following RKEO staff will be available for the session:

You don’t need to be from these faculties as staff will help with any queries they have and if they’re not able to answer your query then and there, they’ll ensure you receive a timely response from RKEO. Basically, come along and have a chat. These are also great opportunities for us to gather feedback from you on the service that we deliver to you.

RKEO look forward to seeing you.

Student Health and Wellbeing: staff survey

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This week is Eating Disorder Awareness Week. BU is putting on a series of free events to promote understanding about eating disorders and to encourage open and inclusive discussion.

As part of BU’s programme of Fair Access Research we are examining the how students experience university in different ways. And this includes how paying attention to students’ health and wellbeing.

Student health and wellbeing is a vitally important issue of universities. A recent survey by the NUS found that 78 per cent of students said they experienced mental health issues over the last year. More than half of the students said that they sought no support.

In a report to HEFCE it was found that students with mental health issues and social/communicative impairments (such as autism) have doubled since 2008-09. These significant increases are impacting the structures of support that institutions have in place, including academic support

Living with challenging health and wellbeing issues, and not always seeking support, shapes whether or not you stay and impacts upon attainment. It re-orients (or, perhaps, disorients) your whole student experience.

 We  are surveying academic staff to find out more about how they understand their role in supporting students’ health and wellbeing.

We have developed a short survey for you all to complete. It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and we hope that it will lead us to develop ways to support you support your students.

Many thanks to all those who have completed the survey already (we’ve had a terrific response so far!). The survey will remain open for a few more weeks to enable as many of you as possible to share your experiences and feelings on this really important issue.

To complete they survey click here. Once completed please share with your colleagues. 

If you want any more information about the survey please email Alex on awardrop@bournemouth.ac.uk

For more information about the Fair Access Research project please email the Principal Investigators, Dr Vanessa Heaslip (vheaslip@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr Clive Hunt (chunt@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Reminder of BU’s Bridging Fund Scheme for researchers

Golden gate Bridge wallpaperIn summer 2015 we launched the new BU Bridging Fund Scheme which aims to provide additional stability to fixed-term researchers who continue to rely heavily on short-term contracts usually linked to external funding. This situation sometimes impacts negatively on continuity of employment and job security and can result in a costly loss of researcher talent for the institution.

The new Bridging Fund Scheme aims to mitigate these circumstances by redeploying the researcher where possible, or where feasible, by providing ‘bridging funding’ for the continuation of employment for a short-term (maximum three months) between research grants. It is intended to permit the temporary employment, in certain circumstances, of researchers between fixed-term contracts at BU, for whom no other source of funding is available, in order to:

(a) encourage the retention of experienced and skilled staff, and sustain research teams and expertise;

(b) aconcordat to support the career development of researchersvoid the break in employment and career which might otherwise be faced by such staff;

(c) maximise the opportunity for such staff to produce high-quality outputs and/or research impact at the end of funded contracts/grants.

To find out more about the scheme, including how to apply for bridging funding, see the scheme guidelines.

This is a great step forward for BU and for BU’s researchers and is an action from our EC HR Excellence in Research Award which aims to increase BU’s alignment with the national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers (further information is available here: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/research-environment/research-concordat/).

Challenges in Research Event

Info Days, Training

Challenges in Research

Wednesday 24th February, 12pm-2pm

Second Floor, Executive Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus

Open to all Research Staff from across the Faculties, this event will aim to enlighten you about some of the issues you might encounter as a researcher. There will be two sets of parallel sessions running for 1 hour per session covering the following topics:

  • Predatory publishing/Fake conference and editorial board
    1. Jenny Hall, Emma Crowley and Edwin van Teijlingen will be addressing the exponential growth in commercial (predatory) journals and ‘academic conferences’ over the past few years.
      • They will be highlighting some of the available information/ resources to help the confused researcher in finding the most appropriate journal for their academic paper.
      • The presenters between them have a wealth of experience in academic publishing, editing international journals, reviewing journal submissions as well as advising junior colleagues on developing  their publication strategies.
  • IP and Patents – Traps to avoid
  • Contractual complications
  • Sponsorship  
    1. “How to navigate the BU process and sponsorship” by Jason Edwards
    2. “Lots of people think that sponsorship and funding is the same think” – Laura Purandare will talk about what sponsorship is and the main issues you  might encounter and how to overcome them
  • A Brief Introduction to Open Research Data and Research Data Management by Michael Board. The talk will cover:
    1. Open Research Data – BU researchers are increasingly expected to share their research data with other stakeholders.  Find out about: the benefits of research data sharing, funder RDM requirements and the measures that can be taken to embargo research data if it is ethically or commercially sensitive.
    2. Research Data Management –  BU is in the process of implementing a RDM system to enable its researchers to share their research data.  Find out about: the key components of the RDM system that enables the deposition of research data into a data repository, and the features that make the data outputs accessible.

The sessions will be run by legal services along with library and research staff.

Further information about the timing of particular sessions will be posted closer to the time, as well as emailed out to anyone who has already pre-registered.

To register your place please click here