The third edition of the Bournemouth Research Chronicle (BRC) is now published. Thank you very much to everyone who contributed.
This is a glossy ‘coffee table’ magazine with some lovely images. It is aimed at peer researchers and research collaborators, prospective funders and (perhaps most importantly) research users such businesses, government organisations, policy makers and charities.
We all know that communication is an integral part of the link between research and societal impact and this magazine is a great way to get the message heard by the right people.
Content is presented through BU’s eight research themes. This edition provides a snapshot of some of the work BU submitted to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014. In particular it focuses on the societal impact of our research, which forms a key part of REF2014.
Distribution
Every BU academic will receive a copy of the BRC. My colleagues and I will be in the Atrium, Poole House on Tuesday and Thursday next week with a large stash so do pop along, say hello and pick up yours. Otherwise, we’ll put it in the internal post for you.
Throughout January I’ll be sending the BRC to an extensive list of research users, including policy makers, community figures, opinion leaders, businesses and journalists. I will be providing a supply to each School so please do send it to your contacts, collaborators, peers, prospective funders, industry partners or anyone else who has an interest in BU’s research.
R&KEO will keep a larger stock of the BRC. If you would like copies for an event or conference then email me (Sally Gates – Editor) to arrange a delivery.
Thank you again to everyone who contributed and happy reading!
Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!
Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to contribute to the new research website.
BU’s new research website was launched in beta (i.e. test version) in December and has a radically updated design, presenting our research around our eight society-focused Research Themes. In each section content is displayed by research news, research impact, public engagement and postgraduate research. It is also possible to view content by each REF Unit of Assessment and see details of our Research Centres. You can access the new website here: http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk.
One of the key reasons for the new research website is to ensure that our researchers are able to easily and frequently share their research online. Everyone will be able to craft their own content and upload articles themselves. The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (R&KEO) will perform a light-touch check to ensure the correct tags are added and new content will go live on the site within 1-2 working days. The webpages are yours to add content to!
Contributing to the new website is easy! Content is added via WordPress (the same as adding posts to the BU Research Blog) and can be done by clicking on this link (your logon will be your BU network logon): http://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/login. We want you to add content about your research projects, the research collaborations you are involved with, the research your PhD students are undertaking, your public engagement and outreach activities, news about you, your research and your research centre, etc.
All BU staff automatically have access to add content using their network logon. Once you have logged in for the first time we can give you additional access to edit and contribute to relevant research centres as well. Email research@bournemouth.ac.uk to request additional admin rights.
If you would like training in how to add content to the new website then sessions are available. There are some workshops taking place next week (you can book online here). Further sessions are currently being scheduled. Please contact Sally Gates for more information..
Adding content is quick and easy, and shows the external world how vibrant and exciting research is at BU! And that’s why your New Year’s Research Resolution #5 is to add content to the new website!
Our next Creative Technology Research Centre Research Seminar will be presented by Xinglong Ma.
Title: Knowledge Points based annotation for Open Educational Resources
Date: Wednesday 15th January 2014
Time: 2 – 3PM
Venue: P302 LT
Abstract: In recent years, the emergence of open educational resources (OERs), in particularly Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), such as Coursera, Edx, Udacity, are making efforts to enhance openness and reuse regardless of demographic constraints. In 2011, the first course, “Introduction to AI”, from Stanford University reached 160,000 enrolments, and in the following years, millions of learners have been involved in the MOOCs. High dropout rates ensued in this self-regulated and self-controlled learning process. In order to encourage seamless learning under the open and reusable learning environment, an innovative approach is proposed based on semanticized Knowledge Points. This talk will discuss the concept of Knowledge Points and suggest the potential values of the Knowledge Points with semantics by comparing them with other annotation approaches.
The deadline for commenting on the draft Institutional Development Plan for RKE has been extended by one week to Friday 17th January.
As part of the delivery planning process in 2013, a draft institutional development plan for research and knowledge exchange (RKE) at BU was produced. The aim of the document was to set out a long-term plan for developing and supporting RKE activity to meet the objectives of the BU2018 strategy. The aim is to instigate the plan from early 2014.
The plan has been drafted and has been road tested with UET, URKEC and around 20 academics to date. We are now seeking views from the academic community on the plan as a whole and on specific elements of the plan. Your feedback, comments and ideas will feed into the final version which will be the blueprint for how RKE activity is supported and developed in the long-term.
Feedback and discussion will be facilitated online. Upon accessing the site you will be able to read the plan in its entirety and see the key elements on which we are seeking views and suggestions.
Click on one of the topics and you will be presented with a brief summary of what is being proposed as part of the institutional development plan. Beneath this text you will see the previous comments that have been left by colleagues. You are strongly encouraged to add a reply stating your own views and suggestions. This is especially important and will ensure that the academic community has shaped the support and development mechanism put in place. If you wish to feedback confidentially then please send your comments to Professor John Fletcher, cc’d to Julie Northam.
The aim of this website is to provide a forum to facilitate the discussion of the plan as a whole and the identified key elements. Providing feedback works in the same way as adding a comment to the Research Blog, i.e. you can add a comment and this will be visible to all other viewers. The site is password protected and the password is only available to BU staff from the Staff Intranet.
This feedback exercise will run from 28 November until 17 January. A final version of the plan will be circulated to all staff in early 2014.
Attention!! Funder visits – many of you may have missed this Blog post sent by Corrina at the end of November 2013 however it is not too late to get yourself booked in….
Working on a variety of initiatives in R&KEO over the years, one element of development which we receive consistently excellent feedback, is the events we arrange where funders to come to BU and present their organisations funding priorities and advice on making an application. We have arranged for several funders to visit BU in 2014, and are re-advertising the first three in order for you to block out time in your diary now!
On Monday 20 January 2014, the AHRC will be visiting to discuss their research priorities, calls and their top tips for making a submission. On Wednesday19 February 2014, The BritishAcademy will be visiting to discuss proposals they fund and share their tips on making an application. On Wednesday 19 March 2014,The Leverhulme Trust which funds all academic disciplines will be visiting to discuss their grants and give advice on making an application.
Spaces on all these events are limited due to the rooms available so booking is essential! Grants Academy members can be guaranteed a space by emailing Dianne. The booking hyperlinks are:
Just a reminder for Erasmus Mundus Action 2 submissions, please get in touch with Paul Lynch or Sarah Katon as soon as possible if you wish to apply for this call. Partners must now be reviewed as part of our new mandatory internal processes at application stage so If you are approached to be part of an Erasmus Mundus proposal, or would like to coordinate one then you will need to complete the Partnership Development Proposal form and return it to us by 27th January 2014.
If you wish to participate in an Erasmus Mundus and have not notified R&KEO by 27th January then you must make an appeal to your Deputy Dean Research & Enterprise and PVC Research and Innovation Professor John Fletcher.
Please refer to Corrina Osborne’s blog post back in October which details this new process.
We are pleased to announce the formation of the Arts in Research (AiR) Group. This effort grows out of the experience of HSC’s ReThink process and previous work at HSC in using tools from the Arts in carrying out research, disseminating findings and sharing them with students, colleagues and communities beyond the University. The Group is open to members of any School with an interest or even curiosity in how they might infuse their interest in the arts within more routine research and/or presentation practices.
The interest in Arts-based Research is international and growing. Areas such as video, film, photography, dance, drama, poetry, radio production, creative writing—even clowning—are becoming more mainstream. Conferences, for example, no longer routinely consist of hour-after-hour packed with 20-minute PowerPoint presentations. Young students balk at PPT and expect more creativity from lecturers in their learning experiences. Reaching wider audiences (including ‘service-users’ and the public) is now routinely demanded by funding bodies. Tools from the Arts can greatly enhance all of these efforts.
Using Arts-based approaches in research requires thinking about Method from novel viewpoints. Involving research participants in producing outputs frequently enlivens projects, for one example. Finding the right arts-based method for the research questions or findings is key to their use. Finding the right collaborator for your project can be central to its success.
The ARTS in RESEARCH (AiR) Group will begin meeting in January (watch for announcement by email, Facebook and Twitter). We will begin by exploring what interests group members have and what resources are already available. We will also explore the possibility of collaborations with working artists, so no need to feel that great personal skill is required, just enthusiasm.
I read an extremely good article this week on Strategic Approaches to Getting Published, written by Phil Ward (University of Kent) as well as a presentation by Frances Bell (University of Leicester) (Developing a Publication Strategy). Now that we’re in the assessment period for the next REF exercise (likely to be REF 2020) we need to focus on personal publication strategies. This post shares some of the key messages and advice on personal publication strategies:
Have a publication strategy and review it every year or two – Try to keep in mind the direction in which you want your research to develop, and what publications will help to build your profile. Try not to be diverted from this! Your strategy should include different media and channels. It should include information on your goals (what will you publish in the next week, year, five years, etc), uncertainties and development needs, and resources available to you (e.g. a mentor, peer review of your paper prior to submission, access to funds for open access charges, etc). You should regularly check progress against your goals.
Balanced publications portfolio – Try and develop a balanced publication portfolio. You don’t always need to be targeting top journals, and sometimes you need to balance several factors:
Audience: who do you want to appeal to? Should you be thinking beyond your narrow disciplinary boundaries, or focussing more intensively on it?
Impact: do you want the findings of your research to be felt outside of academia?
Career Progression: will the publication help in the development of a strong CV?
REF: will the publication be a strong, positive contribution to your discipline?
Timing: do you need to get something out quickly, or work longer on a discipline-changing piece of research?
Co-authorship: would co-authorship help or hinder your publication record?
Open Access: will be increasingly important for the REF, but is it worth considering to help with your citations and the impact of your research?
Choosing the right journals – the ‘right journal’ is often viewed as being one with a high impact factor however this is an archaic and somewhat controversial system, and is based on the average number of citations over a two-five year period. The system is open to abuse, and varies widely between disciplines. However, it is still seen as a rough and ready indicator of esteem.
The following video is by Karin Dumstrei, Senior Editor at EMBO Journal. It is worth 3 minutes of your time to watch and listen to the tips she gives!
Her advice for writing a journal article is to always:
Choose a project that excites you;
Tell a good story;
Select the right journal;
Avoid the three ‘don’ts’, namely: dont’ overstate your case, ignore others, or hold back data;
Be responsible with your data – i.e. say what you see rather than what you want to see.
High impact journals tend to have broader audiences, so you need to:
avoid jargon;
concentrate on the message;
write shorter articles (e.g. Science articles are generally 3-4 pages);
avoid too much detail. Additional data can be provided in ‘supplementary material’.
A good covering letter is essential. It should summarise why your article is right for the journal you’re targeting. Take time to get this right. Keep it succinct, but explain the novelty and importance of your research, and why you are approaching that journal in particular.
There are seven key tips for writing and publishing a journal article:
Title: make it engaging but keep it short, and avoid technical terms. Also avoid terms which might give the impression of limited reach and significance of your research, e.g. ‘a local case study’ or ‘a small investigation’;
Story: structure your article round a good, cohesive, logical ‘story’;
Step Change: emphasise what makes your research important. Talk about ‘step changes’ rather than ‘incremental progresssions’;
Conclusion and Evaluation: a strong, persuasive and critical conclusion is essential for giving your paper clout;
Cover Letter: ‘sell’ your article and particularly why it is right for the journal you are targeting;
Feedback: get as much critical evaluation as possible;
Rejection: never take no for an answer. Rejection is an inevitable part of the process. Don’t be discouraged, but take on board comments and criticism and keep trying be resubmitting.
Consider the role of social media in your publication strategy – social media has been shown to dramatically increase the academic and societal impact of research (see my previous posts on the benefits of using Twitter). Social networking platforms such as Twitter are excellent for promoting and sharing your research, as are blogs either by writing your own blog, contributing posts to other blogs, or commenting on posts written by others. Your publications strategy should include social media outlets. For advice on using social media as part of your publication strategy please contact Sally Gates in the R&KEO.
Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!
Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to do some exciting and fun public engagement!
Why do academics do public engagement? There are many reasons why academic undertake public engagement activities (such as to comply with requirements of research funders or with the Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research, or as part of the dissemination plan for a research project) however most do public engagement because it is FUN and puts the passion and excitement back into research!
There are a loads of ways to undertake public engagement, including:
Participating in festivals
Working with museums / galleries / science centres and other cultural venues
Creating opportunities for the public to inform the research questions being tackled
Researchers and public working together to inform policy
Presenting to the public (e.g. public lectures or talks)
Involving the public as researchers (e.g. web based experiments)
Engaging with young people to inspire them about research (e.g. workshops in schools)
Contributing to new media enabled discussion forums
And, of course, contributing to BU’s own Festival of Learning 2014! If you’re interested in contributing to the Festival and have not yet submitted your idea to the team, please contact Emily Loring as soon as possible.
We have dedicated staff in the R&KEO to support public engagement, as well as a modest budget to support activities. If you would like to discuss how to get involved then please contact Rebecca Edwards.
Venue & date: Thursday 30th January at 4pm in K103 (Kimmeridge House)
Situation awareness can be loosely defined as, ‘knowing what’s going on around you and what to do about it.’ In everyday life we make complex decisions – some good, some bad – on the basis of our awareness of what is going on around us. Sadly situation awareness can sometimes be sub-optimal leading to catastrophic errors such as road traffic accidents and air crashes. Such errors often appear to result from a ‘tunnelling down’ with available and useful information being ignored. This attentional tunnelling is widely reported by (amongst others) firefighters, medical staff and military personnel.
Dr Graham Edgar from the Centre for Research in Applied Cognition, Knowledge, Learning and Emotion at the University of Gloucestershire will present his research examining information-use in building and maintaining situation awareness, and the influence that affective state has on that process.
All are welcome and there is no need to book – just come along!
Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!
Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to update your staff profile page.
Our new staff profile pages went live last October and provide an excellent opportunity to promote yourself both internally and externally. Jo’s post demonstrates that the pages are attracting thousands of views from all over the world.
The easiest way to navigate to your profile is to open the application (or click on the ‘academic profile’ link from the intranet home page). Next, click on ‘People’ in the page header and then on the start letter of your surname. Finally, click on your name. Your profile will then appear. You can also search for your name.
You can update your profile page via BRIAN and fields you can add include:
photo of yourself
biography
research interests and keywords
teaching profile
PhD students supervised
invites lectures
qualifications
memberships
honours / awards
RKE grants
outreach and public engagement activities
Your publications will automatically be pulled through from BRIAN.
Having a complete and professional staff profile page can help to attract potential students and collaborators. It will raise your profile externally and will ensure your page appears in web searches.
If you have any queries about BRIAN or the Staff Profile Pages then please direct these to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk
Dr Padam Simkhada, senior lecturer in ScHARR at the University of Sheffield was awarded the CEA Award of Global Health Research for his contribution to global research at a special ceremony at the Mahatma Gandhi University, India just before last Christmas. Dr Simkhada has been Visiting Faculty at BU in the School of Health & Social Care since 2010. He is involved in various BU projects, including the Fellowship awarded by the charity Wellbeing of Women, in association with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), for research into Nepalese maternity services and women’s health from an international perspective. The research team consists of Lesley Milne, Senior Lecturer in Midwifery, Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at BU, and BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Padam Simkhada.
Dr. Simkhada is also co-supervisor of HSC PhD student Ms. Sheetal Sharma. Sheetal Sharma’s poster presentation recently won the best poster prizeat a conference in Birmingham for the poster Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention. Sheetal is supported by Bournemouth University with a studentship and a Santander grant.
Dr. Simkhada has published over 70 research articles on issues such as reproductive and sexual health, migration and sex trafficking and maternal and child health. Furthermore, he has been working to improve the quality of health research among higher education institutions in Nepal.
This Global Health Research Award for Dr. Simkhada has been reported widely in the media in India, Nepal and in England.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health
The Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) is running a one-day grant applications workshop on Tuesday 1st April 2014 at Taunton Racecourse, Somerset.
The grant applications workshop is directed at researchers who are considering applying to peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research, and is intended to allow them to turn good applications into excellent ones.
If you are interested in attending the workshop you will need to submit an application form and the latest draft of your research proposal by 1pm on Monday 3rd March 2014.
Read what the Centre has been doing over the last year by clicking on the link to a PDF of our latest newsletter.
In the Centre we are rightly proud of the achievements of our students and their engagement in public activities and international opportunities, as well as those of our staff. It is through our newsletter that we keep our colleagues, here in the UK and internationally, abreast of our activities. We thought you would want to share in this.
In this edition you will find articles on student international placements in Malaysia, our hosted international week, and our new Sociology & Anthropology programme. There is information about conference presentations undertaken by Centre members, and introductions to some of the exciting and innovative social science research conducted within the Centre.
Should you want to find out more, to collaborate with members on research projects please get in touch with any of us.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN NOVEL ALTERNATIVE RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY
Sustainable Design Research Centre (SDRC) – Research Seminar
Date: Wednesday 8th Jan
Venue: P 406
Time: 12:00 – 12:30
Abstract
Renewable Technology is a BU recognised sub-theme within Technology & Design. SDRC has significant portfolio of research within Renewable Technology, this include Cross-Channel Consortium in Mechanical Current Turbine (MCT) research , working closely with community interest groups such as Poole Tidal Energy Partnership in Tidal Energy, final year design projects in Tidal Energy, Heat Pumps & Retro-Fitted Micro Wind Turbines & cross-school activity within Fusion initiative.
Fossil fuels have become the main energy source for human after the Industrial Revolution. However, with ever-increasing energy consumption, they are not sustainable in terms of their finite reserves, environmental implications and contributions to climate change. Within the Energy 2020A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy, the EU and UK have together set a mutual objective to generate renewable energy as 20% of the total energy supply by 2020, for further details please click here. The current research aims to develop low cost renewable technology systems with competitive efficiency and readily adaptable systems both for domestic and commercial applications. In this seminar, the study will present the project background and experimental methodology employed for recording thermodynamic attributes of the solar thermal system to be used in mathematical analyses. The presentation will also present some results and engineering design of key components for improving the overall thermal efficiency of the solar thermal system.
Biography
Bruce Wen is currently conducting research as a PhD student. This research project is fully funded by Future Energy Source Ltd [Dr Zulfiqar Khan PI]. The proposed programme is a direct response to the needs of developing novel alternative renewable technology solutions capable of converting solar energy into useful clean energy. Bruce has participated in the DEC PGR conference and currently planning to present at the BU Graduate School Annual Conference this month.
If you have interest in this research area or would like further information then please contact
Speaker: Prof. Athman Bouguettaya, Head of School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Big data is here and in a big way. Big data is coming from all sorts of sources and means, including sensors, deep space, social media, smartphones, genomic, etc. The cloud has been instrumental supporting the storage and processing of the ever increasing amount of data. “Domesticating” the data, i.e., making it useful, however, has been a major challenge. Service computing is the next major evolution of computing that aims at transforming massive data into artefacts that are acted upon, i.e., services. Service computing is increasingly being recognized as part of a broader agenda in Service Science. In that respect, service computing may be viewed as the “engineering” side of service science. According to Candy’s web development manchester service computing broadly focuses on providing a foundational framework to support a service-centric view of designing, developing, and exposing data (and applications), whether it is in the enterprise or on the Web. In that respect, the Web is and will undoubtedly be the preferred delivery platform of service-based solutions. More specifically, Web services from are currently without contest the key enabler for deploying service-centric solutions. Fully delivering on the potential of next-generation Web services requires building a foundation that would provide a sound design for efficiently developing, deploying, publishing, discovering, composing, trusting, and optimizing access to Web services in an open, competitive, untrustworthy, and highly dynamic environment. The Web service foundation is the key catalyst for the development of a uniform framework called Web Service Management System (WSMS). In this novel framework, Web services are treated as first-class objects. In this talk, I will first motivate the need for a uniform service management to service big data. I will then overview the core components of a typical WSMS. I will conclude by describing our latest research servicing sensor data.
Why not attend a free one day HEA workshop on students as partners in co-creating a range of STEM outputs including educational resources, research, student learner networks and peer-coaching? A buffet lunch is included!
Content of the workshop:
In the first part of the workshop speakers from a range of UK universities will present case studies of students as partners. We will then move onto active discussion sessions where we explore advantages and challenges of establishing successful partnerships with students and together construct a framework you can use to self-assess your new ideas for co-creation/co-production of outputs with students.
Where & when?
This workshop will be held at Bournemouth University on the 16th January 2014.
Everyone is welcome, including any students you have co-created outputs with who you think would benefit from attending the workshop.
How to book my place?
To find out more information and to book your place, please do this as soon as possible by following this link.
Happy New Year to you all and welcome back to work!
Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things. Today’s resolution is to consider open access publishing via the GOLD route!
Research shows that making your research freely available dramatically increases the number of citations and leads to more people downloading the research papers, this increasing the academic and societal impact of your research.
The gold route to open access is considered at the moment to be the most sustainable method in the long term, and was recommended by the Finch report. It involves publishing in a fully open access journal or website, or in a hybrid journal (i.e. the paper appears in the traditional print journal and is freely available online). Authors usually need to pay for their work to be published via this route.
BU has operated a central dedicated budget for open access payments via the gold route since April 2011. The fund is open to all BU academics and PGRs, and you can find out how to apply here: BU Open Access Fund
BU staff can login below:
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Open Access Publication Fund open again to new applications
Closing tomorrow: please complete the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2025
Plenary talk by Dr Regmi on Hidden Health Burden of Nepalese Migrants
Conversation article: Wishcycling – how ‘eco-friendly’ labels confuse shoppers and make recycling less effective
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease