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A Review of Gaming Technologies for Stroke Patients

PG research

Our next Creative Technology Research Centre Research Seminar will be presented by Owen O’Neil.

Title: A Review of Gaming Technologies for Stroke Patients

Date: Wednesday 13th November 2013

Time: 2 – 3PM

Venue: P302 LTCentre For Digital Entertainment

Abstract: Stroke is a global pandemic and the largest cause of severe adult disability in the world. Incidence rates in the UK suggest that over 150,000 suffer a first time stroke, and over 80% of survivors will suffer some form of motor disability. Rehabilitation typically consists of high volumes of motor practice to engage the mechanism of neural plasticity, a form of cortical rewiring that allows the brain to adapt after damage. Meeting the rehabilitation needs for this population through one-to-one physiotherapy care is currently not possible.  There is a growing impetus on research institutions to explore cost-effective methods for increasing access to rehabilitation that may promote improved functional recovery for patients at home and in the clinic. Recent approaches include the use of video game technology as a method of increasing patient engagement and upkeep to rehabilitation programs. Of particular interest is the emergence of low cost commercial off-the-shelf devices such as the Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect.  In this presentation we introduce the state-of-the art application of video game technology as a modality of upper limb motor practice. We translate current approaches and technology in the literature that show particular promise to meet the needs of this population.

Research wins for CMC

Awarded & submitted bids

The Corporate & Marketing Communications academic group the Media School is celebrating two successful research bids within 24 hours. The first is that Prof Tom Watson was successful in gaining a British Council Researcher Links Workshop award for a project to be conducted with Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

The bid was chosen in competition with 400 submissions. The national coordinator in Thailand is Assoc Prof Jirayudh Sinthuphan of the Faculty of Communication Arts and the workshop will be held in Bangkok in February next year.

Both national coordinators will have early career researchers as deputy coordinators: Dr Ana Adi at BU and Dr Phansasiri Kularb at Chulalongkorn. Others involved in the project include Dr Dan Jackson, Prof Iain MacRury, Dr Georgiana Grigore and Dr Tasos Theofilou. The team may be expanded to include other colleagues and PGRs.

The second “good research news” is that Dr Grigore, Dr Theofilou and Prof Watson gained another grant for CSR research from the Arthur W. Page Center at Penn State University in the US. They won a similar grant in mid-year.

For 2013/14 funding, reports Marcia DiStaso, senior research fellow at the Page Center, a record number of proposals was received, but only 13 out of 43 were awarded grants. This is a very competitive process and it is unusual to win two-in-a-row. Dr Grigore wrote the bid document with contributions from her co-researchers.

Are you FIF aware?!

Funding opportunities, Fusion

Because the FIF team are lovely, lovely people we’ve decided to hold some awareness sessions to give you the valuable opportunity to make your Fusion bid the very best it can possibly be. Two sessions will take place where you can discuss your application/s with the FIF Manager, Samantha Leahy-Harland, and committee members and, in addition, Dr. Martin Pickard of Grantcraft will be running a two and a half hour session giving his expert and essential Fusion bid writing advice. Martin is a specialist in writing and supporting research grant applications and tenders, as well as providing administrative and management support services for ongoing projects (additionally there will be some 1-2-1s available with Dr Martin Pickard in the afternoon of the 20th of November).

Come along to find out what makes a great application, what the committee members like to see in proposals and errors to avoid.  

  • Wednesday 13 November at 12-1pm, S203, Lansdowne – with the FIF Manager and committee members
  • Monday 18 November at 2-3pm, Casterbridge room, THS, Talbot – with the FIF Manager and committee members
  • Wednesday 20 November, at 9.30am – 12 midday in, CG04, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus – with Dr. Martin Pickard.
  • Additionally we have arranged some 1-2-1s in the afternoon between 1pm-5pm with Dr Martin Pickard to assist you specifically with your Fusion Bids.

 If you are interested in attending any of these sessions or to book a 1-2-1 appointment please contact Fusion Fund to confirm your place and your preferred session.

For all the updated strand policy documents, application form and more information please visit the FIF intranet pages.

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.

 

Congratulations again to Sheetal Sharma!

PG research

 

Having won the poster prize at last Friday’s GLOW conference in Birmingham,  Sheetal Sharma found out today that she has also been awarded a travel grant from one of the organisations supporting the ECTMIC 2013 Conference she attended in September. 

Sheetal presented a poster at the 8th European Congress on Tropical Medicine & International Health, 2013 (ECTMIH-2013) which took place 10-13 September 2013 in Copenhagen (Denmark).  Sheetal’s abstract of the poster is officially published see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tmi.12163/pdf

The reference is:

Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Stephens J.,  Simkhada, P., Angell, C.,  Sicuri, E., Belizan, J.M. (2013) Mixed-methods evaluation of a maternity care intervention in rural Nepal: measuring what works, Poster P.2.3.004 (A), Tropical Medicine & International Health  18 (Suppl. 1): 108–231.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
School of Health & Social Care

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

  • The AHRC are running an International placement scheme providing funded research fellowships at leading international research institutions.  The maximum award is unspecified, Closing date is 15 Jan 14.
  • The AHRC are offering Collaborative research grants in partnership with the São Paulo Research Foundation enabling transnational British and Brazilian teams to apply for funding for collaborative research projects. This is an open call with no set deadline.  The proposal total should not exceed £2 million.
  • The BBSRC are offering Modular training partnerships  designed to help develop master’s-level training in areas of significant need for industrial sectors. The award maximum is unspecified with a closing date of 28 Jan 14.
  • The BBSRC invite proposals for their Welfare of managed animals strategic priority area.  The maximum award is not specified, closing date: 09 Jan 14.
  • The BBSRC are offering funding for the Animal health research club.  The club’s research focuses on improving the resistance of farmed animals. A maximum of £5.5 million is available to support a variety of projects at 80% full economic cost.  Projects usually last 3 -4 years but funding of up to £2m for a maximum of 5 years will be considered. Closing date: 11 Dec 13.
  • The EPSRC ICT pioneers competition is now open,  providing recognition for UK PhD students who can communicate and demonstrate the excellence and exploitation potential of their research.  There are four prizes of £2000 each are available.  Closing date is 04 Dec 13.
  • The fourth call from CHIST-ERA is now open from ERA-Net CHIST-ERA.  Proposals for this call should be transformative and highly multidisciplinary research projects in ICST. The indicative budget is approximately €11.6 million, closing date 21 Jan 14.
  • EUREKA’s Eurostars programme  is supporting SME’s using research to gain competitive advantage.  Funding is provided on a country by country bases with an average project budget of €1.4 million.  The maximum award is unspecified with a closing date of 13 Mar 14.
  • The MRC are offering UK-Japan collaborative proposals, specifically looking at neuroscience disease challenges and the use of next generation opitical microscopy technologies.  The maximum MRC contribution will not be more that £120,000 over three years.  Closing date 05 Dec 13.
  • The MRC are offering a  Senior non-clinical fellowship  providing non-clinical researchers opportunities to become research leaders. The maximum award is not specified and the closing date is 30 Apr 14.
  • The MRC are awarding funds in Stratified medicine to support investigator-led methodological research into the challenges raised by stratifying patient groups. Over the next 4 years, £60 million will be committed to this area of research. Maximum award is not specified, closing date: 23 Jan 14.
  • The Royal Society of Edinburgh are offering Scottish Enterprise/RSE enterprise fellowships to encourage the development of a new Scottish businesses based around a technological idea.  Fellowships cover the fellow’s salary for one year.  There is no maximum award and it will close 28 Nov 13.
  • The Royal Society are offering funds to run small three-day South Africa-UK scientific seminars to bring together groups of early- to mid-career scientists from South Africa and the UK.  Grants are worth up to £12,000 to be used to cover costs of international airfares for up to 5 scientists, local travel costs, accommodation and organisational support.  Award maximum is £12,000, closing 18 Feb 14.
  • The TSB are offering Infrastructure for offshore renewables.  Funds will be given to collaborative, business led projects looking to reduce costs associated with offshore wind, wave and tidal stream energy generation through technology.  Registration closes 29 Jan 14 with a final submission date 05 Feb 2014 .
  •  Improving cell and tissue analysis for stratified medicine.  The TSB seek development of innovative technologies to enhance cell and tissue sample analysis.  Projects should be between £200,000 and £1.5 million and last up to three years.  Award maximum not specified, closing date: 04 Dec 13.
  • The Wellcome Trust are offering Doctoral studentships in medical humanities.  The award will cover stipend, conference travel, research expenses, overseas fieldwork, and university and college fees for up to 3 years.    Maximum award unspecified, closing date: 02 Apr 14.
  • The Wellcome Trust People Awards support projects to explore the impact of biomedical science on society, its historical roots, effects on different cultures, or the ethical questions that it raises. Up to £30,000 is available per project.  Closing date: 31 Jan 14.
  • Wellcome Trust are offering Capital funding for learned societies. This scheme provides funding, usually for up to £200,000, to projects that support the scholarly activities of learned societies. There is no specified deadline or maximum award.
  • Society and ethics doctoral studentships are available from the Wellcome Trust to enable scholars to undertake full-time research on a topic related to the ethics and society programme.  Maximum award is not specified, closing date: 02 Apr 14.
  • Research training fellowships are available from the Wellcome Trust to support medical, dental, veterinary or clinical psychology graduates who have limited research training, but who wish to develop a career in academic medicine. Award amount maximum not specified. Closing date is 07 Feb 14.
  • Society and ethics small grants are available from the Wellcome Trust to  support small-scale research projects, scoping exercises or meetings whose subject matter falls within the remit of the ethics and society programme. The maximum grant is £5,000. There is no closing deadline.

UKTI Education: call for case studies

UKTI Education has been set up by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) to help UK education and training providers win business overseas. Their primary objective is to identify high value commercial opportunities overseas and help the UK education sector to access and pursue them, encouraging collaboration and the development of consortia, where appropriate, and supporting and promoting UK bids.

The UK has a strong reputation internationally for excellence in education and training:

  • ­   4 universities in the global top 10; 29 in the top 200
  • ­   1.4m pupils studying at nearly 3,000 British Schools Overseas in 2012; forecast to grow to nearly 2m in 2017 and 2.75m in 2022
  • ­   more than 1 in 4 further education colleges teaching international students outside of the UK
  • ­   many UK operators already provide education products and services successfully in a range of countries across the globe

 In order to help articulate and promote the UK’s education and training offer to an international audience, UKTI Education is preparing a snapshot of the UK’s education and training capabilities, for publication on their website and in future sector prospectuses.  They would like to invite you to contribute examples to their growing library of case studies showcasing what the UK can offer international customers.  They would also welcome your input into their short survey of UK sector capabilities.  If you would like to participate, please complete the form (UKTI case study form) and return to joanne.irving@uktispecialist.com by Friday, 29th November 2013.

Text from UKTI call: We will presume that by sending us your case studies we have your consent to use and, where necessary, edit them for the purposes of publication.  We will, however, share final versions of your case studies with you before we start to use them for promotional activity. We may require additional information from you and may contact you to discuss your response further; when completing the form, please provide the name of a person who is able to provide this information.

SMN could just be the strand for you!

Funding opportunities, Fusion

The Staff Mobility and Networking strand (SMN) of the FIF may seem like your normal, everyday standard strand but look carefully and you’ll see it’s a strand with a difference. It has 2 elements meaning even more opportunities for you! Not only is there a Standard element which includes Santander, but there is also an Erasmus Staff Mobility element too!

This strand provides support in the form of subsistence and travel costs and for staff to:

  • Travel within the UK or overseas with respect to development of projects linked to research, education, professional practice or any combination thereof.  Particular focus will be placed on the creation of sustainable collaborative networks of academics or professionals linked to specific outputs or partnership developments.
  • Travel within the UK or overseas for academic conferences, where one or more oral presentation is being presented and there is clear evidence of additional institutional value in terms of network creation or partnership development. 
  • Travel to at least one university from the the UK Santander Universities Network or one of the Overseas Santander Partner Universities with respect to development of projects linked to research, education, practice or any combination thereof. Please see the following for a list of participating institutions
  • Travel overseas in order to develop academic partnerships or lasting collaborative ventures around research, education and/or practice. 
  • Undertake a programme of mobility and/or networking across a series of linked trips or visits which are inter-disciplinary, especially where they are clearly linked to the BU Research Themes or involve student and staff participation. 
  • Travel in support of a Study Leave application.
  • Invite external partners to visit the University. For example, this might include inviting academics from other institutions or professionals from businesses to visit BU to develop projects and/or co-convening or facilitation of an international workshop.

 Previously funded activities under this strand:

Bournemouth-Birmingham-Brasilia: Consortium Building and Joint Work (BBB).

Dr Raian Ali, a Senior Lecturer in Computing, is the Principal Investigator of the BBB project which creates a community of interest involving the computing groups of the University of Brasilia, University of Birmingham, and Bournemouth University. The three groups are focused on Software Engineering research and this timely research project focuses on adaptive software systems, particularly, cloud and service computing. Exchange visits as part of this project have encouraged partnership development and international collaborative working. 

  Archaeology Professional Practice Forum: Bridging the Gap

The ‘Bridging the Gap’ project has been a highly successful networking and information gathering exercise, which will inform and drive actions to better prepare students for careers within archaeology, to better meet the needs of the profession and to enhance both subject-specific employability and transferable skills. An Archaeological Professional Practice Forum event was held to gather information from archaeology practitioners, employers, recent graduates and current students on the nature and extent of the skills gap between graduation and entry-level employment within archaeology. It explored ways to improve the industry-readiness of our students in order to give our new graduates a competitive edge when seeking employment, and to service the needs of the profession.  

 Please be aware that the Erasmus scheme differs quite significantly from the other FIF strands. More information is on the Erasmus intranet page  and more general information can be found on the FIF intranet pages.

 The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.

 

IVF failure is hard to accept!

 

On today’s BBC webpage is a very interesting article under the title ‘I wish IVF had never been invented’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24725655).  The article lists comments, experiences and/or feelings from readers of Magazine about the frequency with which In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) fails.

The article reminded me that some years ago colleagues at the University of Aberdeen and I published a series of articles on the often difficult decision for couples to end IVF treatment after having tried for a long time (1-3).  We noted that couples embarking on their IVF  programme are full of optimism with unrealistically high expectations. Then we noted that IVF yield only a 20-25 percent pregnancy rate per cycle, today the success rate is still less than one in three for women under 35 according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), in short many couples leave the IVF clinic childless. We also noted that IVF treatment can also be a source of tension for couples.

We concluded at the time that the decision to end IVF treatment is a complex interaction between (a) the experience of diagnosis of infertility; investigations and IVF treatment; and (b) the emotions around involuntary childlessness. Our results indicated the need for improved psychological preparation of couples who decide to end IVF treatment.

 

We commented that IVF clinics should adapt their systems to facilitate the needs of this client group and consider a policy, which would help couples ‘plan for the end’ in the beginning. Finally, our study suggested that health care staff involved in IVF care need to examine their roles in providing an environment, which (1) encourages realistic expectations to ensure realistic decisions; (2) offers accurate and consistent information; and (3) deliver an efficient support system, which encompasses listening skills and recognises grief for which at present, there appears to be little validation. Only then, can reflective practice improve service provision for those who decide to end IVF treatment. Reading the various comments on the BBC webpages today suggests to me that many of our original recommendations still have currency!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

References

  1. Peddie, V., van Teijlingen, E., Bhattacharya, S (2004) Decision making in in-vitro fertilisation: How women view the end of treatment Human Fertility, 7: 31-37.
  2. Peddie, V.L., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2005) A qualitative study of women’s decision-making at the end of IVF treatment, Human Reproduction, 20 (7): 1944-1951.
  3. Peddie, V.L., Porter, M., van Teijlingen E., Bhattacharya, S. (2006) Research as a therapeutic experience? An investigation of women’s participation in research on ending IVF treatment, Human Fertility, 9(4): 231-238.

NRG Future Foresight Workshop with Sue Thomas

Dr Sue Thomas was recently appointed as a Visiting Fellow in The Media School. She was formerly Professor of New Media at De Montfort University, where she established a Transdisciplinary Common Room with an emphasis on Future Foresight.  Sue works closely with members of the university’s Narrative Research Group and we are delighted that she has agreed to host this event, which will take place on Wednesday 13 November at 2p.m in CG09.  Full details of the workshop appear below. All welcome.  You can find out more about Sue and her work at www.suethomas.net

 

How to think about the future in order to attract funding now. With examples drawn from nature and technology.

Academics are expert in the history of their discipline, but what about its future? For example, do you know how to use your expert knowledge of, say, the history of media, to predict the media landscape of 2025 or even 3025?

This session is in two parts:

1. A brief overview of my own work on nature and technology (see ‘Technobiophilia: nature and cyberspace’, Bloomsbury, 2013) and research questions arising from it. I’m interested in working with BU colleagues on developing grant applications in this area, perhaps in fields such as the future of video games, well-being, and tourism.

2. A practical workshop on the skills of Future Foresight – what it is and how to do it. The workshop is designed to stimulate ideas for ways to apply Future Foresight to your own subject area with a view to devising grant applications.

 

 

10 Women to Inspire

Fusion, Training, Women's Academic Network

This project is supported by Fusion Investment Fund.

It is well recognised that female faculty experience a slower career progress and are more likely to leave the path leading to academic advancement than their male colleagues. The issue of under representation of women in senior levels in science and across academia has been noted most recently in the pages of Nature (2011 & 2013) and the THES (2013) Whilst statistics from BU’s HR department show a gender split of 50/50 between male and female academics, women are seriously underrepresented at the professoriate and senior management level. A recent study conducted by BU’s Equality and Diversity department identified the lack of role model as one of the barriers that hinder female academics’ progress. We aim to work alongside the university to tackle this problem by offering more mentoring support and high-profile role models to female academics. Previous research repeatedly showed that female academics with mentors publish more articles, feel more confident in their capabilities, and are more satisfied overall with their careers than those without mentors (Levinson, Kaufman, Clark & Tolle, 1991).

Specifically, the Women’s Academic Network (WAN) plan to organise a series of seminars throughout the 13/14 academic year, and invite leading female speakers to present their latest studies and/or reflect on their personal career development. As BU’s female academics have a diverse personal background (in terms of discipline, age, culture, race and career path), we aim to invite a wide range of speakers including academics and practitioners and those in the UK and from international institutions. In doing so, we aim to stregthen BU’s connection with leading scholars/ business leaders from the international community, disseminate latest research findings across disciplines and increase mentoring support and networking opportunities for female academics.

Our first seminar is on 22nd November, 12:00 to 13:30, room P302. Laura Bates from Everyday Sexism will talk about the difficulties women often face at work. Coffee and tea will be provided. All are welcome.

SHERPA/FACT – Funders and Author’s Open Access Compliance Tool

Guidance, Publishing

Use the new SHERPA/FACT tool to help you check if a journal’s open access policies complies with the requirements of the open access policies of the research funders that comprise Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Wellcome Trust. The data on journal policies is drawn from SHERPA/RoMEO and the funders’ policies from SHERPA/JULIET.

The more established SHERPA Romeo website provides details of publisher copyright and archiving policies.  This tool will help you establish whether you can deposit your open access research papers in BURO (BU’s institutional repository), via BRIAN for free.  Contact the BURO Editorial Team or your Library Subject Team for more help and advice around making your research open access in BURO.

 

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional.  To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat.  Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

26th November 2013

28th January 2014

25th February 2014

25th March 2014

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

An opportunity for study leave, secondment or placement? Thank FIF for that!

Funding opportunities, Fusion

The Study Leave strand (SL) has three sub-strands: Academic Study Leave, Internal Secondments and Industrial Staff Placements.

  • Academic Study Leave This is to provide academic staff with a period of paid academic study leave, normally up to six months in duration, for the purposes of undertaking research, educational development (eg. the development of teaching programmes) or professional practice.  There must a clear benefit to both the individual and to BU and the stakeholder benefits with respect to Fusion should be clear. 
  • Internal Secondments:  In order to drive interdisciplinary research at BU a limited programme of internal secondments is available.  Secondments may last up to a maximum of six months.  A secondment application must be agreed between the host and the applicant with both parties contributing to the submission.  Cases will be judged on merit in terms of the collaborative output(s) that they will deliver which might include but are not restricted to: (1) completion of an interdisciplinary book or publication programme; (2) submission of a major research grant; (3) curriculum or pedagogic development; and (4) completion of a period of professional practice or knowledge exchange project. 
  • Industrial Staff Placements:  Staff have the opportunity to arrange their own placements with local and regional businesses/organisations for between two and six months.

 Examples of projects funded under this strand:

Engaging students in industry and updating professional practice

Associate Senior Lecturer, Sue Sudbury worked with Sequoia Films, which was commissioned by Channel 4 to develop an idea for their flagship documentary strand Cutting Edge and also to develop and produce an international feature-length documentary, Indian Spacemen, for BBC Storyville. Sue took ten BU students on broadcast production work experience while at the same time updating her professional practice.

 Understanding the co-creation of leisure behaviour in socio-natural environments

Dr Dorothy Fox, a Lecturer in the School of Tourism, undertook research practice with the aim of bringing new ways of thinking about the natural environment into the academic and public arena. This was achieved through primary research carried out in the UK; overseas travel to Australia and New Caledonia (in the South Pacific); the initiation of international networking; undertaking training and the development of new teaching materials for 2013-14.

Dr Fox said: “The process of applying for study leave and its execution has had a profound impact on my way of thinking about my role at BU. This has led to a change from a local perspective to an international one.”

Need to know more? Your wish is my command! Go now to the FIF intranet pages.

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.

LOVE your drafts, DON’T delete them, ADD them to BRIAN!

Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE’s consultation on open access and the post-2014 REF closed last week and, although the results are not due out until early next year, it is highly expected that most of the proposals will go ahead.  This is likely to result in significant changes to how research papers are published and the full-text is made freely available.

Key changes likely to happen are:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance/publication will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is likely to be applicable for outputs published from 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot. 

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

 

 

 

Sport Students Learn About Employability Of Their European Peers – And More

Once again, beginning of October the Sports group hosted senior academics from some of its European partner universities in order to provide students with international insights into topics of their study and future career. In addition, the visitors worked with BU staff on progressing international research agendas and teaching models, such as intercultural mixed-group student management games partly facilitated via online conferencing.

Dr Stefan Walzel (German Sport University Cologne) and Gerco van Dalfsen (Hanzehogeschool Groningen and Secretary General European Association for Sport Management) presented and discussed with students of all UG/PG levels and all Sport pathways topics of neuromarketing, sport city strategies, leadership and provided insights into the employability and career prospects of their own respective graduates. Both visitors stressed the need for their universities to include an array of international activities and learning experiences into their students’ curriculum in order to lift their competitiveness on an increasingly international job market.

Together with BU sport management colleague Dr Tim Breitbarth, they also progressed a collaborative international study on community perceptions of professional sport clubs’ social responsibility initiatives by collecting further data in Bournemouth. A fourth set of data was collected in the USA end of October.

Gerco and Stefan were also very interested to meet with BU sport students who will study in Cologne and Groningen in semester 2, and receive feedback from the Sport group’s ever-first incoming Erasmus exchange student in order to manage expectations and processes for future exchanges, such as the four students arriving in Bournemouth for semester 2.

 

Dr Stefan Walzel presenting on sport, neuroscience and marketing

Sport students of all levels and Sport pathways during Dr Walzel’s presentation in the Fusion Seminar Series

Gerco van Dalfsen with Level I students of all Sport pathways

Gerco van Dalfsen with sport management Masters student Andreas Stylianides and Philip Smith (from left to right)

European visitors and incoming/outgoing Sport students get-together.

Aalborg University Copenhagen hosted the kickoff meeting of the Marie Curie funded project: VeggiEAT. The project will run from October 2013 to October 2017.

New pan European project was kicked off at Aalborg University, Copenhagen

October 28 2013 – Press Release

We are delighted to announce the start of the new pan European project that aims to promote vegetable consumption among adolescence and elderly in Denmark, France, Italy and the UK. Adequate intake is fundamental to a healthy balanced diet, however, EU compliance with vegetable dietary guidelines is poor and further research is required to overcome consumption barriers. VeggiEAT is an industry-academia partnership led by Bournemouth University, UK with academic partners Aalborg University and the University of Florence and industrial/SME partners Bonduelle and the Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre. The aim of VeggiEAT is to develop an EU platform for predictive modelling of processed vegetable intake in an out of home context through the establishment of consumer-oriented products (sensory analysis); the development of recipes for use by food providers (canteens); and the benchmarking of choice architecture in senior schools and care homes.

The application of these results will contribute to operational benefits for European vegetable manufacturers (growers, processors, retailers etc), while adding to the body of knowledge regarding consumer behaviour and preferences towards vegetables. This Industry-Academia-SME collaboration will invigorate the vegetable sector in Europe while addressing in a constructive way the EU objectives of healthier eating at population level.

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