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New EU research finds video games can be good for you

It appears that blasting aliens to smithereens, rescuing the princess for the 256th time or pretending you’re Lara Croft  may not be so bad after all. New research led by scientists at the University of Essex  in cooperation with colleagues in Germany and the United States, looked at why people find video games fun.

The study investigated the idea that many people enjoy playing videogames because it gives them the chance to ‘try on’ characteristics which they would like to have as their ideal self. ‘A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,’ explains Dr Andy Przybylski, who led the study. ‘The attraction to playing videogames and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.’ In addition, games like satta king fast can be a great way to unwind after a long week at work.

The research found that giving players the chance to adopt a new identity during a game and acting through that new identity – be it a different gender, hero, villain – made them feel better about themselves and less negative. In fact, the enjoyment element of the videogames seemed to be greater when there was the least overlap between someone’s actual self and their ideal self. The study involved hundreds of casual game players in the laboratory and studied nearly a thousand dedicated gamers who played everything from ‘The Sims’ and ‘Call of Duty’ to ‘pikakasinot‘. Players were asked how they felt after playing in relation to the attributes or characteristics of the persona they would ideally like to be.

BU’s keywords for research – is everything included?

Guidance

In May/June there was some discussion on the blog about developing keywords for research (research ontology/vocabulary/taxonomy) which would be used to classify BU research in future.

See previous blog posts here:

Looking to the future the finalised ontology will be extremely important in structuring how research at BU is presented, internally and externally, particularly on the external research webpages and the directory of expertise.

Responses received via the Blog indicated that the Science-Metrix ontology was too broad and that the Library of Congress ontology was too granular, so it seems that neither is a perfect fit for BU.

Using the Library of Congress ontology as a starting point we have worked with the Deputy Deans (R&E)/equivalent, Research Centre Directors and UOA Leaders to list the key specialisms applicable to BU. The resulting list is now available – you can read this by following the link below:

BU research ontology v3

We need to finalise the list by 19 August 2011. But before we finalise the list we’d very much appreciate your advice as to whether these keywords adequately cover your disciplines. If you’d like to suggest any changes to the list please could you add a comment to this post by 19 August?

In addition we are interested to know whether the proposed level structure is useful or whether one list of keywords would be preferable? Let us know your views by commenting on this post!

Changes to research schemes at NERC

Funding opportunities

Yesterday the Natural Environment Research Council announced changes to the Consortium and Small grants responsive mode schemes.

The Small Grants Scheme will close after 2011 with the last application deadline being 1st September 2011.

The Consortium Grants Scheme will be modified to operate via one grant round per year rather than two, and an outline stage assessed by members of the Peer Review College will be introduced. The final closing date for submissions to the Consortium scheme in the current format will be 1 December 2011 (concept notes to be submitted by 1 September 2011).  From 2012 additional resources will be committed to the Consortium Grants scheme.

These changes are part of the NERC Delivery Plan 2011-2015 which includes the following targets for Responsive Mode:

  • reduce demand for research grants,
  • consolidate RM schemes and processes, and balances between them, to deliver NERC strategic needs

The full news item can be viewed here.

Leverhulme Trust research programme grants

Funding opportunities

The Leverhulme Trust has funding available for research programme grants. This funding is for projects of up to five years duration and overarching projects should address a central theme of significance through the undertaking of a series of distinctive sub-projects. The 2012 competition themes are:

  • conspiracies
  • patronage
  • value

Proposals will be scored against the following criteria:

  • the opportunity for original thinking in the subject
  • the extent to which the proposed topic naturally touches upon an array of sub-disciplines
  • the extend to which the treatment of the topic departs from the heartland of a current and established professional specialism
  • the significance of the topic as a future issue of debate

The deadline for applications is 4pm on 11 January 2012.

For further information, including definitions of each of the themes, application guidelines, see the call website: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/RP/RP.cfm

If you’d like to submit a bid then speak to the lovely people in CRE Operations who will help you with the submission process.

I’d also recommend that all proposals are run through our excellent internal peer review process, the RPRS, to ensure they are as strong as possible prior to submission. For further information on the RPRS contact Caroline O’Kane or see the RPRS website.

Referencing Dutch, Flemish & German names in the Harvard System

Guidance

For academics writing and citing in the English language there is often confusion and misunderstanding about how to reference my name when quoting one of my scientific papers.  More generally, there is considerable confusion about quoting and referencing Germanic names with particles or prefix, especially since the Flemish, Dutch and German ways of doing it differ from each other.  In addition emigrants from these countries to English-speaking countries such as Canada and the United States often reference to names of Germanic origin differently again. This particularly the case when one uses the Harvard System of referencing; which is where authors are briefly cited within the text (e.g. Bennett et al. 2009; Smith & Jones 1999), and then given in full at the end of the paper or chapter in a reference list.  A few years I published a short piece about referencing Dutch, Flemish and German names for Medical Sociology News (Van Teijlingen 2004).  This current version is an update and expansion of it. 

German names – Starting with the biggest group of authors, names in German can be preceded by the particle ‘von’ or ‘von der’ or occasionally ‘van’ (in a family of Dutch descent), for example the First World War general Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (better known as Paul van Hindenburg), the nineteenth century explorer Karl Klaus von der Decken or the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven.  The general advice to quoting these names in English is: “As a rule, when the surname is cited alone in English, the particle is dropped” (Trask 2002: 135).  Thus in the general media one would expect to read about Hindenburg’s victory or Beethoven’s Sixth symphony.   Under the Harvard System these particles or prefixes follow the author’s initials (Bett 1953: 17); something which is also advised by the widely used publication manual of the APA (American Psychological Association / http://www.apastyle.org/ ).  For an English-language audience it is often easier or more obvious to keep the family name and particle together (see Box 2).

Dutch and Belgium names – Dutch names can have a range of different particles, the most common one is ‘van’.  Also possible are, for example: ‘de’, ‘van der’, ‘van den’, ‘van het’, ‘op het’, or their  abbreviated forms such as: ‘van ’t’, ‘op ’t’ or ‘v/d’.  In the Netherlands, the particles take no capital letter, for example in de name of the former Manchester United goal keeper: Edwin van der Sar.  According to Trask (2002: 106) in Flemish-speaking Belgium (and South Africa) it is more usual to capitalize particles, for example: Paul Van Look.   

In contrast to German, Dutch particles are always included when the name is used in the text.  So, for example, Vincent van Gogh is referred to as Van Gogh.  Note that ‘van’ is without a capital when the first name is used and with a capital when the first name is not included, i.e. ‘Van’ is the start of the name.  Thus we would expect to read, for example, two Dutch football players: ‘Van Nistelrooij and Van der Vaart celebrated the second goal ..’ but if the first name is included we would use ‘Rafael van der Vaart and Edwin van der Sar celebrated ..’    In the reference list similar to German “particles are ignored when placing names in alphabetical order” (Trask 2002: 106).  However, the Dutch would not lose the particle, but place it after the initial.  For example, in a Dutch scientific article on the socio-linguistic study of city dialects, Roeland van Hout (1992) quotes two of his own articles as listed in Box 1.

Box 1   Example Dutch reference style of author with ‘van in the surname

 HOUT, R. VAN

1980 De studie van stadsdialect: van dialektologie, empirische linguistiek en sociolinguistiek.

Toegepaste Taalkunde in Artikelen 8, 143-162.

HOUT, R. VAN

1989 De structuur van taalvariatie. Een sociolinguïstisch onderzoek naar het stadsdialect

van Nijmegen. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

If the Dutch football players mentioned above had each written something in a newspaper last week they would be found in the reference list of a paper by a sport psychologist or media studies researcher as:

Nistelrooij, R. van (2011)           

Sar, E. van der (2011)

Vaart, R. van der (2011)

Meijer (2009: 67) noted that in Belgium, where many people speak Flemish, a variant of Dutch, “it is customary to alphabetize under “V” anyway”.  Thus the action-film hero Jean-Claude Van Damme from Brussels (Belgium) whose real name is Jean-Claude Van Varenberg would always be listed in a reference list based on the Harvard under ‘V’.

Surnames of immigrants in English-speaking countries – Family names of Dutch emigrants often changed to suit the local style.  So in the United States we find medical sociologist Ray DeVries, the cyclist Christian Vande Velde, Gloria Vanderbilt and in France the French golfer Jean Van de Velde.  These ‘foreign’ names would be listed under the particle.  So alphabetically Vande Velde is listed after Vanderbuilt (Box 2).
Box 2  Examples of referencing Flemish, Dutch and German authors in English

German names Beethoven, L. van (1817) etc. etc.Beethoven van, L. (1817) etc.
Dutch / Belgium names Gogh, Vincent, van (1891) etc. etc.Van Damme, Jean-Claude (2002) etc.

Or keeping the family name and particle together:

van* Gogh, Vincent (1891) etc.

Van Damme, Jean-Claude (2002) etc.
North-American names Vanderbuilt, G. (1998) etc.Vande Velde, C. (2010) etc.

Legend: * note no capital for ‘v’.

Often academic journals will list all names in alphabetical order of the particle, in the same way the UK telephone directory does.  Thus van Teijlingen is listed under ‘V’. One final piece of advice for academic authors is the reminder to always check the author instructions of the journal you are targeting for its reference style. 

Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University

 

References:

Bett, W.R., 1953, The preparation and writing of medical papers for publication, London: Menley & James.

Hout, R. van, 1992, Het sociolinguïstisch onderzoek van taalvariatie in stadsdialecten (In Dutch: Socio-linguistic research into language variations in city dialects), Taal en Tongval Special Issue 5: 48-65 (available at: www.meertens.knaw.nl/taalentongval/artikelen/VanHout.pdf ). 

Meijer, E., 2009 The apacite package: Citation and reference list with LATEX and BibTEX according to the rules of the American Psychological Association, available at:   http://ctan.sqsol.co.uk/biblio/bibtex/contrib/apacite/apacite.pdf

Teijlingen, E. van, 2004, Referencing Dutch, German and Flemish names in English, Medical Sociology News 30(1): 42-44 (copy is available from BURO at: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/11930/2/Referencing_Dutch_Flemish_names.pdf).

Trask, R.L., 2002, Mind the Gaffe: The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English, London: Penguin.

Research by Prof Colin Pritchard featured in The Guardian

Prof Colin Pritchard’s study comparing the effectiveness of the NHS with health services in 16 other western countries is published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and was featured in The Guardian today. You can read the full story on The Guardian website  – ‘NHS among developed world’s most efficient health systems, says study’

The research also features on a number of websites, most notably:

Politics.co.uk website – http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/08/08/surprise-report-nhs-most-efficient-healthcare

GP Online website – http://www.gponline.com/News/article/1083812/nhs-among-cost-effective-health-systems-world/

UTV (Ulster – Northern Ireland) – http://www.u.tv/News/NHS-among-developed-worlds-most-efficient-health-systems-says-study/5901a770-528c-405b-b7ae-ac9ce576f07a

You can access the full-text of Colin’s paper here: http://shortreports.rsmjournals.com/content/2/7/60.full.pdf

Have your say! What should the new research management system be called?

Last month I wrote a post announcing Symplectic Elements as the new research management system that BU is implementing this summer (you can read this post here).

We’re now at the exciting stage of naming the system! The steering group has come up with a list of possible names for you to vote on. Cast your votes below!

If you’d like to add some alternative suggestions, please do this by adding comments to this post. You can also add comments to this post about the alternative suggestions that have been added!

The poll will be open until 19 August. Happy voting! 🙂

[polldaddy poll=5372385]

Launch of EU-funded ‘ecancerHub’ website

A new hub of information for those affected by cancer has just been launched, providing an open-access, integrated approach to providing the whole cancer community with high-quality and trustworthy information. The product of two years’ work as part of the ‘Establishing an efficient network for cancer communication in Europe’) project, which was boosted by more than EUR 1.2 million of funding under the ‘Science in Society’ Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), ‘ecancerHub‘ brings together information from major European cancer organisations in one easy-to-use site. The 2-year long EUROCANCERCOMS project was made up of 18 project partners from Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.  By establishing an integrated EU model for a Europe-wide cancer information and policy exchange portal, the pan-European team have succeeded in their aim of creating a functional exchange system for accurate information and intelligence.

Overview of the REF draft panel criteria – what are the subtleties between panels?

Guidance, Research assessment

At the end of July the REF team released the draft panel working methods and criteria documentation (see our previous blog post for access to the documents).

We’ve spent the week wading through the four main panel documents and have produced a very brief overview of the subtleties between the panels on key criteria (such as the use of citation data, co-authored outputs, additional environment data, etc) in a tabular format.

You can access the overview table here: REF – draft panel criteria comparison table

Unfortunately this is no substitute for reading the actual documentation (sorry!) but does highlight the key points and differences between panels.

These documents are currently open to sector-wide consultation until 5 October 2011. BU will be submitting a single institutional response coordinated by the Research Development Unit. BU staff are invited to submit feedback for consideration as part of this response. Please email all comments to Anita Somner by 20 September 2011.

The R&E Database (RED) and You!

The new version of RED is up and running and can be accessed by all academic staff.

Academic staff can login to RED to review their record of research and enterprise applications and successful projects.  Staff can view projects on which they are listed as a principle investigator or a co-investigator.  There is a facility to print off the reports which can be useful for appraisals.

Academic managers can use the system to review the activity that is going on within their schools.

The data held on RED is updated by the CRE Operations team based on the information provided by the PI and the contract or award letter from the funder.

Simple guidelines on how to access the system are available here.  You can access RED both on and off campus using your standard university login.

If you have any problems with accessing or using the system please contact Susan Dowdle in the Research Development Unit.

Future directions of EU research….

 

Mental health research: The Head of Health Services & Population Research announced at a conference last week that mental health research is likely to be the next research field to be tackled on an international scale. Hopefully funding announcements released next year will reflect this!

Biological diversity:  The Swedish Research Council has announced that it will invest 36 million kroner (3.9m euros) from 2010-2014 to set up a database for researchers studying biological diversity. The LifeWatch is a national research infrastructure project which will tie up with a Europe-wide initiative to share biodiversity data. Four other partners in the consortium, including several universities, will put up between 2.5 million and 9.2 million kroner for the project.

EU Funding for Culture, Tourism and Sport collaborations

The Culture Programme promotes transnational mobility of people working in the cultural sector and to promote intercultural dialogue. If you have contacts in this sector, this could be a key opportunity to collaborate and introduce yourself to EU funding. Calls for proposals are released on an annual basis and 3 calls are currently open under the ‘Cultural Service Teams, Youth Workers’

Multinational Cooperation Projects: Funds groups of cultural organisations to develop joint cultural activities over a period of three to five years. Projects will involve a minimum of 6 cultural operators from at least 6 eligible countries. The maximum funding per project is €500k and the deadline is 03.10.11
Cooperation Measures: Funds shorter and smaller-scale joint projects involving cultural organisations from at least three European countries. Projects can last up to 2 years and should involve at least 3 different European countries. Deadline 03.10.11
Support to European Cultural Festivals: funds festivals that support the circulation of cultural works from other European countries. Projects up to €100k are supported and the deadline is 15.11.11

BU academics in the media

In the last few days, BU academics have achieved a series of major results by having their expertise featured in key national media outlets.

This includes stories in:

  • The Sunday Telegraph (31 July) – featuring Professor Rudy Gozlan in the School of Applied Sciences commenting on the decline of the world’s river fish at the recent  annual conference of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles hosted by BU; 
  • Broadcast* (29 July) – a thought leadership article by Jon Wardle in the Media School which calls for improved media education in light of the recent phone-hacking scandal;
  • The Times* (29 July) – a thought leadership article by Professor Edwin van Teijlingen in the School of Health and Social Care on the role of GPs in the provision of maternity care;
  • The Guardian (28 July) – a thought leadership article by Dr Heather Hartwell in the School of Tourism on link between tourism strategies and health and well-being.

 * – subscriptions are required to view these articles online. If you are a BU staff member and would like to receive a hard copy please email: press@bournemouth.ac.uk

Good luck & Congratulations!

Awarded & submitted bids

This week’s messages of good luck are due to Ann Bevan (HSC) who has submitted a first stage proposal to the BUPA Foundation’s Philip Poole Wilson Seedcorn Grants, to Gill Jordan (HSC) for applying for another contract with Pulse International to run the overseas nursing programme, to Joanne Holmes (HSC) who has submitted a bid to Partners in Care to run a nutrition course, to Clive Andrewes (HSC) for bidding for two PDU accreditations with Somerset Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust, and to Dave Parham (ApSci) who has submitted a large proposal to English Heritage to continue his marine archaeology research in the Swash Channel.

Congratulations to Rudy Gozlan and the Conservation Ecology and Environmental Sciences Group (ApSci) for winning an Erasmus Mundus award from the European Commission. The TECHNO project aims to develop cooperation between Asian and European HEIs through the exchange of students and staff. The project will start later this year and will contribute significantly to the research culture in ApSci. This is excellent news considering BU’s push to grow its European activity and international networking. Well done to Jonathan Wardle (MS) for securing 5 license renewals for CEMP’s Parashoot tool as well as winning a CPD contract with Pearson Education Ltd. Congratulations are also due to Steve Calver (and the MRG team, ST) for a contract with Bath Preservation Trust, Clive Andrewes (HSC) for winning a CPD contract with Care UK and also for running a dementia short course in September, and to Les Todres (HSC) who will be running a masterclass on interpretive phenomenological analysis in November. Well done to everyone involved in these projects!

Professor Matthew Bennett

PVC (Research, Enterprise & Internationalisation)

Latest journal impact factors

Research assessment

Following the release of the latest Journal Citation Reports® on the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science database, we have compiled a list of the top ranking journals in various fields related to BU research. BU staff can access these lists by going to the designated folder on the collaborative I-drive: I:\R&KEO\Public\RDU\Journal Impact Factors 2011. If there are any additional subject areas that you would like to see included, do send me an email.

Related blog posts that may be of interest:
Journal impact factors explained