Category / Computer Science
‘GDPR for Charities’ workshop: a report
On Monday, June 11th we ran our long planned ‘GDPR for Charities’ workshop at the Enterprise Business Centre. This workshop was one of the outputs from our Charity Impact Acceleration Scheme funded project to help a local charity with their GDPR readiness activities. The aim of this workshop was to share the techniques and lessons learned from this project with the wider non-profit community in the Dorset region and beyond. This was a one-day event attended by around 40 participants working for or with charities of various sizes.
Shamal Faily opened the workshop (slides) by setting out some of the challenges faced by charities making sense of GDPR, before giving an overview of what would be planned for the day.
Jane Henriksen-Bulmer then gave an overview of GDPR and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) before presenting the ‘DPIA Data Wheel’ – a step-by-step process for carrying out a DPIA (slides).
The participants were then divided into four groups and, with the assistance of our BU facilitators, used the Data Wheel to conduct a DPIA for a hypothetical but realistic scenario. The groups then came together to present the privacy risks they found to the rest of the participants.
After lunch, Tessa Corner delivered a talk on StreetScene‘s experiences applying the DPIA Data Wheel (slides), before Shamal gave a talk on how to find security & privacy risks, and demonstrated the use of CAIRIS to support the discovery and management of risks (slides).
After these talks, Raian Ali hosted a lively panel on GDPR and its implications for charities before Jane closed the day by summarising some of the results of applying the DPIA Data Wheel with StreetScene (slides) and discussing some next steps to build on the momentum from this workshop (slides).
If you’re interested in finding out more about the workshop, or would like to get involved in any follow-on activities then please contact Jane Henriksen-Bulmer or Shamal Faily.
ERDF funded research – VISTA AR won the best paper award in CASA 2018 Beijing, China
Bournemouth University’s research team have celebrated their success in an international conference in Beijing, China. Their paper, co-authored by Yinyu Nie, Jian Chang, Ehtzaz Chaudhry, Shihui Guo, Andi Smart (University of Exeter) and Jian Jun Zhang, titled “Semantic modelling of indoor scenes with support inference from a single photograph” was selected as the Best Paper in the 31st International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA 2018) held on May 21-23, 2018 in Beijing, China.
http://casa2018.ios.ac.cn/casa-2018-best-paper-award/
The award winning paper presented an automatic approach for semantic modelling of indoor scenes based on a single photograph. Without using hand-crafted features, the guide indoor scene modelling with feature maps extracted by Fully Convolutional Networks (FCNs). The modelling approach forms part of the development of a preliminary experimentation on modern technologies to enhance visitor experiences using digital innovation, a €7.8m EU funded project (VISTA AR).
The research leading to these results has been co-funded by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) – VISTA AR project (the Interreg France (Channel) England), the China Scholarship Council and Bournemouth University. For more information about the project (VISTA AR), please visit project website (https://www.vista-ar.eu/)
BU research helping charities achieving sustainable privacy by design
Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash
In November 2017, we were awarded funding through RKEO’s Charity Impact Acceleration fund to work help a local charity — StreetScene — prepare them for the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At the time, many charities were well aware of what GDPR was and the penalties for non-compliance. However, the guidance made available to them by the ICO was general and costly to implement in terms of time and resources. Our thoughts summarising the dilemmas faced by charities facing GDPR were recently covered by The Conversation.
Using work from her doctoral research, Jane Henriksen-Bulmer has devised a customised Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) process for charities, which she is now putting into practice at StreetScene. This helps them evaluate how privacy impacts their business workflows, and the privacy risks they face.
To help other charities benefit from this work, we will be running a free GDPR for Charities workshop on June 11th at the EBC. The workshop will share the results of this work with around 50 participants who work for or with local charities, and provide hands-on training on the process and complementary design techniques and software tools that charities can put into immediate practice. We’ll also be running a panel with invited speakers to discuss the challenges that small charities face with GDPR.
Although this work is helping local charities, we hope our work leads to more debate on how everyone (and not just big business) can ‘build in’ sustainable security and privacy.
Grand Challenges – four missions and an opportunity to input ideas – and a Brexit promise
PM’s speech
This speech by the PM today was trailed in the press and here is the link to it as delivered. The Brexit bit is towards the end. [Selection of quotes below, my formatting and edited as otherwise it is a bit hard to follow, it was a long speech]
Government has always had a crucial role in supporting scientific research and the technological advancements that flow from it……from the founding of the learned societies under royal patronage in the seventeenth century to the expansion of state-funded research in universities through the twentieth century.
- In the last few years, government support has helped create new landmark institutions,…
- And in the Industrial Strategy, we have made a commitment to take our support for UK science and technology to another level. £7 billion in new public funding for science, research and innovation: the largest increase for 40 years.
But to truly succeed we will go even further.
- As a government, we have set the goal of research and development investment reaching 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027 – more than ever before. That could translate to an additional £80 billion investment in the ideas of the future over the next decade.
- But even that figure fails to capture the scale of the possibility this will create. Because science and technology have a dynamic relationship. The scientific breakthroughs of today will lead to technological advances which themselves open the door to further scientific discovery, the likes of which are beyond our imagination.
- And it won’t just be public funding – our R&D target covers the combined power of government and business alike. That is what the Industrial Strategy is all about – not just the state spending money but using smart public investment to harness private funding. Not government running enterprise, but a strategic state using its power and influence to create the right conditions to allow us to thrive in the long term. A strategic approach means ensuring we have an education system that gives young people the skills they need to contribute to the economy of the future.
- That means more free schools and academies providing great school places, a curriculum that sets the highest standards, and proper support for our teachers to deliver it…It means more rigorous science GCSEs preparing young people better for further study and work, and more young people going on to do sciences at A-level. And to attract talented science graduates into the teaching profession, we are offering tax-free bursaries worth up to £26,000 in priority subjects.
- And it means going even further in the future. Transforming technical education with new high-quality T-levels that are every bit as good as A-levels. New Institutes of Technology to provide higher-level education and training. And a national re-training scheme to help workers of all ages adapt their skills to the jobs of tomorrow.
This is action from a strategic state to drive policy changes that will benefit our economy, our society and the individuals we serve.
……
So today I am setting the first four missions of our Industrial Strategy – one in each Grand Challenge. If they are to be meaningful, they must be ambitious and stretching. That means that our success in them cannot be guaranteed. But I believe that by setting a high ambition, we can achieve more than we otherwise would. So these are the missions I am setting today.
AI and data
First, as part of the AI and Data Grand Challenge, the United Kingdom will use data, artificial intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and dementia by 2030.
- Late diagnosis of otherwise treatable illnesses is one of the biggest causes of avoidable deaths.
- And the development of smart technologies to analyse great quantities of data quickly and with a higher degree of accuracy than is possible by human beings opens up a whole new field of medical research and gives us a new weapon in our armoury in the fight against disease.
- In cancer, our ambition is that within 15 years we will be able to diagnose at a much earlier stage the lung, bowel, prostate or ovarian cancer of at least 50,000 more people a year. Combined with the great treatment and care provided by our NHS, that will mean every year 22,000 fewer people will die within five years of their diagnosis compared to today.
- We will work with industry and the medical research community to announce specific ambitions in a range of other disease areas over the coming weeks and months. Achieving this mission will not only save thousands of lives.
- It will incubate a whole new industry around AI-in-healthcare, creating high-skilled science jobs across the country, drawing on existing centres of excellence in places like Edinburgh, Oxford and Leeds – and helping to grow new ones.
Healthy ageing
Second, through our healthy ageing grand challenge, we will ensure that people can enjoy five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, whilst narrowing the gap between the experience of the richest and poorest.….
- We can do that by supporting more people to stay happy, healthy and independent in their own homes for longer, instead of going into hospital. It will take a collective effort to achieve this.
- Employers can help, by meeting the needs of people who have caring responsibilities and by doing more to support older people to contribute in the workplace – and enjoy the emotional and physical benefits of having a job if they want one.
- Businesses can contribute, and benefit, by supplying the needs of a growing market.
- Innovative and well-designed products and services – from housing adaptations that make our homes safer for older people to live in, to smart technologies that help people continue to enjoy life if they have a health condition. These innovations can also be exported to a rapidly growing market around the world.
- And we can all play our part – by making healthier lifestyle choices ourselves, and by supporting our friends and neighbours as they get older.
- We can build a stronger society, where more people can contribute their talents for longer and fewer people face loneliness and isolation.
Future of mobility
Third, in the future of mobility grand challenge, we have a mission to put the UK at the forefront of the design and manufacturing of zero emission vehicles and for all new cars and vans to be effectively zero emission by 2040. Technology is revolutionising how we power vehicles, how they are driven, how we navigate and how we access information about public transport.
- …We can make our towns and cities cleaner, safer and more productive places to live and work.
- We can set a global standard for managing technological change to maximise economic and environmental benefits.
- We will work with industry to achieve this ambition, and share the benefits this opportunity presents.
Clean growth
And fourth, in the clean growth grand challenge, we will use new technologies and modern construction practices to at least halve the energy usage of new buildings by 2030.
- Heating and powering buildings accounts for 40 per cent of our total energy usage. By making our buildings more energy efficient and embracing smart technologies, we can slash household energy bills, reduce demand for energy, and meet our targets for carbon reduction.
- By halving the energy use of new buildings – both commercial and residential – we could reduce the energy bills for their occupants by as much as 50 per cent. And we will aim to halve the costs of reaching the same standard in existing buildings too.
- Meeting this challenge will drive innovation and higher standards in the construction sector, helping it to meet our ambitious homebuilding targets and providing more jobs and opportunity to millions of workers across the country. It will be a catalyst for new technologies and more productive methods, which can be exported to a large and growing global market for clean technologies.
….These four missions are just the beginning – and in setting further missions across the four grand challenge areas, we will work closely with businesses and sectors. ….
Science is an international enterprise and discoveries know no borders. The United Kingdom today is at the centre of a web of international collaboration.
- Our immigration system supports this, with no cap on the number of the students who can come to our universities, and thousands coming every year, learning from some of the finest academics and contributing to the success of some of the best universities in the world. Indeed, since 2010 the number of overseas students coming to study at UK universities has increased by almost a quarter.
- The UK will always be open to the brightest and the best researchers to come and make their valued contribution. And today over half of the UK’s resident researcher population were born overseas.
When we leave the European Union, I will ensure that does not change.
- Indeed the Britain we build together in the decades ahead must be one in which scientific collaboration and the free exchange of ideas is increased and extended, both between the UK and the European Union and with partners around the world.
- I know how deeply British scientists value their collaboration with colleagues in other countries through EU-organised programmes. And the contribution which UK science makes to those programmes is immense.
- I have already said that I want the UK to have a deep science partnership with the European Union, because this is in the interests of scientists and industry right across Europe. And today I want to spell out that commitment even more clearly.
- The United Kingdom would like the option to fully associate ourselves with the excellence-based European science and innovation programmes – including the successor to Horizon 2020 and Euratom R&T. It is in the mutual interest of the UK and the EU that we should do so.
- Of course such an association would involve an appropriate UK financial contribution, which we would willingly make.
- In return, we would look to maintain a suitable level of influence in line with that contribution and the benefits we bring.
The UK is ready to discuss these details with the Commission as soon as possible.
Grand challenges
And to go with the speech, new Grand Challenges content.
- AI and data: “To begin, we have one question: Where can the use of AI and data transform our lives?”
- Ageing society: “To begin, we would like to hear your thoughts on the following: How can we best support people to have extra years of being healthy and independent?”
- Clean Growth: “To begin, we would like to hear your thoughts on the following: How can our construction industry use its existing strengths to halve energy use in buildings?”
- Future of mobility: “To begin, we have one question: How can we ensure that future transport technologies and services are developed in an inclusive manner?”
They want new ideas, case studies etc – please contact policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you would like to be involved
Dr Eliza Watt’s Contribution to the UN GGE 2015 Norms Proposal
Dr Eliza Watt Commended on Her Excellent Contribution to the Commentary on the UN Group of Government Experts 2015 cyber norms proposal coordinated by Leiden University’s Hague Programme for Cyber Norms
In response to rapidly emerging threats and risks relating to state behaviour in cyberspace the United Nations Group of Government Experts (UN GGE) issued in 2015 a list of recommendations of responsible state behaviour. Three years later, Leiden University’s Hague Program for Cyber Norms successfully concluded its commentary project on these recommendations, titled ‘Civil Society and Disarmament 2017: Voluntary, Non-Legally Binding Norms for Responsible State Behaviour in the Use of Information and Communication Technologies: A Commentary’ (the Commentary).
Dr Eliza Watt, a Bournemouth University law lecturer and researcher at the Centre for Conflict, Rule of Law and Society (CRoLS), was invited to take part in the consultation process and to contribute to the commentary on UN GGE 2015 Recommendation 13(e). The Recommendation calls upon states to guarantee full respect for human rights ensuring the secure use of ICTs. Dr Watt made a valid contribution to the Commentary, including the analysis of the scope of application of human rights treaties in cyberspace, in particular the extraterritorial obligations of states under these treaties and the extent of states’ obligations when conducting cyber surveillance activities. She has also provided a synthesis on the proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE) regarding its multilateral ‘non-spy’ treaty put forward in 2015. In addition, Dr Watt also recognized the need for a clear definition and distinction being made in law between cyber surveillance and cyber espionage. Her other contributions related to the issues of data protection, focusing on the CoE 2001 Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data regarding supervisory authorities and transborder data flows. Her recommendation in this context related to the CoE Draft Modernized Convention on the Automatic Processing of Personal Data published in 2016 as representing perhaps the only prospect for a universal standard in the field of data privacy.
Dr Watt has been commended for her ‘excellent contribution to the Commentary’ by one of its co-authors, Dr Barrie Sander of Leiden University.
Political Updates
A smorgasbord of content for you this week – rifle through to find the topics most of interest to you. We’ve got: pollinators, research integrity, mental health, nursing news, plastic waste, several new funded competitions from the Government, praise for the arts and creative sectors, smart energy systems, immersive technologies, the Industrial Strategy’s Grand Challenges, tackling social challenges, Guidance from Innovate UK and on Horizon 2020, an important survey on international students, new Royal Society Fellows, an article on the AI brain drain, and the forthcoming Environmental Principles and Governance Bill. Enjoy!
Pollinators
On Tuesday Ben Bradley (Conservative, Mansfield) made his case for a Private Members’ Bill to make provision about the protection of pollinators. Permission to progress the Bill was granted and our regional MP Oliver Letwin will take part in presenting the bill.
Research Integrity
Sam Gyimah was interviewed for the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee investigation into research integrity. The committee heard that universities should be held responsible for the full compliance of upholding standards of research integrity but the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation declined to assert that funding should be dependent on this. Other topics covered included concordant sign up, self-assessment and disclosure in clinical trials. Read the full summary of the session provided by Dods Consultants here.
Mental Health
The Commons Education, Health and Social Care Committees have published their response to the inquiry on young people’s mental health: The Government’s Green Paper on mental health: failing a generation. An oral parliamentary question was also asked on the topic on Tuesday:
Q – Helen Whately: I welcome the Green Paper on mental health in schools, which was published earlier this year, but it does prompt a question about the mental health of students in further and higher education. Does my right hon. Friend have any plans to look into that issue? If he does not, may I urge him to do so?
A – Jackie Doyle-Price: I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her continued industry on these matters. As she mentioned, the Green Paper outlined plans to set up a new national strategic partnership focused on improving the mental health of 16 to 25-year-olds. That partnership is likely to support and build on sector-led initiatives in higher education, such as Universities UK’s #stepchange project, whose launch I attended in September. The strategy calls on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority, to take a whole-university approach to mental health and to embed it across policies, courses and practices.
Nursing Places
Nursing has been in the news again this week. A series of oral parliamentary questions reveal the Government’s unwavering approach towards nurse training and on Wednesday there was a debate on the Government’s plans to remove funding from post-graduate converters into nursing (announced in February). The removal affects the two-year course for those who hold degrees in other subjects. It is controversial as this is the fastest way to train a registered nurse and there is currently a shortage of 40,000 nurses in England. The change brings the post-graduate courses in line with the undergraduate nurse training which has already lost the NUS bursary and now falls under the student loan system.
The Commons debate was secured as a result of opposition pressure, following a report by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which referenced evidence submitted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The RCN arranged for a number of student nurses, who currently receive post-graduate funding, to visit parliament during April to meet MPs and peers and explain what financial support has meant for them.
Michael Lawton, who received the NHS post-graduate bursary and is currently working as a registered nurse, said: “Without the bursary I couldn’t have applied and I wouldn’t be in a career I love, giving patients the great care they deserve. I know I make a difference every day.
MPs I’ve spoken to are shocked at how many hours we do in clinical placement. By removing the bursary, the Government is asking people to pay to work on placements to keep the NHS afloat and that isn’t right.
Current post-graduate nursing student Georgie Ellmore-Jones said:
“After my undergraduate degree I was already in a lot of debt. When I looked at pursuing a career in nursing and saw it was funded, it made it more certain in my mind that I wanted to do it. At post-graduate level many of the students have families and children to look after so adding more debt will only discourage potential students.”
On Tuesday there were a series of oral questions on nursing to the Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay), his answers reveal the Government’s thinking towards nurse training.
Q – Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) & (Lab) Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) & Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op): What assessment he has made of the effect of the withdrawal of NHS bursaries on applications for nursing degrees.
A – The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay): Nursing remains a strong career choice, with more than 22,500 students placed during the 2017 UCAS application cycle. Demand for nursing places continues to outstrip the available training places.
Q – Gill Furniss: Figures from the Royal College of Nursing show that applications have fallen by 33% since the withdrawal of bursaries. At the same time, the Government’s Brexit shambles has led to a drastic decline in EU nursing applications. How many years of such decline do we have to see before the Secretary of State and the Minister will intervene?
A – Stephen Barclay: What matters is not the number of rejected applicants, but the increase in places—the number of people actually training to be a nurse. The reality is that 5,000 more nurses will be training each year up to 2020 as a result of the changes.
Q – Stella Creasy: The NHS already has 34,000 nursing vacancies. Given that there has been a 97% drop in nursing applications from the EU and that studies show that nearly half of all hospital shifts include agency nurses, will the Minister at least admit that cutting the bursary scheme has been a false economy for our NHS?
A – Stephen Barclay: It is not a false economy to increase the supply of nurses, which is what the changes have done. Indeed, they form part of a wider package of measures, including “Agenda for Change”, pay rises and the return to practice scheme, which has seen 4,355 starters returning to the profession. More and more nurses are being trained, which is why we now have over 13,000 more nurses than in 2010.
Q – Grahame Morris: I respectfully remind the Minister that this is about recruitment and retention. The RCN says that we can train a postgraduate nurse within 18 months, which is a significant untapped resource, so why are the Government planning to withdraw support from postgraduate nurses training, too?
A – Stephen Barclay: We have a debate involving postgraduate nursing tomorrow, but the intention is to increase the number of such nurses by removing the current cap, which means that many who want to apply for postgraduate courses cannot find the clinical places to do so. That is the nature of tomorrow’s debate, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber.
Q – Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Will my hon. Friend, on top of the degree nursing apprenticeships, rapidly increase the nursing apprenticeship programme so nurses can earn while they learn, have no debt and get a skill that they and our country need?
A – Stephen Barclay: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to signpost this as one of a suite of ways to increase the number of nurses in the profession. As he alludes to, there will be 5,000 nursing apprenticeships this year, and we are expanding the programme, with 7,500 starting next year.
Q – Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD): With every reputable independent body showing very clearly that we have a staffing crisis in the NHS nursing profession, can the Minister explain how cutting bursaries actually improves the situation?
A – Stephen Barclay: I am very happy to do so. We are removing the cap on the number of places covered by the bursaries and increasing the number of student places by 25%, which means that there will be 5,000 more nurses in training as a result of these changes.
Q – Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP): The Secretary of State’s removal of the nursing bursary and introduction of tuition fees have resulted in a 33% drop in applications in England. In Scotland, we have kept the bursary, a carer’s allowance and free tuition, which means that student nurses are up to £18,000 a year better off, and indeed they also earn more once they graduate. Does the Minister recognise that that is why applications in Scotland have remained stable while in England they have dropped by a third?
A- Stephen Barclay: The hon. Lady speaks with great authority on health matters, but, again, she misses the distinction between the number of applicants and the number of nurses in training. It is about how many places are available, and we are increasing by 25% the number of nurses in training. That is what will address the supply and address some of the vacancies in the profession.
Q – Dr Whitford: Workforce is a challenge for all four national health services across the UK, but, according to NHS Improvement, there are 36,000 nursing vacancies in England, more than twice the rate in Scotland. The Minister claims that more nurse students are training, but in fact there were 700 fewer in training in England last year, compared with an 8% increase in Scotland. The key difference is that in Scotland we are supporting the finances of student nurses, so will the Government accept that removing the nursing bursary was a mistake and reintroduce it?
A – Stephen Barclay: The distinction the hon. Lady fails to make is that in England we are increasing the number of nurses in training by 25%; we are ensuring that nurses who have left the profession can return through the return-to-work programme; and we are introducing significant additional pay through “Agenda for Change”. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) said, we are also creating new routes so that those who come into the NHS through other routes, such as by joining as a healthcare assistant, are not trapped in those roles but are able to progress, because the Conservative party backs people who want to progress in their careers. Healthcare assistants who want to progress into nursing should have that opportunity.
Q – Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab): When defending the decision to scrap bursaries, the Secretary of State said that, if done right, it could provide up to 20,000 extra nursing posts by 2020. Well, that figure now looks wildly optimistic, with applications down two years in a row. Is it not time that Ministers admitted they have got this one wrong and joined the Opposition in the Lobby tomorrow to vote against any further extensions to this failed policy?
A – Stephen Barclay: If Members vote against the policy tomorrow, the reality is that they will be voting for a cap on the number of postgraduate nurses going into the system, and therefore they will be saying that more people should be rejected—more people should lose the opportunity to become nurses—because they want to have a cap that restricts the supply of teaching places.
Plastics
The Government have announced a new research and innovation hub to tackle plastic waste in the oceans.
Arts Projects Support for the North
The PM spoke on Tuesday to praise Britain’s arts sector:
But of course, the value of culture and creativity lies not only in its economic strength. Just as important is the less tangible contribution that it makes to our national life. The work you do brings joy to millions. It fosters unity, gives us a common currency. It helps to define and build our sense of national character.
“Without culture […] society is but a jungle”. Your work is a vital part of our national life and our national economy, and I am absolutely committed to supporting it.
Our ambitious sector deal for the creative industries, announced just before Easter, will see a further £150 million invested by government and industry, spreading success and making the sector fit to face the future.
She also announced a £3 million fund of new money to support creative projects within the Northern Powerhouse region on Tuesday. Offering a mix of grants and loans, the social investment fund will be open to non-profit, community-based organisations that deliver a positive social impact.
Full speech here.
Smart Energy Systems
The Government announced £41.5 million funds for design and trial of of new business models that intelligently link supply, storage and demand in heating, power and transport. Thee Innovate UK competition has two elements: up to £40 million is available for 3 smart energy system demonstrators, while up to £1.5 million is available for studies into new, smarter approaches to local energy.
Audiences of the Future – Commercial opportunities in the creative industries
The Government has announced a funding competition – Audience of the future: demonstrators opening Monday 21 May. £16 million will be invested in 4 large scale creative industries demonstrator projects (£5-£10 million each) through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. It aims to explore future global, mass market, commercial opportunities in the creative industries. Primarily this will be through pre-commercial collaboration at scale. Projects should significantly improve the current state of art in their field. The projects must explore new ways of communication with mass audiences (100,000+) using new immersive technologies and experiences that are a significant advancement on the state of art in the chosen area. The high level of innovation and scale should be capable of transforming the sector and replicable across the creative industries. The project should generate audience and consumer information that could be used to test the viability of new business models. The Government suggests that areas with strong potential could include moving images, access to live sporting events, visitor experiences in museums and galleries, and music and theatre performance. See here for more information.
A further £1 million is available for early-stage projects (£20-60k) that seek to understand customer needs for immersive experiences and the tools needed to deliver them. Early-stage projects should use human-centered design and look at audience behaviour to develop ideas for new products and services. Particular areas could include:
- advancing the state-of-the-art with immersive experiences that are desirable and fit-for-purpose
- producing high-quality immersive content cheaper, faster and in a way that is more accessible
- improving physical devices such as eyewear and controllers, or haptic feedback
- new digital platforms and services to deliver immersive content
See here for more information on the early-stage projects.
Resolving Social Challenges
On Thursday Oliver Dowden (Minister for Implementation) announced a series of competitions for tech firms to develop solutions tackling current social challenges. While the initiatives focus on the business sector some of the topics are interesting. Each contributes to the Government’s Grand Challenges – the data economy; clean growth; reducing plastic waster, tackling loneliness and healthy ageing and the future of mobility – the competition is designed to incentivise Britain’s tech firms to come up with innovative solutions to improve public services.
The forthcoming challenges:
- Identifying terrorist still imagery (Home Office). Home Office research shows that more than two-thirds of terrorist propaganda disseminated online is still imagery. This project will support both Government analysis of, and broader efforts to remove, this harmful material.
- Tracking waste through the waste chain, submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). A new technological approach could help record, check and track waste, helping boost productivity, reduce costs, and protect both human health and the environment.
- Tackling loneliness and rural isolation, submitted by Monmouthshire Council. The government recognises that rural transport is vital to local communities, and businesses. A technological solution, exploiting vehicles with spare capacity could support rural economies.
- Cutting traffic congestion, submitted by Department for Transport (DfT). Greater collection and new analysis of data could help target interventions to cut congestion.
- Local authorities have large numbers of council vehicles crossing their areas every day. If they can be equipped with innovative data capture systems, they could understand potholes, litter, recycling, parking, air quality and more in real-time, every day, for no added cost. This could mean reduced service delivery costs and better local services.
The first of these competitions opens on Monday 14 May and runs for six weeks, with the remaining competitions being launched in subsequent months. Tech firms bidding to the fund will have free rein to create truly innovative fixes. Winning companies will be awarded up to £50,000 to develop their ideas.
Guidance
Innovate UK have released general guidance for grant applicants, including applying for a business innovation grant, funding rules and participation levels.
The Government have released guidance on Horizon 2020: what it is and how to apply for funding.
International Students
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been tasked by the Government to assess the impact of international students. Previously they asked for evidence of impact from the HE sector with much response from HE institutions but little response from international students themselves. To redress this evidence gap the MAC have issued a survey directly to students. Universities have been asked to disseminate this survey and encourage their students to complete it. Here is the link.
Environmental Principles and Governance Bill
Michael Gove has announced the introduction of the Environmental Principles and Governance Bill, which will “ensure environmental protections will not be weakened as we leave the EU.” It will introduce a new body to hold the Government to account for environmental outcomes. Subject to consultation, the new body could specifically be responsible for:
- providing independent scrutiny and advice on existing and future government environmental law and policy;
- responding to complaints about government’s delivery of environmental law; and
- holding government to account publicly over its delivery of environmental law and exercising enforcement powers where necessary.The Government is also consulting on an intention to require minister to produce a “statutory and comprehensive policy statement setting out how they will apply core environmental principles as they develop policy and discharge their responsibilities”. The new Bill will also ensure Government’s continue to have to regard environmental principlesRoyal SocietyArtificial Intelligence
- The Financial Times has an article: UK universities alarmed by poaching of top computer science brains.
- Wonkhe report that: 50 new Royal Society Fellows and Foreign Members have been elected to join the existing c.1,600. They are all scientists, engineers, and technologists who are from, or living and working in, the UK and the Commonwealth. New additions include Jim Al-Khalili, Michelle Simmons and Elon Musk, with David Willetts the Honorary Fellow,. Of the 50 12 are women.
- The consultation will run for 12 weeks, closing on Thursday 2 August. The draft will be published in the Autumn, and the Bill will be introduced in the second session of this parliament.
Best wishes,
Sarah
Art, War and Peace
Update: Please note the change in venue due to high degree of interest in the talk – Shelley Lecture Theatre (Poole House)
We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.
Title: Art, War and Peace
Speaker: Nigel Osborne
Composer
Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM
Date: Wednesday 25 April 2018
Room: Shelley Lecture Theatre (Poole House)
Abstract:
The presentation begins with an overview of the relationship between art, war and peace, from Sun Tzu and Ancient Greek and Chinese celebration of war in art to the war poets and musicians of the First and Second World Wars, and then on to the work of activists such as Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit) in the Warsaw Ghetto and Friedl Dicker-Brandeisova in Terezin (Theresienstadt).
The presentation then examines three case studies in detail, including film and Audio clips – 1. art as opposition to conflict (The Cellist of Sarajevo, the Obala Gallery) 2. art in reconciliation (the case of a young musician who re-united the young people of a city divided by war) 3. art as trauma therapy (a group of children in Syria, a group of abused women in Bosnia)
Biography:
Nigel Osborne MBE BA BMus (Oxon) DLitt FRCM FEIS FRSE, Emeritus Professor of Music and Human Sciences at the University of Edinburgh is a composer, teacher and aid worker. His works have been performed around the world by major orchestras and opera houses, such as the Vienna Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony, Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House. He has received, among many awards, the Netherlands Gaudeamus Prize, the Opera Prize of the Radio Suisse Romande and Ville de Geneve and the Koussevitzky Award of the Library of Congress Washington. He also works in popular music, theatre and film and has a special interest in Arabic, Indian and Chinese music.
He studied composition at Oxford with Egon Wellesz, the first pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, and in Warsaw with Witold Rudzinski, and worked in major studios such as the Polish Radio Experimental Studio and at IRCAM in Paris. He has worked as a sailor, school teacher, health worker, aid worker and university teacher, holding a lectureship and Special Professorship at Nottingham University (1978-1987), the Reid Chair and Dean of the Faculty of Music at Edinburgh University (1989-2012), a guest Senior Professorship (C4) at the University of Hannover (1996-98) and Head of Faculty for the Vienna-Prague- Budapest Summer Academy (ISA) (2007-2014). He is currently Professor Emeritus at Edinburgh University, visiting Professor in the Drama Faculty of Rijeka University, Consultant to both the Chinese Music Institute, Peking University and the Royal Conservatoire, Bangkok, and has worked as visiting lecturer and examiner in a wide range of universities, ranging from Harvard, UCLA and CalArts to Oxford, the Sorbonne and Bologna.
As a teacher he has worked at all levels of learning, from nursery education to postdoctoral supervision, and continues to work in special education development in places as diverse as Scotland, Sweden, Croatia and India. He was awarded both the Queen’s Prize and Music Industry Prize for innovation in education, and was recently made Honorary Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.
He has pioneered methods of using music and the creative arts to support children who are victims of conflict. This approach was developed during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-95), and since then the work has been implemented widely in the Balkan region, the Caucasus (Chechnya), the Middle East (Palestine, Syria and Lebanon), East Africa and South East Asia. He was also awarded the Freedom Prize of the Peace Institute, Sarajevo, for his work for Bosnian children during the siege of the city.
He has worked actively in many human rights initiatives, including the Committee for the Defence of the Workers in Poland (1970-89), Citizens’ Forum (with Vaclav Havel) in former Czechoslovakia (1987- 89), for Syrian refugee support organisations and directly for the Government of Bosnia- Herzegovina during the genocide.
He is advisor to Oliver Sachs’ Institute for Music and Neurologic Function at Beth Abraham Hospital, The Bronx, NYC, and in 2012-14 served as co-Chair of the Global Agenda Committee for Arts in Society for the World Economic Forum.
In recent months he has been working on an opera/film with Ulysses Theatre and Paradiso Films on the Cambridge spies, a musical/ecological work for Khazanah, Kuala Lumpur, a cantata based on the experiences of refugees and on an orchestral version of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper, to mark the 50th anniversary of the issue of the album (June 2017).
Nigel is working with Opera Circus on a new chamber opera, Naciketa, with libretto by Ariel Dorfman. The premiere will be at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank London in May 2020.
In December 2017 Nigel Osborne was presented with the British Composer Award UK for Inspiration (in association with the Music Publishers Association) by Opera Circus Artistic Director, Tina Ellen Lee.
We hope to see you there.
Dr Sascha Dov Bachmann invited to give a keynote speech at the 14th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ICCWS) Stellenbosch RSA
Dr Sascha Dov Bachmann, Associate Professor in International Law (BU) and War Studies (Swedish Defence University – FHS), Research Fellow at CEMIS, Stellenbosch University and Director of BU’s Centre for Conflict,Rule of Law and Society was invited to give a keynote speech at at the 14th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ICCWS) 28 February – 1 March 2019, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
ICCWS uniquely addresses cyber security, cyber warfare and information warfare. Over the years the Conference has been attended by a variety of security and military organisations including Cyber Security Policy Research Institute, more than 10 national defence colleges, NATO, SHAPE etc.
The conference is being organised by Dr Noëlle van der Waag-Cowling, military science professional with 25 years of experience in the Department of Defence, South Africa and 20 years of experience in South African Higher Education at Stellenbosch University. She is also the co-ordinator of the Cyber Project at the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa. Noëlle is associated with the BU’s Centre for Conflict, Rule of Law and Society.
Subjective Evaluation of High-Fidelity Virtual Environments for Driving Simulations
We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.
Title: Subjective Evaluation of High-Fidelity Virtual Environments for Driving Simulations
Speaker: Dr Carlo Harvey
Birmingham City University
Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM
Date: Wednesday 14 March 2018
Room: PG10 (Poole House)
Abstract:
Virtual environments (VEs) grant the ability to experience real-world scenarios, such as driving, in a virtual, safe, and reproducible context. However, to achieve their full potential, the fidelity of the VEs must provide confidence that it replicates the perception of the real-world experience. The computational cost of simulating real-world visuals accurately means that compromises to the fidelity of the visuals must be made. This talk presents a subjective evaluation of driving in a VE at different quality settings. Participants (n = 44) were driven around in the real world and in a purposely built representative VE and the fidelity of the graphics and overall experience at low-, medium-, and high-visual settings were analysed. Low quality corresponds to the illumination in many current traditional simulators, medium to a higher quality using accurate shadows and reflections, and high to the quality experienced in modern movies and simulations that require hours of computation. Results demonstrate that graphics quality affects the perceived fidelity of the visuals and the overall experience. When judging the overall experience, participants could tell the difference between the lower quality graphics and the rest but did not significantly discriminate between the medium and higher graphical settings. This indicates that future driving simulators should improve the quality, but once the equivalent of the presented medium quality is reached, they may not need to do so significantly.
We hope to see you there.
First kick offf
The “vF Interoperation suppoRting buSiness innovaTion” (FIRST) project provides new technology to describe manufacturing assets and to compose and integrate existing services into collaborative virtual manufacturing processes.
The project kick-off meeting took place in March 16-17 2017 at Bournemouth University UK. In attendance were the academic and industrial representatives from the partner institutions.
The FIRST Project kick-off meeting participants at BU[/caption]
The project combines partners from China, Germany, The Netherlands and Germany in the academic and industrial sectors. Together we work on processes in manufacturing context.
- Bournemouth University, UK. Faculty of Science & Technology, Department of Computing and Informatics, Service Computing Group.
- University of Groningen, Netherlands. Faculty of Science and Engineering, Distributed Systems Group.
Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy. Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche Informatiche e Matematiche, the Smart Applications, Environments, and Communities Group. - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. The Department of physics, informatics and mathematics, Department of physics, informatics and mathematics.
- Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, China. The College of EngineeringThe College of Engineering.
- GK software. Germany – world market leader in retail software
- KM Software. China – Specialist in computer aided manufacturing
The kick-off meeting initiated the projected start from March 2017. Topics discussed at the the kick-off meeting included
- Deeper knowledge of consortium partner, research agenda
- Implementation of working packages and Deliverables
- Presentations of partners
- Discussing Consortium Agreement
Please find more details about the project at
research.bournemouth.ac.uk/2016/09/horizon-2020-funding-for-virtual-factory-research-at-bu/
BU commissioned to analyse future energy needs in UK homes
- Bournemouth University and Baringa selected to deliver data analysis and algorithm development to the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI).
- The High Frequency Appliance Disaggregation Analysis project will analyse real world data from the ETI’s Home Energy Management System (HEMS) in five homes to gather detailed energy data from water, gas and electricity use.
- This data will help develop algorithms to forecast domestic energy needs of the future and provide industry with valuable insight into consumer energy use to develop efficient energy services.
Bournemouth University, under the lead on Professor Hamid Bouchachia, and specialist energy advisors Baringa Partners have both been selected by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to undertake data analysis in a new knowledge building smart energy project that will investigate domestic energy use.
The High Frequency Appliance Disaggregation Analysis (HFADA) project builds upon work undertaken in the Smart Systems and Heat (SSH) programme delivered by the Energy Systems Catapult for the ETI, to refine intelligence and gain detailed smart home energy data.
The project will analyse in depth data from five homes that have been trialling the SSH programme’s Home Energy Management System (HEMS) to identify which appliances are present within a building and when they are in operation. The main goal of the HFADA project is to detect human behaviour patterns in order to forecast the home energy needs of people in the future. In particular the project will deliver a detailed set of data mining algorithms top help identify patterns of building occupancy and energy use within domestic homes from water, gas and electricity data.
Bournemouth University and Baringa, working in partnership with ASI Data Science, will work independently to provide information derived from the water, gas and electricity use in these UK homes, from the end of 2017 to middle of 2018.
Should anyone be interested in further details, please contact Prof Hamid Bouchachia at abouchachia@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Fake conferences are not fake news: beware predatory conferences
Introduction
Academic have been warned for a decade about predatory Open Access publishers (van Teijlingen 2014). These are commercial organisations charging academics a publication fee on submission of their manuscripts with a promise to publish their work quickly online. The problem is twofold: first, these commercial organisations don’t offer proper peer-review and editorial quality assurance; and secondly, academic are being tricked into believing the journal is a legitimate scientific publication. The second author receives on average six to eight invitations a week to publish in this kind of predatory journals – see below for examples. The first author, who despite having not worked in an academic institution for over three years, still receives such invitations to publish in ‘Journal X’.
Predatory conferences
A similar phenomenon to predatory journals is the predatory conference (Moital 2014; Nobes 2017; Grove 2017). These are pretend academic conferences of questionable value, established first and foremost to make money, not for the greater good of the academic discipline.
Both authors have received bogus and legitimate invitations to attend conferences. A predicament with such an invitation, which 99% of time arrives by email, is that it is not easy to distinguish between fake and real offers. For example, the first author recently received an offer (at short notice), to attend a conference in Miami in November 2017 (see below). This was on the back of an editorial he had published couple of months earlier. For a career researcher going from contract to contract, the appeal of being invited to present a keynote at a conference can be flattering, far less an honour and a boost for one’s career. Therefore, while the idea that if it seems too good to be true, is a prudent one to hold; there is also a temptation to follow through.
The author replied to the request quizzing the reason for the invite out of the blue. The answer was less than convincing, and a swift email by the author saying “Don’t tell me… You are offering me a keynote with travel and accommodation… Lol!!” called their bluff and ended correspondence.
But digging a little deeper he found there was a webpage dedicated to taking payments to attend the conference. In the digital world, a fool can be easily and quickly separated from his or her money.
Of course, it may have been a real conference at a real venue, and they really wanted him to speak. But discerning this is not easy at first…
Some of the warning signs/What to look out for
- The conference email invitation looks very convincing (if not don’t even read it!).
- The venue is good location as Nobes (2017) highlighted, “the organizers are more interested in marketing the tourist destination rather than the academic value of the conference”.
- The conference covers too many different aspects or topics, as if the advert is designed to catch the eye of many people as possible who are vaguely connected to the discipline.
- Mentions on associated predatory journals and ‘important’ organisations in the discipline.
- Email and bank accounts that don’t look professional/ official.
- Little mention of attendance fees, but after acceptance emails demanding a high conference fee and other charges.
- Conference organisers are not academics, or unknown names.
- Conference does not peer-review submission/ not provide proper editorial control over presentations
- Signs of copying of names of existing academic conferences or scientific organisation and even copying of their webpages
- Even more advertising than normal at a scientific conference.
Furthermore, Andy Nobes (2017) offered some helpful advice on quality of the conference websites in the list below. Andy is based at AuthorAID, a global network providing support, mentoring, resources and training for researchers in developing countries.
Who is at risk of falling for predatory conferences?
Academics need to be aware of money-making conferences and meetings without a true commitment to science. But some academics might be more at risk than others. Young researchers, PhD students and fledgling academics, living from contract to contract may feel any conference attendance is a potential career boost. Thus, such an invitation might seem flattering and an opportunity to good to miss. A way to show that he or she is a capable and independent academic.
Final thoughts
Most academics go to conferences for a combination of presenting their work to get critical feedback, making new contacts, sharing ideas and to be inspired. With such broad combination of motivating factors, the exact purpose of conferences is difficult to ascertain because there is no a priori agreed role and value of conferences (Nicolson, 2017a). 
However, there is evidence that academic conferences function to facilitate commodity transactions, be that knowledge, tools, skills, reputations, or connections, which reflects the neoliberal ethos in the modern academy (Nicolson 2017b). The predatory conference can be viewed in this light, where academia is more and more focused on generating revenue. It is at best scurrilous, and worst, criminal, for organisations to make money using such a confidence trick. Always check which conferences are organised and advertised by recognised scholarly organisations in your own discipline. If uncertain ask a more experienced academic, a senior colleague or mentor.
Donald J. Nicolson
(Health Services Researcher, NHS Fife, and Independent Scholar; twitter @_mopster )
Edwin R. van Teijlingen
(Centre Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
References:
Moital, M. (2014) Ten Signs of a Bogus/Fake Conference.
Grove, J. (2017) Predatory conferences ‘now outnumber official scholarly events’ (26th Oct.)
Nicolson, D.J. (2017a) Do conference presentations impact beyond the conference venue? Journal of Research in Nursing. 22(5), pp.422-425.
Nicolson, D.J. (2017b) Academic Conferences as Neoliberal Commodities, Palgrave Macmillan
Nobes, A. (2017) What are ‘predatory’ conferences and how can I avoid them?
van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Beware of rogue journals.
Modern Creative Technologies and Their Applications in VR Based Laparoscopic Surgery Simulation
Kun Qian is a PhD candidate in the National Centre for Computer Animation, Faculty of Media and Communication. He has been working on computer graphics, game, vfx and virtual reality technologies for more than 10 years. He will deliver a talk on his research of surgery simulation at 7pm, 25th July at K103, as part of the BCS Animation and Game Development SG event. The detail can be found at http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/58181 . It is free for all the attendees, everybody is welcome. Please register at the link above, because we will bring some refreshment based on the number of registrations.
Abstract: With the development of computer graphic and haptic devices, training surgeons with virtual reality technology has proven to be very effective in surgery simulation. Due to the various unsolved technical issues, the laparoscopic surgery simulation has not been widely used. Such issues include modelling of complex anatomy structure, large soft tissue deformation, frequent surgical tools interactions, and the rendering of complex material under the illumination. A successful laparoscopic surgery simulator should integrate all these required components in a balanced and efficient manner to achieve both visual/haptic quality and a satisfactory refreshing rate. In this talk, we propose an efficient framework integrating a set of specially tailored and designed techniques, ranging from deformation simulation, collision detection, soft tissue dissection and rendering. This framework can be used as a low level engine for surgery simulation by integrating and optimizing modern creative technologies.
Dr. Xiaosong Yang, MBCS
Associate Professor of Computer Animation
National Centre for Computer Animation
Faculty of Media and Communication
Bournemouth University
http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/xyang
Guest talk by Prof. Marina L. Gavrilova from University of Calgary on Biometric Recognition to be held Wednesday 26th of July at 14:30PM in CREATE LT, Fusion Building.
We have the honor to have Prof. Marina L. Gavrilova here on our campus to deliver a talk on Biometric Recognition, recognizing a person by determining the authenticity of a specific characteristic – biometric features, such as Physiological Biometrics (face, fingerprint, hand, ear, Iris, palm print, hand vein, tooth, retina etc.), Behavioural Biometrics (voice, gait, signature, key-stroke dynamics, etc) and Social Biometrics (Twitter, Flickr, etc). The talk will discuss various problems in biometric data acquisition, feature matching, multi-modal fusion, pattern recognition, etc.
Title: The Social Aspects of Biometric Recognition through Human Perception
Speaker: Prof. Marina L. Gavrilova, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary
Venue: CREATE LT, Fusion Building, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB
Time: 14:30-15:30 Wednesday 26th July 2017
Abstract: Our society continues to undergo tremendous growth with respect to all aspects of information access and sharing. It had a profound effect on the way we, humans, and the whole society lives, works and interacts in business and social settings. The information being shared through social networks, on-line communities, games, software development tools, e-mails, blogs, posts, etc. is enormous. It also ranges in type: text, images, hyperlinks, likes, network connections, etc. What’s more, human social, behavioral and even cognitive traits are becoming more and more visible through interlinking of heterogeneous communications in on-line and off-line settings and even in our visual preferences. This phenomenon gave rise to the rise of a new concept: Social Biometrics, that attempts to understand and extrapolate trends related to all aspects of human social activities. The talk is devoted to definitions, examples, case studies and very recent research trends in this domain. The introduced concepts will be further illustrated through two case studies: establishing identity of Twitter users through social networks analysis, and gender recognition of Flickr users based on human aesthetic preferences.
Marina L. Gavrilova is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary. Dr. Gavrilova’s research interests lie in the areas of biometric security, cognitive sciences, pattern recognition, social networks, and cyberworlds. Prof. Gavrilova is the founder and co-director of the Biometric Technologies Laboratory and SPARCS lab, with over 200 publications, including the World Scientific Bestseller (2007): Image Pattern Recognition: Synthesis and Analysis in Biometrics and IGI (2013) book Multimodal Biometrics and Intelligent Image Processing for Security System. She is a Founding Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Computational Science journal, Springer, and an Associate Editor of the Visual Computer and the International Journal of Biometrics. Prof. Gavrilova has given invited lectures at leading international conferences (3AI, CW, WSCG, GRAPHICON, PSC, ICCI*CC, MIT, ICBAKE, etc), and appeared as guest at DIMACS Rutgers University/Bell Labs, USA; Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA; Samsung Research, South Korea; SERIAS Purdue University, USA, among other universities.
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~marina/HomePHP/index.php
Thanks.
Dr. Xiaosong Yang
http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/xyang
Psychology PGR Sarah Hodge presents at two prestigious USA conferences and wins prize
Representing the research team from Bournemouth University, Sarah Hodge presented cross-disciplinary PhD research at two conferences in Las Vegas (April) and Denver (May).
The first conference Broadcast Education Association (BEA) included a symposium organised and attended by key academics in the area of psychology and gaming and within this Sarah won top paper in the symposium track and 2nd place 
student paper. The research presented was funded by the University Student Research Assistant (SRA) scheme, which involved collaboration between departments and faculties. The research involved creating a game to measure in-game moral decisions. The research team included Jacqui Taylor and John McAlaney from the Department of Psychology, Davide Melacca and Christos Gatzidis from the Department of Creative Technology, and Eike Anderson from the National Centre for Computer Animation.
At the second conference Computers in Human Interaction (CHI), Sarah had a workshop paper accepted on Ethical Encounters in Human Computer Interaction and this naturally stimulated many interesting questions about ethics in research. Sarah was a student volunteer at the conference. Sarah was a Chair student Volunteer at British HCI 2016 that was held at Bournemouth University last summer and this experience supported being accepted as a Student Volunteer at CHI. From this experience Sarah was assigned the role of Day Captain, which involved supporting and overseeing the other student 
volunteers with their duties. Sarah found it to be a great experience and highly recommends other students to consider being a student volunteer as a great chance to network and it also helps with funding conferences as the registration fee was waived.
Hodge, S. Taylor, J & McAlaney, J (2017). Restricted Content: Ethical Issues with Researching Minors’ Video Game Habits Human in Computer Interaction (CHI) May, Denver USA
If you would like more information about the research please contact: shodge@bournemouth.ac.uk
Policy and political scene this week: 25 May 2017
Welcome to this week’s political scene within research. Here is a summary of the week’s generic policy reports and releases, alongside new niche consultations and inquiries.
The role of EU funding in UK research and innovation
This week the role of EU funding in UK research and innovation has hit the headlines. Its an analysis of the academic disciplines most reliant on EU research and innovation funding at a granular level.
Jointly commissioned by Technopolis and the UK’s four national academies (Medical Sciences, British Academy, Engineering and Royal Society) it highlights that of the 15 disciplines most dependent on EU funding 13 are within the arts, humanities and social science sphere.
Most reliant on the EU funding as a proportion of their total research funding are Archaeology (38% of funding), Classics (33%) and IT (30%).
The full report dissects the information further considering the funding across disciplines, institutions, industrial sectors, company sizes and UK regions. It differentiates between the absolute value of the research grant income from EU government bodies, and the relative value of research grant income from EU government bodies with respect to research grant income from all sources, including how the EU funding interacts with other funding sources.
There are also 11 focal case studies, including archaeology and ICT. Here’s an excerpt from the archaeology case study considering the risks associated with Brexit and the UK’s industrial strategy:
“As archaeologists are heavily dependent on EU funding, a break away from EU funding sources puts the discipline in a vulnerable position. This is exacerbated by the fact that the UK is short of archaeologists and/or skilled workers active in the field of Archaeology because of the surge in large scale infrastructure projects (e.g. HS2, Crossrail, and the A14), which drives away many archaeologists from research positions.” Source
See the full report page 25 for particular detail on ICT and digital sector, and page 39 for archaeology. For press coverage see the Financial Times article.
Bathing Water Quality
The European Environment Agency published European Bathing Water Quality in 2016. It sees the UK as second to bottom in the league table for quality of bathing water. While 96.4% of British beaches were found safe to swim in last year 20 sites failed the annual assessment. Only Ireland had a higher percentage of poor quality bathing waters at 4%.
Report link: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-bathing-water-quality-in-2016
How and when to submit evidence to policy makers
This week Research Professional ran a succinct article encouraging researchers to think more about when and how they submit evidence to policy makers. Timing is key, policy makers often want information instantaneously and the article urges researchers to be responsive but pragmatic, including a pro-active approach of gently keeping key policy makers informed of new developments.
Researchers wanting to have a political impact may consider attending a UK Parliament Outreach and Engagement Service events.
Consultations and Inquiries
Responding to a select committee call for evidence is a great way for academics to influence UK policy. If you respond to a consultation or inquiry as a BU member of staff please let us know of your interest by emailing policy@bournemouth.ac.uk at least one week before you submit your response.
This week there are three new inquiries and consultations that may be of interest to BU academics.
Sports
A Scottish Parliament inquiry is seeking individual’s views on community-based approaches to removing barriers to participation in grassroots sport and physical activity, including how to promote volunteering. The committee is asking for views and examples on a range of questions, including:
- Examples where a community based approach has been successful in removing barriers to participation in sport and physical activity?
- Approaches that were particularly successful in increasing participation among certain social groups, like women, ethnic minorities, certain age-groups?
- The barriers facing volunteers and how can they be overcome? The aim is to inform how Scotland might increase participation rates across all groups and sectors of society, respondents can select to answer only the most relevant questions.
The call for evidence closes on 30 June.
Body Image
The British Youth Council has opened an inquiry into body image and how the growth of social media and communications platforms has encouraged attitudes that entrench poor body image. Included among the inquiry questions are:
- Has the growing use of social media and communications platforms amongst young people encouraged practices and attitudes that entrench poor body image? What is the link between “sexting” and body dissatisfaction?
- Do internet companies, social media platforms or other platforms have a responsibility to tackle trends which entrench poor body image? What are they already doing in this area? What more should they be doing?
- Are particular groups of young people particularly prone to poor body image, or less likely to seek help? What causes these trends?
- In relation to young men and boys, minority ethnic groups, and those who self-identify as transgender: what are the specific challenges facing young people in these groups? How effective is existing support?
- To what extent is dissatisfaction with body image contributing to the increase in mental health problems amongst children and young people?
The call for evidence closes on 16 June.
Drainage & Flooding
The Welsh government has opened a consultation on the implementation of sustainable drainage systems on new developments (schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010).
The consultation closes on 11 August.
HE Policy Update
You can also sign up to receive BU’s separate weekly HE policy update delivered direct to your inbox each Friday by emailing policy@bournemouth.ac.uk
Sarah Carter
Policy & Public Affairs Officer
Using user-customized touch gesture for fast accessing installed apps on smartphones
We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.
Speaker: Chi Zhang (Creative Technology PhD Student)
Title: Using user-customized touch gesture for fast accessing installed apps on smartphones
Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM
Date: Wednesday 17th May 2017
Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus
Abstract:
User-defined touch gesture is a common method for fast interacting with smartphones, it enables a user to define a touch gesture for a particular task, such as, “-” for volume down and “+” for volume up. But, the user-defined touch gesture method is typically provided as a “user-defined touch gesture set” aiming for countable commonly used tasks. These approaches are aiming to build a gesture set, include a limit number of universal gesture-task pairs developed by the users. Existing user defined touch gesture sets supported a wide range of tasks on the smartphones, however, they: (1) still need learning; (2) cannot cover every task that user wants to active; (3) lack of the evaluation on the speed performance. To overcome these limitations and better understand the speed advantage of user-defined touch gesture method, we presented a novel user-customized touch gesture approach and conducted an experiment to evaluate its speed advantages. The experiment demonstrates a significant speed advantage of using our approach and the accuracy performance is evaluated as well. In particular, our findings include: (1) our approach has a significant speed advantage than traditional interaction method; (2) our approach has no significant accuracy differences between frequent and infrequent used apps; (3) analysed what caused the failure accessing in our experiments. Based on these findings, we offer (1) further evidence of the speed benefits of using user self-defined gesture for accessing tasks; (2) design implications for the future gesture-based interface for fast accessing on smartphones.
We hope to see you there.
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