What is an NFT, what does it mean to ‘own’ one? Join this online talk as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2022 to learn about technology, law of ownership & how they’re being used
NFTs or non-fungible tokens have captured the public imagination over the past year. But what are they and what does it mean to ‘own’ one?
Join this online talk to learn more about this new frontier from experts on their underlying technology, the law of ownership and how they’re being used. We’ll also explain how a limited edition NFT collection was created, that you’ll have the chance to win and own.
If you have any questions about this event, or any of the other events in the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2022 series, please contact the Public Engagement with Research Team: email the public engagement team.
This is your one stop shop for all things impact, public engagement and research communications within RDS.
On the site, you will find resources for communicating your research, increasing its impact and engaging the public with your research.
You’ll find links to RKEDF training sessions, guides to impact, public engagement and research communications along with information about useful contacts within RDS and news about the REF.
The site is easily navigable and is divided into three sections:
Research Impact:
This section outlines how we can help you to plan, accelerate and evidence the impact of your research and includes resources, contact details of our Impact Advisers and links to useful information on impact pathways, the REF and impact training.
Public Engagement with Research:
In this section, we explain how we can help when you want to engage with the public to share your research. The ways to do this are many and varied but ultimately, high quality public engagement has huge benefits for BU, for society and for you – the academic. Here you can find links to advice, training and funding along with the contact details of our Public Engagement team and details of how to join the thriving BU Public Engagement Network.
Research Communications:
Here, we offer you support and guidance on the different ways of sharing your research with different audiences. This includes working with the media (including our partnership with The Conversation), writing for the web and using social media.
The site will be updated regularly and has been designed to be as user friendly as possible. Please make sure you bookmark and keep checking back regularly for updates and news.
Join us on Wednesday 9th November from 12-1pm for this month’s webinar where local charity Escapeline will share their work with the BU community on preventing child exploitation in rural areas.
The Community Voices webinar series is a collaboration between the BU Research Centre for Seldom Heard Voices and the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership. Our aim is to provide a platform to amplify the voices of community groups, organisations, activists and campaigners who are conducting incredible work to promote inclusion and advance social justice across our region and further afield. The webinars provide an opportunity to hear about this work and to engage in discussions and conversations on these topics.
Congratulations to Prof. Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal &Perinatal Health (CMMPH) who published the paper ‘Effective communication: core to promoting respectful maternity care for disabled women’ in the international journal Midwifery. This paper is co-authored with BU Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland who is Professional Midwifery Advocate at Poole Maternity Hospital, University Hospital Dorset (UHD), and two former BU staff members: Dr. Bethan Collins & Dr. Jenny Hall.
Congratulations,
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
Collins, C., Hall, J., Hundley, V., Ireland, J. (2022) Effective communication: core to promoting respectful maternity care for disabled women’, Midwifery. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2022.103525
Over the weekend the Journal of the Nepal Public Health Association published our latest paper on the federalisation and health in Nepal research project [1]. The paper addresses some of the key Public Health approaches around the ongoing federalisation of the state of Nepal and the associated decentralisation processes in its health system. The article outlines the main roles of the discipline of Public Health and the contribution it can make to the reform process. Then the next section introduces our on-going study into the effects of the establishment of the Federal Republic of Nepal on the organisation and running of the country’s health system. To capture the Public Health benefits of decentralisation, the process should not be only ‘top-down’, directed by policy elites. Although in theory Nepal’s health system has undergone a process of decentralisation, in practice policy and planning is often still being led by the Federal government, despite the clear roles and responsibilities of the three tiers of government in health service delivery. To improve policy and planning in the newly decentralised health system structure, there needs to be meaningful incorporation of the views of stakeholders at all levels (even the very lowest levels). Our project aims to play a part in addressing this by capturing a wide variety of experiences of the decentralisation process.
The interdisciplinary and international research team has published two earlier articles on this on-going study [2-3]. This week is Open Access week, so it is worth noting that all three paper are freely available through Open Access.
Edwin van Teijlingen
Sapkota, S., Panday, S., Wasti, S.P., Lee, A., Balen, J., van Teijlingen, E., Rushton, S., Subedi, M., Gautam, S., Karki., J., Adhikary, P., Marahatta, S., Simkhada, P., for the Nepal Federal Health System Team (2022) Health System Strengthening: The Role of Public Health in Federal Nepal, Journal of the Nepal Public Health Association 7(1):36-42.
Adhikary, P., Balen, J., Gautam, S., Ghimire, S., Karki, J., Lee, A.C.K., Marahatta, S.B., Panday, S., Pohl, G., Rushton, S., Sapkota, S., Simkhada, P.P., Subedi, M., van Teijlingen, E. for the Nepal Federal Health System team (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal: Emerging evidence on the effectiveness of action by, and cooperation between, different levels of government in a federal system, Journal of Karnali Academy of Health Sciences 3 (3): 1-11.
Rushton, S., Pandey, S., van Teijlingen, E., Subedi, M., Balen, J., Karki, J., Simkhada, P. on behalf of the Nepal Federal Health System Team (2021) An Investigation into the Impact of Decentralization on the Health System of Nepal. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 7(1): 3–14. https://doi.org/10.3126/jmmihs.v7i1.43146
Congratulations to BU’s interdisciplinary nutrition-behavioural sciences team that published the recent review “Barriers and Facilitators Associated with the Adoption of and Adherence to a Mediterranean Style Diet in Adults: A Systematic Review of Published Observational and Qualitative Studies” [1] in the journal Nutrients. The academics are based in two different faculties, namely the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science & Technology, represented by Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof Katherine Appleton respectively. Two BU students (recently graduated) are also two co-authors: Dimitrios Vlachos (who completed the MRes) and Christina Hughes (MSc Nutrition & Behaviour).
This review which is Open Access includes all studies investigating barriers or facilitators to adopting or adhering to a Mediterranean style diet in adults aged 18 years old and over. The paper identified financial, cognitive, socio-cultural, motivational, lifestyle, accessibility & availability, sensory and hedonic and demographic factors. Similar barriers and facilitators are often reported in relation to healthy eating or the consumption of specific healthy foods, with a few exceptions. These exceptions detailed concerns with specific components of the MedDiet; considerations due to culture and traditions, and concerns over a cooler climate. Suggestions for overcoming these barriers and facilitators specific to adoption and adherence to the Mediterranean diet are offered.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Tsofliou F, Vlachos D, Hughes C, Appleton KM. Barriers and Facilitators Associated with the Adoption of and Adherence to a Mediterranean Style Diet in Adults: A Systematic Review of Published Observational and Qualitative Studies. Nutrients. 2022; 14(20):4314. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14204314
– Do you have a great idea for research in health, social care or public health?
– Are you planning to submit a grant application to NIHR?
Our popular seminar continues online and will take place on Tuesday 22nd November 2022 from 10.00am – 12.30pm.
The seminar provides an overview of NIHR funding opportunities and research programme remits, requirements and application processes. We will give you top tips for your application and answer specific questions with experienced RDS South West advisers.
We will also be hearing from Jane Fearnside about the NIHR Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme. She will be giving an overview of the programme, the assessment process and what the funding panels are looking for.
We also have a limited number of 20-minute 1-to-1 appointments available after the seminar should you wish to discuss your proposed study with an RDS adviser.
We can help with your application. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.
Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice
Dr. Alina Dolea, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy, has been awarded a trophy at the RePatriot Gala organized in Iasi (Romania) on October 7th, 2022, in recognition of her research on Romanian diaspora, nation branding and public diplomacy. Alina was named one of Top 100 Romanians in Diaspora who make a difference, excel and inspire in 10 different fields of activity, top published by Romania’s Newsweek magazine. She was acknowledged for her work and contribution to Education, alongside other 9 Romanian researchers and professors (Categoria Educație | Repatriot). This was the fifth edition of the Gala organized annually by RePatriot, was recorded and is to be aired by the Romanian National Television.
The Gala event was the highlight of the RePatriot Summit 2022 attended by over 200 participants who gathered to find solutions to the economic crisis and the Ukrainian war at the border. Opening remarks were delivered by state secretaries of the Romanian President, the President of the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian Prime Minister. During the Summit, Alina contributed to the discussions within the Education Strategic working group, a format of networking and know-how exchange that will continue with regular meetings throughout the year.
Alina’s insights are all the more relevant as according to the latest UK settlement scheme statistics, Romanians are now the largest national group in the UK (with close to 1,3 million applications), followed closely by Polish and then Italian nationals.
RePatriot is a community of Romanian entrepreneurs and business leaders established in 2015 with the aim to connect Romanians abroad with business, investment and development opportunities in Romania. Currently, over 5 million Romanians (of a total population of around 20 million) live abroad and constitute collectively the biggest investor in Romania through the remittances (money) they sent back. This community aims to act as a networking platform to encourage more business investments in Romania and know-how transfer.
Imagine a future where robots and humans looked identical: how would you know who is human? In this 30-minute interactive session, as a group you will enter a space that will act as a time tunnel into the future. There you will meet two actors and face the challenge of making this very decision (the ‘Turing test’), choosing from a set of questions to help you identify the ‘robot’.
You should be wary: not all responses are as they might seem, and there are many kinds of human minds.
What’s on offer? An interactive challenge in which, as a team, you will attempt to identify the ‘robot’ from live performers, using a few questions. This is followed by a ‘debrief’ with Bournemouth University researchers, where you’ll discuss your tactics and explore the mystery behind the experience and what it implies about different kinds of minds.
Who is this event open to? Adults and children over 12. Particularly for those with an interest in psychology, how we communicate with each other, neurodiversity and autism, artificial intelligence and the future.
If you have any questions about this event, or any of the other events in the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2022 series, please contact the Public Engagement with Research Team: email the public engagement team.
We are currently recruiting to a number of roles to help support preparation for our next REF submission. The deadline for expressions of interest is the11th October 2022.
The roles are recruited through an open and transparent process, which gives all academic staff the opportunity to put themselves forward. Applications from underrepresented groups (e.g. minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome.
We are currently preparing submissions to thirteen units (otherwise known as UOAs). Each unit has a leadership team with at least one leader, an output and impact champion. The leadership team are supported by a panel of reviewers who assess the research from the unit. This includes research outputs (journal articles, book chapters, digital artefacts and conference proceedings) and impact case studies.
We currently have vacancies in the following roles:
All roles require a level of commitment which is recognised accordingly with time to review, attend meetings, and take responsibility for tasks.
Undertaking a UOA role can be enjoyable and rewarding as two of our current champions testify:
“As UOA Outputs Champion you develop a detailed knowledge of all the great work that colleagues are doing related to the subject, and the different outlets used for disseminating their work. As an outputs committee member, you also get to know what research is going on across BU, and it’s interesting to see the differences between disciplines. It’s a good way develop your knowledge of the bigger picture of BU’s research, and also to understand the importance of REF and how it works in practice. You do spend quite a bit of time chasing colleagues to put their outputs on BRIAN for REF compliance but hopefully they forgive you!”
Professor Adele Ladkin – UOA 24 Output Champion
“As a UoA 17 impact champion, I work closely with the UoA 17 impact team to encourage the development of a culture of impact across BUBS. I try to pop into Department / research group meetings when I can to discuss impact, and I’ve enjoyed meeting people with a whole range of research interests. Sometimes it can be tough to engage people with impact – understandably; everyone is busy – so it’s important to be enthusiastic about the need for our BU research to reach the public. Overall, the role is about planting the seeds to get researchers thinking about the impact their work might have in the future (as well as the impact they have already had, sometimes without realising!)”
Dr Rafaelle Nicholson – UOA 17 Impact Champion
How to apply
All those interested should put forward a short case (suggested length of one paragraph) as to why they are interested in the role and what they think they could bring to it. These should be clearly marked with the relevant role and unit and emailed to ref@bournemouth.ac.uk by 11th October 2022.
Further detail on the roles, the process of recruitment and selection criteria can be found here:
The final conference for the PATH project is in Antwerp on 16th November, 2022.
The cross-border Interreg PATH initiative aims to improve perinatal mental health and includes a wide communications campaign, training for healthcare professionals and new services for families.
PATH involves thirteen partners from France, Belgium the Netherlands and the UK, including Bournemouth University. Leading BU’s project contribution is Professor Wen Tang, from the Faculty of Science and Technology.
For more information about the project and the conference, please contact Zequn Li or Timothy Devlin.
The struggle to find sustainable employment is heightened among young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) and living in deprived communities. Despite initiatives to create more jobs, there is evidence to suggest a strong interest in entrepreneurship among young people in the UK.
A study on NEET young people’s views on entrepreneurship showed that 54% of 18 to 30-year-olds from the most disadvantaged regions in the UK would like to start a business. However, 54% of these young people are terrified of actually starting a business; only 22% know where to seek business advice and support, and only 8% would describe themselves as entrepreneurial.
According to the latest OECD Employment Outlook report, routine and low-skilled jobs are expected to decline by 12% in the UK by 2024. Although recent findings from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that at least 70% of 15- year-olds in the UK aspire to professional and managerial careers requiring tertiary education, low-achieving students have no intention of continuing their education after secondary school and high-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to realise such careers because they have a lower chance of pursuing post-secondary education.
What can be done?
The SPEED-You-UP project seeks to improve the entrepreneurial and employability skills of at-risk and NEET young people in deprived coastal regions of England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. By encouraging young people’s appreciation of their talents and abilities as a springboard for launching a business, the project takes young people on a journey of self-discovery and confidence building. Through the project, young people have the opportunity to experiment with a business idea, which helps to raise their confidence and motivation.
According to three participants with no prior knowledge of starting a business and experiencing low self-belief: “Speed You-Up really helped us identify who we are and what we are trying to do and what we’re capable of doing.”
All research has its costs, we spend a lot of time as academics planning for and budgeting our studies. This starts with considering how much time each academic spends on preparing the grant application and finished with cost of dissemination of findings after the data have been analysed. We do risk assessments the try to reduce risk and mitigate unforeseen circumstances. My last two trips to Nepal both suffered from such unexpected events.
In May I traveled to Nepal with Prof. Vanora Hundley from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) as part of the ERASMUS+ exchange with Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) where we joined by Bournemouth University (BU) PhD student Sulochana Dhakal-Rai. Sulochana was in Nepal on the Turing Scheme, the UK government’s programme to provide funding for international opportunities in education and training across the world.
As part of this trip we had organised a one-day Systematic Review on Dementia Research Workshop on Sunday 29th May in at MMIHS in Kathmandu. This Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) funded workshop was highly successful, it attracted 75% more participants than budgeted for, namely 53 instead of 30. However, the extra cost this incurred in terms of workshop resources, refreshments and lunches was not a great issue compared to the fact that I had contracted COVID-19 a few days before the workshop and had tested positive on a PCR test two days before. Thanks to the hard work of our colleagues at MMIHS, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Green Tara Nepal, and especially, Prof. Vanora Hundley, the workshop run very well. I even managed to make a guest appearance online from my hotel room 200 meters away from the workshop venue, albeit on a poorer quality internet connection than I would have had half way across the globe (at BU or at home).
This positive COVID-19 test also meant I could not travel on the India in early June due to COVID-19 travel restriction for entering India. There I had planned to meet Dr. Shanti Shanker from BU’s Psychology Department as part of our GCRF-funded project ‘Promoting dementia research in Nepal and India’. Again due to the presence of well organised colleagues the India part of the trip ran smoothly. Dr. Gayatri Kotbagi, who has works for us through the charity Sheetale Astitva, and Dr. Shanti Shanker managed to run the internal trip very well without me.
In August I traveled to Nepal again with two BU academics: Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhikari, Lecturer in Criminology, Department of Sociology & Social Work, Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health (Department of Nursing Sciences) and a colleague from the University of Exeter Dr. Emma Pitchforth. The main purpose of this visit was to run two sets of three-day Academic Writing Workshop in two cities in Nepal, namely Kathmandu and Pokhara. These workshops were funded by the British Academy and supported by Dr. Rashmee Rajkarnikar from the Central Department of Economics at Tribhuvan University, Nepal’s oldest and largest university, the charity Green Tara Nepal and Social Science Baha. This time the trip itself went very well, both workshop were very well attended, and even made it into a newspaper in Nepal: The Rising Nepal.
The trouble started after we had left Nepal. Dr. Pitchforth and I helped both fell ill some five to eight days after returning to the UK. We both had flu-type symptoms, including sore joints, night sweats, feeling tired, coughing, etc., although these were not exactly the same, my symptoms were perhaps a bit more like COVID-19. Which is why I did three COVID-19 tests in one week (all negative). It was not until the blood test came back from the NHS lab last week that my family doctor could tell me that I had dengue fever. Dengue fever is on the rise in Nepal. The national English-language paper The Himalayan Times reported yesterday (27th Sept. 2022) that dengue fever “has afflicted almost 26,000 people in Nepal” In July in the capital Kathmandu “…35 people had contracted the mosquito-borne disease. The number increased to 727 in August and 8,132 in September.”
I’m looking forward to my next trip to Nepal, as we have loads of on-going project. I have been going there for nearly twenty years, and having two incidents in two decades is not a lot, pity these came in the same year and on subsequent trips.
On behalf of the BU Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice, this is an invitation to join us at a film screening of Indian Space Dreams, followed by a Q&A discussion on 5th October at 5.30pm in the new Poole Gateway building on Talbot Campus.
The film was produced and directed by Dr Sue Sudbury and has been screened on TV in 98 countries. It is a wonderfully inspirational film and was long-listed for the Best International Feature Documentary Academy Award.
The event begins at 5.30pm with a drinks reception, with Prof John Vinney introducing Dr Sue Sudbury and our special guest speaker and discussant, Dr Hugh Mortimer – the renowned space scientist:
Yesterday the editors of the Journal of Asian Midwives published published a short editorial in the latest issue of this international journal. The editorial under the title ‘JAM – Summer 2022: One crisis after another….. ‘ introduces the four peer-reviewed research papers in the current issue [1]. The editorial is focused neatly on aspects of midwifery and maternity care and the Asian countries represented in the four articles: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan. Compare this to our editorial published a few weeks ago in Frontiers in Public Health[2]. The latter editorial again introduces four papers, this time papers included in a Special Issue of Frontiers in Public Health which focuses on ‘Integrated health service delivery and COVID-19’. One would expect an editorial in a Special Issue of a journal to be particularly focused. However, the four included papers on integrated care and COVID-19 are quite different from each other, making it harder for the guest editors to write a coherent editorial.
It is worth remembering that there is an art in writing an interesting editorial which motivates the reader to read further articles in the journal, and Prof. Vanora and I with four other colleagues discussed recently [3]. At the same time, the editors writing any editorial can only work with the material available to them at the time.
All three papers mentioned in this Bournemouth University Research Blog (and listed below) are Open Access, and hence all are freely available to any reader across the globe with internet access!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., Robinson, J., Banerjee, I. (2022). The Art of the Editorial.Nepal Journal of Epidemiology12(1):1135–38.
Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Arnold on the publication of her fourth PhD paper. Today the Journal of Asian Midwives informed us that the paper ‘Hidden Relationships: Perspectives on Leadership and Management in Afghan Maternity Services – An Ethnographic Exploration‘ has been published today [1]. Earlier papers have been published in BJOG, Social Science & Medicine as well as BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth[2-4]. The paper discusses the improvement of the quality of healthcare, particularly in low-income countries, which often focuses on the performance of healthcare providers and the availability, acceptability, and uptake of services. The role that health service leaders play in facilitating effective care has received less attention in the literature. This ethnographic study explored the perspectives of Afghan maternity care providers, managers and other stakeholders on leadership and the provision of quality maternity care.
The results of this study involves 1. Healthcare providers who described their managers as both autocratic and weak. They explained that their managers failed to enforce standards or listen to their concerns. 2. Managers who felt powerless to improve
care because the government did not support their initiatives to reform the working environment or discipline staff members who were flouting the rules.
Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2019) Villains or victims? An ethnography of Afghan maternity staff and the challenge of high quality respectful care, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 19 :307 https://rdcu.be/bPqlj
Arnold R., van Teijlingen E, Ryan K., Holloway I. (2015) Understanding Afghan health care providers: Qualitative study of culture of care in Kabul maternity hospital, BJOG 122: 260-267.
Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2018) Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital, Social Science & Medicine 126:33-40.
Dr Sarah Hodge writes for The Conversation about research asking teachers about their experiences of how young people use technology and the effect it has on them…
What teachers think of children and young people’s technology use
Mobile phones, computers, social media and the internet are part of the daily lives of children and young people, including at school. Concerns over the risks of too much screen time or online activity for children and young people have been tempered by the reality of technology use in education and leisure.
The experience of life during the pandemic, when much schooling and socialising went online, has also changed attitudes to technology use. UK communications regulator Ofcom reported that in 2020 only a minority of children and young people did not go online or have internet access.
Teachers are in a unique position when it comes to assessing how children and young people use technology such as mobile phones and the effect it has on them. They see how children and young people use technology to learn, socialise, and how it affects their relationships with their peers.
Together with colleagues, I carried out in-depth research with eight teachers from different backgrounds, ages, years of professional experience, and type of educational institution from across the UK. We asked the teachers about their experiences of children and young people’s use of technology: how they thought it affected their emotions, behaviour and learning both before and during the pandemic.
The teachers talked about the importance of technology as a tool in the classroom and learning and the opportunities it provides for creativity. As one teacher put it:
It is what the children are used to, and it engages them more – it is a useful tool that can add to our teaching.
Empowered through tech
We also found that teachers were optimistic about the role technology could play in empowering children and young people. One said:
They use social networking sites to learn from one another and to express their beliefs – even children who are quiet in the classroom, they find it easier to express themselves online.
They thought that children and young people could learn to understand and recognise the signs of unhealthy technology use from their own emotions and behaviour when using technology. This included showing empathy and care through noticing how they and others feel. One teacher said children and young people were becoming more compassionate and offering their help to friends who were showing signs of distress through their online posts.
However, some teachers did express concern about how interacting online affected children and young people’s social skills. One teacher said:
They don’t know how to have proper conversations with their friends. They don’t know how to resolve anything because it’s easy to be mean behind a screen and not have to resolve it.
Another questioned how technology use was affecting play. They said:
They don’t know how to play and actually you will see groups of them surrounding a phone.
Teachers also pointed to the problems of disengaging from technology use. One teacher stated:
The parents have ongoing battles trying to pull their children away from screens and the next day they are exhausted, and they find it difficult to get them into school because the children are so tired.
Teachers discussed how they encouraged their pupils to take part in team sports as a way to encourage face-to-face communication and conflict resolution. However, while some online safety and internet use is covered at school, guidance on how to live with technology, be resilient towards challenges and use technology in a balanced could be more explicitly taught.
The PHSE Association – a national body for personal, social, health and economic education – offers guidance on online safety and skills for the curriculum, such as the potential harms of pornography but there is much scope to develop a broader approach to supporting healthy technology use.
Teachers felt that there should be more discussion of online behaviour in the classroom. Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock
In class, this could be as simple as working on how to make informed decisions about technology use – such as being more cautious if online activity involves talking with strangers, or recognising if spending time online is a large time commitment. It could include using social media posts as real-world examples to encourage childrenand young people to be informed, critical and resilient towards content they are likely to see and interact with.
Teachers felt that adding online safety to the curriculum would be valuable, as would providing opportunities for children and young people to talk about their experiences and content of technology. One teacher said:
There are predators out there and we do discuss online safety issues with my students, but some stuff should be part of the curriculum as well, and parents should access it too.
The teachers highlighted that they, too, needed support in their knowledge about technology and suggested this should be more incorporated into teacher training. One teacher said:
We need to keep up with the times and if there is something this pandemic taught us, is that not all of us are keeping up… one-off training is not adequate, schools need to invest in continuous professional development activities related to technology.
Children and young people can get significant benefits from technology, but it has risks, too. More attention to how teachers can address this in school can be an invaluable way to help children and young people understand and balance their time online.
This week the editor of the journal Journal of Education & Research informed us that our paper ‘Reflections on variations in PhD viva regulations: “And the options are….”’ has been accepted for publication [1]. This paper grew out of a discussion between the six authors about the apparent differences between the outcomes of the PhD viva at different universities. We have all acted as internal or external examiners for a PhD viva and had noted inconsistencies between universities, either in the regulations or in the interpretation of their PhD regulations. The authors are based at three different universities, on two different continents and, between them, have examined PhD theses submitted to universities based in at least ten different countries. Three authors are based in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (Prof. Vanora Hundley, Dr. Pramod Regmi & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen), two authors are based in the School of Human & Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield (Prof. Padam Simkhada & Dr. Bibha Simkhada and both are Visiting Faculty at BU), and one author is based in the Institute for Global Health in the School of Public Health & Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA (Prof. Krishna C. Poudel).
This paper outlines the range of outcomes of a PhD examination. It also includes four short case studies, each reflecting on a particular aspect /differences we experienced as examinees or as examiners. The authors aim to alert PhD candidates and examiners to study the examination rules set by the awarding university, as the details of the PhD examination outcome, and hence the options available to both examiners and the students, may differ more than one might expect. This is the latest CMMPH education publication around aspects of the PhD [2-5].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
References:
van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, B., Regmi, P., Simkhada, P., Hundley, V., Poudel, K.C. (2022) Reflections on variations in PhD viva regulations: “And the options are….”, Journal of Education and Research (accepted).
Way, S, Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E, Walton, G., Westwood, G. (2016) Dr Know. Midwives19: 66-7.
Wasti, S.P. Regmi, P.R., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2022) Writing a PhD Proposal, In: Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P.P., Hundely, V. & Shreeh, K. (Eds.) Academic Writing and Publishing in Health & Social Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books: 176-183.
Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2022) Converting your Master’s or Doctoral Thesis into an Academic Paper for Publication, In: Wasti, S.P., et al. (Eds.) Academic Writing and Publishing in Health & Social Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books: 184-189.
New BU midwifery publication by Joanne Rack
Meeting at BU to address maternal inequalities
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
BU Professor has been invited to a series of plenary and invited lectures.
An Interview of BU-lead EU H2020 FIRST project published in “Horizon”, the EU Research & Innovation Magazine
Update on Horizon Europe Guarantee