BU Research Blog

October 23, 2014

Games & Interaction (CTRC Guest Seminar)

Speaker: Professor Andres Newball
Pontificia University Javeriana, Cali, Colombia
Date: Wednesday 29th October 2014
Time: 11-12
Venue: Lawrence LT

1. Chimú Interactive: We aimed to make accessible knowledge about the Chimú culture. In this project, we integrated an interactive immersive application on site, an augmented reality mobile application and a database to create a narrative where the player is an archaeologist. For the virtual reality based immersive environment, we required a system that allowed, according to a set script, viewing and exploring the pyramid of Tantalluc and to explore three of its tombs, excavating, cleaning, taking and observing objects and artefacts.

2. Talking to TEO– assisted speech therapy: It is a video game developed and based on verbal therapy and educational objectives, aimed at the rehabilitation of children with early diagnosed hearing disability, and who use aids such as cochlear implants. The software integrates speech recognition for user interaction and benefits from visual feedback.

All are invited

October 23, 2014

Ever launched a CR@B? We did!

smcdougall

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Consumer Research @ BU group (CR@B) and it turned out to be a busy and energising meeting of minds from a wide variety of disciplines from across BU. As we listened to each other’s presentations and compared notes the opportunities for working together in new ways unfolded.

Our aim in bringing the group together is to foster inter-disciplinary research, provide a platform for interaction with industry, and a forum for ideas. Given the success of our first meeting, we will now be holding informal coffee and cake meetings every 4-6 weeks with time for CR@B research bites (short presentations about our research) and discussion. We will also be planning a series of high profile public research talks and workshops designed with research and industry application in mind.

Anyone who is doing consumer research is welcome. This might include researchers working in:-

Consumer cultures
Consumer behaviour
Retail and marketing
Visual cognition and consumption
Food consumerism and consumption
Consumer neuroscience
Advertising

and almost certainly more.

So … if you think you might be a CR@B, and are out there hiding under a stone, please crawl out and come and join us.

Our next meeting is at 3pm on Wednesday 3^rd December in D234, Dorset House, Talbot Campus. If you would like to come along or would simply like to find out more please email either Jeff Bray in Tourism who is hosting our next session or any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

October 8, 2014

Cyber Security seminars for 2014-2015 start with a bang

Fusion Shamal Faily

Yesterday, we held the first of this academic year’s cyber security seminars. We hosted Dr John Lyle from Facebook, who spoke to a packed audience in the Barnes Lecture Theatre about some of the challenges fighting spam at Facebook. After his talk, John described how impressed he was with some of the thought provoking questions raised by audience.

Our next seminar will be on Tuesday, 25th November and will be delivered by Dr Andrea Atzeni from the Computer and Network Security group at Politecnico di Torino. Andrea will be visiting us that week as part of our Fusion funded Bournemouth European Network in Interdisciplinary Cyber Security (BENICS) project. Watch this space for more details about Andrea’s talk.

Our interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security is a wonderful opportunity to hear interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy. Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind. We’re also interested in ideas about possible speakers or seminar topics, so please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

October 2, 2014

Bangkok comms conference launched

Tom Watson

Following the very successful first International Corporate and Marketing Communication in Asia Conference (ICMCAC), held in November 2013, Chulalongkorn University and Bournemouth University are again providing a scholarly platform for research into Asian perspectives of corporate and marketing communication in all forms and time scales.

The conference will be conducted over two days (January 29 and 30, 2015) with a keynote speaker on both days. It is organised by a partnership of two leading research and teaching universities in the field of corporate and marketing communication with the aim of creating an Asian perspective in research and scholarship.

Advertising, corporate communication, marketing communications, mass communication, media and public relations researchers as well as educators and graduate students from Asia and Australasia are invited to submit abstracts for paper and poster presentation at the 2^nd ICMCAC. Researchers from outside these regions are most welcome to submit abstracts with cross-cultural or Asian perspectives.

Professor Tom Watson is BU’s conference leader and organiser for ICMCAC. Professor Watson said the first conference had drawn papers from 10 countries ranging including many Asian universities: “It was the start for development of Asian perspectives in the fields of corporate and marketing communications, and associated area of research”.

For Call for the Papers, click on this link: 2nd ICMCAC Call for Papers)

There are three themes for the 2^nd ICMCAC:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Asia
Creativity in corporate and marketing communications, including creative industries perspectives
Cultural identity and norms in mass communication in Asia

General papers are welcomed on a range of topics, as well. The deadline for submissions is: Friday, October 24, 2014 to comira@chula.ac.th.

The conference website is:http://cuprimcconference.net

The venue for the conference is the Pathumwan Princess hotel, near to Chulalongkorn University and the National Stadium rail station.

: Conference organisers Jirayudh Sinthuphan (R) and Tom Watson (L) with Phanasari Kularb (C)

September 22, 2014

CIPPM Researchers present at CREATe’s All-Hands Meeting

Post-award, Public engagement cippm

CIPPM Researchers Professor Maurizio Borghi, Dr. Marcella Favale, Dr. Fabian Homberg, Mr. Conor O’Kane, Mr. Bartolomeo Meletti, Dr. Dinusha Mendis and Professor Ruth Towse attended the All-Hands Meeting hosted by CREATe, University of Glasgow on 15-16 September 2014.

Set in the beautiful Mackintosh Suite of House for an Art Lover (designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh), the event showcased the projects and associated projects of CREATe’s consortium members. It also provided an opportunity to stage the projects through the medium of exhibition posters thereby capturing the creativity of the research – very much the theme of the two days.

The involvement of CIPPM Researchers in various CREATe projects led to a number of posters and presentations.

CIPPM, Co-Director, Professor Ruth Towse, Principal Investigator of the project, ‘Historical Analysis of the Role of Copyright in Music Publishing’ presented the research on the economic survival of the music publishing industry. CIPPM Director, Professor Maurizio Borghi and CIPPM Research Assistant Hyojung Sun also forms part of this team together with Professor Fiona MacMillan of Birkbeck College, University of London.

CIPPM Research Fellow, Dr. Marcella Favale presented her research carried out with CREATe Director and CIPPM Visiting Professor, Professor Martin Kretschmer and Professor Paul Torremans of University of Nottingham. The project titled ‘Is there a EU Copyright Jurisprudence’ attempts to understand how copyright jurisprudence is created.

CIPPM Member and Lead Producer of the project, Mr. Bartolomeo Meletti, presented the research on Copyrightuser.org Funded initially by Bournemouth University’s Fusion Investment Fund and extended by RCUK funding provided by CREATe, copyrightser.org is an online resource aimed at making UK copyright law accessible to creators and members of the public. It is a joint project between CIPPM, CREATe and the Centre for Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University.

CIPPM Co-Director and Principal Investigator of Copyrightuser.org, Dr. Dinusha Mendis and CIPPM Copyright Researcher and PhD Candidate Ms. Hayleigh Bosher forms part of the project together with leading UK copyright experts and various academic contributors who also form part of the copyrightuser.org team.

At the event, Dr. Dinusha Mendis was invited to speak in the ‘Rump Plenary Session’ (5 New Things for CREATe to Think About). In this context, Dr. Mendis spoke about her research on 3D Printing and IP Law.

CIPPM Member, Dr. Fabian Homberg presented his research carried out together with Dr. Kris Erickson (CREATe Research Fellow) and Professor Martin Kretschmer. Titled, ‘Kickstarter Loves the Public Domain’ the project considers how copyright works in the public domain are valued – with the focus on the poster/presentation being on the Kickstarter element of the project.

CIPPM Visiting Professor, Professor Paul Heald and CIPPM Co-Director, Dr. Dinusha Mendis also forms part of this project together with a number of other collaborators.

September 22, 2014

Dinusha Mendis delivers Keynote on 3D Printing and IP Law at the European Parliament

Public engagement cippm

CIPPM Co-Director, Dr. Dinusha Mendis was invited as a Keynote Speaker to the 9th European Policy on Intellectual Property (EPIP) Meeting at the European Parliament, held from 4-5 September 2014.

The event hosted by the European Commission and the European Parliament, and organized by Dr. Georg von Graevenitz focused on interdisciplinary research in a wider policy context.

Dr. Mendis’ talk focused on her latest research into the Intellectual Property Implications of 3D printing, particularly the copyright implications arising from the use of 3D printing software and online tools.

Her talk also drew on the research carried out for a Commissioned Project by the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO). The outputs from this project will be published in Autumn 2014.

A separate paper based on the talk and Commissioned by Law, Innovation and Technology (Hart Publishing) will be published later in the year.

For further information about the event, see Dr. Kris Erickson’s blog-post titled ‘Trans- Inter- and Cross- Disciplinarity at the 9th EPIP Conference, Brussels’.

The 10^th Meeting of the European Policy on Intellectual Property Association will be hosted by CREATe, University of Glasgow from 2-3 September 2015. More details about the event can be found at the 2015 EPIP microsite here.

September 17, 2014

PR practitioners on campus for training

Fusion, Public engagement Tom Watson

In a contribution to the international PR Measurement Week, regional practitioners attended an evening training session in The Media School on September 16.
The public engagement event was organised by Professor Tom Watson and Wessex Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) chair Natasha Tobin, who lectures part-time on the BA Public Relations programme. It was attended by 14 CIPR members, who also gained CPD points for their annual professional training quota.
The practitioners were shown basic media measurement techniques using an Excel utility which Professor Watson has developed. It features in the third edition of ‘Evaluating Public Relations’ (Kogan Page 2014) co-written with former BU lecturer Paul Noble.
“Measurement and evaluation is one of the top PR practice issues and we were pleased to organise hands-on training for regional PR people as part of the international week,” said Professor Watson. “BU has had a long relationship with CIPR since BAPR was started in the late 1980s and so they were natural partners for this initiative.”
Measurement Week has been organised around the world by the Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) and has the support in the UK of CIPR and the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA, which both recognise BU’s public relations courses.

Delegates and Professor Tom Watson (c) at the training session

September 17, 2014

£1million in digital healthcare innovation available from Creative England

Funding opportunities jcodling

This fund is designed to stimulate creative and digital innovation in This UK healthcare.

Are you working with or know of small creative and digital businesses (SMEs) with innovative concepts or prototypes using digital technology to improve patient care and health services?

These maybe in areas such as dementia, social care, and cardiovascular and medication management.

The South West is one of the first three regions to benefit from this funding opportunity.

Key information:

5 x £50,000 investments will be made.
Companies must be based in the North, Midlands or South West.
Examples of projects could be improving quality of care; caring for people with dementia; supporting people with long-term conditions; and data visualisation.
Mobile apps, development of a new game for tablet or mobile are also eligible.

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis and the fund will close on 31 October 2014.

More information can be found here.

Alternatively please feel free to contact

Jayne Codling – Knowledge Exchange Adviser

Ext 61215 jcodling@bournemouth.ac.uk

September 16, 2014

PR historians meet in Brussels

Fusion Tom Watson

Plans for future joint research were discussed at a meeting of the European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) in Brussels on September 12.

The network, which was established with Fusion Fund assistance in 2013, met during the annual EUPRERA Congress and was attended by 15 PR historians from Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and England.

In addition to developing joint bids to national and European funding sources, EPRHN members have been contributing to a PR history book series which is being edited by Professor Tom Watson of the Media School.

Other plans are research into WW1 propaganda and information campaigns, comparative studies, collaboration with researchers in political communication and nation branding fields, and the role of PR during 20th century European dictatorships.

“EPRHN works as a virtual organisation and is gathering momentum. The key to it becoming a sustained network is both funding and outcomes,” said Professor Watson. “At present, there are outcomes in the form of accessible online resources and publications. So more effort is going into research bids when opportunities arise.”

Grand Place de Bruxelles

September 3, 2014

Fusion Investment Fund (Santander) — BU research and collaboration visits to Universitat de València

Fusion bangele

Dr Bernhard Angele from the Faculty of Science and Technology has been awarded funding from the Santander strand of the Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships and collaborations with the Universitat de València (UV), Spain, a Santander Partner University. Bernhard has accepted an invitation by Professor Manuel Perea of the Faculty of Psychology and he will travel to Valencia on the September 15th for an initial three-day visit to give a talk, meet the members of Professor Perea’s research group, and set up a number of pilot studies.

Professor Perea will make a return visit to BU at the start of next year in order to present a talk here and meet with BU staff and postgraduates. Bernhard will make a second visit to Valencia in July 2015 and attend a symposium on Psycholinguistics hosted by the Faculty of Psychology. The primary goal of these visits will be to set up a research partnership and to initiate a number of pilot collaborative projects, which will involve both staff and postgraduate students at BU and UV. These pilot collaborations will establish a foundation for jointly seeking grant funding from the national and European research councils. Ultimately, these projects are hoped to lead to a long-term collaboration between the two universities, opening up possibilities for staff and student exchange as well as joint PhD supervision and making Universitat de València a partner in BU’s internationalisation effort.

UV is one of Spain’s leading academic institutions and was founded more than 500 years ago. Its 55,000 students are distributed across three campuses. The Faculty of Psychology is consistently ranked as one of the top three Psychology research centres nationally and one of the top 50 research centres in Europe. UV has a strong international orientation and participates in many international exchange programmes and networks.

For more information, please contact Bernhard Angele (bangele@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Image credit: “Universitat valència vella” by Felivet – Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

August 27, 2014

BU helping to evolve security and privacy by design

Shamal Faily

On Monday, BU researchers co-organised a workshop on Evolving Security and Privacy Requirements Engineering (ESPRE) at the 22nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2014) in Karlskrona, Sweden. The workshop brought together practitioners and researchers from around the world, who shared their thoughts about how security and privacy can be incorporated into the design of software as early as possible, without compromising productivity or sacrificing innovation. The RE conference series is one of the premier conferences in software engineering, and the ESPRE workshop is the successor of several successful secure software engineering workshops. Shamal Faily (SciTech) organised this workshop, together with colleagues from Germany (University of Duisberg-Essen), South Korea (Ajou University), and the USA (Carnegie Mellon University).

The workshop began with a keynote talk from Professor Angela Sasse (UCL), who described some recent research examining how companies build security into products they develop, and the need to change the discourse around usability and security. Three technical paper sessions followed, before the workshop was concluded with an invited talk by Aljosa Pasic (Atos Research & Innovation) on some of the market trends and business challenges in security engineering. Further information about the workshop itself can be found at http://espre2014.org .

We’re grateful to the Faculty of Science & Technology for co-sponsoring this workshop, and to all the workshop attendees for sharing their work.

July 28, 2014

Horizon 2020: Forthcoming Funding Opportunities for Creative Businesses

Research themes jcodling

The Horizon 2020 programme is the major funding opportunity for research and innovation initiatives across Europe, and in 2015 there is nearly 600 million Euros available. If this is an area that interests you, it’s worth bookmarking the European Creative Business Network website .

Save the date!

Creative industries will benefit from some of this funding in the next round of calls published on the 15 October 2014, as the topics have already been announced. Here are some of the highlights for creative businesses:

ICT 19: Technologies for creative industries, social media and convergence
This funding aims to support Research and Innovation Actions, or Support for the development of, new or emerging technologies for digital content creation and to unlock complex information and media and interacting with them.

ICT 20: Technologies for better human learning and teaching
The development of digital technologies for learning are crucial to boosting innovation in education. This call will therefore focus on innovative technologies for learning, on underpinning interoperability standards and on the integration of different components into smart learning environments.

ICT 10: Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation – Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies.
By Collective Awareness Platform, the call basically means website or ‘portal’. They are interested in calls that pioneer crowdsourcing/crowdfunding or other forms of social innovation. They want to fund technological solutions to real world problems and are looking beyond the financial impact of the project towards the difference it makes to society.

More details of all of these calls are in the Draft Work Programme.

July 25, 2014

Visiting Spanish historian researches PR archives

Tom Watson

Since June 30, Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain has been a visiting scholar at BU, based in the Corporate & Marketing Communications academic group in The Media School.

During a four-week period, she has undertaken detailed research in the archive of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), which was the first major PR association established in Europe in 1955. The IPRA archive was developed by Professor Tom Watson in 2011.

It is an important source of information about PR’s evolution in the immediate post-World War 2 world and the field’s international expansion in the second half of the 20^th century.

“Archives like that of IPRA are always difficult to find and provide essential material for PR historians,” said Professor Rodriguez Salcedo. She has also undertaken research at BU’s Library, including its special collection of historic PR books. As a result of her research, she and Professor Watson are exploring future research collaboration on the development of the PR sector in Europe, especially philosophical and practices approaches that evolved separately from the US.

Professor Rodriguez Salcedo also observed Professor Watson’s editorial and reviewing roles in developing a six-book series, ‘National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations’ which is being published by Palgrave-Macmillan. She will be a contributor to the fifth book of the series, ‘Western Europe Perspectives’, with a chapter on the history of public relations in Spain.

During her stay Professor Rodriguez Salcedo, who is a member of the European Public Relations History Network, attended the 5^th International History of Public Relations Conference at BU on July 2-3, at which she delivered a paper on the formation of the first Spanish PR consultancy and chaired a conference session.

Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo discusses the IPRA archive with its founder, Professor Tom Watson

July 24, 2014

Research into 3D Printing and Intellectual Property Law presented in Helsinki, Bournemouth and Nottingham

Festival of Learning, Public engagement, Publishing, Research themes cippm

Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) and Associate Professor in Law was recently invited to present her research in 3D printing and Intellectual Property (IP) law in Helsinki and Nottingham. Dinusha also hosted an event on this topic at Bournemouth University’s Festival of Learning in June 1014.

In April 2014, Dinusha was invited by the Department of Commercial Law at the Hanken School of Economics in Finland to present her most recent research in 3D printing and IP Law. The talk titled ‘Law and Technological Change: – 3D Printing Technology, New Business Models and Intellectual Property Law‘ explored the paths that intellectual property law may take in the adoption of 3D printing technology with particular emphasis on the utility of “law and technology” as a research method.

In June 2014, Dinusha hosted an event on ‘3D Printing: Understanding the Technology and Law’ at Bournemouth University’s Festival of Learning. The event was run in collaboration with the Media School and the School of Science and Technology. Further details about this event can also be found here.

In July 2014, Dinusha was invited to present her research at the 9th Annual Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing International Conference. The event hosted by the University of Nottingham and Econolyst Ltd., brings together industry experts from the field of Additive Manufacturing and 3D printing. As an invited speaker, Dinusha spoke on the ‘The Application of UK Copyright Law to 3D Printing and Mass Customisation’. A further insight into the talk can also be found on the Conference blog under the heading ‘Who is the creator: where does UK law stand on IP in 3DP?’

Dinusha continues to carry out both funded and independent research in this area and her most recent article titled ‘3D Printing Enters the Fast Lane’ was published in the Intellectual Property Magazine in July 2014.

July 21, 2014

The virtual and the field: enhancing visualisation in archaeology using serious game technologies

Fusion djohn

The FIF funded collaborative project between the Creative Technology and Archaeology Frameworks has produced its first output.

The aims of the project are to:

Initiate collaboration between the Creative Technology and Archaeology and Anthropology academic groups.
Enable Games Technology students to perform interdisciplinary projects with Archaeology students (e.g. the creation of virtual 3D environments or 3D artefacts).
Provide Archaeology and Anthropology students with 3D research, teaching and learning resources produced with serious game technologies.

In the first of a series of projects a Games Technology student has collaborated with a Forensic Archaeology student to produce 3D environments for use in experiments investigating how individuals interpret and respond to features in the environment. We are now looking to participants to perform the experiment. Please email djohn@bournemouth.ac.uk or i7208298@bournemouth.ac.uk if you want to take part in the experiment.

July 16, 2014

“3D Printing: Understanding the Technology and Law” at the Festival of Learning

Festival of Learning, PG research, Public engagement cippm

On Monday 9 June, Dr. Dinusha Mendis of the Law Department hosted an event on ‘3D Printing: Understanding the Technology and Law’ at Bournemouth University’s Festival of Learning in collaboration with the Media School and School of Science and Technology.

The event which was held from 5-7 pm on 9th June 2014 included three short presentations and a tour of the 3D printing facilities at Bournemouth University.

The presentations focused on the various aspects of the technology and law relating to 3D Printing and were delivered by Dr. Leigh McLoughlin of the Media School; Mr. Gary Underwood from the School of Science and Technology and Dr. Dinusha Mendis of the Law Department, Business School.

Following the talks, the attendees were taken on a hands-on tour of the 3D printing facilities at Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University – and did not leave the event empty-handed. Each attendee was given a 3D printed momento to take home – as seen in the picture!

The event was enjoyable and very well attended – generating a wait list after the allocated tickets were sold out. Apart from that, the Festival of Learning provided the perfect platform to showcase the research relating to the legal and technological implications of 3D Printing. With a hands-on tour planned, it also provided the opportunity to engage the attendees in a more light-hearted manner.

The Festival of Learning has also acted as a spring board for a further event in the area of 3D Printing and Intellectual Property Law which will once again be hosted by Dr. Dinusha Mendis at Bournemouth University later this year.

The following video clip captures the essence of the Festival of Learning and provides an insight into the many exciting events which took place during 9-15 June 2014 at Bournemouth University.

July 10, 2014

Creative England Teams up with Playstation on Accelerator Programme

Funding opportunities jcodling

As part of its ongoing support for the games industry in England, Creative England’s GamesLab Campus programme will invest a total of £250,000 into five Games companies (£50,000 each) to support the development of new and innovative entertainment experiences on PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®Vita.

This package of investment will be complemented by a bespoke programme of business support and other technical and fringe benefits including the provision of PS3, PS4 & PS Vita Dev Kits1.

This announcement was made earlier this week at the Develop Conference 2014 , For more information, including how to apply, will be available shortly on our Games section Follow GamesLab on Twitter at @CEGameslab.

July 9, 2014

Mentoring support available for emergent or established creative companies

jcodling

Can you answer yes to all these questions or work with a company that can?

Are you a registered company in the UK
Have you been trading for a minimum of three years
Working within one or more of these sectors – advertising, film, TV, digital media
Have a turnover of £1m.

Ideally your company or the business you are working within will be in the following position:

Have a scalable business model
Seeking to reach the next stage of development
Looking to expand a product or service range; expand into new markets nationally or internationally; develop IP
Have a good leadership team in place.

The above are desirable criteria. If the £1m turnover is not met but there are ambitions to grow and expand the business, you can still apply as there will be other opportunities in the future. The next round starts in September 2014.

So if you are or you know an ambitious creative company with an appetite for growth and would like practical advice on overcoming the challenges of growing a creative business – why not apply for a mentor?

Click here to find out more

If you are interested and meet the criteria, click here for more information or if you want to find out more details, email NESTA at cbmn@nesta.org.uk or call 020 7438 2635.

To find out more about NESTA click here

Category / Creative, Digital & Cognitive Science