Category / BU research

Unlocking the data dungeons of higher education

Unlocking the data dungeons of higher education
Authors: Kitchenham, A., Holley, D. and Biggins, D.

Conference: International Technology, Education and Development Conference 2025

Dates: 3-5 March 2025

Abstract:
Higher Education in the UK operates under a regulatory framework, the Office for Students (OfS). The university sector needd to report on a series of data metrics, where education has been quantified into measurable outcomes. These are focused on continuation and completion of studies, as well as readiness and ability to secure professional work. However, recent literature has documented the complexity of computing metrics in an environment in which universities are in constant transition and adaptation, and how these adaptive processes impact student transitions, including from university to graduate work. Thus collecting data with precision and fair statistical assessment of outcomes across the sector remain a challenge for the government and the sector alike.
Learning analytics is a highly contested field which is implemented and used in very different ways across the sector. In some cases, the collection of data places greater emphasis on institutional compliance for reputational protection and as a tool for data driven narrative creation. At its most effective, it places the learner at the centre of the process and as the primary audience for its output. Emerging trends point to how it is increasingly embedded within day-to-day activities that encompass learners, educators and the institution. Our research indicates that it is most impactful when it supports data-informed pedagogic interventions.
Our research suggests three broad responses to data collection, collation and interpretations, where the institutional data gathered is actioned through very different strategic lenses. Best practice seeks to use this data to inform strategic and operational decisions; and to focus on the student experience, with a clear pedagogic rationale underpinning the sharing of data, that genuinely moves the student learning journey forward. The use and role of data can be characterised as a tool to defend the institution from external scrutiny; an intrinsic tool to inform course development or as instigator for dialogue (including self dialogue) by the learner. The learning design that frames and encompasses learning analytics impacts significantly on the user. It can be cold, dehumanising and context free with the data stored in what we terms as a ‘data dungeon’. It can be interpreted as a ‘data engine room’ driving forward the curricula and learning agenda; it can, we argue, at its cutting edge frame ‘data dialogue’; shining the light into the data dungeon. This paper will draw upon these themes and suggest a maturity model to ensure the data collected has meaning, use and value and contributes to a greater understanding of the measurement and understanding of learning gain.
https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/conference/402814

The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2025 – now open

PG research

The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2025 has launched! 

Check your email to access your link to complete the survey. 

We’re keen to make sure our postgraduate research students (PGRs) have the best possible experience while studying with us. To do this, we need to know what you think works well and what we could do better.

The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES 2025) is your chance to tell us about your experience as a PGR at Bournemouth University. The more specific your feedback is, the more targeted and effective our actions can be. This includes both positive feedback and what we as a university could do better. Your voice truly makes a difference and helps shape your experience.

This year the survey opened on Monday 17 March 2025 and will close on Wednesday 30 April 2025. Upon completing the survey, PGRs will automatically be entered into a free prize draw. Four winners will be able to claim a £50 shopping voucher. Terms and conditions apply.

In addition, we will be making a £1 donation for every survey completed to the student mental health wellbeing charity, Student Minds.

Once you have completed the survey, you are entitled to claim a Chartwells voucher with a value of £3.95. This covers the cost of a meal from the “Savour menu” but can be used to purchase any items from Chartwells outlets. Please come to the Doctoral College (DLG08, Talbot Campus) to collect your voucher.

How do I take part?

PGRs have now received an email containing a unique link which will allow you to access and complete the survey. If you can’t find this email, contact PRES@bournemouth.ac.uk and we’ll help you to get access.

What will I be asked?

The survey will take around 15 minutes to complete. Your response is confidential, and any reporting will be entirely anonymous. The survey is your chance to tell us about your experience as a PGR at BU. It will ask you to share your views on supervision, resources, research community, progress and assessment, skills and professional development and wellbeing.

Why should I take part?

Your feedback is important. The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey is the only national survey of PGRs and so is the only way for us to compare how we are doing with other institutions and to make changes that will improve your experience in the future.

More information

If you would like to know more about the survey, please visit: PRES 2025.

If you would like to know more about the surveys at Bournemouth University, please visit: Your feedback | Bournemouth University.

Please click here to see actions that we have taken based on feedback from previous surveys.

 

We hope you take the opportunity to get involved this year and help us make improvements to your experience.

Best wishes,

The Doctoral College

For any PRES related queries, please email: PRES@bournemouth.ac.uk

Open Access Publication Fund paused

open access, Publishing

We are currently not accepting new applications to the BU Open Access Publication Fund.

Application to the fund is highly competitive and we have now committed all of the budget for 24/25. We will continue to review the status of fund-supported publications which are under consideration at journals, and release funds which are no longer required back into the budget as we can.

Authors are reminded that BU is signed up to a number of transformative deals with major publishers. These enable authors to publish gold open access for free, or at a reduced cost, in thousands of journals. Authors are encouraged to review the journals which are covered by these agreements which considering where to publish.

UKRI funded authors can still apply for support from the UKRI Open Access block grant to cover eligible costs associated with publishing in fully open access journals and platforms that are not covered by our transformative deals.

Please contact openaccess@bournemouth.ac.uk with any queries.

3MT Competition – register to attend

PG research

Registrations are open to attend the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition! 

All BU staff and students are invited to attend the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition! This is an internationally recognised research communication competition developed by the University of Queensland in 2008. It challenges doctoral researchers to condense their thesis into a compelling three-minute presentation, communicating its originality and significance to a non-specialist audience.

Date: Wednesday 26 March, 10:30-14:30

The National competition is run by the research organisation Vitae. More information about the history of 3MT® can be found on the Vitae and 3MT® websites.

There will be four parallel presentation sessions, one for each Faculty, to select the 2 finalists to advance to the final round, which will take place in the afternoon. The winner will be able to take part in the national competition run by Vitae.

Lunch will be provided.

See below for the tentative programme of the day:

10:30-12:00: First round (4 parallel sessions, Fusion Building)

  • Faculty of Health and Social Sciences: F310
  • BU Business School: F205
  • Faculty of Media & Communication: F109
  • Faculty of Science & Technology: F112

12:00-13:00: Lunch (Share Lecture Theatre)

13:00-14:00: Final round (Share Lecture Theatre)

14:00-14:20: Break

14:20-14:30: Winners Announcement and Closing

Register to attend

Come along and support BU doctoral researchers at this exciting event. Let’s share knowledge, foster collaboration, and build connections with the research community!

Further information available on Brightspace.

Please do contact us if you have any questions: pgrskillsdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

Best wishes,

The Doctoral College RDP Team

Promoting South-South collaboration and learning

international

The Sonamoni Project is working with communities in rural Bangladesh utilizing human-centered design (HCD) techniques. These design principles have been applied for many years in designing consumer products and, more recently, in the fields of health and social systems. The research project is identifying solutions to reduce the number of drowning deaths in newly mobile children (6-24 months), developing prototype, and assessing the acceptability and usability of potential  interventions. This interdisciplinary project is coordinated by Bournemouth University in collaboration with the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB), the University of the West of England, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the University of Southampton, and Design without Borders Africa (DwB) from Uganda. Our Sonamoni project has been made possible thanks to a grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through their Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation programme.

As part of the Sonamoni project we arranged some serious South-South learning by facilitating a visit to DwB in Uganda in early march by two of our Bangladesh-based team, namely Notan Chandra Dutta, Research Manager and Mirza Shibat Rowshan, HCD Specialist.  DwB applies HCD approaches to complex challenges faced by communities in low and middle-income countries. To gain greater insights into HCD activities the researchers from Bangladesh visited one site near Lake Victoria to observe data collection with fishermen, transporters, and local leaders. Notan and Shibat co-facilitated a four-day long Design Community Advisory Board (DCAB) workshop on the “Enhancing Fisherfolk Safety” project where fishermen, boat owners, transporters, traditional weather forecasters, health workers were the participants. To prevent drowning, HCD was applied in the workshop to generate ideas and share solutions of the lake site community from Lake Victoria of Mayuge district. Lessons learnt from the visit by two staff of CIPRB can further enrich the Sonamoni Project implementation in Bangladesh.  The NIHR really values research capacity building and South-South learning in its funded projects, as well as North-South leaning, of course.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

RDS Academic & Researcher Induction

Knowledge Exchange, Post-award, R & KE Operations

RDS Academic & Researcher Induction – Weds 23rd April, 10:00 – 11:00, online

The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level.  It will provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU

You’ll be made aware of the support available at each stage of the research lifecycle and get an introduction to the Research, Development & Support Team, who are here to help! It will be hosted by our experts who are responsible for strategy, outputs, ethics, public engagement, knowledge exchange, project management & training.  It will include:

  • A brief overview of research excellence at BU and how RDS can help/support academic staff
  • How we can support your impact, public engagement, knowledge exchange & output activity and why it’s important – essential to quality bids and the REF
  • How to find funding opportunities and access support for the application process
  • How to manage an awarded RKE projects, incl aspects on intellectual property & commercialisation
  • Key points on research ethics and governance
  • Where to find what training is available, incl other BU support and internal networks

Come along, join in, get some important insights – hopefully see you there!  Book your place HERE

If you are new to academia, it may be helpful for you to meet with your faculty mentor to guide your familiarisation of research at BU and expectations of an early career researcher before attending this induction. You can also join the Early Career researcher (ECR) Network.

For some background and more immediate information on RDS, please head to the RKE SharePoint

For further information on this event or joining the ECRN, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk

Ultra potent synthetic opioids

Awarded & submitted bids

drug powder and pills

The forensic science team at BU has been commissioned by the Home Office to evaluate an emerging threat to the U.K: ultra potent synthetic opioids. Our research has delivered a comprehensive chemical assessment of these dangerous drug compounds, evaluating differences between illicit drugs seized at borders versus inland, purity assessment, composition and variability, and headspace profiling to provide intelligence towards better detection of these drugs at borders. The work is led by Richard Paul, with co-investigators Ramin Boroujerdi, Sarah Upson, Santanu Majumder and Sam Rennie, all from the Life and Environmental Sciences department.

The illicit drug market has been dominated by the rise of fentanyl in North America in recent years, with a surge in drug related fatalities. The situation has now evolved with the emergence of non-fentanyl derived synthetic opioids, such as nitazenes, which are several times more potent than fentanyl, and can be as much as 500 times stronger than heroin. Urgent research is required to understand the nature of these drugs, and to provide intelligence to help detect these drugs when smuggled across borders.

Our analysis has shown that the purity of some of the nitazene compounds seized at borders is extremely high, with metonitazene and protonitazene at >98% pure. We’ve also developed a headspace analysis technique which examines the volatile molecules which comprise the odour profile of these drugs. This information is used to provide intelligence to the Home Office on which to base drug detection policy aimed at stopping the influx of these drugs into the U.K.  Our headspace technique revealed a complex array of aromatic organic compounds in the headspace above illicit nitazenes, and there is evidence that these compounds are used as precursors during illicit synthesis routes for these drugs.

This work is on-going and where possible we’ll post updates in the future. To find out more about the capabilities of our group, and other research we’re involved in, please see our group page here.

 

 

 

Coming soon : The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2025

PG research

The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2025 will launch on Monday 17 March 2025 for postgraduate research (PGR) students to complete.

Look out for an email from the University containing your unique link to the survey.

We’re keen to make sure our postgraduate research students (PGRs) have the best possible experience while studying with us. To do this, we need to know what you think works well and what we could do better.

We will be emailing you soon to invite you to complete this year’s Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES 2025). Please take a few minutes to take part.

The survey is your chance to tell us about your experience as a PGRs at Bournemouth University.

Your feedback is important. PRES 2025 is the only national survey of PGRs and so is the only way for us to compare how we are doing with other institutions and to make changes that will improve your experience in the future.

The more PGRs that take part the better we can do that. The more specific your feedback is, the more targeted and effective our actions can be.

The survey will open on 17 March 2025. It will take around 15 minutes to complete. Your feedback is confidential, and any reporting will be entirely anonymous.

As a thank you for your time, we will give you a Chartwells Voucher (worth £3.95) which will pay for a meal from the “Savour Menu” or can be used towards other items from Chartwells outlets. You will also automatically be entered into a prize draw where four winners will receive a £50 shopping voucher.

The Doctoral College will also make a £1 donation to Student Minds, which is the UK’s student mental health charity, for every completed survey.

If you would like to know more about the survey at Bournemouth University, please visit: Your feedback | Bournemouth University.

Please click here to see actions that we have taken based on feedback from previous surveys

I hope you take the opportunity to get involved this year and help us make improvements to your experience.

Best wishes,

The Doctoral College

Email: PRES@bournemouth.ac.uk

BRIAN drop-in surgery, 11th March.

BRIAN

Do you have a question about BRIAN or your staff profile page? Then come along to the next BRIAN drop-in surgery!

  • Date: Tuesday 11th March
  • Time: 14:00-16:00
  • Location: F203, Talbot Campus

Come along to this informal 2-hour drop-in surgery with questions or issues relating to BRIAN, or if you need a refresher on how to update your profile.

No booking is required, just bring your laptop and questions!

Presenting HSRI results at Nepal Dialogue UK

international, Publishing, writing

Today, Saturday morning, BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada from the University of Huddersfield was guest speaker at the third Nepal Dialogue UK webinar series of the Centre for Nepal Studies UK (CNSIK).   His presentation was titled Is Nepal’s Health System fit for Purpose? Reflections on Transformations, Maladies and Future Needs.  He outlined the state of health (epidemiology) as well as that of the health system.  He presented a lot of change in the health of the population, in the health system, as well as issues around human resources, including the high rate of migration of health workers.  He highlight that there is in Nepal insufficient investment in health, unethical practices,

He introduced some the key findings from our recently completed study on the effects of the federalisation process on Nepal’s health system.  Padam was one of the co-applications on this study together with academics from the University of  Sheffield, Canterbury Christ Church University and Bournemouth University in the UK, and colleagues in Nepal from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) and PHASE Nepal.  The project was funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative (Grant ref MR/T023554/1). For more information on the Nepal Federal Health System Team, see: https://www.nepalfederalhealthsystem.com/.  This interdisciplinary study has been disseminated in the form of eight published papers [1-8].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

 

References:

  1. Koirala, B., Rushton, S., Adhikary, P., Balen, J., et al. (2024) COVID-19 as a challenge to Nepal’s newly federalised health system: capacities, responsibilities, and mindsets, Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health (online first) https://doi.org/10.1177/1010539524125012.
  2. Sapkota, S., Rushton, S., van Teijlingen, E., et al. (2024) Participatory policy analysis in health policy and systems research: reflections from a study in Nepal. Health Research & Policy Systems, 22 (No.7) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01092-5 .
  3. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., et al. (2023) Selection of Study Sites and Participants for Research into Nepal’s Federal Health System, WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health 12(2):116-119.
  4. Sapkota, S., Dhakal, A., Rushton S., et al. (2023) The impact of decentralisation on health systems: a systematic review of reviews. BMJ Global Health 8:e013317. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013317.
  5. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Rushton, S., et al. (2023) Overcoming the Challenges Facing Nepal’s Health System During Federalisation: An Analysis of Health System Building Blocks, Health Research Policy & Systems 21(117) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01033-2
  6. Sapkota, S., Panday, S., Wasti, S.P., et al. (2022) Health System Strengthening: The Role of Public Health in Federal Nepal, Journal of the Nepal Public Health Association 7(1):36-42.
  7. Adhikary, P., Balen, J., Gautam, S., et al. (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.
  8. Rushton, S., Pandey, S., van Teijlingen, E., et al. (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