Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Do you want to know how to use social media to enhance your research profile and get your message to a wider audience? Then this session is for you!
Our expert presenter – Prof Dimitrios Buhalis – will cover how to use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to network online and raise your academic profile.
As part of the BRAD framework this session will take place on January 10th and you can book your place via the Staff Development webpage.
Title: Servicing Big Data
Time: 14:00-16:00 Wednesday, 18 Dec. 2013
Venue: PG143 (Thomas Hardy Suite, Talbot Campus)
Speaker: Prof. Athman Bouguettaya, Head of School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Big data is here and in a big way. Big data is coming from all sorts of sources and means, including sensors, deep space, social media, smartphones, genomic, etc. The cloud has been instrumental supporting the storage and processing of the ever increasing amount of data. “Domesticating” the data, i.e., making it useful, however, has been a major challenge. Service computing is the next major evolution of computing that aims at transforming massive data into artefacts that are acted upon, i.e., services. Service computing is increasingly being recognized as part of a broader agenda in Service Science. In that respect, service computing may be viewed as the “engineering” side of service science. Service computing broadly focuses at providing a foundational framework to support a service-centric view of designing, developing, and exposing data (and applications), whether it is in the enterprise or on the Web. In that respect, the Web is and will undoubtedly be the preferred delivery platform of service-based solutions. More specifically, Web services are currently without contest the key enabler for deploying service-centric solutions. Fully delivering on the potential of next-generation Web services requires building a foundation that would provide a sound design for efficiently developing, deploying, publishing, discovering, composing, trusting, and optimizing access to Web services in an open, competitive, untrustworthy, and highly dynamic environment. The Web service foundation is the key catalyst for the development of a uniform framework called Web Service Management System (WSMS). In this novel framework, Web services are treated as first-class objects. In this talk, I will first motivate the need for a uniform service management to service big data. I will then overview the core components of a typical WSMS. I will conclude by describing our latest research servicing sensor data.
Short Bio
Athman Bouguettaya is Professor and Head of School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) in 1992. He was previously Science Leader in Service Computing at CSIRO ICT Centre, Canberra. Australia. Before that, he was a tenured faculty member and Program director in the Computer Science department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (commonly known as Virginia Tech) (USA). He is a founding member and past President of the Service Science Society, a non-profit organization that aims at forming a community of service scientists for the advancement of service science. He is on the editorial boards of several journals including, the IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, the International Journal on Next Generation Computing, VLDB Journal, Distributed and Parallel Databases Journal, and the International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems. He is also on the editorial board of the Springer-Verlag book series on Services Science. He served as a guest editor of a number of special issues including the special issue of the ACM Transactions on Internet Technology on Semantic Web services, a special issue the IEEE Transactions on Services Computing on Service Query Models, and a special issue of IEEE Internet Computing on Database Technology on the Web. He served as a Program Chair of the 2012 International Conference on Web and Information System Engineering, the 2009 and 2010 Australasian Database Conference, 2008 International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) and the IEEE RIDE Workshop on Web Services for E-Commerce and E-Government (RIDE-WS-ECEG’04). He has published more than 170 books, book chapters, and articles in journals and conferences in the area of databases and service computing (e.g., the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, the ACM Transactions on the Web, WWW Journal, VLDB Journal, SIGMOD, ICDE, VLDB, and EDBT). He was the recipient of several federally competitive grants in Australia (e.g., ARC) and the US (e.g., NSF, NIH). He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Distinguished Scientist of the ACM.
At the end of November Stella Rawnson and Catherine Angell (both Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at BU) attended the European Midwives Association Education Conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This two-day event brought together 300 midwife educators from universities across Europe, from Norway to Greece and Ireland to Hungary.
Stella presented ‘The best people for the job’ which focused on our experience of introducing new methods for assessing the suitability of applicants to BU’s BSc Midwifery programme. This generated a considerable amount of interest and discussion. It was clear that student selection was an issue for educators from a wide range of countries, both in terms of identifying competence in numeracy and literacy but also assessing applicants’ communication and ‘people skills’.
Catherine’s presentation was entitled ‘Loosing the luggage; strategies that enable effective learning around infant feeding for student midwives’. This identified how we have used education theories to develop a programme that enables students to ‘unlearn’ negative or unrealistic ideas about infant feeding before embarking on new learning around this subject. This fitted well with a key theme that emerged from the conference relating to the role of emotion in enabling and blocking learning.
The conference included keynote presentations from Prof. Cees van der Vleuten, who spoke about evaluation and assessment of health sciences students, and Prof. Raymond DeVries who discussed the value of academic skills in midwifery. The conference highlighted the considerable differences in terms of length of midwifery programme, entry route and content between different countries in the EU. However, it also enabled us to learn from sharing some of the challenges that we experience in areas such as recruitment and assessment, and in terms of developing curriculums against shifting models of care and changing political priorities. Naturally it also provided an excellent opportunity for networking and identifying potential collaborations.
Winter in Maastricht
As part of the delivery planning process in 2013, a draft institutional development plan for research and knowledge exchange (RKE) at BU was produced. The aim of the document was to set out a long-term plan for developing and supporting RKE activity to meet the objectives of the BU2018 strategy. The aim is to instigate the plan from early 2014.
The plan has been drafted and has been road tested with UET, URKEC and around 20 academics to date. We are now seeking views from the academic community on the plan as a whole and on specific elements of the plan. Your feedback, comments and ideas will feed into the final version which will be the blueprint for how RKE activity is supported and developed in the long-term.
Feedback and discussion will be facilitated online. Upon accessing the site you will be able to read the plan in its entirety and see the key elements on which we are seeking views and suggestions.
Click on one of the topics and you will be presented with a brief summary of what is being proposed as part of the institutional development plan. Beneath this text you will see the previous comments that have been left by colleagues. You are strongly encouraged to add a reply stating your own views and suggestions. This is especially important and will ensure that the academic community has shaped the support and development mechanism put in place. If you wish to feedback confidentially then please send your comments to Julie Northam.
The aim of this website is to provide a forum to facilitate the discussion of the plan as a whole and the identified key elements. Providing feedback works in the same way as adding a comment to the Research Blog, i.e. you can add a comment and this will be visible to all other viewers. The site is password protected and the password is only available to BU staff from the Staff Intranet.
This feedback exercise will run from 28 November until 10 January. A final version of the plan will be circulated to all staff in early 2014.
The site is password protected to ensure only BU staff are able to contribute. To access the password please see the story on the Staff Intranet: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/news/news/thismonth/rkefeedbackneeded.php
SDRC has added a new fluid property research and education resource to its experimental lab. This resource will be deployed in the current on-going research in renewable technology and coupled with the MEng/BEng Level I thermodynamics & heat transfer unit. This will provide opportunity to realise BU Fusion initiative through research informed education.
Description
The F1-30 Fluid Property Apparatus is part of the Engineering Teaching & Research Equipment in SDRC. It consists of a collection of components that demonstrate individual fluid properties:
For education purpose, it can introduce students a clear understanding about the physical properties of fluids that can build the foundation for them to study the behaviour of fluids in static or dynamic applications.
For research purpose, it allows bench tests to be performed for measuring physical properties of fluids from a wide range of applications.
Measuring Capabilities
If you would like to know more about the research and education activities within the SDRC themes please contact
Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)
Email: zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk
Our final Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar this semester will take place on Tuesday, 10th December at 5pm. The seminar will take place in EB202 in the Executive Business Centre, and will be free and open to all. If you would like to attend, please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interdisciplinary-seminar-in-cyber-security-tickets-9688353125
Our speaker will be Dr. Simon Parkin from UCL. Simon is a Senior Research Associate in the Information Security group at University College London, contributing to the Productive Security project within the Research Institute in the Science of Cyber Security (RISCS). He was previously a member of the Innovation Team at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Security Services (HP ESS) until mid-2012. From 2007 to 2011, Simon was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University, where he also obtained his PhD. His research interests include: IT-security policy management metrics, models and tools; holistic IT-security management principles, and; IT-security risk management approaches and knowledge formalisation.
Abstract: Individuals working within organisations must complete their tasks, and are often expected to do so using secured IT systems. There can be times when the expectations for productivity and security are in competition, and so how would an organisation measure the outcomes in practice? We will review a series of interdisciplinary research efforts that characterise the human factor in IT-security within large organisations, as part of a holistic view of security. There are furthermore a variety of modelling approaches and frameworks that have emerged and informed this view. We will consider the challenges that remain in affording measurement of the human factor in IT-security within organisations, and some of the changes that are required for such activities to be sustainable and effective.
Do you want to know how to use social media to enhance your research profile and get your message to a wider audience? Then this session is for you!
Our expert presenter – Prof Dimitrios Buhalis – will cover how to use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to network online and raise your academic profile.
As part of the BRAD framework this session will take place on January 10th and you can book your place via the Staff Development webpage.
Dr Julian McDougall from BU’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) will make recommendations on UK media education at a conference in Paris later this month.
The conference brings together comparative analyses on media and information education from EU member states and Dr McDougall will present the UK report alongside his London School of economics (LSE) research collaborators.
Dr McDougall said: “In the UK report, we have mapped media education provision in the UK against the various EC and EU frameworks and draw a clear conclusion, that the UK is rich with expertise, energy and leadership for media and information education, and to a significant extent is the envy of other European nations in this respect, but deeply entrenched prejudice against ‘media studies’ means that promoting media literacy through schools is continually undermined.”
The report examines the progression of media education through three key phases:
When examining the current ‘state of play’ in UK media literacy education, Dr McDougall and his colleagues looked at four areas: the study of media in formal secondary and higher education through curriculum subjects such as Media Studies, Film Studies and Media/non-literary textual analysis in English as well as vocational courses; broader, less formal examples of media literacy across the UK curriculum and extra-curricular activities such as literacy education in primary schools and related subjects like Citizenship, Sociology and History; e-safety policies in the school system; and media & information literacy outside of formal education.
Having examined the current scope and provision of UK media education and media literacy, the report identifies a scarcity of funding and training and a contradiction between support for creative industry employability, digital literacy and e-safety and derision towards, neglect of and undermining (through UCAS tariff distinctions, for example) media education where it already exists for thousands of young people.
At the same time, the recent Next Gen Report, well received by policy-makers, fails to locate media education as a context for teaching digital programming and coding. The UK report predicts that the combined effect of proposed secondary curriculum reform and this response to the Next Gen report will place UK media education in further ‘limbo’ between the cultural value afforded to English Literature and Art as academic /creative disciplines for their own sake and the vocational importance of strong media and technological literacy, such as those assumed for games and effects education within the STEM subject cluster, in today’s modern media-saturated tech-savvy workplace.
Three clear and compelling recommendations are presented from the UK report’s findings:
The conference is hosted by the French National Research Agency project TRANSLIT (convergence between computer, media and information literacies), in association with the European network COST “Transforming Audiences/Transforming Societies.” It takes place on 13-14 December at the Grand Amphi of Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris.
Dr McDougall was lead author on the report, entitled Media and Information Education in the UK, alongside his LSE collaborators Professor Sonia Livingstone (Leader of the TRANSLIT/COST Media Literacy Task Force) and Dr Julian Sefton-Green.
Santander Mobility Network Fusion Funds allowed me to visit King Juan Carlos University (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, URJC) in Madrid, Spain, a few weeks ago. After being hit by the parvovirus 24hr after arriving in Madrid I finally managed to pull myself together and visit Dr Marcos Mendez at the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation, who had arranged for me to meet the Head of the Department, the Head of the Postgraduate School, some academics and undergraduate students. I introduced them to (and left them with several hard copies of) BU’s Summer Schools and our Master’s courses; we also discussed placement opportunities for BU and URJC students. One of them (from URJC) will be visiting us in the New Year funded by Erasmus placement funds. Academics at URJC Department of Biodiversity and Conservation are extremely keen in receiving BU students to work on the wealth of terrestrial and aquatic conservation projects that are running in the Department.
Overall, it was a very productive visit and we now are exploring funding opportunities to develop further this collaboration. If you know of any student looking for a placement, URJC can offer a great opportunity… in the wonderful town of Madrid. Drop me an email (Genoveva Esteban, School of Applied Sciences – gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk) and I will get it organised.
Changing placesTwo years ago, I could have never imagined the role that I would ultimately play in BU’s REF submission. At the time, I was a research fellow at a nearby institution and in that fortunate position of being able to take a certain detached distance from the whole REF process. Even so, there was a building surge of preparations absolving more and more time for my senior colleagues; simulation exercises were underway and the work of some of the brightest and the best critically scrutinized. Tensions were raised, impact was feared, but for the most part at that stage, I was progressing a number of research projects which meant a lot of time out of the office and in the field.
In April 2012, I took the momentous step leaving the research post which I had worked so hard to get, to pursue my lifelong passion and commitment to public engagement with research. Initially, in no way was my new role to be related to our REF submission, indeed, in many institutions there is a concerted effort for public engagement officers not to be connected to the ‘impact agenda’. There are many reasons as to why this is the case, not least is the fear that public engagement will be tarnished by REF anxieties, but in my-case, that was not meant to be…
As you may have read in Julie’s earlier post, babies became a central feature of the REF team. When we knew Sally was going on maternity leave, I was asked to continue her work on supporting the development of the impact case studies for the REF. Although a mammoth task, it was an opportunity that I could not refuse. On my last day in my previous institution, I had co-organised an event around ‘food and the third sector’, aimed at bringing together key practitioners with leading academics in the field. It was a terrific event and I believe genuinely developed new understandings between key practitioners, policy makers and academics. One of our speakers (not so co-incidentally) was Kevin Morgan (one of my first bosses and recent winner of an ESRC impact prize) was delighted to hear of my new role at BU and I remember him saying (in his distinct lyrical tones) that ensuring research was of benefit to society was ‘in my blood’ – probably true given I come from a family of engineers and technology experts! How you demonstrate impact was also a question that was fresh in my mind having spent the previous two and a half years conducting research with third sector organisations. For charitable causes, impact is king – fundamental to continued support and funding is the need to demonstrate the difference they make to society.
In September 2012, the impact challenge was on. Following a set of agreed actions devised by Matthew, Sally and all the impact case study authors in June 2012, the next task was for the work that had been prepared to date to be transferred into the required HEFCE template. This is harder than it sounds: the template was to be a maximum of four pages with indicative word limits for each section and highly prescribed guidance on each section. At this time, a number of new potential case studies also emerged, and I worked with the authors to develop these and ensure they found their way into the template.
The process of doing this was tremendously challenging for all concerned. How do you summarise up to twenty years of research in a few hundred words? What happens if your research and impact was non-linear? What happens if the sources to corroborate your impact are no longer available? What would happen if the impact was in the process of happening? We found our way through these questions as a team, but we won’t necessarily know the answers to them until the end of next year – however good HEFCE’s answers to the sectors endless queries, it will ultimately be the decisions made in the endless meetings that will take place over 2014 which will determine these.
What did become increasingly clear was the extent to which the impact case studies would be dependent on creating a strong narrative. With such a small amount of space to tell a complex story, this was easier said than done and across the sector colleagues were struggling with how to achieve this. I seem to have spent a not inconsiderable amount of last year in a small room in a hotel in Bristol with other members of REF teams encountering the same issues to which there was rarely an easy answer to. In some ways it was reassuring to know BU was grappling with the same issues as all our colleagues across the sector. However, it highlighted just how we much were making preparations for the big unknown, i.e. how panel members would react when they caught sight of our impact case studies.
At the same time, a huge number of ‘impact consultants’ seem to have popped up and my inbox filled with offers of very expensive help. This proved to be a hot topic last year, the extent to which expertise should be ‘bought-in’. Some colleagues just wanted their case studies sorted, however, what stays in my mind was a reflection from a professorial colleague at another (research intensive) institution. He was furious that a ‘science writer’ has been imposed on him, making the argument that he was a professional writer and no-one was better placed to write about his research or the impact it had made, although he acknowledged that learning to write case studies was a new skill. That reflection has stayed with me; writing impact case studies is a particular skill, but arguably one which all academics will have to learn in future years.
2013 started with a writing retreat over in Christchurch, which was an excellent opportunity for peer learning, reflection and contemplation. As the depths of winter gave was to spring, the mock exercise was on and all the impact case studies needed to be in as final form as possible ready for external review by our expert (and mostly non-academic) panel. This was a tense moment; we knew that ‘research users’ (i.e. those in a position to use the research arising from Universities) will be on the REF panels; therefore, it was essential that we had feedback from this community. In the end, their feedback, mostly confirmed what we already knew.
Getting everything ready in-time was a huge amount of effort, especially for my colleague Peng Peng (who did an amazing job throughout) – there were many late nights in the office and we kept each other going with increasingly banal banter and many cups of tea. We were also putting around double the number of case studies into the mock exercise that we would ultimately need. At the same time, I was also working on another major initiative for BU, the first Festival of Learning – which included over 100 free events, which in itself was a mammoth undertaking.
As the law of sod will dictate, as the mock exercise meetings for our impact case studies fell over the two weeks that the Festival was running. This meant for an extremely busy fortnight for me, with many costume changes – typically my day would start setting up the Festival by 7.30am, (in our Festival t-shirt and jeans), with a quick change into something smarter for the panel meetings, followed by Festival trouble shooting and most evenings a Festival event well into the evening. I didn’t really see home or my husband in that fortnight, but it was an incredibly productive two weeks and somehow the timing felt right. It was with a sense of pride that I was able to show our panel members around the Festival and demonstrated that ensuring our research is of benefit to society wasn’t just something we were doing for the purposes of the REF, but something embedded in BU’s DNA.
Following the mock exercise, Sally came back from maternity leave. It has fantastic to have such a great colleague back with us and Sally was able to bring a fresh pair of eyes to the process and her superb writing skills. She bravely took up the baton of the impact case studies and honed those that had been selected following the mock exercise. This freed up my time to concentrate on the impact narratives, which proved to be especially tricky. Like the impact case studies, we did not have any examples to work from previous exercises. They also asked us to demonstrate the approach to impact taken by each unit of assessment; this was easier said than done as reach back to 2008, there was not necessarily any formalised plans for approaching impact – so this meant drawing on institutional knowledge to develop this section. Working with unit of assessment leaders on future impact strategies was exciting but challenging. Introducing impact as part of the REF has raised many questions, many of which we do not have the answers for.
When we reached November 2013, I remember it seeming quite surreal that the date which we had been focusing on for so long, was finally in view. Naturally, there were some last minute amendments to our submission, but overall the period in the REF team was reasonably cool, calm and collected. Waiting for the button to be pushed, and for the 29th November to pass, felt like time was suspended. And now we wait… although given the years of preparation that have already gone in, a year doesn’t feel so long.
There are many reflections, observations and evaluations to be made over the coming year (and no doubt beyond). Publications are emerging on impact, which I am looking forward to reading and sharing the findings of these with colleagues across BU. I find myself musing over many thoughts, some of which are:
– The ‘impact agenda’ isn’t going anywhere. Many colleagues suggested that HEFCE would find a new way to torture us in REF 2020, but I think it is safe to say that demonstrating impact is here to stay, and is likely to be a larger element of the submission next time around.
– Our REF preparations have created a superb resource. Yes, it was a huge amount for everyone that was involved in the REF return, however, it has enabled us to demonstrate the very best of what BU does.
– We must not waste or lose the institutional learning or resources created in preparation for the REF. In creating an amazing resource for the REF, we share this learning throughout the HE sector an engage the public with it.
– It has opened the debate about what are Universities are for. Should Universities be drivers of economic growth? Should they be cultural providers? Should they provide the evidence demanded by policy makers? Questions about what universities are far are the as old as the institutions themselves, however, the impact case studies once published will provide interesting food for though. What the REF has perhaps made apparent is that within institutions, there are widely different views on what the future for HEIs could or should be, which in-turn can lead to considerable tension.
– It has raised questions about who sets the questions. Who drives our enquiry? Does research answer the questions needed by society, or is it our academic community that sets the questions? I suspect the answer lies somewhere within a continuous iterative process, but others may have a very different view.
– Impact is far more than happy what we can submit to the REF. So much of BU’s best impact does not meet the criteria set out by the HEFCE guidelines, but that does not mean we should stop doing in. In-fact, quite the opposite. As a community we need to challenge the definition of impact and take ownership of it. This means engaging with the impact agenda, not dismissing it.
– Public engagement is about far more than impact. Public engagement can be a pathway to impact, however, it is also about far more than impact as defined in-terms of the REF. It is also about inspiring and informing future research, demonstrating the broader public value of HE, celebrating what we do, being accountable and recruiting the research participants of the future.
I will, I am sure, have far more observations and reflections over the coming weeks and months. But until then, I will forward to a break over Christmas before starting in earnest with our REF 2020 preparations. This is something which I genuinely look forward to – despite the inevitable stresses that have arisen from the process, being part of the REF team has brought home just how fantastic BU is and how much opportunity there is to grow and develop as an institution moving forward.
The following opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:
Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.
You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic.
Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise.
Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.
Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.
User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.
Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.
In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional
Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:
Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:
These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.
This is a phrase I have heard rather often from our staff when preparing a research grant or undertaking the post award management. And they are quite right – it is a tricky subject to understand. Thankfully as part of the BRAD framework on December 11th you can have this explained in simple terms from an enthusiastic presenter and need be confused no more! The session will cover financial management, income, funding budgeting financial resourcing and strategic financial planning which sounds a bit dull on screen but you will realize how important and interesting it is once you are in the session. You can book your place via the Staff Development webpage.
BU’s Sustainable Design Research Centre has recently added nano-coating experimental resource to its labs
Schaeffler is match funding a PhD studentship (£24K plus £41K in kind) looking into Electroplated composite coatings with incorporated nano particles for tribological systems with a focus on water lubrication. Schaeffler develops and manufactures precision products for machines, equipment, vehicles and aerospace applications. Schaeffler is a leading manufacturer of bearings worldwide and a renowned supplier to the automotive industry.
This research lies within the Sustainable Design Research Centre’s Tribology theme. This research aims to understand friction, wear, and corrosion performance of electroplated nano-composite coatings especially with special focus in water lubricated mechanical components. These issues are of significant importance in terms of industrial applications. The proposed project will enhance reliability, durability and life cycle issues while incorporating sustainability aspects.
In order to carry this research forward SDRC has recently added a nano-coating facility to its leading research labs in Tribology, Corrosion, Nano-Coatings, Renewable Technology (Thermodynamics & Heat Transfer) and Sustainable Design.
General specifications of the new addition are provided here.
Control Interface
Straight DC and Choice of Low Frequency Pulse or High Frequency Pulse Output
If you have interests in this resource, research area or would like to know more about the research activities within SDRC please do contact.
Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)
Director SDRC
email: zkhan@bournemouth.ac.uk
Last week we pushed the Big Red Button (actually many big, yellow buttons) after many years of hard work preparing and finessing every last bit of the University’s submission to REF 2014. I first got involved with REF in late 2008 which seems like a distant memory now. HEFCE were consulting with the sector on bibliometrics and the role that citations should play in the REF which at that point still didn’t have a submission date. BU was lucky enough to be one of 22 institutions taking part in the bibliometrics pilot to test the reliability and validity of citations and ways of identifying authors and papers in the large publication databases, Scopus and Web of Science. There were a lot of meetings in London and so one of my first introductions to REF was standing on a cold, dark train platform at 6am with Anita Somner, waiting to get the train to one of the REF events! In December 2008 the RAE 2008 results came out and that prompted a series of RAE/REF roadshows – in essence Prof Nick Petford, the then PVC, and I visiting all Schools to talk about the RAE results and introducing people to REF and how it was likely to be different.
Then a lot of the central REF drive died down which on reflection was a shame but also inevitable. In 2009 all we knew about the next REF was that it would comprise outputs, environment and impact, but the key information about the assessment was still unknown. For example, we didn’t yet know what the role of citations would be and in which UOAs this would apply, we didn’t know how the impact element would be assessed, the weightings weren’t agreed, we didn’t know what the environment template would look like or what information would be required. With so much unknown it was very difficult to prepare anything other than for the outputs element and so the message given out was to concentrate on publications, getting them in the strongest outlet possible (we didn’t even know at this stage whether the number of outputs required per individual would be 3, 4 or 5!), and much of this work was driven from within the Schools.
Fast forward to 2010. We had a change of senior leadership at BU with Prof John Vinney becoming VC and Prof Matthew Bennett taking the strategic lead for RKE (officially becoming PVC in January 2011). There was still a lot undecided about REF; HEFCE had finished the bibliometrics pilot and were currently undertaking an impact pilot to test how best to assess this part of the REF. At BU the new leadership provided by John Vinney and Matthew Bennett kickstarted our central REF preparations. John established the REF Academic Steering Group in summer 2010 with a remit to take the strategic lead of BU’s preparations for REF. UOA Leaders were identified in the then 12 subject areas in which we were considering submissions and they formed the REF Academic Leadership Team. In the absence of templates or guidance from HEFCE we started work on the first drafts of the environment narratives and did the first trawl of outputs, inviting staff to submit up to four outputs for a light-touch review exercise that winter (282 individuals submitted a total of c. 1,128 outputs). In autumn 2010 HEFCE published the results from the impact pilot, including some good practice examples of what we then knew to be one of the submission templates – the impact case studies. Armed with this new information we undertook impact training with all of the Schools, using the infamous seatbelt example of how research can be undertaken and disseminated to achieve interim and then final impact and being informed by HSC that a reduction of the number of people killed in car crashes was actually a negative impact as there were less organs available for donation! I have provided this lovely linear example of impact for posterity. Around this time we also started to write up the first impact case studies, some of which evolved into the ones submitted last week. In 2010 HEFCE confirmed what the UOAs would be and released the first list of who would be on the sub-panels.
2011 was a good REF year! HEFCE confirmed in March how impact would be assessed in the REF and the official guidance document was finally released in June, providing us with something concrete on which to base our REF preparations. It was the year we employed Sally Gates as the Research Communications Manager, focusing specifically on REF with the remit of working with colleagues to write the impact case studies in earnest. We held the first of our HEFCE-supported REF events at BU attracting over 150 delegates from 39 institutions and speakers including the Deputy REF Manager Chris Taylor (HEFCE) and key academics involved in the impact pilot, including Prof James Goodwin (Age UK), Prof Peter Taylor-Gooby (University of Kent) and Prof Jim Griffiths (University of Plymouth). This not only gave us an insight as to what was required for this still-very-unknown impact element, but also raised the profile of BU as a research university. We held another mock exercise in winter 2011-12 to ask a selection of external reviewers to assess the draft environment narratives and impact statements.
I think it is fair to say that 2012 was a somewhat bizarre and full-on year, primarily due to the significant changeover in staffing but also because we were only a year from submission. The year started with HEFCE releasing the Panel Working Methods and Criteria – key documentation detailing what the panels expected to see in the submissions. This, along with the Guidance on Submissions published the previous year, became a lot of people’s bedtime reading for the next 23 months. Despite swearing not to do so again (!) in February we held another HEFCE-supported REF event, this time focusing on how each of the Main Panels will assess research, and attracted over 150 delegates from 32 institutions, again putting BU on the research map. We submitted the BU REF Code of Practice to HEFCE to the first of two possible opportunties and were pleased when it was approved first time (this wasn;t the case for a lot of other institutions). Becca Edwards joined us in April as Public Engagement Officer and was immediately keen to be involved in the impact element of the REF, showing how public engagement could be a route to impact. In the summer we held another mock exercise – this one focusing solely on outputs (265 individuals and c. 1,325 outputs). Then bizarrely the three key REF staff in the R&KEO had babies between September and December 2012, resulting in a changeover of staff supporting the preparations – Pengpeng Hatch replacing Anita Somner, Becca Edwards replacing Sally Gates and Rita Dugan replacing me. In December we responded to HEFCE’s Survey of Submission Intentions, a rough approximation of which UOAs we might submit to, how many staff, and the areas of the impact case studies. This information was used to determine whether additional expertise was required on the Sub-Panels.
And then we came to 2013 – the year of submission. Did we feel prepared? Kind of, although there was still an awful lot to do; in fact I would go as far to say that REF probably dominated most waking minutes of those closely involved on an increasing basis as the year progressed. The final mock exercise was held in spring 2013 (322 individuals and c. 1,610 outputs) and was a full exercise including assessment of outputs, environment narratives, impact statements and impact case studies. This was a huge amount of data to pull together and it was essential that it was undertaken well as the results, along with those from the exercise the previous year, would be used to determine staff selection decisions. I came back from maternity in the midst of the review meetings that followed the mock exercise, very much a baptism of fire back into the REF. Wherever possible we tried to emulate how the panels might assess the work in the real thing, for example, with a panel of research users assessing the impact case studies. After these meetings RASG met with UOA Leaders in a series of gruelling meetings in a very stuffy room in Christchurch House to go through each individual member of staff and their output scores, determining who’s outputs would be included in the final submission. These decisions were ratified by the VC in July, decisions were then relayed to staff and an appeals period ran during the summer. During this period we continued to get new outputs externally reviewed and considered, and had c. 100 new outputs assessed during this time. The summer saw the return of Sally Gates from maternity leave and she took on the responsibility for rewriting and finalising the impact case studies, by all accounts doing a fantastic job. In the autumn a huge amount of work went into finalising and finessing the environment narratives and impact statements, primarily involving the UOA Leaders, Profs Matthew Bennett and John Fletcher, Becca Edwards and myself. I know from personal experience that a lot of sleep was lost during this time and there were many iterations of the narratives written.
Tuesday 26th November, 9:30am – button pushing time. After checking, rechecking and checking the data again it was time to submit. The #ref2014 hashtag on Twitter had gone crazy with institutions posting that they had made their submissions and now it was BU’s turn. There were lots of submit buttons and they were all yellow – submit, validate, submit, declare and submit, submit, are you sure you want to submit?! We pressed them all and that was it – BU’s REF 2014 submission was sent to HEFCE only to be acknolwedged with a rather bland, system generated email confirming receipt of our submission. Sadly there were no fireworks or party poppers or massive thanks from HEFCE for all the hard work that went into preparing every last part of the submission. REF has involved hundreds of people from across BU – from the UOA Leaders to those academics who have produced outputs, won grant funding or supervised doctoral students, from the REF Circs Board to the REF Appeals Panel, from the RKE Ops and Graduate School staff who support research activity and checked the REF data, to the members of RASG – the REF submission is the culmination of everyone’s hard work over the past few years and for that reason I am immensely proud to have been involved. Roll on the results in December 2014!
And you may be surprise, amazed or even horrified to know that we have already started planning for REF2020…!
The December issue of The Practising Midwife included the slightly more theoretical article ‘Normal birth: social-medical model’.[1] The paper is written by Ms. Jillian Ireland, midwife and Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Union Learning Rep. at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Faculty at Bournemouth University in collaboration with BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.
The paper argues that someone’s perspective of birth is not simply semantic. Thus, whether a midwife describes her role as being ‘with woman’ through labour or as someone who ‘delivers’ women of babies does not just demonstrates a more or less currently politically correct description. No, it suggests having different perspectives or world views of pregnancy and childbirth. Sociologists recognise two different approaches as two different models, a social model and a medical model of childbirth. The social model stresses that childbirth is a physiological event that takes place in most women’s lives. The medical model highlights that childbirth is potentially pathological. In the latter view every pregnant woman is potentially at risk, hence she should deliver her baby in an obstetric hospital with its high-technology screening equipment supervised by expert obstetricians. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.
The Practising Midwife’s paper argues that having some understanding of the underlying sociological models of pregnancy and childbirth can help politicians, journalists, policy-makers, midwives, doctors, and new mothers (and their partners) to put issues around ‘normal birth’ into perspective. This paper builds on previous work by the second author on the medicalisation of childbirth and the social/medical model published in Sociological Research Online[2] and Midwifery.[3]
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
References:
1. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16(11): 17-20.
2. van Teijlingen, E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociological Research Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
3. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.
For further details or inquiries please contact
Dr Zulfiqar Khan
Director SDRC
Twenty members of the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education (CoPMRE) Visiting Faculty met in Royal London House on 26th November 2013. Professor Paul Thompson updated the group on progress with innovation pathways discussed at the recent CoPMRE symposium (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2013/10/22/copmre-tenth-annual-symposium-2/), the newly formed Dorset Innovations Group, the NHS Innovations South West and the Wessex Academic Health Science Network. Kevin Brooks from the Wessex Health and Innovation Cluster (HEIC) discussed potential for tapping into these innovation initiatives.
Dr David Coppini, Consultant Physician from Poole Hospital, presented his work on neuropathy in patients with diabetes, and his idea to develop technology that will help patients self-diagnose neuropathy. Professor Emma King, Consultant Head and Neck Surgeon at Poole Hospital, discussed her work on the immunology of orophayngeal cancers. Jo Garrad from RKEO demonstrated the merits of using BU’s publication management system BRIAN, and how easy and useful it is for presenting work to the world.
All round a fantastic morning. For more information contact Audrey Dixon.
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Conversation article: London Marathon – how visually impaired people run
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Horizon Europe News – December 2023