Category / Guidance

BRIAN training sessions in October

Guidance

BRIANWith new academics, a new version BRIAN and the new Staff Profile Pages (SPP), it is a good time to invite you to a 1 hour training session on BRIAN and SPP on Wed 9 October 13.  The session is suitable for new and more experienced users.

We are hosting 4 sessions, 2 at each campus:

Lansdowne: 10:30 and 11:30 in EBG02

Talbot: 14:00 and 15:00 in CG21

If you would like to attend and have not already indicated this, please send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk with your preference.

If you cannot attend these sessions, don’t worry, we will arrange more sessions in the future as required.

In the interim don’t forget there is online documentation for the new BRIAN version.

Already know BRIAN well?

If you have a good knowledge of BRIAN, please consider becoming a local expert so that you can offer help and assistance to colleagues with queries about BRIAN.  We are looking for a representative in each school to act as a local point of contact.  If this is something that appeals to you, please contact us at BRIAN@bournenouth.ac.uk.

 

 

Coming soon – new staff profile pages

Guidance

BRIANWe are pleased to be able to announce that the new staff profile application should be released next week.

There are staff profile pages for all academic staff and some other staff including a number of PGRs.  The staff profile pages are the method we use to expose information from your BRIAN profile to the wider world.  As such it is an important platform to explain who you are, what you have done and what you are currently working on.

The current staff profile page application has been problematic.  The chief complaint has been that some publications do not appear in the profile and those that do are sometimes not correctly categorised.

We have worked with the development team in IT to create a new application that remedies these faults and also provides pages that look crisp and professional.

There are many benefits from the new pages.  For example, the pages allow for much improved searching including partial matches and ‘did you mean?’ functionality.  Users can also search for anyone linked to a research theme or keyword.  Searches can be undertaken for publications.

We plan to migrate to the new pages next week.  We just have some final tweaks to finish before the application is fully ready and the launch can be scheduled.

Other than ensuring your BRIAN profile is up to date and complies with the minumim content suggestions, there is nothing that BRIAN users need to do.

We will explain some of the other benenfits of the new pages in following posts.

BRIAN update completed successfully

Guidance

BRIANYesterday’s upgrade of BRIAN was completed successfully.  The system is now fully usable.

Updated guides and videos will be available soon.  In the interim, if you have any queries, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Details of grants can now be recorded in BRIAN.  This document explains how to manage grant information: BRIAN – Managing grants – Sep 13

The research themes have been updated too.  As a result, there is a new theme available ‘Ageing, Society and Dementia’ which you may wish to add to your profile, if applicable.  It would be good if you could check your choice of research themes in BRIAN to ensure they still reflect your interests.

We are now working on the release of the new staff profile pages and will tell you more about this shortly.

BRIAN being upgraded today

Guidance

BRIANA quick reminder that BRIAN is being upgraded today.  The upgrade starts at 10.00 so please do not use the application after that time today. 

The work is scheduled to take most of the day.  We expect BRIAN to be available tomorrow morning.

 

 

Upgrading BRIAN on Monday 23rd September

Guidance

BRIANBRIAN will be upgraded on Monday 23rd September.  This upgrade beings a new look and feel to BRIAN with a vibrant red banner to emphasise the many changes and improvements. 

This message is for information.  There is nothing you need to do.  All of the existing data will be transferred as part of the upgrade.

Please do not log into BRIAN on Monday 23rd.  In preparation for the upgrade, please do not make any changes to the data in BRIAN after Sunday as doing so may mean your changes are lost. 

There are some configuration changes to be made to add the grant component and research areas, and checks to be performed so please do not log into BRIAN until Tuesday 24th.

At the same time as we have been preparing for the BRIAN upgrade, we have been developing the new Staff Profile Page application.  This will be a major improvement on what we have today.  More on this next week once BRIAN has been updated.

The importance of keeping your job title up to date

Guidance

It is important to maintain your job title because this information is used in your external profile page.   If you have no job title in the system the external profile page will show ‘n/a’ which is not very helpful.  There are 88 profiles that show ‘n/a’ as the job title. 

If you do not currently have a job title, please take a moment to add one.  If you have changed role recently, please ensure your job title is up to date.

Job titles are maintained using the facility on the intranet home page to ‘Update your contact details’.  From here, you can open the Contact Details Editor screen.  On the Contact Details Editor screen, the lowest field, ‘Title’, holds your job title.  Add a job title or amend the existing entry if required and click on Update.

If you have any queries, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

PS.  If your title (eg Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor etc) is incorrect, you will need to email HREnquiries@bournemouth.ac.uk to request a change.

Don’t get left behind with the new BU Research Themes

Guidance, Research themes

BRIAN

As posted by Matthew Bennett yesterday, the Research Themes have changed.  Information about the changes to each Research Theme can be found here.

Research Themes are captured on BRIAN and so it is important to ensure you are still linked to the correct theme(s) in BRIAN when the new version is released later this month. 

Over the next week, we will be emailing users affected by the revision to the themes to confirm which of the new themes are most relevant to them.  We will map those affeced across to the new themes.  If the new theme is no longer relevant then we will inform them how to change this.

If you don’t already identify any research themes in your BRIAN profile, this is a good chance to add that information.  The new Staff Profile Pages, which will go live in October, will be based around Research Themes and so it is important that you have identified at least one.

See the new ‘Expressions of interest’ feature in action

Guidance

Research Professional logoFollowing on from my blog post this week, Research Professional will be giving an online demonstation of their new ‘Expressions of interest’ functionality and how it can benefit you.

This will take place on Wednesday 11th September at 11.30 AM BST (UK). The session is open to anyone at a subscribing institution (this includes BU), and you can register at the link below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/481929816

Expressions of interest allow users to register their interest in a funding opportunity on the site, either to make research staff aware of their intention to apply, or to advertise their interest to potential internal collaborators.

How to create the perfect profile

Guidance

BRIAN

The academic profile in BRIAN can hold a wide range of information about professional activities, publications and (shortly) grants.  As the information in BRIAN is used to populate the profile page which is available to anyone on the web, it is important that there is a minimum set of information that everyone maintains.  This minimum set of information will ensure that everyone’s academic profile contains entries for the same types of data, ensuring a consistent level of information across all profiles within the University.

The profile pages are displayed whenever anyone from inside or outside the University seeks information on a member of academic staff.  The external viewers include other academics who may be seeking collaboration partners, potential students, commercial enterprises investigating research or enterprise possibilities etc.  It is particularly important that those who are potentially being put forward for the REF have full external profiles.

To attain the minimum standard that has been defined for BRIAN, please ensure you have entries in the following areas.

  • Biography
  • Research theme
  • Keywords
  • Qualifications
  • Publications

In line with the new version of BRIAN, we have prepared a document ‘BRIAN – Minimum data requirements‘ containing examples of the information required.  This is especially relevant for the biography where recent examples of engaging biographies demonstrate what can be achieved.

Once the new version of BRIAN is deployed, we will add some more areas to the minimum standard.  These are:

  • Research
  • Grants
  • Photograph

In the new version of BRIAN, you will be able to maintain your photograph yourself.

Academic staff are encouraged to go beyond this minimum level and to record and maintain as much of their academic lives in BRIAN as possible.  We encourage you to use BRIAN as a living academic CV and to ensure that your research information and publications are always up to date.

There is no need to delay in adding and updating your information in BRIAN.  All the information you add to the current version of BRIAN will be carried across to the new version at the end of the month.

At last! Grant records on BRIAN

Guidance

BRIANAnother feature of the new version of BRIAN, when it is released later this month, will be the ability to record details of grants.

What makes a grant suitable for inclusion in BRIAN?  Well, it must have been awarded but you can include those that have been completed.  It is advisable to only include grants that are significant such as those from prestigious funders, of significant value, etc.  Courses and conferences are not suitable and so should not be included. 

The reason for the above is that the grant information that you put into BRIAN will be displayed in the new staff profile pages (live in October). 

Another useful feature is that you can mark a grant as a favourite.  Grants marked in this way appear on the home page of your external profile and have increased visibility.

Grant information can be added to BRIAN in the same way as you add publication or professional activity information.   The mandatory information required to enter a grant consists of: PI name, project title, funder name, start and end date, value and status (awarded, in progress or completed).  Other information can also be captured.  Grants can be linked to other BU staff and also to your publications.

More guidance will be provided at the launch of the new version of BRIAN.  In the interim, please give some thought to any grants that would be suitable for your BRIAN profile.

Using BRIAN to record your research activity

Guidance

BRIANWhen the new version of BRIAN is released later this month, a new Research field will be included.

The research field is intended to be used to capture information on your research projects, themes, areas of interest etc.  Use this field to provide up to date information on your current activities and future plans such as conference presentations, attendance etc.

It is important that you update your research information on a regular basis to ensure your profile page contains the most recent information.  Bi-weekly/weekly updates are ideal.  The research information will appear on the front page of the new staff profile pages so it will be easily visible outside BU.

The maximum number of characters for this information is 2,000.

Here is an example of how a research entry could look:

I am currently conducting a research study examining the use of digital imagery in news reporting during times of crisis.

My most recent book, Great Expectations, was published by Chapman and Hall, in June 2013.

My overseas work is largely based in Peru where I am involved in the evaluation of a community-based project funded by Amantani.  This involves connecting communities, and in particular, school aged children with global changes.  I will be visiting Lima and Arequipa in October ’13 to continue with my research and hope to establish a network with Guayaquil in Ecuador.

I am organising a conference to be held on 13th November 2013 on the ‘Transparency and accountability of journalism’.  Applications for papers to be submitted will be open on 1st October.  More details can be found here: www.journo.conf@BU.ac.uk

If you are interested in journalism in countries in conflict then please contact me for potential collaboration opportunities at joe.bloggs@BU.ac.uk

If you have time in the next couple of weeks, please prepare your research entry so that it can be pasted into BRIAN when the new Research field becomes available.

New look BRIAN

Guidance

When the new version of BRIAN is released on 23 September 2013, you will notice several improvements in the look and feel of the application.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BRIAN continues to provide information on your publications and professional activities,  With the new version, we will also be introducing the ability for you to enter information on significant grants that you have won.  Look out for more information on grants on Wednesday.

The new BRIAN homepage includes a new navigation menu on the left side of the screen.  The My Profile options presents the information in BRIAN in a CV format and importantly includes the ability to upload and maintain your own profile picture.  You will only be able to upload one picture at a time but you can change your profile pictures as often as you wish. Explore allows you to search the information in BRIAN and save searches for re-use.

We will be showcasing some of the new features of BRIAN in a series of posts this week.  We will also be organising some training in BRIAN on both campuses in early October to help any new or existing BRIAN users get to grips with the application and how it can help you.

If you have any comments, feedback or items you would like us to feature on the blog, please contact us at BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tomorrow we will explain the changes being made to the recording of your current research activities in BRIAN.

Great potential for cross-School collaboration

Guidance

At BU, we subscribe to Research Professional, which enables you to find out what funding opportunities are available as soon as they’ve been published by the funder.  Research Professional have just launched a new ‘Expressions of interest’ feature which allows you to register your intent to apply for a funding opportunity.

You may think, what’s in it for me?  Well, this feature will list all users from BU who have already expressed interest in the call, which opens up the potential for cross-Collaboration of Schools.  It can also show you the possible level of demand from BU for a call and will be particularly useful when a call has a quota for each institution.  This will allow us to see who may apply and put in place processes to deal with quota calls (there may be a need for internal peer review if BU are only allowed to submit one application).

It couldn’t be easier to use either.  When viewing a funding opportunity you will find the “Express interest” button in the right column and just simply click this.  Clicking on this button will display your name in the right-hand column. This will be visible to other users at your institution, alongside a contact button allowing them to email you. All users from your instituion who have expressed interest in the funding opportunity will be listed here.

 

 

 

 

 

Expressions of interest will also be listed in the ‘Our institution’ section.  On our institution home page, you will find the ‘Expressions of interest’ tab.  Here you will be able to see the funding opportunities you have expressed interest in, as well as any expressions of interest from others at your institution, listed in chronological order.  Each Group has its own ‘Expressions of interest’ tab, listing expressions of interest made by members of that Group.

If you wish to revoke your expression of interest, view the relevant funding opportunity in the ‘Funding section’.  The ‘Express interest’ button will have changed to a ‘Revoke interest’ button.  Clicking this button will remove your expression of interest; it will no longer be displayed either on the opportunity itself or in the ‘Our institutin’ section.

First Impressions

Guidance, News from the PVC

Let’s face it when BRIAN was launched last year the staff profile pages, which drew information from it and were written in something called VIVO, were less than satisfactory!  Lots of technical problems with the input data from BRIAN and its presentation was not up to BU’s normal standard.  You expressed your concerns in no uncertain terms and we have now put it right.  Working with academic colleagues IT and M&C have worked hard over the summer to construct a completely new interface, not in an obscure computer code but in something we can maintain and evolve easily ourselves.  They have done a brilliant piece of work, so BRIAN has a new set of external clothes and they rock!

After all, first impressions count and the staff pages are a crucial portal through which we present our academic achievements and expertise; and in reverse it is a lens for the world to view and search the wonderful talent that exists here at BU.  The new pages go live at the start of October 2013; they are finished and ready but there is an upgrade to BRIAN due in September which needs to be installed first.

 The improvements include:

 –       A more professional look and feel

–       The opportunity to showcase selected publications

–       Users can upload their own photo (via BRIAN)

–       Improved searching by name, keyword

–       Closer integration with the research themes

–       Fixing the technical problems we have experienced

Since we have developed this interface ourselves here at BU we can develop it further and continue to respond to your feedback.  The BRIAN team are managing the development of the replacement.  If you would like to know more about the project, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

 The staff profile pages will continue to use data drawn from BRIAN so please keep updating your content in BRIAN since a profile is only as good as the input!  There should be no impact on staff during the switch to the new pages, although there may be minor disruption to the availability of the profile pages during the transition.  Let me know what you think of the new pages?

Upgrading BRIAN

Guidance

In line with our commitment to provide applications that meet users’ and the University’s needs, we will be upgrading BRIAN next month.

The upgrade is scheduled for 23rd September 13.  The upgrade contains a number of improvements.  These include:

–       New, more intuitive look and feel

–       Users can upload their own photos

Importantly for the University, the upgrade includes enhancements that are required for the REF submission due in November.

The upgrade of BRIAN is linked to a new version of the external staff profile pages.  More information on this will be available shortly.

The BRIAN team are managing the upgrade.  If you would like to know more, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

We will keep you posted on the upgrade and how it impacts users in the coming weeks.

Enabling access to UK HE research equipment

Guidance

What is equipment.data?

The development of equipment.data is funded by EPSRC in response to the need to improve visibility and utilisation of UK HE research equipment.

equipment.data has been established to provide a ‘shop window’ for all UK HE research equipment, supporting the need for greater accessibility and efficiency in the sector. So, if your research requires a mass spectrometer, rather than request funding for a new one, you can search the equipment.data database for a university near to you that has one and discuss options for its use.  This has the ultimate aim of fostering further research collaboration.

The database harvests published equipment datasets from institutions that have agreed to share their equipment data (under an open publishing license). It currently displays over 2500 items, both facilities and equipment, from 10 institutions, which includes BU.

A very easy to follow guide has been produced on how to use the equipment.data.ac.uk website. This provides simple steps on both accessing and contributing to the equipment and facilities database.

OK, how do I contribute?

If you want to add equipment to the database, please contact your DDRE in the first instance.  They will advise on what format needs to be used so that you can provide the information in order for it to be uploaded centrally.

Commitment to the future

By adopting a linked open data approach to data management and publishing, it is creating an infrastructure enabling greater opportunities for added value data aggregations in the future.

Developments are being shared with RCUK’s Gateway to Research team and the DCC with a view to exploring mutual benefits of data publishing, aggregation and standardising of publishing profiles in data management planning. Harmonised standards in open data will present many wider benefits moving forward, including the ability to very easily link information on large equipment items or facilities to their publications and grant details – think measuring impact for REF! It enables the creation of data rich informative web pages or informative apps without the need to create whole new datasets.

Following the signing of the Open Data Charter on 18 June 2013 by G8 leaders, members identified 14 high-value areas, including education, from which they will release data. With this commitment to open data there is a greater need to consider open publication of datasets and how best to publish in a way that will enable value to be achieved from it.

Comment on BU Blog leads to academic publication

Guidance, PG research, Publishing

Authorship differs between disciplines

Paper by Hundley et al. published 2013

Last year Prof. Matthew Bennett1 raised some interesting issues about academic authorship on this award-winning BU Blog.  Authorship is an issue that many academic colleague see as challenging.   On September 27th, 2012 two of us replied to this blog by adding some of our own observations on the web. 2   Having penned our online comments we discussed the issue with BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Padam Simkhada Senior Lecturer in International Health at ScHARR, University of Sheffield (www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/sections/ph/staff/profiles/padamsimkhada).  Between the three of us we came to the conclusion that the issue of academic authorship can be very confusing as well as tricky.

 

We discussed a wide-range of issues around academic authorship, including who should be an author and who should not be so, the order of authors, and that there are different conventions between different academic disciplines.  Being academic we rapidly came to the conclusion that there was a paper in this.  We drafted our ideas, searched the literature for other discussions on authorship, general guidelines on authorship, etc.   We wrote the paper and submitted it to the academic journal Health Renaissance; an Open-Access journal, which is freely available world-wide.  The editor liked it and published our paper ‘Academic authorship: who, why and in what order?’ this month as a guest editorial. 3

 

 

We would like to highlight that there are two separate messages in the publication of this paper.  The first message is about academic scholarship; some of our colleagues may find the content of this paper is a useful guide in deciding authorship order, or at least in helping to open the debate about who should be included as co-author and who is not eligible.  The second message is more about academic citizenship, namely that messages on the BU Blog and even comments in reply to other people’s messages may contain useful information to the wider academic community and should be taken further.  Our message here is don’t see the BU Blog as an end point, see it as a stepping stone to the wider academic world!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen*, Prof. Vanora Hundley* & Dr. Padam Simkhada**

* Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, HSC, Bournemouth University

** ScHARR, The University of Sheffield

 

References:

1.      Bennett, M. (2012) What’s in a list?, BU Research Blog, http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2012/09/27/whats-in-a-list/?utm_source=digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily

 

2.      Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2012) Response to What’s in a list?, http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2012/09/27/whats-in-a-list/#comment-17234

 

3.      Hundley, V., van Teijlingen,      E., Simkhada, P. (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11      (2):98-101  www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Download/vol-11-2/Page_99_101_Editorial.pdf

The Research Blog is on the Staff Intranet!

Guidance

Ever find yourself bumbling around trying to find a link to the Research Blog? Perhaps you delete your daily digests and when you want to re-access the blog you can’t seem to find it anywhere? Have no fear, the Research Blog now has its very own icon on the Staff Intranet, so you’ll never be lost again.