Category / open access

BU BMC paper followed up by BMC Series Blog

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

media childbirthOur latest paper in the international journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth published late last month was highlighted yesterday in a BMC Series Blog.[1]  The blog post reminds us that the media plays an important role in providing the general public with information about a range of issues, including pregnancy and childbirth. The visual media, such as television, can provide planned information (education), for example in documentaries, advertising and the news.  Our paper “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media’ looked into how the representation of childbirth in the mass media affects childbirth in society as there is evidence to suggest that it can have a negative effect.  BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth is an Open Access journal therefore the paper is freely available for anybody across the globe with an internet connection, for access click here.

interdisciplinary-1Our paper is great example of interdisciplinary research, as celebrated at the forthcoming Interdisciplinary Research Sector Day on June 21st (see here).  The authors of our paper combine expertise in media studies, midwifery, sociology and health services research.   Moreover, it involved collaborations across universities (Bournemouth and Stirling) and within BU across faculties, namely the Faculty of Media & Communcation and the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences.

 

Ann Luce, Marilyn Cash, Vanora Hundley, Helen Cheyne, Edwin van Teijlingen & Catherine Angell

 

Reference:

  1. Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0827-x

 

New BU multidisciplinary media & health paper out today!

BU research, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

media childbirth

Today saw the publication “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media, a paper which is truly interdisciplinary, both in terms of its authorship as well as its topics[1]. The lead-author, Dr. Ann Luce is based in the Faculty of Media & Communication, whilst her BU co-authors Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr. Marylin Cash are all associated with the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. Prof. Helen Cheyne, the only non-BU co-author, is based at the University of Stirling.

The paper is a scoping review to assess the influence media have on pregnant women. Much of the academic literature discusses the influence of (reality) television, which often portrays birth as risky, dramatic and painful.  Although many claim that the portrayal of childbirth has a negative effect on society, there is little research evidence to support this claim. It has been suggested that women seek out such programmes to help understand what could happen during the birth because there is a cultural void through the increasing anticipation of negative outcomes. However the impact that has on normal birth has not been explored.  Our paper highlighted three key themes: (a) the medicalisation of childbirth; (b) women using media to learn about childbirth; and (c) birth as a missing everyday life event.  The key conclusions are the media appear to influence how women engage with childbirth. The dramatic television portrayal of birth may perpetuate the medicalisation of childbirth, and last, but not least, portrayals of normal birth are often missing in the popular media. Hence midwives need to engage with television producers to improve the representation of midwifery and maternity in the media.

BMC cover media

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth is an Open Access journal so our paper is freely available to researchers, journalists, childbirth activists as well as pregnant women anywhere in the world.  This paper builds on a growing number of academic papers published by staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the role the media play in health and midwifery, both in the UK [2-3] and in Nepal [4-6].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1.  Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40
  2. Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.
  3. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
  4. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2012) Media use for Health Promotion: Communicating Childhood Immunisation Messages to Parents. Journal of Health Promotion 4(1): 1-9.
  5. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2013) Childhood Immunisation in Nepal: Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour & implications for Health Policy. Health Science Journal 7(4):370-383.
  6. Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health. In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.

New NHS article by BU Visiting Faculty Minesh Khashu

open access, Publishing

FileLaptopImageDataManagement-1024x1024Minesh Khashu (BU Visiting Faculty and clinician in Poole Hospital) and Jeremy Scrivens published their third instalment of a series of online papers on the NHS.  This contribution is called ‘Can We Heal an Ailing Healthcare System? Part 3’.  They deep dive into this idea of transformation through a strengths-based approach.   They consider how we can build an NHS Social Movement by bringing the whole system together to inquire into and extend NHS’s Positive Core.  The blog (online paper) can be accessed here!

For more information you can also follow the two authors on Twitter: Minesh Khashu(@mkrettiwt) & Jeremy Scrivens (@jeremyscrivens)

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

What is Open Access?

Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open-Access-logo

Open access is about making the products of research freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increased use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.

There are two complementary mechanisms for achieving open access to research.

The first mechanism is for authors to publish in open-access journals that do not receive income through reader subscriptions.

The second is for authors to deposit their refereed journal article in an open electronic archive.

These two mechanisms are often called the ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to open access:

  • Gold – This means publishing in a way that allows immediate access to everyone electronically and free of charge. Publishers can recoup their costs through a number of mechanisms, including through payments from authors called article processing charges (APCs), or through advertising, donations or other subsidies.
  • Green – This means depositing the final peer-reviewed research output in an electronic archive called a repository. Repositories can be run by the researcher’s institution, but shared or subject repositories are also commonly used. Access to the research output can be granted either immediately or after an agreed embargo period.

Article first published – http://www.hefce.ac.uk/rsrch/oa/whatis/

To encourage all academic communities to consider open access publishing, Authors Alliance has produced a comprehensive ‘Understanding Open Access‘ guide which addresses common open access related questions and concerns and provides real-life strategies and tools that authors can use to work with publishers, institutions, and funders to make their works more widely accessible to all.

To access and download the guide, please follow this link – http://authorsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Guides/Authors%20Alliance%20-%20Understanding%20Open%20Access.pdf

For any other open access related queries, please do get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk) at RKEO.

Mental health & maternity care in Nepal: THET-funded training

BU research, international, open access, Research news, Uncategorized

group work NawalparasiIMG_6649

A few days I posted a short report of our first session as part of the THET-funded project ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’, see this previous post here.  Yesterday we completed the final third day training of the first session of this BU-led project.  Over three days we had 70 ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) in attendance, which we think is (nearly) all such staff based in all birthing centres in the district (=province).  The three days were the same, i.e. each session was repeated twice so each day one third of the ANMs could attend, and two-third could be at work in the birthing centre ensuring women could deliver safely.

logo THETAs part of this project we send UK volunteers (health and/or education) experts to Nepal to offer high quality training in areas where it is most needed.  Further detail on this BU-led THET project can be found in our scientific paper Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal  published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology available through Open Access.  Mental illness is still very much a taboo topic in Nepal as it has often a serious stigma attached to it.  Moreover, the relatively short training of ANMs is often fairly basic and the national curriculum does not cover mental health issues in any detail.  This joint project between Bournemouth University, Liverpool John Mooores University, Tribhuvan University and the local charity Green Tata Nepal addresses issues about mental health in general and in pregnant women and new mothers in particular.  Tribhuvan University is the oldest university in Nepal and one of the ten largest universities in the world (based on student numbers).  The project is multi-disciplinary involving midwives, (mental health) nurses, and doctors as well as global health researchers, educationalists and sociologists.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

FOSTER e-learning resources on open science and open access in Horizon 2020 now freely available

open access

Open-Access-logoThe European project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) aims to establish mechanisms for researchers to embed open sciences in their daily workflow, thus supporting them to optimize their research visibility and impact and comply with the EU open access policies.

Two of the current courses are particularly relevant for BU staff:

  • Introduction to open science: provides a general introduction to the various components and philosophies of open science including why open science is essential to rigorous, reproducible and transparent research, as well as to future research evaluation criteria focused on societal impact. This is relevant to anyone undertaking research.
  • Open access to publications in Horizon 2020: provides information on how to adhere to the H2020 mandate by depositing publications in open access and therefore ensuring they are freely available. This is relevant to anyone currently working on a Horizon 2020 research project and anyone considering applying to Horizon 2020.

These resources are freely available from the FOSTER website.

“Open science does not equal open access” – so what is it then?

open access

open science principlesOpen science is the movement to make scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional. It incorporates open access publishing as a key principle, alongside open data, open source, open methodology, open peer review and open educational resources. Examples of movements within open science include citizen science (whereby research is conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists) and open data (data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control). There is an excellent introduction to open science available here: what, exactly, is open science?

open science does not equal open access The open science movement is gaining momentum. Some research funders, such as the UK Research Councils and European Commission for example, now have mandates in place to enforce open access publishing and open data sharing as a requirement of receiving their funding. The RCUK public engagement strategy states the UK Research Councils will support collaborative and co-produced research (e.g. citizen science, community engagement and social participation) and the councils have funded a number of open science research projects, for example, EPSRC funded UCL’s ‘Extreme’ Citizen Science (ExCiteS) project and AHRC funded Oxford’s Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

A substantial and growing number of researchers are now embedding the principles of open science in how they design and conduct research. Dr Michael Pocock, an ecologist at CEH NERC, for example, is a keen advocate of open science and has led several citizen science projects with the aim of collectively undertaking hypothesis-led research. He has authored these excellent slides – Real science and real engagement: the value of citizen science.
openscienceThe European-funded project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) aims to establish mechanisms for researchers to embed open sciences in their daily workflow, thus supporting them to optimize their research visibility and impact. The project has created an excellent resource bank that provides a general introduction to the various components and philosophies of open science including why open science is essential to rigorous, reproducible and transparent research, as well as to future research evaluation criteria focused on societal impact.

The Open Science Federation website is an excellent source of information and inspiring ideas of how to embed open science into your research. There is an open science Twitter account if you want to keep up to date with open science information from around the world – @openscience.

If you are interested in building open science principles into your next research project, then speak with your Research Facilitator.

Sources of Government Open Data as potential research material

open access

During yesterday’s Fusion Curriculum meeting there was a brief discussion about sources of open data.

There are an increasing number of open data sets offering an almost unlimited scope for data analysis and data mash-up.  Data is downloadable in common formats and in some cases it is possible to create visualisations on the fly from the host website.

Here are three sites that you might like to explore:

Country URL Datasets Jan 16
UK Government Open Data https://data.gov.uk/data/search                      26,122
US Data.gov http://catalog.data.gov/dataset                   191,487
EU Open Data Portal https://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/                        7,894

There are many more data sets available to BU both under subscription and as open access.  To discuss in more detail please contact your LLS Faculty Liaison Team.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, open access, R & KE Operations

Welcome back!

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information. Money Bear Funding

 

EPSRC

Pilot call: Access to the Research Data Facility (RDF) for UK researchers

EPSRC have recognised the need to store active computational data and to be able to use this data for further scientific benefit, so are looking at giving access to storage on the national Research Data Facility (RDF).

This call is for applicants within the remit of RCUK but performing research outside of the remit of EPSRC and NERC. The total amount of storage available for this pilot call is 1000TB.

deadline dates:

Technical assessment : 29th January

Closing date: 12th February

 

Marine Renewable Energy KE Fellow call

NERC invites proposals for a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship in the area of marine renewable energy. NERC is seeking to invest in a suitably qualified academic to broker links between the academics and businesses within the UK marine renewable energy community, as well as with relevant regulators and policymakers.

Applicants should outline their own approach to a programme of work in the marine renewable energy sector. Further guidance on this opportunity is at the foot of this page along with instructions on how to submit the application via Je-S.

deadline dates:

17 March 2016 at 16:00

 

Philip Leverhulme Prizes

Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising. This call is repeated once a year.

deadline dates:

16 May 2016 at 16:00

 

Artist in Residence Grants

These awards support the residency of an individual artist in a UK university or museum in order to foster a creative collaboration between the artist and the staff and/or students of that institution. The term ‘artist’ encompasses visual artists, creative writers, musicians, poets and other producers of original creative work.

The scheme brings an artist into a research and study environment where their artistic form or creative art is not part of the normal curriculum or activities of the host department. There must be a distinct contrast between the artist and host department’s expertise (for example, a poet being hosted by a physics department, a composer by a geography department). It is not the objective of the residency to provide additional teaching capacity for the host department. An artist may not apply directly – all applications must be made by the host institution.

Applications open on 8 April 2016. The closing date is 4pm on 8 September 2016

 

Joint Call of the JPI Urban Europe, supported by the European Commission

JPI Urban Europe’s fourth call – the ERA-NET Cofund Smart Urban Futures (ENSUF) – supported by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme, is open.

Three call topics are defined:

  • Concepts and strategies for smart urban transformation, growth and shrinkage
  • New dynamics of public services
  • Inclusive, vibrant and accessible urban communities

deadline date (pre-proposals):

15 March 2016 at 12:00 Central European Time

 

 

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline.

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

 

Open Access publishing discussion at EU

BU research, EU, open access, Publishing, Research news

EU Open Access 2015The European Commission held a workshop in October about alternatives to Green and Gold Open Access publishing.  The presentations held at this workshop are freely available online, click here.  Discussions included questions such as: how might these alternatives work, how they have evolved, whether they work well, and what challenges they don’t manage to tackle. This report synthesises the presentations and discussions from the workshop.   For more details see: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/report-workshop-alternative-open-access-publishing-models

Open-Access-logo

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Latest co-creation paper hot off the press! Study investigated the mechanism of spinal manipulation.

BU research, open access, PG research, Publishing, Research themes

Does cervical lordosis change after spinal manipulation for non-specific neck pain? A prospective cohort study

C-spine QF image for Chiro and Man Therapies

The mechanism for spinal manipulation in the treatment of pain is unknown. One mechanism proposed in the literature is that neck pain might be alleviated by changing or ‘correcting’ the alignment of the cervical spine (normal is considered to be a lordosis or lordotic curve – curving in towards the body). We decided to put this idea to the test in an undergraduate student project at AECC. Mike Shilton, a third year chiropractic student at the time, measured the angle of the cervical spine on x-ray images taken of patients and healthy volunteers that I had recruited for my PhD research. In that research, briefly, patients received spinal manipulation over 4 weeks, while healthy volunteers did not. Both groups had motion x-rays taken at baseline and 4-week follow-up. By using the first static image of each motion sequence we were able to investigate whether the cervical spine alignment or lordosis changed in the patient group, and whether such changes were greater than that in the healthy group not receiving treatment.

For the statistical analysis Mike was assisted by another student, Bas Penning de Vries. After the study it was proposed to the two students, by me and Professor Alan Breen, that they have a go at writing up the study for publication, with our assistance of course. Happily, they decided to do so. It might have been at times a painful process for them (most worthwhile things seem to be!), but they persevered and now it is published in a peer-reviewed open access journal! A great achievement for them, a publication already as they begin their clinical careers.

This co-created paper was a valuable exercise for the two undergraduate students, getting to learn about the research process, statistical analysis, publication and dissemination. An obvious benefit of co-creation to academics is that the workload of a project is spread throughout a larger team, albeit the students require support -but the time invested in that support should pay off. For instance, Mike and Bas  brought a fresh perspective to the team, posing well considered questions and suggestions that could be taken on board to improve the robustness of my own work and lines of argument. And of course, we now have a publication that would have taken much longer to get to press had I not had their assistance in writing it. In other words, with co-creation, everyone stands to gain.

Dr Jonny Branney