Category / PG research

This part of the blog features news and information for postgraduate research students and supervisors

Wanted: Book reviewers

PG research, Publishing, student research

 

Sociological Research Online one of the four BSA journals is constantly looking for new reviewers of books for its section on book reviews.  Every issue of Sociological Research Online lists the recently received books from a range of publishers.  Please spread this message to (junior) sociology colleagues and Ph.D. students in the discipline.  For many social science postgraduate students a book review can be a nice first publication, with the added benefit that reading the book can be helpful in their Ph.D. journey.  For the budding book reviewer we have written a short ‘how-to-do-a-book-review piece’ which can be found on the Sociological Research Online webpages: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/info/bookreviews.html

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, Bournemouth University

Book review editor Sociological Research Online

News from the Consumer Research Group: The CR@B is dead … long live the CRG!!

PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes

 

The newly renamed ‘Consumer Research Group’ (formally known as CR@B (Consumer Research @ Bournemouth) … but now rebranded!) held its second meeting last week which again brought together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University for lively discussions around the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research (over coffee and mince pies!).  The aim of the meeting was to begin to identify themes around which groups or clusters of consumer researchers could discuss potential collaborations and plan activities for the future.  From the meeting seven themes were initially proposed (see diagram above), and whilst these may initially remain fluid, they offer great opportunity for further discussion.  A notable outcome from this meeting was the variety of consumer research areas being explored at BU, and the number of potential linkages that could be made between different groups, across and between these themes, to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

The next meeting for the ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be 2-4pm on Wednesday 28th January in PG19.  Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting.  

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers.  If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

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

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

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

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

Creative ways to disseminate research findings: ‘Moving Stories – Moving On.’

PG research

Being new to the academic world I had naively thought that the only way to disseminate research findings was though conferences and publishing papers.  However, my eyes were opened when I attended a production by the Theatrescience Company in October.  A play was used as one of the means of sharing research findings of a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Using a range of qualitative methods the research investigated people’s experiences of being physically active in older age.  It was seeking to understand ‘what works’ from a group of older adults who were engaging in regular physical activity.

So on a mild autumn evening about 60 people filed into a room at the Knowledge Spa at Treliske Hospital, Cornwall (the home of the University of Exeter Medical School’s European Centre for Environmental and Human Health).  After a brief introduction we were treated to a one-off performance of verbatim script of excerpts of those interviewed.  It provoked a range of emotions from laugh out loud funny to tear-jerking sadness.  The depth of insight was immense and reminded me once again why I am enjoying my new career as a social scientist.  Interestingly, my sister (a local doctor in Cornwall) came away with a slightly different perspective.  Whilst she found it interesting, she felt it hadn’t equipped her any more in helping her work with patients to see them become more active.

The on-going challenge continues to see how we take these findings and turn them into practical strategies which really work.  We also need to consider how we can use different forms of representations (blogs, journal articles, theatre, lay summary documents etc.) so that the reach of our research can be as wide as possible.

What will I take away from this event?

I learnt two things from this production: Firstly, that I need to think bigger when wanting to share my research findings and secondly, remaining physically active as we age is so much more than trying to get people to achieve their 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week.  Being active is part of our life journey and will fluctuate depending upon seasons in our lives.  There is also a lot more research which needs to be done to help us understand physical activity across the life course!

Please see this link below for more of the project details: http://www.ecehh.org/research-projects/moving-stories/

Dr Cassandra Phoenix who led the research, is currently primary investigator for the ESRC Seminar Series ‘More of the same is not enough: New directions for research on ageing and physical activity’. Seminars are being held around the country until 2017. For further information see: http://seminars.ecehh.org

BU at the THE Awards 2014

PG research

 

The Bournemouth University and Poole Hospital research team who developed a medical device to make epidurals safer and more effective, were celebrating being shortlisted for the THE Awards 2014 in London last night.

The project was nominated for Outstanding ICT initiative of the Year and – although pipped to the post by the Open University – being shortlisted for an award of this calibre is an incredible achievement and honour.

BU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation Professor John Fletcher was at the ceremony. He said: “Congratulations to the NHS-BU team for being shortlisted. We were very worthy contestants.  I felt privileged and proud to share the evening with such a successful team.”

The nominated team at the awards ceremonyThe clinical project was initially proposed by the senior consultant anesthetist at Poole Hospital, Professor Mike Wee. The device was developed by Dr Neil Vaughan for his PhD, supervised by Professor Wee and Dr Venky Dubey. Dr Richard Isaacs – now at Southampton General Hospital – was also part of the research team. All four, pictured here, were at the awards ceremony, along with colleagues from across the university who have supported this innovative and important project.

Comedian Jack Dee hosted proceedings, sharing his unique and entertaining take on the Higher Education sector!

A full list of categories and winners can be viewed on the THE website. The event organisers also took over £9000 in donations for the Institute of International Education’s ‘Scholar Rescue Fund’; a charity that has led global efforts to rescue threatened scholars and students.

Congratulations to all nominees and winners and thank you to THE for such organising such a fabulous evening!

Image: (Top left clockwise) Dr Venky Dubey, Dr Neil Vaughan, Dr Richard Isaacs, Professor Mike Wee.

Developing ViRETS – A Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Chris Ramsey.

 

Title: Developing ViRETS – A Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 3rd December 2014

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

This research project aims to develop a Virtual Reality Eye-Tracking System (VIRETS), capable of displaying naturalistic viewing conditions with high ecological validity and large field of view (FOV) in order to investigate the effects on human gaze behaviour (including head movement) and how this could be advantageous when looking at methods for visual cognition experiments. Static, lab-based eye trackers (head-mounted or desk-mounted) are accurate and easy to calibrate. However, they have traditionally made use of single screen setups with a FOV which doesn’t provide realistic viewing conditions. Furthermore, the head of a participant often has to be restricted using a chin rest and/or bite bar, or, in the case of head-mounted eye-trackers, restricted to small movements, which prohibits naturalistic head movements.

While mobile eye-trackers bring eye-tracking research to real world scenarios, allowing for naturalistic head and eye movements and allowing for naturalistic viewing conditions, the method presents a number of limitations, such as lower frequencies and the possibility of dropped frames. Although video footage can be layered with gaze behaviour to show saccadic eye-movement in real scenes, data analysis has to be carried out offline and can be time consuming: Specifically, video footage must be inspected frame by frame, labelled and described in order to analyse what objects in the scene participants attend to. Furthermore using real-world scenarios make it difficult to control all the stimuli presented, making the interpretation of cause and effect relationships difficult.

ViRETS aims to address these concerns by combining realistic and immersive VR, head-mounted eye-tracking, motion tracking and the freedom of naturalistic head movement. By these means we’ll investigate how an increased FOV affects gaze behaviour, head movements and performance specifically in the context of visual search and navigation.       

We hope to see you there.

Congratulations to HSC student Mr. Jib Acharya

PG research, Publishing

HSC PhD student Jib Acharya presented the preliminary results of his thesis research in a poster presentation entitled “A Comparative Study on Nutritional Problems in Preschool Aged Children of Nepal”

The poster was accepted at the 3rd World Congress of Public Health Nutrition Conference in Gran Canaria,  Spain, 2014.

Mr. Acharya’s poster was displayed as a traditional paper poster but also a digital poster on television screens around the conference.  The thesis work is supervised in the School of Health & Social Care by Dr. Jane Murphy, Dr. Martin Hind and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.  The attendance of this conference was made possible due to the support of a Santander award.

Congratulations

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Breastfeeding research presented in Cornwall

Knowledge Transfer, PG research

Congratulations to Alison Taylor, senior lecturer in midwifery who presented preliminary findings of her PhD as keynote speaker last month at the Cornwall  Real Baby Milk conference.  Alison’s presentation ‘Women’s Breastfeeding Experiences – shared using video diaries’ was very well received.  Alison’s fieldwork has been supported by the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust , she received the first Tricia Anderson award in 2008. Founded in 1983, the Trust supports midwives and student midwives to undertake further education and to carry out projects designed to improve the care of mothers and babies.

More details on the conference can be found at:

http://realbabymilk.org/couldnt-make-real-baby-milk-cornwall-conference-last-month/

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

PG research, Publishing, student research

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

HSC research at RCM Conference this week

PG research, Publishing, student research

Research from staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was well represented at this week’s Royal College of Midwives Conference (RCM). The RCM Conference 2014 held in the International Centre Telford explore the theme Better Births: United in Excellence. At this midwifery conference HSC Dr. Sue Way chaired a session on ‘Perineal Care and the Management of the Second Stage’

Dana Colbourne, Postgradute student at Bournemouth University and midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust presented a poster with the title ‘PhD student Leading the way – A case study of a student midwife led postnatal clinic’.

Dr Stella Rawson, senior lecturer in midwifery presented her poster ‘Listening to Women: Exploring women’s experiences of being part of a student midwife’s caseload’.

Jan Stoziek, senior lecturer in midwifery and also Prof Doc student at the University of Portsmouth presented her poster ‘Mother’s Experience of Breastfeeding after Breast Cancer’.

Lesley Milne also presented a poster on the work around ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study’  with Prof. Padam Simkhada, HSC Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland, Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen,

Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

PG research

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre for the new academic year, that will be delivered by Justice Opara-Martins.

 

Title: Critical Review Of Vendor Lock-In And Its Impact On Adoption Of Cloud Computing

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 19th November 2014

Room: P302, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

Cloud computing offers an innovative business model for organizations to adopt IT services at a reduced cost with increased reliability and scalability. However organizations are slow in adopting the cloud model due to the prevalent vendor lock-in issue and challenges associated with it. While the existing cloud solutions for public and private companies are vendor locked-in by design, their existence is subject to limited possibility to interoperate with other cloud systems. In this seminar we will present a critical review of pertinent business, technical, and legal issues associated with vendor lock-in, and how it impacts on the widespread adoption of cloud computing. The talk in this seminar will reflect on the issues associated with interoperability and portability, but with a focus on vendor lock-in. Moreover, the talk will demonstrate the importance of interoperability, portability and standards applicable to cloud computing environments along with highlighting other corporate concerns due to the lock-in problem. The outcome of this seminar provides a foundation for future analysis and review regarding the impact of vendor neutrality for corporate cloud computing application and services. 

We hope to see you there.

PG Reseacher Development Programme – New Workshops

PG research

A number of workshops have now been added to the PG Researcher Development Programme for 2015.  Highlights include:

  • Peer Mentoring Training
  • Imposter Syndrome
  • Managing Pressure Positively
  • Developing Researcher Networks
  • Brand new to the Programme – Saying No Positively

To register for these and many more workshops, please log on to myBU Graduate School PGR Community and click on Programme of PG Researcher Development Workshops

BU 7th Annual Postgraduate Conference – Call for Abstracts

PG research

The BU 7th Annual Postgraduate Conference is a fantastic opportunity for postgraduate students to present their work via an abstract for oral presentation, poster or photo.

The submission deadline for all abstracts is Monday 10 November 2014. Find out more >>

The Conference will be held on:

Date: Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 January 2015
Venue: Allsebrook Lecture Theatre & The Retreat Talbot Campus

Alternatively, if you’d like to just attend please register online >>

We hope to see you there

Best wishes

The Graduate School team

Impact, outcome and research methods – HSC PhD student on LSE Impact Blog

PG research, Research assessment

With working at a university and the rise of the REF, you would have almost certainly come across the terms ‘impact’ and ‘outcomes’. Whilst there might be a great deal of similarity and overlap in the use of these terms, it is important to discuss the sometime subtle differences between ‘impact’ and ‘outcome’. What consequences might this have for the design of social research?

The health and social care literature uses these terms in a rather haphazard manner. The differences are rarely discussed and it can be suggested that many use the wrong terminology. In this blog post on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, relating to the field of information and advice on welfare issues, I briefly discuss and propose that there are fundamental differences between what an impact refers to and what an outcome refers to. Furthermore, I suggest that these differences are significant and profound enough to align each to opposing research methodologies.

These thoughts relate to the key areas of my PhD project with Elderly Accommodation Counsel (EAC) in London. EAC coordinates the FirstStop service which provides information and advice to older people (and other stakeholders) on housing and care issues. My research is focused on how older people use information and advice on housing and the wider impact that this has.

If anyone has an interest in this area, do get in touch!

 

Congratulations to PhD student Carol Richardson on getting a paper in The Practising Midwife

PG research, Publishing, student research

 

CMMPH PhD student Carol Richardson just had a paper accepted by the editor of The Practising Midwife.  Carol is a Bournemouth University clinical academic doctoral midwife based in Portsmouth.  She is part of a scheme jointly funded by BU and Portsmouth Hospital NHS trust (PHT).

Carol is also a Supervisor of Midwives, and her first paper ‘Chasing time for reflection’ relates to midwifery supervision.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
Bournemouth University