Category / Publishing

New BU publication on maternity care & culture in Afghanistan

Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Arnold on the acceptance by Social Science & Medicine (published by Elsevier) of the second paper based on her PhD on maternity care in Afghanistan [1].  This interesting ethnography explores the experiences, motivations and constraints of healthcare providers in a large public Afghan maternity hospital. Arnold and colleagues identify barriers and facilitators in the delivery of care. Under the surface of this maternity hospital, social norms were in conflict with the principles of biomedicine. Contested areas included the control of knowledge, equity and the primary goal of work. The institutional culture was further complicated by pressure from powerful elites. These unseen values and pressures explain much of the disconnection between policy and implementation, education and the everyday behaviours of healthcare providers.

Improving the quality of care and equity in Afghan public maternity hospitals will require political will from all stakeholders to acknowledge these issues and find culturally attuned ways to address them.  The authors argue that this notion of parallel and competing world-views on healthcare has relevance beyond Afghanistan.   The paper co-authored by (a) Prof. Kath Ryan, Professor of Social Pharmacy at the University of Reading and Visiting Professor in FHSS, and BU’s Professors Immy Holloway and Edwin van Teijlingen.

 

References:

  1. Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2018) Parallel worlds: An ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital, Social Science & Medicine 126:33-40. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.010.

 

BU Physiotherapy Programme Co-Creation Publication Success

Congratulations to Emily Dore-Smith (BU Physiotherapy Graduate 2018) and Dr Clare Killingback for their successful publication in Physical Therapy Reviews.

Their article entitled ‘What are the postoperative experiences of patients who have undergone hip and knee joint replacement? A literature review’ was accepted this week. This was based on work carried out through the Level 6 unit, Research for Physiotherapy Practice.

It’s great to see our students publishing so early in their career. Well done Emily!

To Catch A Predatory Publisher

I often wonder if other scientists wake up every morning to delete a deluge of spam messages from no-name journals and questionable conferences. Sometimes one of these emails will escape my extermination efforts and I end up reading it by accident. The invitations from so-called “predatory” publishers are so transparently fake and poorly written that a part of me finds their annoying overtures oddly amusing.

I realize that predatory publishing and phishing emails are not laughing matters. There has been an explosion of predatory publishers trying to con scientists out of their money. For a fee, these journals or books are just frothing at the mouth to publish your work collect your cash. Some may even invite you to serve on their “prestigious” editorial board, but this is just to lend an air of authenticity to their sham operation.

What separates a predatory publisher from a legitimate science publisher? Both charge you large sums of money for you to do all the work, but the latter employs a rigorous peer-review process that ensures the articles they publish have been properly vetted. Sting operations have revealed that predatory journals will publish absolute gibberish, proving they are phonies who just want to make fast cash. A recent sting operation involved the submission of a manuscript about midi-chlorians from Star Wars, written by Dr. Lucas McGeorge and Dr. Annette Kin. The fictional paper was accepted by four of these flimflam publications masquerading as a legitimate scientific journal.

In an effort to help root out some of these predatory publishers, I’ve compiled some of my favorite lines from the suspect emails I receive on a daily basis. I hope this helps people spot dubious publishers. The typos, spelling mistakes, and grammatical errors were left in place intentionally—exactly as they were sent to me. These types of errors represent a big red flag that a predatory publisher is stalking you. Please don’t take them as a sign that the PLOS editorial staff is sleeping on the job!

 

The Greeting That Proves They Have No Idea Who You Are

Fake journals will address you in unusual ways, or not at all! Some make no effort to conceal that they merely cut and paste your name into the slot of a form letter. Here are some examples I have received.

Dear Dr. WJ William J,

Dear ,

>Dear Dr.Jr WJ ,

Dear Dr. SULLIVAN,

Dear Dr. William J. Sullivan, Jr.1,2*,

Dear Dr. Jr,

Dear Dr. Jr William,

Dear Author,

Dear Researcher,

Dear Dr. Ferris (or someone else who is not me),

The opening is almost always followed by something like this:

“Greetings from the [PREDATORY] Journal!!!” or “Hope you are doing great!!” or “Hope our e-mail finds you well and in healthy mood.”

 

A New Type Of Sport:  Extreme Flattery

Reading these emails can be a big boost to your ego, but keep in mind that thousands of others received the same exact praise. I’ve been called “esteemed,” “brilliant,” “magnificent,” and the “leader in the field.” I should show these emails to my mom; fake or not, she’d be very proud to see her son put on such a high pedestal.

They also make our work out to be the greatest thing since the microscope:

“It’s your eminence and reputation for quality of research and trustworthiness in the field of [insert a field that usually has no relationship to mine whatsoever] and for which you have been invited to become an honourable editorial board member.”

“I am impressed by your quality work and I really value your contribution towards recent work.”

“We have gone through your papers and find it is a wonderful resource for upcoming works.”

“It would be our honour and great fortune if you will share your manuscript.”

“It is our immense pleasure to invite you and your research allies to submit manuscript.” (I call all of my collaborators my Research Allies now, and warn everyone that if you’re not with us, you’re against us).

Some of the spam even tries to reassure you that it is not spam. Although I don’t doubt the last sentence (in bold).

“This is not a spam message, and has been sent to you because of your eminence in the field. If, however, you do not want to receive any email in future then reply us with the subject remove /opt-out. We are concern for your privacy.

 

Smell the Desperation?

There is a palpable urgency in these invitations to get their hands on your work cash before someone else does…

“We consider Mini Reviews, Original Research/ Review Article, Case Reports, Short Communication, Conference Proceedings, Commentaries, Book Reviews etc.”

“[Our journal] publishes all kinds of papers in all areas of this field.”

“It is our immense pleasure to invite you to submit Research, Review, Mini review, Short commentary, Commentary, Case Reports, Methodologies, Systematic Reviews (or any type of article) for the upcoming issue of our journal.”

“We necessitate your plate of stuff in the frame of article.”

“We are in a deadly need of an article.”

 

The Closing That Is Too Close For Comfort

Emails from predatory publishers often close with more friendly compliments, with the hope that you will continue to provide them a constant research revenue stream…

“We look forward to a close and lasting scientific relationship for the benefit of scientific community.”

“Anticipating for a positive response!”

“Thank you and have a great day doctor!”

“Our journey is effectively heading.” (whatever that means)

And here are some of the more amusing ways they describe my anticipated work:

“We await your adorable paper.”

“Your paper will serve as a wave maker.”

“We aspire you also to be a significant part of our team by publishing your magnificent article.”

And one that is just plain baffling:

“For future anticipation to reach out scientific community we want your support towards the success of Journal.”

They may even try to get you to do their dirty work for them. I take the following sentence to mean that they want me to spread the word about their predatory journal and invite my colleagues to be suckered into submitting work to them as well:

“As this is an invited submission request, you can also suggest your colleagues.”

 

Some Final Warning Signs

Be wary of any inaugural issues or invitations that ask you to submit your paper through an email address.

These predatory publishers may also try to give you a false sense of the importance of their “journal.” One of these invitations boasted that “email newsletters are being circulated to 90,000+ subscribers.” All this tells me is that 89,999 other people received their unsolicited spam.

I’ve also noticed they are often willing to discount their publication fees if you send them something – “anything at all” – within seven to ten days. No legitimate journal expects you to whip up a quality article in that short a time.

Oh, and one more thing:  many of these emails have an excessive number of exclamation points!!!

I hope that you are now better equipped to catch a predator. If you still aren’t sure if your email invitation describes a bona fide journal or not, you can check Beall’s List of Predatory Journals and Publishers or see if the journal is indexed on PubMed. Here’s hoping that you don’t get fooled!!!

Originally posted on the 4th October 2017 – https://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2017/10/04/to-catch-a-predatory-publisher. Reposted here with permission.

Congratulations to FHSS Visiting Faculty

Congratulations to two members of Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Minesh Khashu and Jillian Ireland on the publication of their paper ‘Fathers in neonatal units: Improving infant health by supporting the baby-father bond and mother-father co-parenting ‘ which has been accepted this week by the Journal of Neonatal Nursing. [1]  Prof. Minesh Khashu is the lead Consultant Neonatologist and Jillian Ireland is Professional Midwifery Advocate and both are based at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

This position paper has been co-authored by a wide-range of international experts from The Family Initiative (based in London), Edith Cowan University in Australia, McGill University in Canada, Northwestern University in the United States of America, the University of Toulouse in France, Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, Lillebaelt Hospital in Denmark, the Scientific Institute IRCCS Eugenio Medea in Italy, the University of Melbourne in Australia and Bournemouth University.

This is second paper in this field by these BU Visiting Faculty members after the 2016 publication of a literature review. [2]

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

 

References:

  1. Fisher, D., Khashu, M., Adama, E., Feeley, N., Garfield, C., Ireland, J., Koliouli, F., Lindberg, B., Noergaard, B., Provenzi, L., Thomson-Salo, F., van Teijlingen, E. (2018) Fathers in neonatal units: Improving infant health by supporting the baby-father bond and mother-father co-parenting Journal of Neonatal Nursing (accepted).
  2. Ireland, J., Khashu, M., Cescutti-Butler, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2016) Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature, Journal of Neonatal Nursing 22(4): 171–176.

New BU publication disability & pregnancy

Two days ago the Open Access journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth published an important article on women with disabilities and their experiences with the maternity services when pregnant [1].  The new paper Dignity and respect during pregnancy and childbirth: a survey of the experience of disabled women’ has been co-authored by BU’s Dr. Jenny Hall (Centre for Excellence in Learning/CEL) and Prof. Vanora Hundley (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health/CMMPH) in collaboration with Dr. Bethan Collins (formerly of BU and now based at the University of Liverpool) and BU Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland (Poole NHS Foundation Trust). The project was partially funded by the charity Birthrights and Bournemouth University.

Women’s experiences of dignity and respect in childbirth revealed that a significant proportion of women felt their rights were poorly respected and that they were treated less favourably because of their disability. The authors argue that this suggests that there is a need to look more closely at individualised care. It was also evident that more consideration is required to improve attitudes of maternity care providers to disability and services need to adapt to provide reasonable adjustments to accommodate disability, including improving continuity of carer.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

Reference:

  1. Jenny Hall, Vanora Hundley, Bethan Collins & Jillian Ireland (2018) Dignity and respect during pregnancy and childbirth: a survey of the experience of disabled women, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, 18:328

Social Work, Precarity & Sacrifice as Radical Action for Hope

Congratulations to Professor Jonathan Parker on the publication of his latest article in the International Journal of Social Work & Human Services Practice. [1]   In this paper Professor Parker outlines the history and development of social work, primarily in the UK, in the context of uncertainty and ambiguity.  He suggests that in an age of increased precariousness, social work itself represents a precarious activity that can be misconstrued and used for political ends as well as for positive change. As a means of countering potentially deleterious consequences arising from this, the concept of sacrifice which is used to consider social work’s societal role as scapegoat on the one hand and champion of the oppressed on the other. The paper concludes that social work’s potential for developing and encouraging resilience and hope is indicated in the ‘sacrifices’ social workers make when walking alongside marginalised and disadvantaged people.

The paper is Open Access, meaning that anybody across the globe with internet access will be able to read it  free of cost.

 

Reference:

  1. Parker, J. ‘Social Work, Precarity and Sacrifice as Radical Action for Hope’, International Journal of Social Work and Human Services Practice Vol.6. No.2, 2018, pp. 46-55.

New BU migrants’ health publication

The Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health (Springer) just accepted the latest paper by former FHSS Ph.D. student Dr. Pratik Adhikary (photo). [1]  His latest paper ‘Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study’ is the fourth, and probably final, paper from his Bournemouth University Ph.D. thesis.  This latest paper is based on the qualitative part of the mixed-methods thesis, his previous papers focused more on the quantitative data. [2-4] 

Since this is a qualitative paper it also offers a more theoretical underpinning than the previous papers.  The work uses the dual labour market theory which associates labour migration specifically to the host economy as it explains migration from the demand side. Labour migrants from less developed economies travel to fill the unskilled and low-skill jobs as guest workers in more developed economies to do the jobs better trained and paid local workers do not want to do.  This theory also explains the active recruitment through labour agents in Nepal to help fulfil the demand for labour abroad, and it helps explain some of the exploitation highlighted in host countries. The theory also helps explain why lowly skilled migrant workers are often at a higher risk to their health than native workers . Similar to migrant workers from around the world, Nepali migrant workers also experience serious health and safety problems in the host countries including accidents and injuries.

The latest article will be Open Access in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health!

 

References:

  1. Adhikary P, van Teijlingen E., Keen S. (2018) Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health (First Online), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-018-0801-y
  2. Adhikary P., Keen S., van Teijlingen, E. (2011) Health Issues among Nepalese migrant workers in Middle East. Health Science Journal 5: 169-175. www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue3/532.pdf
  3. Adhikary, P., Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: Accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar and Saudi, Health Prospect 16(2): 3-10.
  4. Adhikary P, Sheppard, Z., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2018) Health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers abroad, International Journal of Migration, Health & Social Care 14(1): 96-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-12-2015-0052

Midwifery education article by Prof. Hundley

Congratulations to Prof. Vanora Hundley of FHSS on the publication of her ‘Editorial midwifery special issue on education: A call to all the world’s midwife educators!’ in Midwifery (Elsevier).  This editorial is co-authored by midwives Franka Cadée of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and Mervi Jokinen of European Midwives Association (EMA).  The editorial was written to accompany a Special Issue of the journal  focussing on midwifery education.  The Midwifery Special Issue addresses a wide range of topics from across the globe.  Whilst the editorial explores the challenges for midwifery educators from three different midwifery perspectives: (1) political; (2) academic ; and (3) professional association.

Congratulations to all three authors!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
Reference:
  1. Hundley, V., Cadée, F., Jokinen, M. (2018) Editorial midwifery special issue on education: A call to all the world’s midwife educators!, Midwifery 64: 122-123  

BU staff published in new book ‘Enhancing Employability in Higher Education through Work Based Learning’ by Palgrave Macmillan

‘Enhancing Employability in Higher Education through Work Based Learning’ has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan. Edited by Dawn Morley, formerly of BU and now at Solent University, there were the following contributions by BU academics, staff and students:

 

Dr Sue Eccles and Vianna Renaud (Bournemouth University)

Chapter Title: Building Students’ Emotional Resilience through Placement Coaching and Mentoring

 

Dr Mel Hughes and Angela Warren (Bournemouth University)

Chapter Title: Use of simulation as a tool for assessment and for preparing students for the realities and complexities of the workplace

 

Dr Dawn Morley (Solent University), Dr Anita Diaz, Deborah Blake, Grace Burger, Tom Dando, Suzanne Gibbon, Kate Rickard (Bournemouth University)

Chapter Title: Student experience of real-time management of peer working groups during field trips

 

For more information: https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783319751658#aboutBook

New publication by CMMPH Visiting Faculty Dr. Luyben

Congratulations to Dr. Ans Luyben on her latest co-authored midwifery publication: ‘Conscientious objection to participation in abortion by midwives and nurses: a systematic review of reasons’ in the Open Access journal BMC Medical Ethics.  The UK co-authors are linked with Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool, whilst the third co-author is from Germany.  Ans works in Swtzerland and she is Visiting Faculty in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

New publication by NCCA: 4D Cubism as a novel artistic technology

“IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications”, an influential magazine with a wide readership in both academia and industry, has just published the paper “4D Cubism: Modeling, Animation and Fabrication of Artistic Shapes”.

This multidisciplinary paper proposing a novel technology on the edge of art and science has been written by a team from the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) of the Faculty of Media and Communication. The authors are Quentin Corker-Marin, Prof Alexander Pasko, and Dr Valery Adzhiev.

The paper has a non-trivial history. Initially, there was an UG student project (“Innovations” unit, “Computer Visualisation and Animation” course, Level 6) that was submitted as a Poster to the ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 conference in Los Angeles. As it was reported in the Research Blog in September 2017, Quentin was awarded there the second prize in the prestigious ACM Student Research Competition sponsored by Microsoft. Then a full-scale paper was submitted to the top magazine, and after successful peer-reviewing it was accepted and published. As to Quentin, in the end of 2017 he graduated from NCCA with a first class honours degree in computer visualisation and animation and works now in London as a 3D Artist for an award-winning production company Glassworks.

References

New multicentre international trial published in world leading respiratory medicine journal

Prof Alison McConnell of HSS’s iWell Research Centre has been part of an international, multi-centre placebo-controlled trial of adjunctive inspiratory muscle training for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The trial, published in this month’s edition of the journal Thorax (impact factor 8.272) tested whether the addition of specific training of the inspiratory muscles enhanced the benefits to patients of traditional pulmonary rehabilitation programmes. It’s well-established that when undertaken separately, both interventions are effective; improving exercise tolerance, breathlessness and quality of life. However, there has been great controversy about whether adding the two interventions together provides superior outcomes.

The trial involved five centres in Europe and Canada, and 219 patients with COPD, taking 6 years to complete. The data indicated that exercise endurance time and breathlessness improved to a greater extent in patients who received rehabilitation plus inspiratory muscle training. The study also found that, irrespective of group allocation, those participants who achieved the greatest improvement in their inspiratory muscle function, also showed the greatest improvements in functional and clinical outcomes.

The full paper is available via Open Access here:

http://thorax.bmj.com/content/thoraxjnl/early/2018/06/18/thoraxjnl-2017-211417.full.pdf

New BU mental health publication

Congratulations to Faloshade Alloh (PhD student in Faculty of Health and Social Science), Dr. Pramod Regmi (Lecturer in International Health), Abe (Igoche) Onche (BU  graduate MSc in Public Health) and Dr. Stephen Trenoweth (Principal Academic and Leaded for BU iWell Research Centre) on the timely publication of their paper on mental health in developing countries [1]. 

Despite being globally recognised as an important public health issue, mental health is still less prioritised as a disease burden in many Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). More than 70% of the global mental health burden occurs in poorer countries. The paper addresses mental health issues in LMICs under themes such as abuse and mental illness, cultural influence on mental health, need for dignity in care, meeting financial and workforce gaps and the need for national health policy for the mental health sector.  This exciting paper has 51 references including several linking to BU publications on research in Africa [2-3] and several papers related to South Asia [4-6], particularly highlighting the recently completed THET project that was led by BU [4-5].

The authors highlight that although mental health education and health care services in most LMICs are poorly resourced; there is an urgent need to address issues beyond funding that contribute to poor mental health. In order to meet the increasing challenge of mental health illness in LMICs, there is a need for effort to address cultural and professional challenges that contribute to poor mental health among individuals. The authors suggest that mental health should be integrated into primary health care in LMICs. Creating awareness on the impact of some cultural attitudes/practices will encourage better uptake of mental health services and increase the ease when discussing mental health issues in these countries which can contribute to reducing the poor mental health in LMICs.

 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

Click here to view the full publication.

 

References:

  1. Alloh, F.T., Regmi, P., Onche, I., van Teijlingen E., Trenoweth, S. (2018) Mental health in low- and middle income countries (LMICs): Going beyond the need for funding, Health Prospect 17 (1): 12-17.
  2. Alloh F, Regmi P, Hemingway A, Turner-Wilson A. (2018) Increasing suicide rates in Nigeria. African Health Journal  [In Press].
  3. Alloh FT, Regmi PR. (2017) Effect of economic and security challenges on the Nigerian health sector. African Health Sciences. 17 (2):591-2.
  4. Acharya DR, Bell JS, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen ER, Regmi PR. (2010) Women’s autonomy in household decision-making: a demographic study in Nepal. Reproductive Health. 7 (1):15.
  5. Simkhada B, Sharma G, Pradhan S, Van Teijlingen E, Ireland J, Simkhada P, et al. (2016) Needs assessment of mental health training for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives: a cross-sectional survey. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences. 2:20-6.
  6. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Ireland, J. on behalf of THET team (2018) Qualitative evaluation of mental health training of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in rural Nepal. Nurse Education Today 66: 44-50. https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1Wu2axHa5G~S-
  7. Regmi PR, Alloh F, Pant PR, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E. (2017) Mental health in BME groups with diabetes: an overlooked issue? The Lancet389 (10072):904-5.

New BU publication: Wisdom & skills in social work education

Congratulations to professors Parker and Ashencaen Crabtree in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences on the publication of their latest paper ‘Wisdom and skills in social work education. Promoting critical relational social work through ethnographic practice.’

 

Reference:

  1. Parker, J.& Ashencaen Crabtree, S. (2018). Wisdom and skills in social work education. Promoting critical relational social work through ethnographic practice,