Category / Publishing

New publication: vital signs obstetric charts

PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations on the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences team which had its paper ‘Vital signs and other observations used to detect deterioration in pregnant women: an analysis of vital sign charts in consultant-led UK maternity units’ accepted by the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia (published by Elsevier). 
The paper compares: (i) vital sign values used to define physiological normality; (ii) symptoms and signs used to escalate care; (iii) 24 type of chart used; and (iv) presence of explicit instructions for escalating care. The authors conclude that the wide range of ‘normal’ vital sign values in different systems used in the UK and the Channel Islands suggests a lack of equity in the processes for detecting deterioration and escalating care in hospitalised pregnant and postnatal women. Agreement regarding ‘normal’ vital sign ranges is urgently required and would assist the development of a standardised obstetric early warning system and chart. The lead author of this new paper is FHSS Visiting Professor Gary Smith, his co-authors include FHSS staff Vanora Hundley, Lisa Gale_Andrews and Edwin van Teijlingen as well as three BU Visiting Faculty: Debra Bick (King’s College London), Mike Wee (Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) and Richard Isaacs (University Hospital Southampton).

Dr. Masi Fathi appointed to the board of Sociological Research Online

open access, Publishing, writing

SROCongratulations to Dr. Mastoureh (Masi) Fathi, FHSS Lecturer in Sociology, who has been appointed to the editorial board of Sociological Research Online.  Sociological Research Online is a peer-reviewed online sociology journal looking at current social issues, and it is in its twenty-second year.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

How to Write a 4* Article

BRIAN, Publishing, writing

mark-reedIn December, Prof Mark Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and the man behind Fast Track Impact, tweeted some thoughts on how to write a 4* paper for the REF. He went on to explain his thinking in more detail in a guest post on the Research Fundementals blog, the post is published here with the authors permission.

_____________
How do you write a 4* paper for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)? It is a question I’ve asked myself with some urgency since the Stern Review shredded my REF submission by not allowing me to bring my papers with me this year to my new position at Newcastle University.

Obviously the answer is going to differ depending on your discipline, but I think there are a few simple things that everyone can do to maximize their chances of getting a top graded research output.

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’ve actually done original, significant and rigorous work – if you haven’t then there is no point in reading any further. However, as I am increasingly asked to pre-review papers for colleagues across a range of disciplines, I am seeing examples of people who write up work as a 2* or 3* paper that has the potential to get a better score. I should point out that I believe that there is an important role for 1* and 2* papers, and that I regularly write these on purpose to address a problem of national significance and frame it for the specific, narrow audience that is likely to be able to benefit most from my work. However, whether I like it or not, as a Professor in a research-intensive University, there is an expectation that I will be submitted as a 4* researcher, which means I need a few 4* papers as well.

You can see some more detailed thoughts on what I think makes 4* for different types of paper in this Tweet:

As you’ll see from the discussion under that tweet though, my more detailed thoughts probably only apply to Units of Assessment across panels A-C, and probably isn’t relevant to the arts and humanities.

Having said this, I think there are a number of things we can all do to maximize the chances of our work being viewed favourably by REF panelists.

  1. Write to the criteria: when I was learning to drive, my instructor told me that in the test I should make sure I moved my head when I was looking in the rear view mirror, to make sure the examiner noticed I was using my mirrors. We’re all used to writing to the criteria of funding calls, and in fact we are all perfectly used to writing papers to the criteria of our target journals. In the last REF, research outputs were judged against three criteria: originality, significance and rigour. Whatever the interpretation of these criteria in your discipline, have you made it explicit to REF panelists reading your work exactly what is original, and why it is so original? Have you explained and effectively justified the significance of your work? And have you included evidence that your methods, analysis and interpretation is rigorous, even if you have to use supplementary material to include extra detail about your methods and data to get around journal word limits?
  1. Get REF feedback before you submit your work for publication: find out who is going to be reviewing research outputs for REF internally within your Unit of Assessment at your institution and ask them to review your work before you submit it. They may be able to make recommendations about how you might improve the paper in light of the REF criteria. Sometimes a little bit of extra work on the framing of your research in relation to wider contexts and issues can help articulate the significance of your work, and with additional reading and thinking, you may be able to position your work more effectively in relation to previous work to demonstrate its originality more clearly. Adding a few extra details to your methods and results may re-assure readers and reviewers that your approach is indeed rigorous. This is not just about doing world-leading research; it is about demonstrating to the world that your work is indeed world-leading. For me, these criteria are nothing new and are worth paying attention to, whether or not we are interested in REF. Meeting these three criteria will increase the chances that you get through peer-review and will increase the likelihood that your work gets cited.
  1. Analyse and discuss good practice in your own area: the only way to really “get your eye in” for REF is to actually look at examples of good and poor practice in your own area. Below, I’ve described how you can design an exercise to do this with your colleagues. You can do it yourself and learn a lot, but from my own experience, you learn a lot more by doing this as a discussion exercise with colleagues who work in your area. If you can, take notes from your discussion and try and distill some of the key lessons, so you can learn collectively as a group and more effectively review and support each others’ work.

How to organize a discussion to work out what makes a 4* paper in your area:

  • Identify top scoring institutions for your Unit of Assessment (UOA): download the REF2014 results, filter for your UOA (columns E or F), then filter so it only shows you the outputs (column J), and then filter for 4* (column L), showing only the institutions from your UOA that had the highest percentage of 4* outputs. Now for those institutions, look across the table (columns L-P) to see which has the highest proportion of outputs at either 3* or 4*. For example, an institution may have 80% of its outputs graded at 4* and 15% graded at 3*, meaning that 95% of its outputs were graded at 3-4*
  • Download a selection of papers from the top scoring institutions: go to your UOA on the REF website, find and click on the institutions you’ve identified in step 1, under “view submission data”, click on “research outputs”, copy and paste output titles into Google Scholar (or your search engine of choice) and download the articles. You may want to select outputs randomly, or you may want to go through more selectively, identifying outputs that are close to the areas your group specialize in
  • Repeat for low scoring institutions so you can compare and contrast high and low scoring outputs
  • Discuss examples: print copies of the high and low scoring outputs, labeled clearly, and in your next UOA meeting, let everyone choose a high and a low-scoring example. Given them 10-15 minutes to quickly read the outputs (focusing on title, abstract, introduction, figures and conclusions so you’re not there all day) and then ask the group (or small groups if there are many of you) to discuss the key factors that they think distinguish between high and low scoring outputs. Get your group(s) to distill the key principles that they think are most useful and disseminate these more widely to the group, so that anyone who wasn’t present can benefit.

It would be great if I could tell you that these are my “three easy ways to get a 4* paper” but doing work that is genuinely original, significant and rigorous is far from easy. If you have done work that is of the highest quality though, I hope that the ideas I’ve suggested here will help you get the credit you deserve for the great research you’ve done.

Prof. Matthew Bennett – My publication story so far…

BRIAN, BU Challenges, Guidance, Publishing, writing

writingOn Wednesday 29th March, the Writing Academy will be hosting a Lunchbyte session with Matthew Bennett. During the session Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, his tips on developing a publication strategy and working with co-authors, reviewers and editors. He will talk about all types of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations. Drawing on personal experience, he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.

Aims:

  • Developing a Publication Strategy
  • Dealing with Co-Editors, Reviewers & Editors
  • Targeting high impact Journal

Click here to book on!

Vianna Renaud, Placement Development Advisor for FMC and doctoral student in CEMP, publishes article in the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) Phoenix journal

PG research, Publishing, student research

The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) is the professional body for careers and employability professionals working with higher education students and graduates and prospective entrants to higher education.

As the focal point for sector-wide research and expert opinion, this issue of Phoenix focused on current best practice surrounding placements. With membership of over 2,800 careers and employability practitioners in over 160 HE institutions, as well as in other sectors and overseas, it is a leading source of current practice and information.

‘Bournemouth University has an established history of PAL leaders, and has successfully trialled Placement PAL pilot projects, with the 2016-17 year being the first year that Placement PAL was implemented across the campus. Contributing to this dedicated issue was a wonderful opportunity to share our success with the greater UK HE university community, potentially creating Best Practice amidst the sector.’

‘Given the growing numbers of BU students choosing a sandwich placement experience, this issue contains a wide range of related current and topical issues. As both a practitioner and researcher in the field, I would highly recommend staff to read this issue.’

http://communications.agcas.org.uk/newsletters/7/issues/747 

 

Deadline Extended: Machine Learning in Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis

conferences, international, open access, PG research, Publishing

The deadline has been extended to the 14th of April , 2017.

This is a call for papers for the Special Session on Machine Learning in Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis at IEEE CIBCB 2017.

The IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (IEEE CIBCB 2017) will be held at the INNSIDE Hotel, Manchester from August 23rd to 25th, 2017.

This annual conference has become a major technical event in the field of Computational Intelligence and its application to problems in biology, bioinformatics, computational biology, chemical informatics, bioengineering and related fields. The conference provides a global forum for academic and industrial scientists from a range of fields including computer science, biology, chemistry, medicine, mathematics, statistics, and engineering, to discuss and present their latest research findings from theory to applications.

The topics of interest for the special session include (but are not limited to):

  • Medical image classification
  • Medical image analysis
  • Expert systems for computer aided diagnosis and prognosis
  • Pattern recognition in the analysis of biomarkers for medical diagnosis
  • Deep learning in medical image processing and analysis
  • Ethical and Security issues in machine learning for medical diagnosis and prognosis

Up-to-date information and submission details can be found on the IEEE CIBCB 2017. The submission deadline is the 14th of April, 2017.

Please e-mail srostami@bournemouth.ac.uk with any questions.

New paper published by CMMPH’s Dr. Susan Way

Publishing, Training, writing

This week saw the pre-publication of ‘Core principles to reduce current variations that exist in grading of midwifery practice in the United Kingdom’ in Nurse Education in Practice.  This paper is co-authored by Dr. Susan Way in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).  The authors argue that these core principles could contribute to curriculum development in midwifery and other professions internationally.

Congratulations!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Fisher, M., Way, S., Chenery-Morris, S., Jackson, J., Bower, H. Sue Way Feb 2017(2017) Core principles to reduce current variations that exist in grading of midwifery practice in the United Kingdom, Nurse Education in Practice (forthcoming) see: http://www.nurseeducationinpractice.com/article/S1471-5953(17)30092-6/abstract

 

New Book Series: Routledge Studies in Espionage and Culture

Publishing

A new book series seeks to generate new insights into the connections between espionage and culture. During the second half of the twentieth century the public became aware of the importance of the role of espionage and security services. Television, radio and print news reported shocking events including the defection of Soviet moles like Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald McLean; the Profumo affair of 1963 that exploded when the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, had an affair with a woman who was in contact with the Soviet security services; and the state censorship of Peter Wright’s memoir Spycatcher (1987). Whilst the news sparked the public interest popular culture soon followed and the 1950s and 60s saw the resurgence of spy books, films and television series. The James Bond franchise of books and films began in 1953 with the publication of the book Casino Royal. Bond achieved mass popularity in 1962 with the cinematic release of Dr No. Over the coming decades twelve authors have written James Bond novels or shorts stories and he has been played by seven actors with the books and films enjoyed by millions. Other authors such as John le Carré and Len Deighton released bestsellers which were adapted for film and television and brought an often more realistic version of spying to an international public.

The twenty-first century has seen no reduction in espionage intrigues and spy culture. The Edward Snowden release of American intelligence secrets , the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and most recently the accusations that American President Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russian security services, who had also undertaken the mass hacking of American government computers during his election campaign, have ensured that espionage remains in the public eye. These news stories have seen the emergence of new espionage culture. The James Bond series remains as popular as ever. Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy was remade in 2011. And in BBC’s The Game (2014) and FX’s The Americans (2013), the link to the Cold War remains close to the public association with espionage culture. This link has generated nostalgia for the Cold War with many people perceiving the era as relatively safe with the intelligence game making the world more secure than it is today with the asymmetric terrorist threat.  The spy genre has also evolved and series like Homeland from 2011, the BBC’s Spooks and Channel 4’s recent reality-television series Spies (2017) have given viewers an inside view on the nature of modern espionage. Spy scandals and spy culture continue to play a key part in news and entertainment and capture the public imagination

Jointly edited by Dr Nicholas Barnett, Lecturer in Twentieth Century History at Plymouth University and Dr Laura Crossley, Lecturer in Film at Bournemouth University, ‘Routledge Studies in Espionage and Culture’ is a major new books series which seeks to investigate representations of the intelligence world and how we interact with it. The scope of the series is international and it seeks to blend several disciplines including cultural studies, history, literature and film studies. Books published in the series will investigate topics including: the spy novel, films, television shows, documentaries, games, music, fashion and materiality. Whilst books on the representation of intelligence agencies in popular culture are welcome the editors also welcome contributions which investigate political cultures and the everyday lives within the organisations themselves as well as wider considerations of surveillance culture. Scholars have long been interested in the representation of spies and spying and this series seeks to establish itself as one of the key outlets for continuing that scholarly conversation. Where possible the monographs and collections of essays will be include comparative international studies but submissions will also be welcomed which examine significant national cultures. The series does not seek to limit itself to any particular time period and will publish accounts of both historic and contemporary espionage and culture. Each book will feature a unique introduction written by the series editors.

Editors: Dr Laura Crossley (Bournemouth University) lcrossley@bournemouth.ac.uk

Dr Nicholas Barnett (Plymouth University)  nicholas.barnett@plymouth.ac.uk

Calling all RCUK PIs and Students!

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

RCUKThe next Researchfish submission period will run in February/March 2017. The key dates and policies for the 2017 exercise are detailed below…

Next Submission Period datesImage sourced from The Academy of Medical Sciences

PIs will need to log on to researchfish® and submit a return between the 6 February and 4pm on 16 March 2017 to confirm that their outcomes information is accurate and complete at that time. Students will once again be asked to submit their outcomes then too. It is important to note that this time there will not be a blanket extension given to those who don’t submit by the deadline.

 Studentships outcomes collection

The last Submission Period was the first time that all RCUK-funded Students were asked provide research outcomes from their Studentship awards. After considering the information gathered and the feedback received, RCUK has decided in future only students who are in the third or later year of their studies need to submit their outcomes. For the 2017 submission period this means students whose awards started on or before the 5 February 2015.

Sanctions

As was the case after the 2016 Submission Period, non-compliant PIs will lose eligibility to be either a PI or Co-I on further awards from any Research Council and any current awards will have their payments withheld until such time as the PI becomes compliant. Sanctions will not apply to students who do not comply with the request to submit their outcomes.

Publish Open Access in Springer Journals for Free!

Guidance, open access, Publishing

Open-Access-logoBU has an agreement with Springer which enables its authors to publish articles open access in one of the Springer Open Choice journals at no additional cost.

There are hundreds of titles included in this agreement, some of which are – Hydrobiologia, European Journal of Nutrition, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Climatic Change, Marine Biology and the Journal of Business Ethics. A full list of the journals included can be found here

To make sure that your article is covered by this new agreement, when your article has been accepted for publication, Springer will ask you to confirm the following:

  • My article has been accepted by an Open Choice eligible journal
  • I am the corresponding author (please use your institutional email address not your personal one)
  • I am affiliated with an eligible UK institution (select your institutions name)
  • My article matches one of these types: OriginalPaper, ReviewPaper, BriefCommunication or ContinuingEducation

Springer will then verify these details with us and then your article will be made available in open access with a CC BY licence.

Please note that 30 Open Choice journals are not included in this agreement as they do not offer CC BY licensing.

If you have any questions about the agreement or the process, please contact OpenAccess@bournemouth.ac.uk

First 2017 publication by CMMPH academics

open access, Publishing, writing

Yesterday saw the publication of the paper  ‘Antenatal care trial interventions: a systematic scoping review and taxonomy development of care models’, which is the first paper this year for the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)  [1].    The paper is based on a cross-UK collaboration led by Dr. Andrew Symon from the University of Dundee which is published in the Open Access journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth.  This is the second paper from this collaboration, the first one ‘Midwifery-led antenatal care models: Mapping a systematic review to an evidence-based quality framework to identify key components & characteristics of care ‘ was published last year [2].

symon-taxonomy-2017The latest BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth paper is a first step in establishing a taxonomy of antenatal care models.  The article concludes that interventions can be defined and described in many ways. The intended antenatal care population group proved the simplest and most clinically relevant way of distinguishing trials which might otherwise be categorised together. Since our review excluded non-trial interventions, the taxonomy does not represent antenatal care provision worldwide. It offers a stable and reproducible approach to describing the purpose and content of models of antenatal care which have been tested in a trial. perhaps key is that the paper highlights a lack of reported detail of trial interventions and usual care processes.

Our paper provides a baseline for future work to examine and test the salient characteristics of the most effective models, and could also help decision-makers and service planners in planning implementation.

Moreover we look forward to conducting more research as part of this exciting collaboration in midwifery and maternity care.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Symon, A., Pringle, J., Downe, S., Hundley, V., Lee, E., Lynn, F., McFadden, A., McNeill, J., Renfrew, M., Ross-Davie, M., van Teijlingen, E., Whitford, H., Alderdice, F. (2017) Antenatal care trial interventions: a systematic scoping review and taxonomy development of care models BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 17:8 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-1186-3
  2. Symon, A., Pringle, J., Cheyne, H., Downe, S., Hundley, V., Lee, E., Lynn, F., McFadden, A., McNeill, J., Renfrew, M., Ross-Davie, M., van Teijlingen, E., Whitford, H, Alderdice, F. (2016) Midwifery-led antenatal care models: Mapping a systematic review to an evidence-based quality framework to identify key components & characteristics of care, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 168 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/16/168