BU Research Blog

20 April 2015

CEMP / CEL Research Bulletin April 2015

Funding opportunities, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment jmcdougall

The latest CEMP bulletin, now combined with the Centre for Excellence in Learning, is now available as a PDF CEMP CEL bulletin April 15 or word doc CEMP CEL bulletin April 15

The bulletin provides a ‘top 20’ of research funding opportunities related to education, learning and pedagogy research and grouped into the the three BU learning research sub-themes: Media and Digital Literacies, Practitioner Enquiry and (Higher) Education Dynamics.

To follow up any of these opportunities, please contact Julian or Richard in CEMP or Marcellus Mbah in CEL.

20 April 2015

BNAC conference reported in Nepal

PG research, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Last week FHSS PhD student Ms. Preeti Mahato and I attended the 13th Annual Conference of BNAC (Britian-Nepal Academic Council) in London. The conference venue was held at SOAS in central London. In total 28 papers on nine wide-ranging themes concerning Nepal and its global connections were presented and debated by a large number of participants ranging from post-graduate students to established professors and researchers from the UK, Nepal and some other EU countries. The conference was reported upon in Nepal on an online news website called eKantipur.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

17 April 2015

BU’s Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is the second most cited academic in tourism on Google Scholar

Publishing Rachel Bowen

Congratulations to Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, who is now the second most cited academic in the discipline of tourism on Google Scholar, with an impressive 12,035 citations.

13 April 2015

Watch out: predatory publishers are about

Public engagement, Publishing, Research Integritiy jhall

Since being a lecturer I have been regularly contacted by editors and publishers who are keen to have my contribution to a journal or edited book. More recently this has become ‘open access’, which is especially significant for the future REF. On occasions these requests maybe genuine, but many are what I would call ‘predatory publishing’. This is to remind us all to err on the side of caution with some of these emails and be absolutely sure before you respond that they are bona fide publishers. It is easy to feel flattered by the attention! If it is for a journal that you have never heard of, for example, I would suggest contacting the library for information or ‘googling’ the title. Invariably you may then discover someone has already added this to a list of ‘predatory publishers’. Useful sources are Beall’s list http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/12/06/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2013/ and also the Directory of Open Access journals https://doaj.org/ . However these may not be uptodate.

The publishers may be very clever and there have been stories of fake editorial boards, even fake editors, which may entice you. It is suggested that some are creating or buying fake impact factors. However the main goal is to get money off you or the organisation with either publication without the appropriate peer review or editorial control, or does not ever get published. This has been proved on occasion by authors sending in fake papers that are then published online without any editing. For example, https://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.summary

More recently I have been targeted with invitations to speak at seemingly prestigious international conferences. It is not until you read the small print that there is evidence this comes from the same publishers mentioned above. An example is here: http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/03/05/oxford-on-alert-predatory-conference-organisers-are-coming-to-town-or-oxford-beware-omics-predators-are-coming-to-town/ Once more the planning behind this is to get researchers to pay to present their research or even to pretend a conference is taking place when it does not exist or is cancelled.

This article will also help understand some of the tactics used. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315198/

The message I hope to leave with you is don’t be flattered by the unsolicited messages you receive; don’t respond until you have checked out the source; do be careful. There are plenty of reputable journals and publishers you can contact yourself.

9 April 2015

Social Science Baha lecture series Nepal

Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Earlier this week Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen presented at Social Science Baha on the topic of research capacity building in Nepal. Together with many colleagues in Nepal and the UK Edwin has been working on a DFID and British Council funded project under the title PARI (which stands for ‘Partnership on improving Access to Research Literature for Higher Education Institutions in Nepal’). The invited presentation has been recorded by Social Science Baha and is now available online here.

The slides used on Monday are available too.

Presentation April 2015 Soc Sci Baha

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

7 April 2015

Writing workshop in Kathmandu

Knowledge Transfer, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

We regularly conduct workshops and training sessions on academic writing at home and abroad. Yesterday afternoon I did one in Kathmandu for staff at Social Science Baha and Green Tara Nepal. There were the usual comments and queries about authorship, references, length of papers or sections of papers, how to target the ‘best’ journalfor my article, etc. One interesting question I had not been asked before was: “How did you feel when you had your first paper published?”, followed by the question: “Who did you tell about it?” I thought that was a very nice question, and also reminded me why we do these kind of workshops for those who haven’t had the pleasure yet of getting a paper in print.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

5 April 2015

Invited talk Easter Monday

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

On 6th April, Easter Monday, professor Edwin van Teijlingen will present the process and selected findings of research capacity building work conducted in Nepal. The invited lecture at Social Science Baha in Kathmandu was originally planned for early January, but unfortunately had to be cancelled at the last moment due to a national strike in Nepal.

PARI (Partnership on improving Access to Research Literature for Higher Education Institutions in Nepal) refers to a project to support and enhance health research in Nepal; a partnership between Tribhuvan University, three UK universities (including Bournemouth University), and the Development Resource Centre (Nepal). The British Council and DFID (UK) funded PARI to help build research capacity over a three-year period.

Nepal has limited capacity in health research, which restricts ability to implement evidence-based health care. PARI aimed to move university lecturers away from textbook teaching and make them more critical of the academic literature available on the Internet.

PARI workshops delivered to Nepal universities introduce the foundations of evidence-based practice and outline key electronic databases of health care and health service literature available to Nepalese academics. These workshops were informed by: (1) a curriculum review of all health-related courses at the major universities in Nepal; and (2) a needs assessment with lecturers, librarians and students of the major universities.

Key message included that We need to move away from textbook teaching in health care and teach health-care discipline students how to find the most appropriate evidence-based treatment for each patient.

The PARI team:

Ram Sharan Pathak,Tribhuvan University,Nepal

Padam Simkhada, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

Bhimsen Devkota, Development ResourceCentre,Nepal

Edwin van Teijlingen,Bournemouth University,UK

Julie Bruce,University of Warwick, UK

Pramod Regmi, Development Resource Centre, Nepal

Amudha Poobalan, University of Aberdeen, UK

Trilochan Pokharel, Nepal Administrative Staff College, Kathmandu Nepal

The work has resulted in two academic publications:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S., Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Pokharel, T., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S. (2013) Research Methods Coverage in Medical & Health Science Curricula in Nepal, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 3(3): 253-258. www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/9185

4 April 2015

New paper on obesity research

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Colleagues associated with the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) and the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health (all based at the University of Aberdeen), the Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Professional Research Unit (University of Stirling), the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research & Policy (SCPHRP) based at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University published their latest paper on obesity research. The paper ‘A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men’ is published in the journal: Obesity Research & Clinical Practice. This systematic review summarises the literature reporting the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical weight-management interventions for men. Studies were quality assessed against a checklist for appraising decision modelling studies. This research is part of the larger ROMEO study.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

Reference:

Boyers, D., Avenell, A., Stewart, F., Robertson, C., Archibald, D., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men, Obesity Research & Clinical Practice (online first)

2 April 2015

Publishing an academic book in a low-income country

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Earlier this year our book ‘The Dynamics of Health in Nepal’ was published by Himal Books for Social Science Baha in Kathmandu.¹It is an edited collection covering a range of current health topics in Nepal, including issues such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, sexual health, road traffic accidents, non-communicable diseases and the role of the media and migration.

One of us had published several books, with for example international publishers such as Elsevier, Routledge (part of Taylor Francis) and Oxford University Press.^2-4All editors authors are UK PhD graduates from the universities of Aberdeen (van Teijlingen), Southampton (Simkhada) and Sheffield (Wasti) respectively. All three of us were based in the UK at the time of conception of the book. Padam Simkhada was Senior Lecturer in International Health at the University of Sheffield, Edwin van Teijlingen still is professor at Bournemouth University and Sharada Prasad Wasti was a PhD student at ScHARR (University of Sheffield). So it made sense to talk to publishers in the UK, which is what we did. However, it rapidly became clear that we could get a deal for an expensive hardback book, a book which would sell way above what the average academic in Nepal could afford. After some soul searching we decided to look into getting the book published in Nepal.

One of the advantages of publishing Nepal is the same most outsourcing to low income-countries, namely it keeps the production costs down. Rather than increasing our profit margins by keeping the low production costs, as it the typical case in the global market, we used this to keep the retail price low. The book retails for 800NR (about £5.50) in Nepal which means it is affordable to academics and postgraduate students in Nepal. Similar books from international publishers sell for at least £20!

We had some trepidation about the potentially quality of the book before we signed the contract with Social Science Baha. These low expectations were based on the quality of printed text books we had seen for sale on small stalls outside the Kittipur Campus of Tribhuvan University. One of these shoddy looking books was based on lecturers given by our Nepalese colleague Prof. Dr. Bhimsen Devkota. When we passed one of these stalls many years ago he pointed at a particular book and said: “See that book, a student who had attended my lectures two years in a row, copied all I said, and the materials I handed out, all of it word for word. That student then got it published as a book.”

However, our expectations were wrong. From the outset the publishing process was impressive. Social Science Baha employed a very professional proof-reader/copy-editor who picked up a lot of minor style and language issues even after we had most of the chapters professionally proof-read in the UK. The classic example of the thoroughness of his checking was the name of one for the chapter contributors ‘Sally Woodes Rogers’, he came back to us and said, “But her name on the web pages of the University of Aberdeen is ‘Sarah’ not ‘Sally’, are you sure?” At which point we had to assure him that ‘Sarah’ was her correct birth name but that she wanted herself to be known as ‘Sally’.

The final version of our book looks very good. The cover is beautifully printed; the font, chapter lay-out and overall style are of a very high quality. Our book has the feel of a typical academic book published in Europe or North America. There is really nothing about it that says this book is published in a low-income country.

The book has been well received at its launch in Kathmandu in January 2015. The first published book review was also very complementary.⁵ Last but not least, having produced a great looking book, for us the final feel-good factor is that we agreed to donate all profits from the sale of the book to the charity Green Tara Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Prof. Padam Simkhada

Dr. Sharada P. Wasti

References:

Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.(eds.) (2015)The Dynamics of Health in Nepal,Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha&Himal Books
DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E., Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe,New York: Routledge.
Taylor R., Smith, B.,Teijlingen van, E. (eds.) (2003) Health & Illness in the Community: an Oxford Core Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alder, B. Abraham, C., van Teijlingen, E., Porter, M. (eds.) (2009) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (third edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier Science.
Pradhan S. (2015) Book review The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Public Health Perspective 5(2) on line journal: http://www.phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=943

25 March 2015

Paper by BU Lecturer Jonny Branney has accrued 7,198 accesses in 9 months!

PG research, Public engagement, Publishing jbranney

Last July the main findings from my PhD study into the mechanism of spinal manipulation were published and, especially as an early career researcher, I’ve been delighted at the interest shown in the paper. Really this is testament to the benefits of open access publishing (although there are criticisms of this publishing model) where research papers are made freely accessible to anyone (with an internet connection) anywhere in the world as well as the channels for spreading the word provided by social media. Of course, as well as that, the topic of the mechanism of spinal manipulation continues to generate interest in the manual therapy professions as we continue to try (and try) to understand how it works.

A colleague kindly directed me to a number of comments made by healthcare professionals about the study findings on social media and I’ve written a two-part blog post to respond to these. Please click here if you’d like to find out more about the clinical implications of this study into spinal manipulative therapy for neck pain. It is hoped that this type engagement with practitioners might eventually impact on manual therapy practice. This dialogue would have been difficult to achieve, and so quickly, without open access publishing and social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Now that the PhD is nearly completely behind me (corrections currently with external examiner), I’m very much looking forward to the next 9 months!

23 March 2015

UNCLASSIFIED

Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment sastringer

Picture the scene… it’s 2016 the 1^st April 2016 to be precise and you’ve had an article you have been working on for the past 6 months accepted by your first choice journal – well done you – you spend the next 3 months eagerly waiting to read your hard work in print. When it finally it is published you are ecstatic, it is well received by your colleagues, peers, journalists and the public – your research is out there and making a real impact to society, you couldn’t have imagined a better reception. Well done you again!

Now fast-forward to submission of the next REF where you enthusiastically submit your lovingly crafted, well received, well cited article for submission with the full expectation that it will certainly be assessed as a 4* publication but then the bomb drops… the article is “UNCLASSIFIED”. Why I hear you cry?! Well back in 2016 when your article was accepted you did not make it open access – simple.

HEFCEs decision on non-compliance of their Open Access Policy really couldn’t be clearer in this aspect:

“Any output submitted to the post-2014 REF that falls within the scope of this policy but does not meet its requirements or exceptions will be treated as non-compliant. Non-compliant outputs will be given an unclassified score and will not be assessed in the REF.”

We have 12 months to get ready for to comply with HEFCEs Open Access policy and we have to start now. Only the author and the publisher know when an article is accepted and this is the key point for the policy. So, if you want to have the full benefit of all your hard work, then make sure that when an article is accepted by a publisher you upload it to BRIAN – simple.

For further information on how to you go about making your outputs open access, please see the guidance here. Email openaccess@bournemouth.ac.uk with queries or attend one of our Open Access Workshops over the next few months.

Further information on HEFCEs policy can be found here

19 March 2015

Policy brief on Obesity

Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today my colleagues at the University of Aberdeen’s Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) published their latest HERU Policy Brief on ‘Gaining pounds by losing pounds: research finds financial incentives could help reduce obesity’. The policy brief is now available on line. These policy briefs are concise summaries of the findings of research projects, presented with a focus on policy implications. Linking research findings to possible policy improvements increase the chance that our research has an impact on the wider society. Furthermore, that our research has an impact in REF terms.

This latest policy brief ‘Gaining pounds by losing pounds: research finds financial incentives could help reduce obesity’ is part of a larger project called PROGRESS (Prevent Obesity GRowing Economic Synthesis Study), funded by the National Preventative Research Initiative (NPRI) and the Universities of Aberdeen and Melbourne. The project started when I was still at the University of Aberdeen, before I came down to Bournemouth more than five years ago now. Our research highlights that despite evidence that dietary interventions are the most effective way to lose weight, respondents preferred lifestyle interventions involving physical activity. Also that behaviour-change support improves effectiveness of interventions, but its value to participants was limited. A general preference to maintain current lifestyles, together with the sensitivity of take-up to financial costs, suggests financial incentives could be used to help maximise up-take of healthy lifestyle interventions. Finally, men required more compensation to take up healthier lifestyles.

Full details on methods and results are available in the health economics paper due to be published later this year, currently ‘published ahead of print’ (Ryan et al. 2014).

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

Reference:

Ryan, M., Yi, D., Avenell, A., Douglas, F., Aucott, L., van Teijlingen, E. & Vale, L. (2014) Gaining pounds by losing pounds: preferences for lifestyle interventions to reduce obesity, Health Economics, Policy & Law, [Epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1017/s1744133114000413.

18 March 2015

MIDWIFERY: Top five most down-loaded articles for 2014

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today academic publisher Elsevier sent round an email with the top five most downloaded articles from the international journal Midwifery.

We were pleased to see that the fifth paper on that list is a BU paper jointly written with Dr. Helen Bryers, Consultant Midwife in Scotland.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

18 March 2015

Sport Management Researcher Top-Cited Author in Leading Journal

Publishing tbreitbarth

The latest ABS Journal Guide has lifted an article first-authored by Dr. Tim Breitbarth to be the single most-cited paper in the only 3* journal in the field of sport business.

Considering all major citation databases, Tim’s paper “The role of corporate social responsibility in the football business: Towards the development of a conceptual model” co-authored with Phil Harris in European Sport Management Quarterly (2008) is leaving the strongest footprint in the academic community.

Dr Tim Breitbarth from the Faculty of Management is a regular author, guest editor, project leader, track convener at international conferences as well as invited speaker on CSR in general and CSR in sport.

Full reference:

Breitbarth, T. & Harris, P. (2008): The role of corporate social responsibility in the football business: Towards the development of a conceptual model. European Sports Management Quarterly, 8(2): 179-206.

Abstract:

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted considerable interest in the management discipline, but has rarely been evaluated and explored in the sports management research arena. In evaluating the sports, management and marketing literature, this article considers the role of CSR in professional football. It argues that an increased awareness and integration of CSR into the football business fosters the competitiveness of the game and creates additional value for its stakeholders. The article proposes a conceptual model which outlines the agency role of football in order to create political, cultural, humanitarian and reassurance value. Empirical evidence supporting the model is applied based on case studies from four key countries that currently dominate the shaping of CSR discussion and are vital for the game itself: England, Germany, Japan and the US. The article’s aim is to encourage sports management to see CSR as an opportunity-driven concept, which can assist in achieving better strategic direction, and outlines areas where future research can improve sport management’s appreciation of this rapidly more important topic.

10 March 2015

News from the Learning Research Group

Fusion, Publishing, REF Subjects jmcdougall

BU’s new Learning Research Group held its second workshop last week, so here is a quick update on activities so far since the group formed.

The group is convened by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and CEMP and meets in the CEL space with two objectives –

1. To bring people together for research into learning, pedagogy and education, related to the broader work of CEL;

2. To develop research strategically for a submission to the Unit of Assessment for Education in REF 2020.

Researchers in the group are working on projects and towards outputs in three related areas – Media and Digital Literacies; Practitioner Enquiry and (Higher) Education Dynamics. Impact case studies are in development in each of these areas and a strategy for capacity building, demonstrating impact and research environment has been produced.

In the first workshop, Professor Alex Kendall from Birmingham City University talked to the group about REF 2014 and gave advice for working across disciplines and faculty structures. In the second workshop, Julian shared sub-panel feedback with a focus on how BU’s research can be distinctive in the changing landscape, Isabella Rega ran a workshop activity to bring us together around research themes, methods and beneficiaries, and the group worked together to refine the plans for the group’s direction of travel, discussing development needs and targets for outputs and impact. The next time we meet, we will be guided by Professor Becky Francis from KCL.

The learning research group will continue to do two things in tandem – work towards a REF submission and support the research element of CEL’s work. To get involved, contact julian@cemp.ac.uk or just come along to the next workshop (after Easter, date will be circulated on the research blog).

6 March 2015

Two new CMMPH publications this week!

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU Senior Lecturer in Midwifery Dr. Jenny Hall published her interesting piece on Nursing Times.net under the title ‘Time-wasters in A&E: time to shake the label’. Jenny uses quite a sociological argument highlighting that “However, labels such as time waster are unhelpful and inappropriate. Instead we have a duty to provide a service that is caring, compassionate and welcoming – no matter the pressures. “

The second CMMPH paper this week is by Professor Emeritus Paul Lewis and BU Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland in collaboration with Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust midwife Danielle Freemantle. Their paper ‘The loss of midwifery supervision: to mourn or rejoice?’ in the March edition of The Practising Midwife reflects on and discusses some of the possible consequences of the NMC’s decision to end statutory supervision of midwives in the UK.

Congratulations to all!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

6 March 2015

Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience

Publishing Pengpeng

On 11th March, Wednesday, we will have a Writing Academy Lunchbyte session where Prof. Matthew Bennett will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors. He will talk about all type 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

Title	Date	Time	Location
Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience	Wednesday 11th March 2015	13:00-14:30	TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe

To book your place on this workshop please email Organisational Development

5 March 2015

An investigation into the importance of set plays within the Barclays Premier League

Fusion, Publishing, student research aharding

The interest in football goes well beyond the boundaries of it’s academic field. Such are the financial incentives and rewards in the modern game, professional football clubs now leave no stone unturned in their attempts to increase their performances on the field, win matches and increase their league position. This is the wider context for a recent submission to eBU: Online Journal, BU’s internal working paper journal designed around immediate publication and open peer review.

Based on an analysis of all 1,053 goals scored in the 2009/10 season, Jamie Osman, Andrew Callaway and Shelley Broomfield consider, ‘Just how important are set plays to teams competing in the Barclays Premier League?’.

The paper is open for wider comment and review from the BU community, and can be found here: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/36

Category / Publishing

CEMP / CEL Research Bulletin April 2015

BU’s Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is the second most cited academic in tourism on Google Scholar

Watch out: predatory publishers are about

Paper by BU Lecturer Jonny Branney has accrued 7,198 accesses in 9 months!

UNCLASSIFIED

Sport Management Researcher Top-Cited Author in Leading Journal

News from the Learning Research Group

Two new CMMPH publications this week!

Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience

An investigation into the importance of set plays within the Barclays Premier League

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