Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
New academic year, New forms!
New versions of the ethics forms available now, have a look at the research ethics page for the full details, under useful documents.
The new forms are the Participant Info Sheet and the previously titled Consent form, now titled Participant Agreement Form.
Please make sure you start using the new versions from now on, and please do let us know how you find them.
BU Ethics team
Emily Rosenorn-Lanng Research Assistant
Rebecca Johnson Research Assistant
![FullSizeRender[1]](http://www.ncpqsw.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/FullSizeRender1-150x150.jpg)
Sarah Wincewicz Research Admin Assistant
Financial scamming is costing the UK public approximately £3.5 billion each year. It is a problem which has developed in recent years and has hit the press because of the relationship with charity mugging, or ‘chugging’ (charities coercing people to give money). Although both scamming and ‘chugging’ result in the coercion of money from donors, they differ in approach, perception and legality. Having a charity connection gives ‘chuggers’ a sense of morality, which gives them a sense of legality, allowing them to tug on the heartstrings of consumers and persuade them, sometimes by intimidation, to part with money. Once a donation has been made, and details have been obtained, charities feel they have the right to regularly hound their donors for further contributions, and have recently been discovered to sell their details on to non-charitable organisations.
The Daily Mail’s investigation into the story of former Army Colonel, Mr Rae, highlights the relationship between scamming and ‘chugging’. Charities who acquired Mr Rae’s personal details sold them up to 200 times to other charities and list brokers who then passed them to scammers who deceived £4,000 from him.
To what extent is it a problem?
The following figures, specific to Mr Rae, demonstrate the relationship that ‘chugging’ has with scamming:
The alarming figures demonstrate the impact of this relationship and raise plenty of questions. How valuable is personal information to a charity? Why are charities selling personal information to non-charities? Where are the moral boundaries in this? What part do charities play in the scamming of vulnerable people?
What are we doing about it?
Here at the National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work and Professional Practice we are working with Trading Standards to tackle scamming and chugging. To do this we are looking into:
We recognise that this will all take time, but there are steps that you can take today. You can help protect the most vulnerable members of society from this sort of exploitation. How? Have that conversation with Mum, Dad, Nan, Grandad, Aunt or an elderly neighbour. Keep an eye out for scam mail and an ear out for scam phone calls. Make them aware they have a choice as to whether to respond or not, or whether to donate or not.
Most of all, make sure they are not lonely. Time and time again, we hear how loneliness is a key factor in chugging and scamming. If we can ensure our friends and family are not so lonely, then we may be able to ensure they are less vulnerable.
Dr Lee-Ann Fenge
During last week’s Bournemouth University Festival of Learning, the team (Dr. Carrie Hodges, Faculty of Media and Communication; Wendy Cutts and Dr Lee-Ann Fenge, Faculty of Health and Social Science) held a pilot session for a new e-learning tool which they have developed in collaboration with young people from the Seen but Seldom Heard project.
This e-learning tool has been developed with funding from the Big Lottery Fund, and builds on previous work which has used participatory performative research methodologies, including performance poetry to enable young people with disabilities (aged 14-20 years) to explore the nature of disability within society and their own experiences of being disabled. The previous outputs from this project have included live performances as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2012, local literary festivals, a performance at the House of Commons in December 2014, as well as a documentary film (CLICK HERE for a ‘taster’).
![photo[2]](https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/hsc/files/2015/07/photo2-e1437396081780.jpg)
The e-learning tool aims to develop understanding of the needs and experiences of young people with disabilities, in particular, amongst their peers, schools and communities. It includes information and engaging activities, and has been made in collaboration with young people from the Seen but Seldom Heard project. Media representations of disability are largely negative due to the limited number of stereotypes used and these stereotypes contribute to the ‘invisibility’ of disabled people within society. This tool hopes to challenge this ‘invisibility’ by encouraging people to think differently about aspects of discrimination linked to disability. It is hoped that this will be used widely in educational settings, as well as in the wider community to change hearts and minds. It will facilitate learning either as a stand-alone tool, or as part of a wider approach towards diversity and inclusivity.
The pilot session for the tool was helpful in terms of gaining feedback on how it could be further refined, before it is officially launched during the Autumn 2015. CLICK HERE for more details on the Seen But Seldom Heard project
Dr Lee-Ann Fenge
There is growing awareness in the government and media of the importance of recognising and responding to the risks posed by financial abuse of vulnerable older people. My last two blogs have focused on financial scams and mass marketing fraud, but it is now becoming recognised that the charity sector are also employing dubious marketing techniques to elicit money from vulnerable individuals.
The marketing techniques and fundraising methods of charities have come under the spotlight since the death of Olive Cooke, 92, in May. Although her family insist that the numerous approaches she received from charities were not to blame for her death, the fact that she received 267 charity letters in one month alone started alarm bells ringing. Some charities working with emotionally upsetting issues (such as animal cruelty) sometimes employ shocking imagery which has been described as psychoactive advertising (Bennett, 2015). These types of marketing approaches seek to evoke a positive emotional response to fundraising, but can be upsetting for those who receive such material through the post.
As a result of governmental concern about the fundraising methods employed by some charities, changes will be
introduced as amendments to the Charities Bill. This new legislation will tighten rules on how fundraisers approach people who are vulnerable, and how vulnerable adults should be protected from high-pressure marketing tactics.
Some charities have already responded to these concerns by suspending operations with call centres which use
high pressure fundraising techniques.It is interesting to note that although the government is seeking to put a brake on aggressive fundraising techniques, this comes at a time when the remit of the Charity Commission to effectively regulate the sector has been reduced due to budget reductions following the UK Treasury’s Comprehensive Spending Review 2014–15. This has resulted in a reduction in the Commission’s regulatory engagement with charities. As part of the government response to concerns about unethical fundraising tactics, Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), will chair an urgent review of fundraising self-regulation.
It is important that the charity sector develop good practice guidance which embraces the responsibility to safeguard vulnerable groups, and put an end to working with companies which use aggressive fundraising techniques.
The National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work at BU is currently working collaboratively with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) to develop good practice guides and advice for professionals working with vulnerable citizens and their families/carers about responding to the risks posed by financial scams. We will be hosting an event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science on 10th November to explore with the sector how we develop better responses to safeguarding those most at risk of financial exploitation. Details of how to book onto this event will be posted in the near future.
Reference:
Bennett, R. (2015) Individual characteristics and the arousal of mixed emotions: consequences for the effectiveness of charity fundraising advertisements, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 20: 188–209
Don’t miss out – BRAD week begins next week – there is still time to get yourself booked in to one of our BRAD sessions!
Taking place between Monday the 29th of June – Monday the 6th of July
Book into BRAD now – we have a rich variety of events including some new events waiting for you!
We hope to see you soon!
The value of providing undergraduate students with experience of conducting first hand, empirical research is widely recognised. As a social anthropologist, I’ve long been interested enabling students to discover and engage in ethnographic research. I’m presently developing a new taught unit in which for our BA Sociology and BA Sociology and Anthropology students will carry out ethnographic projects developed in collaboration with local community organisations. This endeavour necessarily poses challenges. One of them is time. Undergrad students’ learning is divided into units delivered over semesters, but a semester is very short time frame in which to design, carry out and write up an ethnographic project. The other is the nature of the collaboration with the non-academic partner, whether that be an NGO, community group, local government partner etc. How can this collaboration be shaped in a way which is beneficial to both parties?
IUPUI students visiting a housing redevelopment scheme in a lower income neighbourhood, Indianapolis, February 2015.
This term I have visited IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis), USA. IUPUI is a public university in which dialogue and engagement between faculty and students, on the one hand, and citizens, organisations and businesses, on the other, is a priority for both teaching and research. My visits have provided me with an opportunity to see a diverse range of ways in which this dialogue is promoted and sustained. Here I will summarise some of the strategies I have seen in action at IUPUI which are most pertinent to the kinds of collaborative, community-engaged student ethnographic projects I hope to develop at BU.
1. Investing time
The importance of investing time in developing relationships with local organisations which will have a stake in the research cannot be overstated. Whoever the partner is and whatever the nature of the collaboration, the project is enormously enhanced when both parties make time to talk to each other, arrive at a suitable, realisable aim of the project, and figure out how they are going to achieve it within the fixed timescale. This is of course easy to state and much harder to realise, as it involves all parties investing a very scarce resource, time, into the process. I followed an ethnographic research methods course closely during my visits, a project exploring urban regeneration within a low-income neighbourhood. This made clear the benefits of that early investment of time. Both the academic course leader and management, staff and volunteers at the community development organisation in the local area set aside considerable time in identifying the possibilities and foci of student research projects, long before the teaching proper started. This communication and collaboration also continued throughout the course itself, adjusting to changing and contingent circumstances as the student research projects progressed.
2. Framing the question
Central to the process above is negotiating the research question; what is it that the students will research and why? The question needs to address the interests and priorities of both partners. It must contain the potential for students to formulate their empirical focus and interpret their data in the light of theories and critical questions within their disciplines, and to produce findings which are of some benefit or use to non-academic partners, organisations and citizens. At IUPUI, I found out about series of student projects on urban development issues such as poverty, homelessness, housing, city regeneration strategies, gentrification and food production and consumption, to name some of them. These kinds of topics resulted in findings and interpretations which had both critical value as pieces of academic work and practical value to local people and organisations.
3. Moving teaching to community settings
I closely followed two courses which were taught off-campus in community settings – one in a church / community centre, the other in a women’s correctional facility. The success of any ethnographic project hinges on proximity and familiarity and so establishing this sense of closeness is obviously of enormous value to students. Teaching in a setting within which students will find an immediate mutuality of interest in their engagement with the people and organisations they are going to study helps students think of themselves as ethnographers. It provides the basis for developing relationships, trust, access and cooperation within the community, and for fostering local understanding of what the project is about. This is also a valuable experience that students take with them into their future careers.
4. Finding (new) ways of disseminating the research findings
Academics at IUPUI employed many different means of disseminating their students’ research projects and findings, enabling it to reach audiences within but also well beyond the city itself. Students were strongly encouraged and sometimes financially supported to attend national and international conferences. Funding was raised for publishing pamphlets, books and eBooks about their empirical studies and findings. Time was invested in developing impressive academic blogs and websites about their research. I provide a few links to just some of this fantastic work below.
I have gained many insights, ideas and sense of possibilities from my visits to IUPUI, and I’d like to extend my warm thanks to all colleagues and students whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Special thanks to Professor Susan B. Hyatt, whose scholarship inspired my visits and who made the whole thing possible in a practical sense.
Links to some online examples of IUPUI collaborative student research and scholarship:
– The ‘Neighborhood of Saturdays’. Student research project about urban multi-ethnic neighborhood in Indianapolis.
– ‘Eastside Story: Portrait of a Neighborhood on the Suburban Frontier’: Student project exploring historical change and community identities in a suburban area of Indianapolis.
– ‘Urban Heritage? Archaeology and Homelessness in Indianapolis’. A student project using archaeological methods to explore experiences of homelessness.
– ‘Ransom Place’ project: Collaborative project on culture, consumption and race in an African American neighbourhood in Indianapolis: http://www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/ransom.html
– ‘Archaeology and Material Culture’: blog of Professor Paul Mullins.
https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/author/paulmullins/
With less than one week to go until our BRAD events programme begins – there is still time to book yourself into one or more of our exciting events – taking place from the 29th of June – 6th of July 2015.
Book into BRAD now – we have a rich variety of events including some new events waiting for you!
We hope to see you soon!
Title: Transforming research into breast practice
Time: 1-1.50pm, Royal London House, R301
One of the three Impact Case Studies for the 2014 REF was on BU’s impact on the Breast-feeding information and advice webpages of Healthtalkonline. The Breast-feeding webpages of Healthtalkonline were designed by and based on BU research. In order to evidence this impact on the wider population we conducted an online survey of users of these Breast-feeding webpages. The presentation on Wednesday addresses the notion of impact, the survey and key findings as well as more recent research on Breast-feeding at BU that is likely to generate further/different impact!
Further information on this Seminar series can be found by clicking on the link below.
There is no need to book – just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.
Edwin looks forward to seeing you on Wednesday 29th April.
Lunchtime Seminar with Peter Thomas, Wednesday 15th April 1-1.50pm, R303
Please come to listen to Professor Peter Thomas present on the impact that his research into fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis is having, noting the importance of research with strong potential for patient benefit, and the importance of the research funder.
Further information on this Seminar series can be found by clicking on the link below.
There is no need to book – just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Editors of academic journals are regularly cursed by academics worldwide. At universities across the globe we can regularly hear expression such as “Who does the editor think he is rejecting my paper?” or “Why does it have to take six months (or more) to find out my paper is rejected?” or “Why does the editor not understand how good/novel/innovative/… our paper is? These kinds of expression of dismay may or may not be accompanied by an expletive. Being both busy editors and well published authors we thought timely to put pen to paper and explain the work (role and limitations) of the typical editor of an international academic journal.
First, being an editor is not all bad, and is actually a privilege. It is an opportunity to nurture new authors, be at the forefront of your discipline and it is part of being a ‘serious’ scholar. However, we have been at the receiving end of the wrath of authors dissatisfied with something we did or didn’t do as an editor AND we have been disappointed as authors with what we perceived to be, poor editorial decisions!
We wrote a short outline of the proposed paper and send it to the editor of Women and Birth. The idea was readily accepted and resulted in a paper published this week in the scientific journal.
The paper includes little snippets of insight and advice to authors. For example, a reminder that the average editor of an academic journalist an unpaid volunteer, usually a full-time lecturer and/or researcher with a busy day job, who does most of her editorial work on Sunday morning when the kids are still in bed or Tuesday night after the second-year marking has been completed. We hope that knowledge of the editors’ role will help authors (a) understand the submission process better; and (b) be a little bit more patience with the editors. And, last but not least, we hope our article helps the development of editors of the future.
Jenny Hall, Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The Journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth (accepted). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519215000104
Research should make a difference, and as the Faculty’s strapline is ‘helping to make people’s lives better’, it is of relevance to us all. Our forthcoming Seminar series will showcase some of the excellent work of the Faculty to inspire other academics and PhD students.
Further information on this Seminar series can be found by clicking on the link below. The first lunchtime seminar will be taking place on Wednesday 4th March, presented by Zoe Sheppard in R302, Royal London House.
There is no need to book – just turn up. Contact Zoe on zsheppard@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information.
We look forward to seeing you there.
The RKEO coffee morning is today in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am. The morning will concentrate on the wonders of the Project Delivery Team within RKEO, its personnel, the work they do and how they can help you with live surgeries and demonstrations on open access, BRIAN, the online ethics checklist and RED so please come along!
The Team has three specialist areas: Finance, Outputs and Governance which feed into Faculty dedicated teams. So if you want to know more about managing projects, applying for ethics approval, how to use BRIAN, Open Access or anything else Research and Knowledge Exchange focused please come along and have a chat with us, or just to enjoy a coffee and cake.
The coffee morning will be held in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am on Wednesday 4th February.
We look forward to seeing you!
Hi, for those who do not know me, I am Eva Papadopoulou and I have been since September 2014, the new Research Ethics and Governance Advisor.
I am responsible for providing support and advice to students and academic colleagues on all aspects of ethics queries, process and governance. I am part of the Project Delivery Team, for more info of the team, see Shelly’s yesterday post
I look after the Online Ethics Checklist, which filters all ethics applications and collaborate with students and colleagues of all Faculties for the progress of their ethics relating to Undergraduate, Masters, PhD and staff studies/research. I am also the secretary of the Science, Technology & Health Research Ethics Panel, the Social Science & Humanities Panel and the University Research Ethics Committee.
I have been working at BU for the last 9 years, first at HSC as the administrator of the PDU scheme, then moved on to be the HSC Research Administrator and two years ago moved to the R&KEOps and worked with Business School, SciTec and finally EU projects. I am a BU School of Tourism Graduate and received my MSc in Tourism Management at 2003.
Outside of work I am a happily busy mama to 4,5 year old Kally and trying unsuccessfully to teach her Greek, latest approach is to find all words that derive from Greek, so far so good, hmm. I like to travel, usually back home to Greece and the East of England to see the family and also enjoy reading, my Kindle is like my second child, cooking and watching films.
Why do we yawn? Dogs and cats make us yawn. We even yawn in the womb.
The first yawn of the day is usually when we awake to stretch our intercostal muscles surrounding our lungs to bring in more oxygen. Many of us recognise yawning as a sign of tiredness or boredom yet we also yawn before that important job interview. We contagiously yawn when our pets yawn and because we are empathetic towards another yawning human being. We even yawn in the womb.
As a member of the International Association for Research on Yawning, I have presented at the first international conference of neuroscientists and neurologists on yawning in Paris in 2010. Since then, I have been conducting research into this intriguing area and proposed the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis (1;2) to explain why the naturally produced stress hormone cortisol is released during yawning – a phenomenon never reported before.
Recently, I was delighted to be invited by the prestigious New Scientist to write a piece about this curiosity that affects all of us (3) and have received so much international interest that it has encouraged me to continue this pursuit with a view to its medical application.
I am also a member of the International Scientific Committee on Research into Multiple Sclerosis (MS) which is particularly relevant to yawning as people with MS often include fatigue and excessive yawning in their reported symptoms. Meeting in Paris recently with international collaborators from Paris X Ouest University and the French Multiple Sclerosis Society, I am conducting research into induced fatigue and MS and how these variables affect cortisol levels.
It is hoped this may point towards the development of a new diagnostic tool for the early diagnosis of MS using cortisol as a biomarker.
References
Contact: simont@bournemouth.ac.uk
It has been a good end of year at BU for Nepal research. Last week we had an ethics paper accepted on ‘Cervical Cancer Screening: Ethical Consideration’ in the journal Medicolegal & Bioethics as well as a research paper on ‘Sexual health knowledge and risky sexual behaviour of Nepalese trekking guides’ which will appear in 2015 in the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences.
We also had an editorial accepted on the importance of mixed-methods research in Nepal by the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. The latter is linked to our planned Mixed-Methods Symposium on Saturday January 3rd 2015 in the city of Pokhara, Nepal (see our earlier BU Research Blog).
Yesterday we heard that we have been successful in our grant application to THET. Our grant forms part of the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS) that funds health partnerships to carry out training and capacity-building projects in low-income countries. The Scheme is funded by the UK Department for International Development and managed by THET.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
I have taught at Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense on a number of occasions but I continue to be impressed by the enthusiasm and challenging questions the Master’s level students pose. Paris is rich with culture and the education system has many benefits. I am privileged to be part of a growing French research culture that respects skills and knowledge with cutting edge technology in neuroscience.
Sacre Coeur, roof-top; Gare du Nord, r.
Eiffel Tower, roof-top.
This complements my experience at Bournemouth University and has enabled me to collaborate on projects that face difficult challenges with respect to ethics and use of expensive technology, namely fMRI scanning. Functional Magnetic Resonance Scanning is notoriously expensive yet the benefits to clinical research are potentially huge.
Modernism - or the Aliens have landed!
My study on yawning and cortisol at Bournemouth University [1] has now includes collaboration with three prestigious centres in France: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Amiens University Hospital, University of Picardy Jules Verne.
I hope to continue my Anglo-French meetings with the assistance of the Erasmus Travel Scholarship scheme in the future, as well as with funding from the French Embassy and the French Multiple Sclerosis Society.
[1] Thompson, S.B.N., 2014. Yawning, fatigue and cortisol: expanding the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses. Doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2014.08.009.
A special event has been arranged at BU that will focus on health care within prisons. The session to be held on 28th May will be led by Jane Senior from the University of Manchester. Jane is a clinician-researcher and Research Project Manager for the Offender Health Research Network. Jane is a qualified mental health nurse with over 20 years of post qualification experience of working in prison and secure mental health settings.
Jane’s session will be of great value to anyone :
During the session Jane will outline findings from her recent prison research projects. These include studies into how to manage the health and wellbeing of older prisoners and her recent work in developing the Older Prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP). She will also highlight some of the specific issues that can arise when undertaking research within a prison environment.
Staff and students are welcome to attend the session. If you would like to attend please email Holly Crossen-White (hcrossen@Bournemouth.ac.uk).
On the 16th May the Welcome Trust will host a seminar exploring the results of the ESRC/ONS joint Dialogue on Data: Exploring the public’s views on using administrative data (government collected data) for research purposes. 
During October and November 2013, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) commissioned IPSOS Mori to undertake a public dialogue in seven UK locations to explore views on using government administrative data for research purposes.
The overall objectives were to explore public understanding and views of administrative data and data linking. The dialogue focused on two uses of administrative data, one that is currently being established and one that may go ahead in future:
This seminar will present the findings to policy professionals, science communicators and public engagement specialists as well as showcase how they are being used. It will also explore with attendees what further work is needed in this area.
To register for the seminar please email your name, contact number and organisation to events@esrc.ac.uk.
Further information can be found here – Dialogue on Data: Exploring the public’s views on using linked administrative data for research purposes (PDF, 3Mb)
BU staff can login below:
BU Professor has been invited to a series of plenary and invited lectures.
An Interview of BU-lead EU H2020 FIRST project published in “Horizon”, the EU Research & Innovation Magazine
Update on Horizon Europe Guarantee
Research Information Network
Thinking about interdisciplinary research
Cancer Awareness Event at BU
An inspiring visit to Türkiye! Towards gender equality in research and academia
New book by Dr Duncan Randall, DNS