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Accessibility in Tourism funding available

The Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry has issued a  call for proposals on mapping skills and training needs to improve accessibility in tourism services. The project must map the staff skills needed to improve accessibility and safety in tourism services, and analyse the availability of the corresponding training, either in EU states and Croatia or available for transference from other regions. The project must also produce a collection of best practices through a selection of case studies. Funding is worth an estimated €100,000 over 12 months.

Proposed Copyright Hub to Streamline Copyright Licensing

Publishing, Research Integritiy

Recommendations for the establishment of a Digital Copyright Exchange, contained in a final report into its feasibility, have just been published following a Department of Business, Innovation and Skills funded study undertaken by Richard Hooper, click here.

Given the amount of digital material available and likely to be created in the future, it is essential to streamline the process of copyright licensing. Having easier mechanisms to obtain the appropriate copyright licences will benefit rights holders and potential licensees.

The report recommends the creation of a not-for-profit industry-led, industry-funded Copyright Hub, and the establishment of a steering group to drive forward and oversee the design and implementation of the Hub.

The Copyright Hub will have five main purposes, to:

  • act as a signpost and be a navigation mechanism to the complex world of copyright
  • be the place to go for copyright education
  • be the place where any copyright owner can choose to register works, the associated rights to those works, permitted uses and licences granted
  • be the place for potential licensees to go for easy to use, transparent, low transaction cost copyright licensing
  • be one of the authoritative places where prospective users of orphan works can go to demonstrate they have done proper, reasonable and due diligence searches for the owners of those works before they digitise them

The Government’s response to these proposals is awaited.

Have you co-authored a paper with a student this year? If so we want to hear from you!

Publishing

M&C are currently working on the BU Annual Review and are looking for information on outputs that have been published in the past academic year that have been co-authored between academics and students.

If you have co-authored any papers with students or know of any BU colleagues who have then Toby Horner in M&C wants to hear from you so this can be included in the Annual Review. Contact Toby by email (hornert@bournemouth.ac.uk) or telephone on extension 61328.

Erasmus for All update

You may remember that earlier this month I posted an update you on the latest Erasmus for All plans. Last week, the official draft of the Erasmus for All programme was published. It pretty much confirms what my previous blogpost suggested, but in case you want to read it in all its glory, you can do so here: Erasmus For All draft report 20.07.12

Finally just a reminder that the Erasmus Student Network survey is still open for responses until the end of the month if you wish to get involved, as per my previous blogpost.

 

 

Economic impact – UK universities contributed £3.3bn to the economy in 2010-11!

HEFCE announced last week that in 2010-11 UK universities contributed £3.3 billion to the economy through services to business, including commercialisation of new knowledge, delivery of professional training, consultancy and services, a rise of 7% from 2009-10.

Interestingly HEFCE note that despite wider economic uncertainty, spending on university services by large business increased by 7% indicating that universities are stimulating public growth and contributing to public services and society. Income to universities from facilities and services – such as digital media suites – increased by 12% from 2009-10 to 2010-11.

In addition collaborative research and contract research income also grew (by 16% and 7% respectively) showing an increase in the application of knowledge to solving real world problems.

You can read the full story on the HEFCE website here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2012/name,73740,en.html

Kimberley and Susan at Eurochrie

Kimberley Kirk-Macaulay and  Dr Susan Horner are to present a paper at Eurochrie Lausanne in October 2012. The paper that is based on Kim’s final year dissertation is entitled:

‘Status seeking consumer behaviour and its impact on the hospitality consumption of young professional females’

The paper considers the research that was carried out  using a long focus group to elicit ideas, raise issues, and gain a greater understanding of consumer behaviour relating to hospitality decisions and finishes by making recommendations for the hospitality sector. 

‘This is a very exciting development because it starts the process of publishing outstanding student work in the hospitality field’ says Dr Susan Horner, School of Tourism.

FP7 ICT Internet of Things and Digital Enterprise UK Info Day

An free to attend infoday on funding opportunities under ICT Call  in the areas of the Internet of Things and digital enterprise will be held in London on 12 September 10am-4pm. It will  offer attendees the opportunity to network and share ideas as well as providing an overview of funding available in ICT Call 10 and future calls, including ongoing research, road mapping activities and collaborative groupings in Europe. While the event is free, you have to register in advance on the  the event webpage.

Should the Finch Report have gone for green not gold?

Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceLast week Matthew added a post (Decisions, decisions: where do I publish?) about the long-awaited Finch Report into expanding access to published research findings. The Report advocates a move to Open Access publishing for all government-funded research, a view which has been embraced by the Government. Open Access publishing is something that BU fully supports and encourages academics to undertake and just over a year ago we launched a central, dedicated budget specifically for paying Open Access publication fees on behalf of our academics (BU Open Access Publication Fund). Even so I am somewhat disappointed with the decision of the Finch Report and the reason for this is because the Report isn’t green, it’s gold.

The Report supports the gold open access model of publishing – this is where authors pay publishers for the privilidge of having their work published which, upon publication, is made freely available to anyone (no need for a subscription) on the internet. The green open access model on the other hand describes the situation where articles are published in subscription based journals as now, but a peer reviewed final copy is placed in an open access repository (such as an institutional repository like BURO). Unfortunately the gold model simply redistributes the costs of publishing by charging authors publishing fees up front rather than readers on a subscription basis, and by so openly supporting gold over green the Report is clearly supporting the commercial interests of publishers over the interests of UK research, universities and the general public. It could be argued that a better outcome of the Finch Report would have been support for green open access publishing by increasing the number of UK institutions and funders with green open access mandates from 40% to 100%.

At BU we are lucky that we have the BU Open Access Publication Fund to meet the fees of open access publishing (i.e. gold model) but what about if this budget cannot keep up with demand during a fast transition to gold open access publishing? And what about authors who don’t have access to similar funds and who can’t pay? Many PGRs and ECRs in the UK might fall into the latter group and a lack of published articles could put them at a disadvantage when applying for jobs and progressing their careers.

Last week the THE ran an interesting article on the Finch Report (Staggered open-access gold run ‘won’t break bank’) reporting that the move to gold open access publishing will be a steady transition rather than an immediate change. However the speed at which the Government adopted the Report’s main recommendations and promoted the benefits of the gold model, coupled with RCUK’s publication of a final version of their new open access policy (in which researchers are required to publish in gold open access outlets or self-archive outputs within 6-12 months, depending on discipline) and news that the four funding council’s (including HEFCE) intend to consult over plans to require all papers submitted to the next REF to be published in open access journals, gives the impression that the transition may be more imminent that the THE article suggests.

Overall it can only be a good thing that the Finch Report and the sector at large is so supportive of open access publishing – however I wish the Report had been a little less biased in its outcome and hope that universities are given the time required to make the transition smoothly. Thankfully BU is ahead of the game with the BU Open Access Publication Fund and we will continue to keep up with external developments to ensure BU staff are fully supported with open access publishing. We will also continue to support colleagues with making published outputs available via the green model of open access, i.e. self-archiving on BURO. Our new system BRIAN will tell you the publisher’s rules on self-archiving when you click through to add an output to BURO (via BRIAN). This will also be checked for you by the Library prior to the output going live in BURO.

If you’ve published a paper via a gold open access outlet we’d love to hear about your experience – do you think this has increased the impact of your research and has making your findings available quicker to a larger audience made a difference?

Huge congratulations to BU researcher, Andy Harding, for his award winning dissertation!

BU researcher, Andy Harding, has been awarded the ‘The Politics & International Relations MSc Dissertation Prize 2011/12’, on graduating with a distinction in MSc (SocSci) Governance and Policy, University of Southampton which is awarded to the student who has gained the highest mark in the MSc dissertation (in this case 85%!).

The dissertation sought to enquire how people are prepared to act in order to access and engage with healthcare provision by examining whether a dichotomy exists between consumerist and citizenship models of behaviour. It did this by eliciting and comparing attitudes between making a choice of treatment (i.e. concepts of consumer choice) and participating on a citizens’ jury (i.e. being involved in the governance of the provider). Feedback on the dissertation noted that:

“It addresses skilfully an interesting and topical issue on the basis of a strong, independent piece of research. This research is extremely well explained and organised and generates some genuinely interesting findings… Overall, therefore, this was a bravura performance which is clearly of high distinction level.”  This is fantastic feedback and we wish Andy many congratulations!

Andy is currently editing the dissertation for submission to a peer reviewed journal, and we eagerly await the opportunity to read it.

For those of you that don’t already know Andy, he is a Research Assistant in the School of Health and Social Care’s professional practice development community, and is principally involved in research that is aimed at better informing health and social practice. Andy is particularly interested in how people want to, and the means by which people can, access and engage with health and social care provision. If you would like to learn more, please contact Andy directly on aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk or via twitter @andrewjeharding.


Reducing sleep problems in children – BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers’ research features in the TES

Over the past couple of years BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers in the School of Design, Engineering and Computing, has been working with Bouremouth primary schools to try and reduce sleep problems in school children. Working in schools, sleep is probably the most common problem that is reported by teachers, head-teachers and staff, and Andrew stresses the importance of all children receiving enough sleep to prevent adverse effects on their education and health. He is currently studying the effects of CBD Gummies For Sleep after school staff noticed pupils were struggling to get through the day without falling asleep.

Andrew is currently exploring the possibility of conducting studies that examine the mental health and well-being of children, including how poor sleep affects their emotional, cognitive, social and educational development. He hopes the outcomes will help to offer a clearer understanding of the implications of sleep deprivation in children.

You can read the full TES article here: Can’t sleep, won’t sleep (published 27 July 2012).

Andrew’s research also featured in the Daily Mail: Parents offered ‘get your child to sleep’ classes as pupils turn up to lessons too tired (published 27 July 2012).

Andrew’s website is available here: http://andrewmayers.info/

Good luck & Congratulations!

Awarded & submitted bids

Congratulations to Steve Calver (School of Tourism) for securing funding from the NHS Dorset, Steve Calver and MRG (School of Tourism) for their funding from Bath Preservation Trust and the North Dorset Trailway Network, Joanna Hawkes (School of Tourism) for organising delegates for the courses Level 2 Fitness Instructor Short Course in September 2012 and Level 3 Fitness Training Short Course in October 2013, Steph Farmer (Media School) for successfully securing funding from South West Ambulance Trust Via Capita, Howard Davis and Melanie Klinkner (Business School) for their funding from Nuffield Foundation, Anthea Innes (Health and Social Care) for securing funding from Bournemouth Borough Council, Richard Gordon (School of Tourism) for securing funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, John Fletcher (School of Tourism) for the funding he received from the University of Kent, Anthea Innes (Health and Social Care) for securing funding from Bournemouth Borough Council for her Community Dementia Programme, Mark Maltby (ApSci) for his funding from Central Bedfordshire Council, Mark Dover (ApSci) for his funding from Dataloft Ltd, Bronwen Russell and Jonny Monteith (Applied Sciences) for the funding they have received from Reefdene Limited, Forestry Commission and Joanna Scott, David Osselton (Applied Sciences) for the funding received from the South African Police Force.

Good luck to John Stewart (ApSci) for his NERC Grant application, Steve Calver (School of Tourism) in his application for funding from Perth and Kinross Council, Christopher Chapleo and Tim Ford (Business School) in their application for funding from the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), Sara Crabtree (Health and Social Care) for her application to ISRF, Zulfiqar Khan (DEC) for his application to EPSRC, Dimitrios Buhalis, Adam Blake and Alan Fyall (School of Tourism) with their EC Tender, Mark Readman (Media School) for his application for funding from Barclays Bank, Eleanor Jack and Louise Worswick (Health and Social Care) for their application to the BUPA Foundation Seedcorn Grant, Gill Jordan (Health and Social Care) for her application to Pulse International, Clive Andrewes and Mary-Ann Robertson (Health and Social Care) for their application to Grapecroft Care Home, Bournemouth Arch (ApSci) for their application to Cerne Historical Society, Ian Swain, Caroline Ellis-Hill and Venky Dubey (DEC) for their application for funding from The Stroke Association, Colin Pritchard and Richard Williams (Health and Social Care) with their tender of the Children’s Commissioner for England, Tilak Ginige (Applied Sciences) for his funding application to HEA thematic workshop and seminar series, Dave Parham (Applied Sciences) for his funding application to Poole Harbour Commissoners, Tim Darvill, Bronwen Russell and Ehren Milner (Applied Sciences) with their funding application to English Heritage.

Best wishes

Matthew

FP7 Social Science application top tips

If you are thinking about applying for a Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) related call under FP7 and missed the info day, fear not I have some useful tips from the day to share with you. The European Commission SSH Unit representative said that proposals should:

  • include a range of partners from different countries and show added value for each of these
  • use both qualitative and quantitative methods
  • look at projects funded on the website between 2007-10
  • not replicate previously funded projects
  • pay attention to dissemination plans (give specific info on the journals, conferences, etc)
  • demonstrate interaction between the different Work Packages
  • support Policy.

There were several other presentations on the day which you can access using via UKRO the links below: