BU Research Blog

February 6, 2021

Congratulations to Prof. Ashencaen-Crabtree on publication of new book

Featured academics, international, Publishing, Research news, Women's Academic Network, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Prof. Sara Ashencaen Crabtree on the publication of her new Routledge research monograph, Women of Faith and the Quest for Spiritual Authenticity [1]. This new book is based on 59 interviews with women in Malaysia and the UK concerning their experiences, beliefs and practices across the faiths of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and diverse Pagan pathways. These accounts are often very personal and detailed in referring to both the micro (individual) and the macro (social) in terms of how faith and gender are negotiated in multicultural societies that struggle with the politics of diversity.

This is an ecumenical and entertaining ethnography where women’s narratives and life stories ground faith as embodied, personal, painful, vibrant, diverse, illuminating and shared. This book will of interest not only to academics and students of the sociology of religion, feminist and gender studies, politics, political science, ethnicity and Southeast Asian studies, but is equally accessible to the general reader broadly interested in faith and feminism. Sara says that she road-tested some of these Sociology of Religion ideas in the classroom at Bournemouth University and she found that social science students really related to it in their discussions.

I have taken the liberty to reproduce one of the reviews written for the publisher’s website by Prof. Crisp from Deakin University in Australia.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Ashencaen Crabtree S (2021) Women of Faith and the Quest for Spiritual Authenticity: Comparative Perspectives from Malaysia and Britain, London: Routledge.

December 10, 2020

New interdisciplinary COVID-19 paper

BU research, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

An evidence-based, multidisciplinary approach on risk zoning, personal and transmission risk assessment in near real-time, and risk communication would support the optimized decisions to minimize the impact of coronavirus on our lives. This interdisciplinary paper [1], pubished today in Scientific Reports, offers a framework to assess the individual and regional risk of COVID-19 along with risk communication tools and mechanisms. Relative risk scores on a scale of 100 represent the integrated risk of influential factors. The personal risk model incorporates age, exposure history, symptoms, local risk and existing health condition, whereas regional risk is computed through the actual cases of COVID-19, public health risk factors, socioeconomic condition of the region, and immigration statistics. A web application tool (http://www.covira.info) has been developed, where anyone can assess their risk and find the guided information links primarily for Nepal. This study provides regional risk for Nepal, but the framework is scalable across the world.

The authors comprised researchers from the University of Bristol, Science Hub (Nepal), University of the West of England, Public Health Perspective Nepal, Nepal Open University, Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, the University of Huddersfield and Bournemouth University.

Reference:

Parajuli, R.R., Mishra, B., Banstola, A. Multidisciplinary approach to COVID-19 risk communication: a framework and tool for individual and regional risk assessment. 21650 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78779-0

April 22, 2020

Major Study on 3D Printing and IP Law Led by Prof. Dinusha Mendis Published by the European Commission

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Business Engagement, COVID-19, EU, Featured academics, Fusion themes, humanities, Industry collaboration, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, policy, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research communication, Research news, research staff cippm

A large scale empirical and legal study on the Intellectual Property Implications of the Development of Industrial 3D Printing, funded by the European Commission and led by Professor Dinusha Mendis (FMC, Law and Co-Director CIPPM) has been published.

The report can be accessed here: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/e193a586-7f8c-11ea-aea8-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-124493516

The project was awarded to Professor Mendis in 2018 and together with academic and industry partners from UK (Dr. Julie Robson, Bournemouth University; Prof. Phill Dickens, Added Scientific Ltd), Germany (Prof. Dr. Jan Nordemann, Nordemann LLP; Hans Brorsen) Austria (Dr. Maria del Carmen Calatrava Moreno, Technopolis Group) and Finland (Dr. Rosa Ballardini, University of Lapland) the project was completed in February 2020, with the report being published in April 2020.

Ahead of the completion of the project and publication of the report, a final workshop was hosted in Brussels on 14 October 2019. The presentations from the workshop as well as the panel discussion, can be accessed here.

The project provides an overview of the past and current industrial applications of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing in seven selected sectors (health, aerospace, automotive, consumer, energy, construction and tooling) whilst identifying potential challenges and opportunities in need of clarification. With the aim of enhancing the competitiveness of the AM sector in Europe, the Study makes policy recommendations in the field of intellectual property for businesses engaged in the AM and 3D printing field, and in the present context, is highly relevant for businesses and consumers working with 3D printers, in the fight against Covid-19.

March 29, 2020

Congratulations to Psychology colleagues

open access, Publishing, Research news, research staff, the conversation, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This week the journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth accepted a new paper written by three Bournemouth University Psychologists. The paper ‘Be Quiet and Man Up: A Qualitative Questionnaire Study into Men Who Experienced Birth Trauma’ is written by Emily Daniels, Emily Arden-Close and Andrew Mayers [1] . The paper, using online questionnaires, argues that fathers reported that witnessing their partner’s traumatic birth affected them. They felt this affected their mental health and relationships long into the postnatal period. However, there is no nationally recognised support in place for fathers to use as a result of their experiences. The participants attributed this to being perceived as less important than women in the postnatal period, and maternity services’ perceptions of the father more generally. Implications include ensuring support is available for mother and father following a traumatic birth, with additional staff training geared towards the father’s role.

This paper adds to the growing pool of publications by Bournemouth University staff on men and maternity care. Earlier research work has been published in The Conversation [2] and the Journal of Neonatal Nursing [3-4].

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal health (CMMPH) and Associate Editor BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth

References:

Daniels, E., Arden-Close, E., Mayers, A. (2020) Be Quiet and Man Up: A Qualitative Questionnaire Study into Men Who Experienced Birth Trauma, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth (accepted).
Mayers, A. (2017) Postnatal depression: men get it too, The Conversation, 20 November https://theconversation.com/postnatal-depression-men-get-it-too-87567
Ireland, J., Khashu, M., Cescutti-Butler, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2016) Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature, Journal of Neonatal Nursing 22(4): 171–176.
Fisher, D., Khashu, M, Adama, E, Feeley, N, Garfield, C, Ireland, J, Koliouli F, Lindberg, B., Noergaard, B., Provenzi, L., Thomson-Salo, F., van Teijlingen, E (2018) Fathers in neonatal units: Improving infant health by supporting the baby-father bond & mother-father co-parenting Journal of Neonatal Nursing 24(6): 306-312 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnn.2018.08.007

March 24, 2020

Three-and-a-half years to get published

Featured academics, Global engagement, international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Abstract

Junior colleagues or PhD students submitting their first manuscript often ask: “How long will it take before the editor comes back to me with a decision?” My stock answer is: “It depends!” It depends on the nature of the journal, the support available to the editor, how busy the editor is, or how difficult she finds it to allocate your paper to appropriate reviewers. Moreover, once sent out for review it depends how busy the reviewers are. I often have to remind my colleagues and student that academics are hardly ever paid for being a reviewer, and hence they do their reviewing over and above a usually heavy academic teaching and research load.

This short article highlights the case of one of our research papers which took four years from the day of submission to the journal to finally appearing in print. And, I hasten to say, it was not because the initially submitted manuscript was so bad that the authors had to make major changes and re-write or re-structure the whole paper. This blog highlights some of the unexpected hiccups in the process of getting an article published.

Introduction

On October the 5^th 2016 Samridhi Pradhan, who worked for Green Tara Nepal in Kathmandu and who was Bournemouth University Visiting faculty at the time, emailed the then editor of an English-language journal based in Nepal with our manuscript. She wrote: “Respected Editor, I wish to submit a new manuscript entitled “Factors affecting the uptake of institutional delivery, antenatal and postnatal care services” in Nawalparasi district, Nepal in your esteemed Kathmandu University Medical Journal (KUMJ).” The editor wrote back the same day thanking us for our submission, and presenting us with a “manuscript ID o20161006250 for your valuable paper.…We will very soon go for initial screening and let you notify.” We expected the editor to send this manuscript out for review, then for us to get feedback a few months later, make some (minor) changes and have the paper published in 2017.

Then nothing happened for a year although we emailed and phoned the editor of KUMJ regularly. There seems to be a problem finding reviewers, and we offered to other potential reviewers. In December one of our co-authors Dr. Sharada Wasti informed our team that the KUMJ editor had suggested in a conversation with home that our paper would appear in the December volume of the journal. Dr. Waste emailed on 15 December 2017: “I will follow up and keep update with you by the end of this month.” KUMJ duly published Vol. 15 (4) labelled Oct.-Dec. 2017 but our paper was not included.

Four days later on December 19^th 2017 we received an email for the editor with a set of minor comments and questions about the manuscript for reviewers. We made the requested amendments and resubmitted our paper on January 10^th 2018. Months passed and KUMJ published two more issues in 2018 without our paper despite our team sending reminders regularly. Then on the last day of July 2018 Dr. Wasti emailed our team that he had had contact with the editor who had made it clear that: “This paper has been accepted” and it was supposed to come published in the last volume, which would have been the April-June 2018 issue Vol.16 (2). Dr. Wasti added that the editor had made it clear that although it was not covered, KUMJ “will publish in our upcoming volume.” This next issue Vol. 16 (3) again failed to publish our paper.

Then there was a long gap with KUMJ changing editors, correspondence being mislaid and manuscripts getting lost. Due to Dr. Wasti’s persistence in contacting the editors we received a request to update our paper with 2019 data in December 2019, nearly a year and a half after re-submission. A few days later that month we were informed that the journal was finally going to publish our paper. Another wo months passed before the editor email that say: “Congratulation, your paper has been finalized and selected for coming issue of KUMJ, paper has been uploaded in our website www.kumj.com.np.”

Some papers take longer to get published than others!

Our paper is now online first 3½ years after the initial submission. And to add insult to injury the journal is backdating the paper to appear with a publication date of September 2019, so it will be published in Vol.17(3) labelled July-Sept. 2019. This is, of course, an unusual story with a very long gap between first submission of a manuscript and the final appearance of the paper in print. It is unusual because the paper was only ever submitted to one journal. It is more likely that the publish process takes time because the first journal rejects the paper, the second paper also rejects your paper and then the subsequent paper asks for a set of alterations and changes. For example, van Teijlingen and Hundley (2002) outlined such process for one of their papers which took two years from initial submission to publication. However, this paper was submitted to five different journals in succession after having between rejected by the first four.

References:

Pradhan, S., van Teijlingen E., Simkhada, P.P., Dhungel, A., Silwal R.C., Fanning P., Wasti, S.P. (2019) Factors Affecting the Uptake of Institutional Delivery, Antenatal and Postnatal Care in Nawalparasi District, Nepal, Kathmandu University Medical Journal http://www.kumj.com.np/issue/X/49-54.pdf (accepted).
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.

March 19, 2020

Medical textbook translated into Spanish

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Featured academics, international, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This week saw the publication of Psicología y sociología aplicadas a la medicina [1]. This is a translated version of the fourth edition of Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text [2] which was published last year by the international publishing house Elsevier. This textbook for medical students is edited by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, who is a Medical Sociologist and Prof. Gerry Humphries, who is Professor in Health Psychology at the School of Medicine, University of St Andrews.

Una sólida herramienta que aporta a los lectores valiosos conocimientos sobre los provesos psicológicos y sociológicos, fundamentales para proporcionar una atención personalizada. Obra extremadamente relevatne para el currículo y la práctica médica actual, donde se hace cada vez más hincapié en el lugar que ocupa la medicina en la sociedad y en la enfermedad como producto de las circunstancias psicológicas y sociales, más que como un mero fenómeno biológico. Los temas se presentan resumidos visualmente enuna doble página. Se acompañan con casos que refuerzan la comprensión de los conceptos fundamentales y con cuadros resumen y cuestiones para la reflexión. Ayuda a apreciar el lado “no científico” de la medicina; lo importante que es entender de dónde viene el paciente, geográfica e ideológicamente. Además, aborda a la perfección temas tan actuales, como las dificultades sociales derivadas de las pruebas genéticas.

References:

van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2020) Psicología y sociología aplicadas a la medicina (Spanish translation), Madrid: Elsevier España [ISBN 978-84-9113-674-3/eISBN 978-84-9113-713-9].
van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2019) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (4^th Edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier.

December 31, 2019

Final BU publication of 2019?

BU research, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, open access, Publishing, Research communication, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published its final edition of 2019 today, on the final day of the year. This issue included an editorial co-authored by BU academics and BU Visiting Faculty. The editorial ‘Vaping and e-cigarettes: A public health warning or a health promotion tool?’ [1] addresses the topical public health question of what to make of vaping. On the one hand, vaping is generally regarded as less harmful than smoking tobacco, but on the other hand, it can be a gateway drug to cigarettes and the process of vaping a range of chemicals it in itself not harmless.

The paper has been written by two academics based in CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health), Dr. Preeti Mahato and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS Visiting Faulty members Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at the University of Huddersfield) and Dr. Brijesh Sathian (based at Trauma Surgery,in Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar) in collaboration with e-cigarette user Mr. Cameron van Teijlingen (based in Dorset) and Dr. Mohammad Asim (based at Trauma Surgery,in Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar). The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is Open Access and therefore freely accessible across the globe.

Reference:

van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, C., Asim, M., & Sathian, B. (2019). Vaping and e-cigarettes: A public health warning or a health promotion tool? Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 9(4), 792-794. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i4.26960

November 16, 2019

Growing wealth of migration publications at Bournemouth University

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Featured academics, international, open access, PG research, policy, Publishing, Research news, research staff, student research, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday saw the latest publication based on Bournemouth University (BU) migration research. The international journal BMC Public Health published our quantitative paper ‘Psychological morbidity in Nepali cross-border migrants in India: a community based cross-sectional study’ [1]. This scientific article highlights that since Nepali migrants can freely cross the border with India and hence work and stay there, they are largely undocumented. The majority of these Nepali migrant workers is involved in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs with limited labour rights and social security, which predisposes them to psychological distress. The paper assessed the prevalence of and factors associated with psychological morbidity among Nepali migrants upon their return from India.

Just a few days ago the UN Migration Agency in Nepal IOM (International Organization for Migration) published ‘Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal‘, an online report to which BU academics (Aryal, Regmi & van Teijlingen) had contributed [2]. Just recently we had published the qualitative sister paper on Nepali migrants working and living in India. [3]. Whilst Dr. Nirmal Aryal was the lead author on a paper highlighting the need for more research specifically focusing on adolescents left behind by migrant workers [4]. Earlier this year BU PhD graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary published his latest paper from his thesis, the paper is called ‘Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study’ and was published in the Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health [5].

Last year was also a very good year for BU migration research, including a systematic review on sex trafficking (perhaps the worst kind of migrant workers) [6], an earlier research paper by Dr. Adhikary with his PhD supervisors [7], and one paper on Nepali female migrants workers in the Middle-East & Malaysia [8]. Earlier BU academics published on general health issues and accidents among Nepali migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar & Saudi Arabia [9-10], Nepali migrants in the UK [11-12] , other papers included: a call for action on Public Health [13]; a systematic review [14]; a paper on migrant workers’ spouses [15]; migrant health workers in the UK [16-17]; migration and tourism industry [18-20]; migrants and space in Italy [21-22]; an anthropological perspective on migration [23]; a media studies’ perspective [24]; and archaeological perspective [25]; and a socio-economic perspective [26]. No doubt there are several other publications I have forgotten or I am simply unaware missed in this list.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

References:

Dhungana, R.R., Aryal, N, Adhikary, P., KC, R., Regmi, P.R., et al. (2019) Psychological morbidity in Nepali cross-border migrants in India: A community-based cross-sectional, BMC Public Health 19:1534
International Organization for Migration (2019) Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: International Organization for Migration.
Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Aryal, N., Jadhav, N., Simkhada, P., Syed Zahiruddin, Q., Gaidhane, A., (2019) The health of Nepali migrants in India: A qualitative study of lifestyles and risks, Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health 16(19), 3655; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193655.
Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Mahat, P. (2019) Adolescents left behind by migrant workers: a call for community-based mental health interventions in Nepal. WHO South East Asia Journal of Public Health 8(1): 38-41.
Adhikary P, van Teijlingen E., Keen S. (2019) Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health 21(5): 1115–1122. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-018-0801-y
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, A., Bissell, P., Poobalan, A., Wasti, S.P. (2018) Health consequences of sex trafficking: A systematic review, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 4(1): 130-149.
Adhikary P, Sheppard, Z., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2018) Health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers abroad, International Journal of Migration, Health & Social Care 14(1): 96-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-12-2015-0052
Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Gurung, M., Wasti, S. (2018) A survey of health problems of Nepalese female migrants workers in the Middle-East & Malaysia, BMC International Health & Human Rights 18(4): 1-7. http://rdcu.be/E3Ro
Adhikary, P, Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar & Saudi Arabia, Health Prospect 16(2): 3-10.
Adhikary P., Keen S., van Teijlingen E (2011) Health Issues among Nepalese migrant workers in Middle East. Health Science Journal 5: 169-75. www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue3/532.pdf
Adhikary, P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen E., Raja, AE. (2008) Health & Lifestyle of Nepalese Migrants in the UK BMC International Health & Human Rights 8(6). Web address: www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/8/6
van Teijlingen E, Simkhada, P., Adhikary, P. (2009) Alcohol use among the Nepalese in the UK BMJ Rapid Response: www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/339/oct20_1/b4028#223451
Aryal, N., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Adhikary, P., Bhatta, YKD., Mann, S. (2016) Injury and Mortality in Young Nepalese Migrant Workers: A Call for Public Health Action. Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health 28(8): 703-705.
Simkhada, PP., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Aryal, N. (2017) Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health & well-being: A review of the literature, Journal of Travel Medicine 24 (4): 1-9.
Aryal, N., Regmi, PR., van Teijlingen, E., Dhungel, D., Ghale, G., Bhatta, GK. (2016) Knowing is not enough: Migrant workers’ spouses vulnerability to HIV SAARC Journal of Tuberculosis, Lung Diseases & HIV/AIDS 8(1):9-15.
Scammell, J., 2016. Nurse migration and the EU: how are UK nurses prepared? British Journal of Nursing, 25 (13), p. 764.
Sapkota, T., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Nepalese health workers’ migration to United Kingdom: A qualitative study. Health Science Journal 8(1):57-74.
Janta, H., Ladkin, A., Brown, L., Lugosi, P., 2011. Employment experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality sector. Tourism Management, 32 (5): 1006-1019.
Dwyer, L., Seetaram, N., Forsyth, P., Brian, K. (2014) Is the Migration-Tourism Relationship only about VFR? Annals of Tourism Research, 46: 130-143.
Filimonau, V., Mika, M. (2017) Return labour migration: an exploratory study of Polish migrant workers from the UK hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism, 1-22.
De Martini Ugolotti, N., 2016. ‘If I climb a wall of ten meters’: capoeira, parkour and the politics of public space among (post)migrant youth in Turin, Italy. Patterns of Prejudice, 50 (2), 188-206.
De Martini Ugolotti, N., 2015. Climbing walls, making bridges: children of immigrants’ identity negotiations through capoeira and parkour in Turin. Leisure Studies, 34 (1), 19-33.
Mai, N., Schwandner-Sievers, S. (2003) Albanian migration and new transnationalisms, Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies 29(6): 939-948.
Marino, S., Dawes, S., 2016. Fortress Europe: Media, Migration and Borders. Networking Knowledge, 9 (4).
Parker Pearson, M., Richards, C., Allen, M., Payne, A. & Welham, K. (2004) The Stonehenge Riverside project Research design and initial results Journal of Nordic Archaeological Science 14: 45–60.
Chowdhury, M., 2014. Migration, Human Capital Formation and the Beneficial Brain Drain Hypothesis: A Note. Migration & Development, 3 (2), 174-180.

November 12, 2019

What makes a Bournemouth University publication?

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, policy, Publishing, Research Centres, Research communication, Research news, research staff, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Last week the IOM (International Organization for Migration) in Nepal, the UN Migration Agency published a new report online: Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal. This report mentioned the input and advice of Bournemouth University (BU) staff, including Dr. Nirmal Aryal, who worked on the report prior to his appointment at BU and who is listed as Co-Investigator, furthermore listed as Resource Persons are: Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Working with the charity Green Tara Nepal (GTN) on this study has been good for IOM and BU. All of use have worked on the report in different kind of ways and to different degrees. The publication suggested a corporate authorship as ‘International Organization for Migration’, which is great for the status of the report as it is a UN agency. We feel part of this as BU academics and feel we are part of the team despite this not being a BU publication!

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

International Organization for Migration (2019) Research on the Health Vulnerabilities of the Cross-Border Migrants from Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: International Organization for Migration. Available at : https://nepal.iom.int/sites/default/files/publication/Research_on_The_Health_Vulnerabilities_of_The_Cross_Border_Migrants_from_Nepal_0.pdf

October 26, 2019

Academia is becoming more demanding

BU Challenges, Featured academics, Guidance, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement, Publishing, Research assessment, Research communication, Research Integritiy, research integrity, Research Training, Training, Uncategorized, Vitae, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Academia has become more demanding than twenty years ago, particularly, the job outwith university. Just this morning I received three requests to review a paper. Each from a very reputable journal and a each a legitimate requests, i.e. I asking me to assess a paper in a my academic field.

Reviewing papers and grant applications is, of course, part of my academic responsibilities, and hence part of my scholarly practice. But I am already reviewing five NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) grant applications this weekend, as well as an other paper for BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, and there are two PhD theses next my bed which I need to exam. On top of this I have been ignoring several reminder invitations to review a research proposal for the Croatian Science Foundation, as I simply do not have time to do so, however, much I would like to do so.

The forthcoming REF 2021 is not helping. UK academics are frantically submitting their manuscripts to academic journals to have them in print before the end of 2020, to beat the REF 2021 deadline. The flip-side of this reviewing coin is that my collaborators and I have had three papers turned down in the past year by a reputable journal as it could not find appropriate reviewers. Three articles on three very different aspects of our work, one a UK-based study, one a European study and one a study based in Nepal. For two of these manuscripts the journal took nearly a year to come back to us, wasting the chance to submit the paper elsewhere.

Perhaps it is due the rose-tinted spectacles of looking at the past, perhaps is it simply my level of seniority (compared to twenty years ago) but I don’t think so. The underlying trend is that the volume of papers submitted to journals is growing faster than the number of academics volunteering to review. This blog is, therefor, also a call for my academic colleagues to step up and agree to review on (extra) paper. Interestingly, I made a not dissimilar call in a BU Research Blog eight years ago! Unfortunately, the overall situation has not improved.

I haven’t even mentioned the exponential growth in email requests to academics submit papers to so-called predatory journals! I counted 15 requests in the past two days alone and it is only 10 AM on Saturday morning so more to follow later today.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

August 10, 2019

BU Writing & Publishing Workshops in Kathmandu

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Events, Featured academics, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This past week Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) presented several workshops on academic writing and scientific publishing to BU’s partners in Nepal. He presented at Nepal’s oldest and largest university Tribhuvan University (TU) on Wednesday. The Faculty of Education had made the effort to produce a personalised banner for Edwin. Prof. Bhimsen Devkota, who invited him to run this workshop, was his PhD student many years ago at the University of Aberdeen

The next day he visited Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) which has a Memorandum of Agreement with BU, which was signed by Prof. Tee in early 2018 (see BU Research Blog). At MMIHS the audience that day consisted mostly of Master of Public Health students. Edwin recently celebrated his ten-years of being Visiting Professor at MMIHS.

Yesterday he had the honour of running a workshop at BNMT (Birat Nepal Medical Trust), affiliated with the Britain Nepal Medical Trust which started working in Nepal more than fifty years ago in 1967. The audience at BNMT was smaller and this allowed for loads of fruitful discussions.

These workshops are part of BU capacity building approach for health workers, development workers, health students and researchers in Nepal. Writing with colleagues in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, and various UK universities, including with Visiting Faculty based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and University of Exeter Medical School (UEMS) as well as Visiting Faculty at NHS Poole Foundation Hospital and Hamad General Hospital (Qatar) the BU team as published 12 papers on aspects of academic writing and/or publishing [1-12].

References

van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, J Advanced Nurs 37(6): 506-11.
Pitchforth, E, Porter M, Teijlingen van E, Keenan Forrest, K. (2005) Writing up & presenting qualitative research in family planning & reproductive health care, J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 31(2): 132-135.
van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, PP, Rizyal A (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? (Guest Editorial) Health Renaissance 10(1): 1-4.
van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada. PP, Simkhada, B, Ireland J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal J Epidemiol 2(4): 213-215 http://nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/7093/6388
Hundley, V, van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, P (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11(2):98-101 www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Download/vol-11-2/Page_99_101_Editorial.pdf
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, BD. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu Univ Med J 11(3): 262-65. http://www.kumj.com.np/issue/43/262-265.pdf
Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Hundley V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1):1-5. www.healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Pp_1_5_Guest_Editorial.pdf
van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal J Epidemiol 4(1): 344-347.
van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.
Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.
Sathian, B., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Roy, B, Banerjee, I. (2016) Grant writing for innovative medical research: Time to rethink. Med Sci 4(3):332-33.
Pradhan, AK, van Teijlingen, ER. (2017) Predatory publishing: a great concern for authors, Med Sci 5(4): 43.

July 15, 2019

An epidemic of invitations

BU research, Featured academics, international, Knowledge Exchange, Publishing, Research Integritiy, research integrity, Research Training, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Once you have submitted you manuscript to a scientific journal, the editor has a (quick) look at it and sends it out for review. As I remind students and colleagues in training sessions on academic writing and publishing, the editor and the peer reviewers are academics like me and my colleagues who do both the editing and the reviewing, for free and over and above the day job. Being an editor and a reviewer are part of being any academic’s so-called scholarly activity. We are expected to do this as part of the wider scientific community for the benefit of our academic discipline(s).

When an academic receives an invitation to peer review, the journal will send you a copy of the paper’s abstract. On reading this abstract you then decide whether you wish to do the review. If the paper sounds interesting and it is in your field and you have the time you may volunteer to conduct a review. Once you have agreed you will get the full paper (or more likely you are send a link to the publisher’s website). The requirements of the review report varies between disciplines and often between journals. Some follow an informal structure, but others have a more formal approach, sometimes with scoring systems for sections of the paper.

Unfortunately, academics across the globe are experiencing an ‘epidemic’ of invitations to review for scientific journals. And I am not talking about so-called predatory publishers, i.e. journals and publishers that are only in it for the monetary gain, no I am talking about legitimate journals sending out invitations to review for them. Especially scholars with a few decent publications receive several emails a week from often high quality scientific journals. The photo of my email inbox shows three invitations in a row I received in the space of two hours last week (10th July), two are even from different Associate Editors for the same journal!

I would like to stress that doing peer reviews is very important. It is the backbone of academic publishing. Reviewing is part of our overall scholarly responsibility so we all do it, although some more than others. We all have are favourite journals to review for, perhaps because the journal is high quality, or we like to publish in it ourselves, because we know the editor, or our reviewing is recognised on websites like KUDOS. I would like to urge colleagues who don’t manage to review at least once a month to step up and agree to review a wee bit more often.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

July 2, 2019

Research Capacity Building in Nepal: 600 reads

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Featured academics, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Training, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

A few times a month ResearchGate alerts me that another paper has reached a miles stone of so having been read some many times. Today the ResearchGate message is about 600 reads for our paper ‘Research Methods Coverage in Medical and Health Science Curricula in Nepal’. [1] This paper was a report on research methods teaching in health-related Higher Education (HE) courses in the health and medical field in Nepal. This paper originates from a DelPHE (Round 4), British Council award. Our study ‘Partnership on Improving Access to Research Literature for HE Institutions in Nepal’ (PARI Initiative) was a collaboration between the oldest university in Nepal, namely Tribhuvan University and two UK university of which BU was one. A further paper from the PARI Initiative was published a year later. [2] The lead author of both papers in BU Visiting Faculty Prof Padam Simkhada, who is Professor of International Public Health at the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University.

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is a full Open Access journal which means anybody across the globe can access it for free. The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is part of Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) a service established by INASP in 2007, which provides online publication of Nepali journals.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

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
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

April 13, 2019

Ten years at BU

BU research, Featured, Featured academics, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Global engagement, international, Publishing, Research news, the conversation, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

(more…)

January 29, 2019

Expanding BU’s India links

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, Events, Featured academics, international, Publishing, Research communication, Research Training, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (both in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) have been invited to join the scientific committee of the International Conference on Mixed Methods Research [ICMMR-2019]. This year’s ICMMR conference will be held in the School of Behavioural Sciences at the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam (India) on February 22-24, 2019. The two BU academics will run an online panel discussion session on academic publishing under the heading “Meet the editors.” The advantage of such online session is that BU academic don’t have to travel to India saving time and money as well as the environment. This has benefits for their own work-live balance as well as their carbon footprint.

BU focuses its global collaborations on three geographical areas, one of these is the Indian sub-continent. Connect India is BU’s strategic Hub of Practice for the Indian sub-continent, bringing together a community of researchers, educators, practitioners and students at Bournemouth University to collaborate with colleagues in India and Nepal.

December 2, 2018

Two papers rejected the day after submission in same week

BU research, Featured academics, international, PG research, Publishing, Research communication, Research Training, student research, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This week we had this enviable record of two academic papers on health topics being rejected the day after submission. The first paper was submitted on Monday to Issues in Mental Health Nursing. Our paper reported the Content Analysis of a review of the nursing curricula on mental health and maternity care issues in Nepal. The journal editor emailed us the next day to inform us that the topic was interesting, but not relevant enough to the journal’s readers.

The second paper submitted by a different configuration of staff was submitted last Friday to the Journal of Youth & Adolescence. The second paper reported a qualitative study on students views on abortion in the south of England. This journal’s rapid reply came the next day (yesterday) stating that:

Unfortunately, the editors have completed an internal review of your study and have deemed your manuscript inappropriate for our journal. Although your manuscript has important strengths, the journal has moved away from supporting qualitative work (unless it would be part of a journal special issue). Please rest assured that our decision has nothing to do with the quality of your study or findings.

On both occasion we had discussed potential journals and we thought we had targeted appropriate journals for the respective manuscripts. Moreover, in both manuscripts we managed to cite at least one paper published in the journal to which we had submitted it. The general message to my colleagues is that it does not matter how many papers you have written and submitted, you will: (1) occasionally opt for the wrong journal; (2) continue to face regular rejection by journal editors; and (3) have an opportunity to submit to another journal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

January 16, 2018

RKEDF – Highlighting Academic Publishing

Events, Publishing, RKE development framework, writing Emily Cieciura

Within the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework (RKEDF), there are a number of events in the coming months to support your academic publishing activities.

The flagship three-day Writing Academy retreats will commence on 11th April and 27th June. To find out more, please see the information page. Please note that you will need faculty to support to attend and cannot book onto these events without this recommendation.

If you have specific needs or wish to ‘dip your toe in the water’, there are shorter sessions available:

Writing an academic paper (July 2018)
Targeting high quality journals (July 2018)
Introduction to bibliometrics (March and July 2018)
Advanced bibliometrics (March and July 2018)
10 ways to increase the impact of your paper (January and July 2018)

Find out more about what is on offer to support your academic publishing and your wider research development.

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