Tagged / BU guidance

New BU guides on leading research collaborations, costing projects and maximising value from RKE activity- available for download

Guidance, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Research Integritiy

Three new guides are available to assist BU colleagues with initiating and managing Research and Knowledge Exchange (RKE) projects. The guides are downloadable from the below links by BU Staff, or from policy documents section of the BU Staff Intranet.

Costing and pricing guide for Research & Knowledge Exchange activity

This guide is intended to constitute pragmatic advice in shaping costs for research and knowledge exchange proposals. The guide provides some outline details on terminologies and concepts used in designing research projects at a UK university. Frequently occurring costs are listed as reminders of items that each Principal Investigator (PI) would be likely to require against type of Research and Knowledge Exchange activity. Examples of sample costs and the expectations on designing sustainable research projects are set out in the appendices against each activity type.

Maximising Income in Research & Knowledge Exchange activity

The intention of this guide is to help shape best practice for a sustainable research environment at BU. The intended audience is Principal Investigators (PI), staff in RDS who are responsible for supporting academics to design or manage projects, and RKE leaders overseeing a portfolio of projects at BU (such as Executive Deans, heads of RKE Centres, Institutes etc.).

Guidance on Leading an external research application.

This guide is intended to assist you through the application stage when you intend to lead on an RKE project. The details of the process may vary between funding bodies, but the basic principles are likely to be very similar.
Helpful advice, and a pro forma table, are available to assist with ensuring the integrity of any collaborative relationships.

If you would like to discuss how to make the best use of these guides, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

Guidance on external bids – updated

BU research, Guidance, Research news

Last year, we published a Guidance on External bids, and this was updated in January 2021. This has been reviewed again and updated for the period April to May 2021. The main change is to the reduction in time for providing a fully completed intention to bid form to RDS. This has been reduced from five working weeks to four working weeks. Please note that there are caveats in terms of when completed applications (all costs and external forms finalised) are required for certain types of bid.

As a reminder, RDS have worked with Faculty DDRPPs to ensure greater transparency around the recent changes to the bidding approval process, and to ensure that research remains a key activity for our academics.

The document, Guidance on External bids, sets out the context for the changes, the measures in place (including timings for bid preparation and parameters for funding opportunities), and the support available to you. This will be reviewed mid-May 2021.

Guidance on external bids

BU research, Guidance, Research news

Last year, we published a Guidance on External bids. This has been reviewed and updated for the period January to March. The changes are mainly around dates but also that RDS staff may be working outside of core hours due to parental responsibilities.

As a reminder, RDS have worked with Faculty DDRPPs to ensure greater transparency around the recent changes to the bidding approval process, and to ensure that research remains a key activity for our academics.

The document, Guidance on External bids, sets out the context for the changes, the measures in place (including timings for bid preparation and parameters for funding opportunities), and the support available to you. This will be reviewed mid-March.

Guidance on external bids

BU research, Guidance, Research news

As published a couple of weeks ago, RDS have worked with Faculty DDRPPs to ensure greater transparency around the recent changes to the bidding approval process, and to ensure that research remains a key activity for our academics.

This is a reminder that we’ve produced a document, Guidance on External bids, which sets out the context for the changes, the temporary measures in place (including timings for bid preparation and parameters for funding opportunities), and the support available to you.

Guidance on external bids

BU research, Guidance, Research news

RDS have worked with Faculty DDRPPs to ensure greater transparency around the recent changes to the bidding approval process, and to ensure that research remains a key activity for our academics.

We’ve produced a document, Guidance on External bids, which sets out the context for the changes, the temporary measures in place (including timings for bid preparation and parameters for funding opportunities), and the support available to you.

 

Changes to CAF exemptions for research applications goes live today

BU research, Guidance

From today, 1st November 2017, all research applications for external funding will be treated as CAF-exempt (Contract Authorisation Form) where no commitment exists at application stage.  This has been agreed by UET in October 2017, following a request from RKEO and Legal Services made in response to applicant feedback.

RKEO have taken on responsibility for ensuring that all research application terms are reviewed prior to submission to ensure that no commitment is being made at submission stage (funders currently listed as CAF-exempt will not require review).  By streamlining the process to just one Professional Service, it should reduce the time required to process research applications.  If an application is subsequently awarded, a contract and CAF will be required.

Legal Services have amended the Contract signing Policy and Procedures in line with the above changes.

A full description of the changes can be found on the intranet policy section under ‘research’ and then ‘pre-award’. If you are an applicant or approver for applications then it is essential that you read the full document to see what is and isn’t included in the new process.

Changes to CAF exemptions for research applications

BU research, Guidance

From 1st November 2017, all research applications for external funding will be treated as CAF-exempt (Contract Authorisation Form) where no commitment exists at application stage.  This has been agreed by UET in October 2017, following a request from RKEO and Legal Services made in response to applicant feedback.

RKEO will take on responsibility for ensuring that all research application terms are reviewed prior to submission to ensure that no commitment is being made at submission stage (funders currently listed as CAF-exempt will not require review).  By streamlining the process to just one Professional Service, it should reduce the time required to process research applications.  If an application is subsequently awarded, a contract and CAF will be required.

Legal Services have amended the Contract signing Policy and Procedures in line with the above changes.

A full description of the changes can be found on the intranet policy section under ‘research’ and then ‘pre-award’. If you are an applicant or approver for applications then it is essential that you read the full document to see what is and isn’t included in the new process.

New staff profile pages launched

Guidance

We are pleased to announce that the new staff profile pages were deployed yesterday (Thursday). 

The profile pages have a fresh, professional appearance.

  

If you have a BRIAN profile and access to an external page, please have a look at your profile.

The easiest way to navigate to your profile is to open the application (or click on the ‘academic profile’ link from the intranet home page).  Next, click on ‘People’ in the page header and then on the start letter of your surname.  Finally, click on your name.  Your profile will then appear.  You can also search for your name. 

If you have any feedback on the new staff profile pages, please email us at BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

New staff profile pages will be released tomorrow

Guidance

BRIANThe new staff profile page application is being transitioned into live operation during the morning tomorrow.  The new pages should be accessible by noon.

There is nothing BRIAN users need to do.  However, the staff profile pages draw most of their information from BRIAN so ensuring your BRIAN profile is up to date and you have populated the new fields, eg the research field, would be good preparation to ensure your new profile page looks great.

One area of the new profile pages that is still being worked on is the link to documents in BURO.  Documents that are available in BURO can still be accessed from the staff profile pages.  Our work is to remove the link to those documents that are no longer available in BURO.  This work should be complete next week and will mean that BURO document links will only be displayed for accessible files.

Please have a look at the new pages once they are live and let us know what you think by emailing BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

10 features of the new Staff Profile Pages you need to know

Guidance

BRIANHere are the top 10 features of the new Staff Profile Pages (SPP) application that is to be released this week.

1.  Improved header information.  The header contains information on your title, job title and contact details.  This is always present at the top of every page.  Icons are also displayed to indicate the research themes to which you are linked and the keywords selected.  Social media and website links are also displayed.

2.  Improved searching.  Previously the search facility was quite poor.  Now, it is possible to search for partial matches for people’s name and publications.  In addition, SPP will prompt with ‘Did you mean?’ suggestions.  This is very useful where users are searching for staff but don’t quite enter the name correctly.

3.  Displaying favourites.  Within BRIAN you can highlight a publication (or grant) as a favourite.  This is achieved by clicking on the heart icon next to the item.  We suggest staff select a maximum of five favourites.  These items then appear on the home page of the SPP in chronological order.

4.  Displaying your current research activity.  We have just introduced to BRIAN the ability to record your current research activity.  If completed in BRIAN, this is displayed on the home page of SPP.  Having this information makes you profile feel contemporary and up to date so we encourage your to complete this area within the Professional Activities area of BRIAN.

5.  Immediate profile refresh.  The frustration that changes in BRIAN cannot be viewed in the profile page until the next day has been removed by the ability to refresh a page immediately in SPP.  There is a small area at the base of the SPP pages which tells you when the page was last refreshed and, by clicking on the icon, allows you to refresh the page.  This means that any changes you make in BRIAN are immediately visible so that you can see how the change looks.

6.  Browse by research theme or keyword.  You can click on a research theme or keyword and see all the people who have that association.  To make this feature useful, please ensure your RTs and keywords are up to date.

7.  Existing links to your page continue to work.  While the application has changed, people who have bookmarked the URL for your profle can lick on this old link to access your new profile.

8.  Two-way link with PhD students.  The method of linking to PhD students is much improved with the ability to hyperlink from a supervisor to the student and from the student back to the supervisor(s).  To achieve this, it is necessary to enter the student’s username when adding a PhD student to BRIAN.

9.  Improved scrolling.  Where there are many publications to display, the header is always visible on the screen so that the user knows which section is being viewed.  It also allows the user to easily switch section without scrolling.  Also, at the bottom of the screen, there is a button that returns the user to the top of the screen.

10.  Publication format.  The format for publications conforms to the BU standard.

While these 10 features of SPP are great, some of them (items 1, 3, 4, 6 & 8 ) require you to enter the information into BRIAN.  To a large extent, the SPP pages will only be a good as the underlying information in BRIAN so please spare a few minutes to update your BRIAN profile, add a recent picture etc.

BRIAN training sessions in October

Guidance

BRIANWith new academics, a new version BRIAN and the new Staff Profile Pages (SPP), it is a good time to invite you to a 1 hour training session on BRIAN and SPP on Wed 9 October 13.  The session is suitable for new and more experienced users.

We are hosting 4 sessions, 2 at each campus:

Lansdowne: 10:30 and 11:30 in EBG02

Talbot: 14:00 and 15:00 in CG21

If you would like to attend and have not already indicated this, please send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk with your preference.

If you cannot attend these sessions, don’t worry, we will arrange more sessions in the future as required.

In the interim don’t forget there is online documentation for the new BRIAN version.

Already know BRIAN well?

If you have a good knowledge of BRIAN, please consider becoming a local expert so that you can offer help and assistance to colleagues with queries about BRIAN.  We are looking for a representative in each school to act as a local point of contact.  If this is something that appeals to you, please contact us at BRIAN@bournenouth.ac.uk.

 

 

Coming soon – new staff profile pages

Guidance

BRIANWe are pleased to be able to announce that the new staff profile application should be released next week.

There are staff profile pages for all academic staff and some other staff including a number of PGRs.  The staff profile pages are the method we use to expose information from your BRIAN profile to the wider world.  As such it is an important platform to explain who you are, what you have done and what you are currently working on.

The current staff profile page application has been problematic.  The chief complaint has been that some publications do not appear in the profile and those that do are sometimes not correctly categorised.

We have worked with the development team in IT to create a new application that remedies these faults and also provides pages that look crisp and professional.

There are many benefits from the new pages.  For example, the pages allow for much improved searching including partial matches and ‘did you mean?’ functionality.  Users can also search for anyone linked to a research theme or keyword.  Searches can be undertaken for publications.

We plan to migrate to the new pages next week.  We just have some final tweaks to finish before the application is fully ready and the launch can be scheduled.

Other than ensuring your BRIAN profile is up to date and complies with the minumim content suggestions, there is nothing that BRIAN users need to do.

We will explain some of the other benenfits of the new pages in following posts.

BRIAN update completed successfully

Guidance

BRIANYesterday’s upgrade of BRIAN was completed successfully.  The system is now fully usable.

Updated guides and videos will be available soon.  In the interim, if you have any queries, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Details of grants can now be recorded in BRIAN.  This document explains how to manage grant information: BRIAN – Managing grants – Sep 13

The research themes have been updated too.  As a result, there is a new theme available ‘Ageing, Society and Dementia’ which you may wish to add to your profile, if applicable.  It would be good if you could check your choice of research themes in BRIAN to ensure they still reflect your interests.

We are now working on the release of the new staff profile pages and will tell you more about this shortly.

BRIAN being upgraded today

Guidance

BRIANA quick reminder that BRIAN is being upgraded today.  The upgrade starts at 10.00 so please do not use the application after that time today. 

The work is scheduled to take most of the day.  We expect BRIAN to be available tomorrow morning.

 

 

Upgrading BRIAN on Monday 23rd September

Guidance

BRIANBRIAN will be upgraded on Monday 23rd September.  This upgrade beings a new look and feel to BRIAN with a vibrant red banner to emphasise the many changes and improvements. 

This message is for information.  There is nothing you need to do.  All of the existing data will be transferred as part of the upgrade.

Please do not log into BRIAN on Monday 23rd.  In preparation for the upgrade, please do not make any changes to the data in BRIAN after Sunday as doing so may mean your changes are lost. 

There are some configuration changes to be made to add the grant component and research areas, and checks to be performed so please do not log into BRIAN until Tuesday 24th.

At the same time as we have been preparing for the BRIAN upgrade, we have been developing the new Staff Profile Page application.  This will be a major improvement on what we have today.  More on this next week once BRIAN has been updated.