Tagged / ref

‘Meet the Editors’ at BU Midwifery Education Conference

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

Slide1Dr. Jenny Hall and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen are holding a lunchtime at today’s (Friday 3rd July 2015) BU Midwifery Education Conference (#MidEd15) in Business School.  The one-hour session is advertised under the title ‘Believe you can write!’  Both BU academics are editors and on editorial boards of several prestigious health journals across the globe.       Slide2

Over the past few years CMMPH staff have written and published several articles on academic writing and publishing.  Some of these papers have been co-authored by BU Visiting Faculty, Dr. Bri jesh Sathian (Nepal), Dr. Emma Pitchforth (RAND, Cambridge), Ms. Jillian Ireland (NHS Poole) and/or Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Dr. Jenny Hall

CMMPH

Twitter accounts:  @HallMum5   /   @EvanTeijlingen

The Future of Research Practice

BU research, REF Subjects, Research assessment

NealWhite

 

 

 

Blog post by Professor Neal White, Faculty of Media and Communication

 

The Future of Research Practice

At a HEFCE sponsored conference run at Goldsmiths in London last week, a very large body of academics invested in the Future of Practice Research in the Arts and Humanities, gathered to hear HEFCE’s position on the area.

Following a stimulating keynote on the history and value of Undergraduates in this area by the artist Anne Tallentire, Professor Emeritus Central Saint Martens University of the Arts London, the audience was given an update on the state of play from HEFCE’s perspective.

In doing so Ben Johnson, Research Policy Adviser and then Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy at HEFCE, underlined the critical importance of practice research and the wide range of outputs considered in the recent REF. Central to their statements was an analysis of the amount and the impact of practice research submitted to the Panels. Writ large was the fact that one third of the overall REF submission was practice research and here was the first surprise, from HEFCE and REF position, this was a disappointing figure.

The reason for this, as Professor Bruce Brown (Pro VC Research at of Brighton University, lead of Arts and Humanities Panel D) expressed, was the overall balance of text and non-text outputs; simply put, there were not enough non text outputs at 36% of the submission. The apprehension had been that in UoAs 34-35 at least, these figures should have been reversed, with 64% practice research expected.

With many institutions hesitant about how to capture and articulate not only practice research, but specifically Impact, we were reassured that we had nonetheless delivered exceedingly high levels of world leading and international research in the REF – around 80% in total (BU return to Impact in UoA34 was 60/40 – 4*/3*), underlining our role in articulating and facing head on societal challenges to the human condition and ways of life. And so we were reminded of our contribution to not only the search for new knowledge, but our contributions to ‘enhanced understanding’ (a key definition outlined by HEFCE) in terms of the recovery of lost knowledge, and the testing of existing knowledge.

So what do we need to do in order to increase the amount and quality of practice research as will be expected, to deal with a problem that has for many been attributed to the confidence of our institutions, and those who lead the returns, for we were told, it does not reflect what is going on in UK Higher Education, as designers, performers, artists and other creative intellectuals continue to undertake and are leading the world in practice research.

In later presentations, and woven throughout the day were themes and concerns about practice research and its status in the Academy, running from staff requiring PhD’s, to the poor auditing tools available to them and the lack of understanding in the sciences, who largely run the exercises. Many points were highly valid, and some very familiar, but at the end of the day, HEFCE, who was in listening mode noted down and responded to the key suggestions and proposed actions.

More practice research figures it was agreed should and will be appointed to bodies like the British Academy. There would be less emphasis on the PhD from HEFCE in this area. A separate research practice policy lobbying body such as exist in Science would be supported. Overall, it was clear the value that practice brings, with HEFCE underlining the contributions to economic, social and cultural values in particular.

HEFCE and the REF need and expect much more non-text outputs – the role of practice in particular in the communication and engagement with research across the board should not and cannot be underestimated, they declared. They want and expect more scholarly forms of practice research, an area in which we now lead the World. But together, the next job is also to ensure that the government does not dismantle one of the liveliest and most engaged research bases in the World, aided and abetted by disciplinary divisions; the power bases of science and the arts respectively. Least we forget, the contribution to GDP from the fast growing sector of our economy, the creative industries was recorded in 2014 at £71.4 Billion (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/creative-industries-worth-8million-an-hour-to-uk-economy).

In briefly summarising all of the fascinating discussions and agreements, for there was much consensus, was a single line, delivered by Bruce Brown at the end of his own presentation in the morning that made an awful lot of sense to those of us trying to persuade our colleagues of our own value. The argument for practice research is won he declared on behalf of HEFCE and REF, the future of research practice is clear. We simply need to ensure that we can now; ‘Get over it and get on with it’.

Neal White is Professor of Media Art. He contributed to BU’s leading return in the RAE in 2008 and REF 2014, with one of two Impact Case Studies. He currently is REF leader for UoA34 and heads Experimental Media Research in the Faculty of Media and Communication.

Is interdisciplinarity the future?

Research news

There is a lot of talk in the sector at present about the benefits of interdisciplinary research. But what exactly does this mean? The best definition I have found is from a report by The National Academies (2004) – “Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.” (download the full report for free here).

At the HEFCE REFlections event last month there was a lot of talk about interdisciplinary research. Apparently most of the high-scoring impact case studies and outputs submitted to REF 2014 featured interdisciplinary research, and HEFCE are considering making interdisciplinary research a feature of the next REF assessment in which it could carry additional marks. They have commissioned Elsevier to conduct a review of interdisciplinary research with a view to the data feeding into the review of the REF and informing future exercises (read the sides here).

This seems a surprising turn of events, considering REF 2014 took so much flack in the months and years leading up to submission from academics who feared it would disadvantage interdisciplinary research. Ismael Rafols (University of Sussex), for example, claimed there is a systematic bias against interdisciplinarity in journal rankings, with the top-ranking journals covering a few specialist disciplines (read the full article here). In the run up to the REF submission there was concern that it wasn’t REF that was disadvantaging interdisciplinary research but institutions that were choosing not to submit it due to it being ‘too risky’ (see this article in The Guardian). But later articles started to look at how the REF actually benefited interdisciplinary researchers (for example, see this article in The Guardian).

The word from the HEFCE camp is that interdisciplinary research contributes to more world-leading research, as evidenced by it featuring in the highest scoring case studies and outputs, and that further interdisciplinarity is therefore beneficial and to be encouraged. Interdisciplinary research is one of the government’s research priorities and was listed, for example, as one of the UK research landscape’s strengths in the BIS science and innovation strategy.

Major funding initiatives are now more frequently interdisciplinary in nature, guided by the strategic priorities of major research funders, for example the Research Councils UK cross-council themes and the Horizon 2020 societal challenges.

There are inherent advantages to interdisciplinary research that are well known. Findings indicate that it is often in the spaces between disciplines from where innovative perspectives, collaborations and solutions emerge. Interdisciplinary researchers frequently speak of being more interested, engaged and stimulated by their work.

In support of interdisciplinarity, BU’s inaugural Interdisciplinary Research Week is taking place from 11-15 May. It includes a programme of lectures, demonstrations, discussions, and a film, all aimed at showcasing examples of the fantastic interdisciplinary research being undertaken at the University. It is open to staff, students and members of the public so please do come along.

REF update: HEFCE’s REFlections event, 25 March 2015

Research assessment

I went to HEFCE’s (rather cleverly named) REFlections event on Wednesday to hear about the review of REF 2014 and plans for the future of research assessment.

The key points were:

  • Collaboration and multi-/interdisciplinary research are likely to be important for the next REF
  • HEFCE have commissioned Elsevier to undertake a project on measuring multidisciplinary research to inform the next REF
  • The REF impact case studies database went live yesterday and is an excellent resource
  • Dual support system is likely to stay
  • Impact case studies are likely to stay, however, the impact template may change/become obsolete
  • Peer review will stay, informed by metrics in some disciplines (akin to REF 2014)
  • Metrics are not yet robust enough to have a metrics-driven REF. In particular, this is not yet possible for the assessment of outputs or impact. It is possible, however, to rely more heavily on metrics for the environment assessment and there could be changes to this part for the next REF.

 

HEFCE plan to consult with the sector on future plans for the REF this coming autumn.

 

Further information:

The editor is a *!@#*!

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy

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

Most cited article in MIDWIFERY

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

The scientific paper ‘Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care’ written by Dr. Helen MacKenzie Bryers (NHS Highland) and BU Professor of Reproductive Health Research is now listed on the website of the international journal Midwifery  as its top most cited paper since 2010 (1).   Midwifery, published by Elsevier, is one of the leading global journals in the field of midwifery and maternity care.

The paper provides a critical analysis of the risk concept, its development in modern society in general and UK maternity services in particular. Through the associated theory, the authors explore the origins of the current preoccupation with risk.  Using Pickstone’s historical phases of modern health care, the paper explores the way maternity services changed from a social to a medical model over the twentieth century and suggests that the risk agenda was part of this process.

‘Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models’ has been cited 40 times in SCOPUS, measured today Jan. 25th 2015.   In Google Scholar the citation rate is even higher  and stands at 69.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

Reference

  1. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.

New Year’s Research Resolution #1 – Love your drafts, don’t delete them!

Publishing

Happy New Year to you all and welcome back!

Each day this week we’ll be posting a New Year’s Research Resolution to help you get back into the swing of things, starting with today’s – Love your drafts, don’t delete them, add them to BRIAN!

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE policy states that all journal papers and conference proceedings must be made freely available in an institutional repository (like BURO) at the time of acceptance if they are to be eligible for submission to the next REF (likely to be 2020).

This policy is summarised as:

  • All journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance.
  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in BURO from the point of acceptance will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF.
  • This is applicable for outputs accepted for publication from April 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is accepted for publication.  This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available*) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

*In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message for New Year’s Resolution #1 is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

Happy new year! BU’s research highlights of 2014

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research

2014 was another great year for research at BU.  Here are the fabulous highlights for your perusal, in no particular order:

REF logo1. REF results – Preparing for the REF submission was an enormous part of life for many at BU for many years and it was a long thirteen months waiting for the results to be published. But they were definitely worth waiting for! 61% of our research was recognised as internationally excellent, with 18% rated world-leading. 62% of our research environment was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, an increase of 32% since 2008  – this is the environment that BU has built and enhanced over the past five years and includes initiatives such as the Grants Academy, EUADs, Writing Academy, the Research Blog, Festival of Learning, Fusion Investment Fund, etc. The REF team were short-listed for one of the VC’s Staff Awards this year in the Collaborative Team category. Overall the results showed that BU rose between 6-12 positions in the UK league tables (THE Table of Excellence, Research Fortnight,  WonkHE). You can read a summary and they key headlines of our success here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/12/18/the-ref-results-are-in-bus-research-recognised-as-world-leading/.

 2. New look RKEO – The RKEO structure was reviewed in 2014 and we went live with a new one on 1st September. The process of the review and transition has been unsettling as well as exciting for many of us and I am pleased that the new structure is working so well and achieving so much already. Thank you for all of your patience and understanding throughout the change process. You can access a new structure chart and information about our new teams here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/contact/. We are determined to make the new structure a success and have embarked on a service excellence project that engages with over 60 colleagues across BU to reflect on and change our procedures and service provision.


3. Growth of RKE activity – Our annual RKE income at BU has continued to grow. In 2013-14 our income c. £6m, up 10% on the previous year. What’s particularly interesting is the change in where this income comes from: our funding from UK charities and UK government departments is decreasing and our income from ‘gold standard’ research funders, such as the research councils and EC, is increasing. For example, we received c. £1.13m income from the UK research councils in 2013-14 (an increase of 21% on the previous year and a whopping 122% increase since 2009-10). This indicates that the quality of our research proposals and ideas is maturing and our reputation growing. Our research council success rates for 2013-14 were impressive – BU’s overall success rate was 33% (12 bids submitted of which 4 were awarded) against a sector average of 30%. This is almost the highest success rate we have achieved, second only to 36% in 2007-08. We also submitted a record number of Marie Curie applications in 2014 – fingers crossed these will be awarded next year.

4. Significant grants/contracts awarded – There were a number of significant grants/contracts awarded to BU in 2014. These included:

  • Disaster management training contract with the Royal Office of Oman (Richard Gordon)
  • Significant number and value of NHS contracts (Clive Andrewes)
  • KTPs with Nautilus International Risk Consultants Ltd (Christos Gatzidis) and Chantacre Ltd (Andrew Main)
  • Stroke research project in collaboration with Cornell University, funded by Qatar (Ahmed Khattab)
  • BU hosted the 2014 Academy of Marketing Conference (Julie Robson)
  • Wellbeing and tourism grant from the ESRC (Heather Hartwell)
  • Communities in spaces of flow project from the AHRC (Janet Dickinson)
  • ESRC Seminar Series funding (Jens Holscher)
  • Two NIHR grants (Zoe Sheppard and Edwin van Teijlingen)
  • Wellcome Trust grant (Anna Feigenbaum)

5. Launch of new ethics structure – BU launched a new process and governance structure for research ethics in February 2014. This applies to all staff and students at BU. Ethical approval for projects that are considered above minimal risk is now provided by two discipline-based Research Ethics Panels, chaired by Prof Holger Schutkowski (SciTech) and Sean Beer (ST). Further details on ethics are available here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/researcher-toolbox/research-ethics/.

6. Festival of Learning 2014 – The second Festival of Learning took place in June 2014 and was a resounding success, attracting over 4,000 visits to more than 150 free activities/events and receiving excellent feedback across the board from attendees. The Festival is a now established as a major event in the RKEO and BU calendar and is a huge team effort. The Festival was nominated for a Heist award (national education marketing awards) and won a bronze award in the Best Community/Business/CSR Campaign category which is excellent recognition from the sector. Next year the Festival will take place in July and Naomi and Harry are already mid-way through preparations. Read more about the Festival of Learning 2015 here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/festival-of-learning-proposals/

7. Launch of sparkly new initiatives – We launched a number of amazing new initiatives this year, including: the KTP Academic Development Scheme, fast track, research lifecycle on the blog, Grants Academy external mentoring pilot, regular RKEO coffee mornings, Writing Academy, Open Access week, student engagement with research, undergraduate research assistantships. We also published a new Bournemouth Research Chronicle and are now preparing the next edition. We are currently reviewing the BRAD programme to make it much slicker and more useful to academics and we have increased the proportion of open access full-text in BURO to 17%.

Image sourced from The Academy of Medical Sciences

8. Recording of research outcomes and impact – Researchfish, the system for researchers to record the outcomes from their grants, was launched in 2014. This system is used by the UK research councils who required all RCUK funded researchers to enter all of their data by November 2014. BU’s compliance rate with this was 100%, compared to the sector average of 85%.

9. RKEO’s external engagement – RKEO have continued to engage externally to raise the profile of RKEO and BU, to further professionalise research management and to gain credibility and kudos within the sector. One of the main highlights of 2014 was Shelly Anne Stringer’s organisation a sector-wide open access event held at BU in May that attracted external delegates from around the country and featured high calibre keynote speakers, including HEFCE. RKEO staff have also presented at a number of key conferences this year: Jo Garrad, Jenny Roddis and Emily Cieciura at the Vitae conference in September, Naomi Kay, Harry Gibson and Barry Squires at the Engage conference in November, and Corrina Lailla Osborne and Julie Northam at the ARMA conference in June. Jenny Roddis and Julie Northam have taken on additional external roles as Qualification Assessors for ARMA this year – Jenny for the Certificate in Research Administration and Julie for the Certificate in Research Management. Julie was also appointed by Vitae as a peer reviewer for the EC HR Excellence in Research award.

Dr Dubey receiving the Hind Rattan Award10. Venky Dubey and Neil Vaughan (SciTech) – Venky Dubey and Neil Vaughan had an exceptional year in 2014. Their epidural simulator project (in collaboration with Poole Hospital) was short-listed for a THE Award (Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year). Neil won the much coveted EPSRC ICT Pioneers ‘Transforming Society’ award, and Venky was awarded the Hind Rattan Award from the NRI Welfare Society of India in recognition of outstanding services, achievements and contributions to the chosen field. Translated as “Jewel of India”, the award is one of the highest granted annually to a non-resident Indian and is considered to be equivalent to an OBE.

Roll on 2015!

The REF results are in! BU’s research recognised as world leading

BU research, REF Subjects, Research assessment

REF logoAfter many years of preparation, numerous mock exercises and thirteen long months of waiting, the REF results are finally published today! And the news for BU is excellent!

62% of BU’s research has been recognised as internationally excellent, with 18% rated as world-leading. This is a significant uplift on our RAE 2008 scores and has been achieved whilst also submitting considerably more staff to REF 2014 (161.8 FTE, an increase of 45.5%). This highlights the growing research volume and quality at BU and is testament to the significant investment that has been put into research over the past decade. The assessment recognised BU as a leading university in both the UK and south west region.

Key achievements for BU overall include:

  • BU was in the top half of all institutions that submitted to the REF (69th out of 154) based on the proportion of research rated of international standard
  • BU was 11th out of the 69 post-1992 universities based on the proportion of world-leading research
  • BU was fourth in the south west based on the proportion of world-leading research, behind Bristol, Bath and Exeter
  • 30% of BU’s research impact was rated world-leading
  • 58% of BU’s research outputs were rated internationally excellent or world-leading
  • 63% of BU’s research environment was rated internationally excellent or world-leading
  • The THE has ranked BU 69th overall, an increase from 75th in 2008, and 69th for impact – http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ref-2014-results-table-of-excellence/2017590.article

Key achievements for our research areas include:

  • Tourism (UOA 26) was rated as joint-first in the UK (out of 51 institutions) based on its internationally-recognised research
  • Art and design (UOA 34) is in the top quartile in the UK for its world-leading research, and is ranked first in the south west (out of 7 institutions)
  • Communication, Cultural and Media Studies (UOA 36) is in the top third of institutions in the UK (17th out of 67) for its world-leading research, and 7th in the UK for its world-leading impact
  • Psychology’s (UOA 4) outputs scored particularly well with 73% rated as internationally excellent or world-leading, placing BU 27th out of 82 institutions in the UK
  • Research impact was rated highly in General Engineering (UOA 15) which scored 73% internationally excellent, placing it fourth out of 29 post-1992 institutions.
  • BU submitted considerably more staff to Allied Health Professional, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy (UOA 3) than in the last assessment exercise (9.2fte in 2008 and 21.4fte in 2014) and achieved a significant uplift in the proportion of its research that was rated internationally excellent and world-leading (40% to 54%).
  • Geography, Environmental Studies and Archaeology (UOA 17) is in the top quartile in the UK (joint-17th out of 74 institutions) based on the proportion of research rated of international standing, making it also 1st out of 20 post-1992 universities
  • Business and Management Studies (UOA 19) scored particularly well in terms of impact, resulting in it ranking 9th in the UK (out of 101 institutions) for its world-leading impact

HEFCE, on behalf of the four funding councils, publish the results of the REF today. You can browse the results here: www.ref.ac.uk.

Congratulations to all – this is a milestone achievement 🙂

HEFCE are looking for views on a potential international REF in future…

Research assessment

HEFCE has published a survey inviting views on an internationalised system of research assessment.

This survey forms part of a project exploring the benefits and challenges of expanding the UK’s research assessment system, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), on an international basis. At the broadest level, this means an extension of the assessment to incorporate submissions from universities overseas.

This follows an invitation earlier this year from the then Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, for HEFCE to provide an opinion on the feasibility of an international REF. The project belongs in a wider context of international interest in the exercise, on which HEFCE frequently provides information and advice to higher education policymakers and university senior management from overseas.

The THE ran a story about this in April 2014: HEFCE looks at overseas links for research excellence 

Responses are invited from any organisation or individual with an interest in higher education research or its assessment. The survey will be open until Wednesday 12 November 2014.

The survey only has four questions –

1. What do you think the key benefits would be of expanding the REF internationally?

2. What do you think the key challenges would be in expanding the REF internationally?

3. In view of the potential benefits and challenges overall, how supportive would you be of further work to explore the issues in more depth?

4. Have you got any further comments relating to internationalisation of REF?

To complete the survey visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/refinternationalisation

REF 2020 update

Research assessment

In approximately 7 weeks we will know the outcome of the REF 2014 exercise. It is hard to believe that it is almost a year since we submitted to the exercise and that the results are round the corner. Whilst the expert panels have been assessing the submissions this past year, HEFCE have been working hard to design and shape the post-2014 REF, currently being referred to as REF 2020. They are currently midway through a review of the role of metrics in research assessment to ascertain the extent to which metrics could be used in the assessment and management of research. They have commissioned RAND Europe to undertake an assessment of the impact element of REF 2014, part of which will include recommendations to the assessment of impact in future REF exercises. They are currently consulting on whether an international REF exercise, rather than a national one, is the way forward. And, arguably the most important announcement to date, they have confirmed their open access policy for the next REF which stipulates that in order to be eligible for submission to the next REF from April 2016 all journal papers and conference proceedings have to be made freely available in an institutional and/or subject repository at the time of acceptance. Outputs not made freely available in a repository at the time of acceptance after April 2016 will be exempt from inclusion.

The Research Blog’s REF pages have recently been updated and you can read more of what we know about REF 2020 here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/ref/

As soon as we know more we will post it on the Blog. Until then we wait with anticipation for the REF 2014 results!

LOVE your drafts, DON’T delete them, ADD them to BRIAN! – International Open Access Week

Publishing, Research news

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceDon’t delete your drafts!  You will hear this A LOT over the next couple of years as the open access movement gathers even more momentum and the role of green open access and institutional repositories is moved to the fore of the next REF (likely to be REF 2020).  HEFCE have confirmed that all journal papers and conference proceedings submitted to the next REF will have to be made freely available in an institutional or subject repository (such as BURO) upon acceptance (subject to publisher’s embargo periods).

Therefore:

  • A journal paper / conference proceeding that was not made freely available in a repository, such as BURO, from the point of acceptance will not be eligible to be submitted, even if it is made available retrospectively.
  • The version made available in BURO should be the final accepted version but does not have to be the publisher’s PDF
  • This is applicable to outputs published from April 2016 onwards.

It is excellent to see the Funding Councils promoting the open access agenda and embedding it within the REF.  Making outputs freely available increases their visibility and is likely to increase their impact, not only within the academic community but in the public sphere too.  It ensures research is easily accessible to our students, politicians and policy-makers, charities and businesses and industry, as well as to potential collaborators in other countries which can help with building networks and the internationalisation of research.

Talking to academic colleagues around the University it is apparent that the normal practice is to delete previous drafts, including the final accepted version, as soon as a paper is approved for publication.   This needs to change!  Many publisher’s will already allow you to add the final accepted version of your paper to BURO (just not the version with the publisher’s header, logo, etc) and this is set to increase in light of the HEFCE consultation.  Rather than deleting the final version, add it to BRIAN so it will be freely available to everyone in the institutional repository, BURO.

We need to get into the habit now of doing this now.  BRIAN is linked to the Sherpa-Romeo database of journals so you can easily check the archiving policy of the journal.  All you need to do is:

1. Log into your BRIAN account and find the paper.

2. One of the tabs is named ‘full text’.

3. If you click into this tab you will see a link near the Sherpa-Romeo logo to check your ‘publisher’s policy’.

4. Click on this and you will see the archiving policy for this particular journal, clearly stating which version of the paper can be uploaded. Ideally you are looking for your journal to be a green journal which allows the accepted version or (even better but quite rare, unless you have paid extra to make it freely available) the publisher’s version/PDF. See the screen shot.

5. Click ‘back’ and then click on the ‘full text’ tab again and you will see a link (in a blue box) to ‘upload new file for this publication’.

6. Upload the file and follow the onscreen instructions.

7. Your full text will then automatically feed through to BURO and be available open access in the next few days.

 

In point 4 I mentioned about paying extra to the publisher at the point of acceptance to make it freely available upon publication.  This is often referred to as the gold route to open access publishing and at BU we have a central dedicated budget for paying these fees.  You can find out about the GOLD route to open access publishing here: Gold route

So the overriding message is:

LOVE YOUR DRAFTS – DON’T DELETE THEM – ADD THEM TO BRIAN!

HEFCE are looking for views on a potential international REF in future…

Research assessment

HEFCE has published a survey inviting views on an internationalised system of research assessment.

This survey forms part of a project exploring the benefits and challenges of expanding the UK’s research assessment system, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), on an international basis. At the broadest level, this means an extension of the assessment to incorporate submissions from universities overseas.

This follows an invitation earlier this year from the then Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, for HEFCE to provide an opinion on the feasibility of an international REF. The project belongs in a wider context of international interest in the exercise, on which HEFCE frequently provides information and advice to higher education policymakers and university senior management from overseas.

The THE ran a story about this in April 2014: HEFCE looks at overseas links for research excellence 

Responses are invited from any organisation or individual with an interest in higher education research or its assessment. The survey will be open until Wednesday 12 November 2014.

The survey only has four questions –

1. What do you think the key benefits would be of expanding the REF internationally?

2. What do you think the key challenges would be in expanding the REF internationally?

3. In view of the potential benefits and challenges overall, how supportive would you be of further work to explore the issues in more depth?

4. Have you got any further comments relating to internationalisation of REF?

To complete the survey visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/refinternationalisation

Should metrics be used more widely in the next REF?

Research assessment, Research news

Back in 2008, after the dust was settling from the REF 2008 submission, HEFCE initiated a series of exercises to investigate whether bibliometric indicators of research quality (such as citation counts) could be used as part of the assessment for REF 2014. BU was one of 22 institutions that took part in the bibliometrics pilot, the result of which was that HEFCE concluded that citation information was not sufficiently robust enough to be used formulaically or as a primary indicator of quality but that there might be scope for it to inform and enhance processes of expert review in some disciplines. The REF 2014 guidelines stated that citation data would be provided for outputs submitted to all sub-panels in Main Panel A and some sub-panels in Main Panel B.

In April 2014, the Minister for Universities and Science asked HEFCE to undertake a fresh review of the role of metrics in determining quality, impact and other key characteristics of research undertaken in the HE sector. The review is being chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, Professor of Science and Democracy at the Science Policy Institute, University of Sussex.

HEFCE have launched a sector-wide call for evidence about research metrics and BU will be making an institutional response. BU colleagues are therefore invited to send feedback to me so that it can be considered as part of BU’s response. Colleagues are also invited to send individual responses to HEFCE.

Thinking back to 2008-09, I remember research metrics being an emotive subject and many researchers, both at BU and  across the sector, were extremely skeptical of their use in research assessment. Although bibliometrics have moved on a long way since then I think that there will still be concern as to whether metrics are robust enough to be used formulaically, particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

HEFCE have asked that responses focus on the following issues:

1. Identifying useful metrics for research assessment.

2. How should metrics be used in research assessment?

3. ‘Gaming’ and strategic use of metrics.

4. International perspective.

Further information about the call for evidence is available here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/howfundr/metrics/

It is anticipated that the outcome of the review will inform the framework for the next REF assessment so it is vitally important that HEFCE receive a high quality and quantity of feedback from all disciplines.

If you would like to contribute to the BU institutional response, please add your comments to this response form and email it to me (jnortham@bournemouth.ac.uk) by Friday 30th May.

HSC paper cited over hundred times in Scopus

BU research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

The academic publisher Elsevier alerted us today that our paper has been cited for the 101st time in Scopus.  The paper ‘Factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries: Systematic review of the literature’ was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.  The paper was part of the first author’s Ph.D. research into maternity care in Nepal.

This paper is one of the four outputs submitted to the UK REF for both Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as part of the Bournemouth University submission and for Dr. Padam Simkhada as part of the University of Sheffield submission.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH, School of Health & Social Care

Congratulations to Dr. Joyce Miller (PhD by Publication)

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

Congratulations to HSC postgraduate student Joyce Miller who has just completed her PhD by Publication.  Joyce Miller is a chiropractic practitioner and lecturer with over 25 years private practice experience. She is Associate Professor at Anglo-European Chiropractic College in Bournemouth.  Her thesis Effects of Musculoskeletal Dysfunction in Excessive Crying Syndromes of Infancy presents research spanning more than a decade.  Joyce studied the relevance of chiropractic manual therapy to excessive crying in infancy through a unique series of eight clinical academic papers.

 

The eight separate studies used a range of different research methods:

  1. a demographic survey of paediatric patients attending a chiropractic clinic;
  2. a record study to determine the prevalence of side effects or adverse events;
  3. a cohort study to substantiate sub-groups of excessively crying infants;
  4. a prospective observational study to develop a predictive model using likelihood ratios to forecast the presence of infant colic in a clinical population;
  5. validation of a one-page instrument to assess clinical outcomes against the gold standard crying diary;
  6. a randomised comparison trial of two types of chiropractic manual therapy for infant colic;
  7. a randomised controlled single blind trial to determine efficacy of blinding as well as chiropractic manual therapy in management of infant colic;
  8. a case-control study to investigate  long-term effects of chiropractic manual therapy into toddlerhood.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

HSC