Social Science Research Questions & Methodological Challenges in the 21st Century

ICOSS, University of Sheffield
219 Portobello, Sheffield, S1 4DP

www.shef.ac.uk/icoss

This seminar series will explore some of the key methodological challenges that the social sciences face in addressing research priorities in the 21st Century. Some of these areas involve continuity in topic and approach, whereas others involve new characteristics and aspects of social life.

The seminars will involve researchers discussing the kinds of research questions they are beginning to ask and looking at the methodological approaches and challenges that these questions pose. We will explore this in four seminars that relate to contemporary social issues, covering:

• Wellbeing and disadvantage
• Diversity and community
• Vulnerabilities and risks
• The relationship between social and digital worlds.

Following these four seminars, there will be a roundtable event, where there will be broad discussion about the methodological challenges and how the research community might address these.


Read more about the seminars.

Seminar dates:
• Tuesday 20 May 2014
• Monday 30 June 2014
• Wednesday 16 July 2014
• Wednesday 15 October 2014

Final roundtable event:
• Wednesday 26 November 2014

How to participate:
There are a number of ways in which you can participate in the series and join the conversation:
* All submissions will be subject to peer review.

1. Submit an abstract to present a 20-minute paper at one of the four seminars
We welcome abstracts for papers related to one of the 4 seminar themes. Based on ESRC priority areas, these themes are purposefully broad and papers may be based on work in progress, methodological or empirical issues you are currently grappling with as well as thoughts on future research potential and papers relating to completed projects. We welcome paper presentations from researchers of all career stages.

If you would like to present a paper please submit a title and abstract of no more than 250 words by completing the online abstract submission form(link)/by emailing your abstract to http://methodologicalchallenges.group.shef.ac.uk/ (please indicate which seminar you would like to present at and state whether you will be presenting in person or via weblink) three abstracts will be selected for each seminar.
The deadline for abstracts is 14^th April 2014.

2. Submit a written ‘think piece’ for dissemination on the seminar series’ website
We invite 400 word peer reviewed ‘think pieces’ for dissemination on the website. These could include (but are not limited to): reflections upon a particular research issue, experience or dilemma; thoughts or opinions on a particular issue affecting today’s research community; an annotated extract from your data or field diary. Think pieces may or may not relate to the themes of the seminars. Think pieces can be emailed to http://methodologicalchallenges.group.shef.ac.uk/ for peer review from 14^th April. Think pieces will be accepted throughout the duration of the series.

3. Submit a poster to be displayed on the accompanying website
We invite posters for dissemination on the website. Posters should be in PDF format… and could be based on a particular project, method, idea or experience. Posters may or may not relate to the themes of the 4 seminars. If you would like to submit a poster please submit an expression of interest using the abstract submission form http://methodologicalchallenges.group.shef.ac.uk/. Posters will be accepted throughout the duration of the series.

4. Attend a seminar and/or the roundtable event either in person or virtually
You are very welcome to attend the seminars and round table event and join in the discussion. You can do this in person by coming along to an event here in Sheffield or by joining us via web link. However you wish to attend, please register first by contacting Jayne Parkin, j.e.parkin AT sheffield.ac.uk.

If you wish to attend the seminar series in person, you can find directions to ICOSS here. If you would prefer to participate virtually, join us here at http://methodologicalchallenges.group.shef.ac.uk/ and submit your questions via Twitter, using the hashtag: #socmethods. You can also follow us at: @SocMethods

* This seminar series is funded by The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield, with additional support and guidance from NatCen Learning.
* Seminar series organiser: Dr Bridgette Wessels.

Best wishes,

Jenny Smith
Marketing Officer
Department of Politics / Department of Sociological Studies
The University of Sheffield
Elmfield, Northumberland Road
Sheffield, S10 2TU.

ERCIM News No. 95 Special theme: "Image Understanding"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 95 has just been published at
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en95

Special Theme: "Image Understanding"
Guest editors: Michal Haindl, Institute of Information Theory and Automation, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and Josef Kittler, University of Surrey, UK
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en95/special/

Keynote: "Image Understanding – An EU Perspective"
by Libor Král, Head of Unit A2 – Robotics in Directorate General Communication Networks, Content & Technology, European Commission

This issue for download
pdf: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN95/EN95-web.pdf
epub: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN95/EN95.epub

Next issue: No. 96, January 2014 - Special Theme: "Linked Open Data"
(see Call at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/call)

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Best regards,
Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Fellowship Programme
ERCIM offers fellowships for PhD holders from all over the world. The next round is open!
Next deadline 31 October 2013
http://fellowship.ercim.eu/

Budgeting for Public Involvement in Research

Dear Colleagues,

INVOLVE and the Mental Health Research Network teamed up to produce a new resource to help with budgeting for the costs of public involvement in research. It can be used for everything from putting together an involvement budget for an entire study to working out how much it will cost to run a one-off consultation event.

The first part of the resource is a guide which:

• provides practical advice on what costs are associated with involvement in research
• includes a step-by-step process for identifying the associated costs and planning the budget
• presents examples of research projects with well-developed budgets for involvement work
• contains tips, links to useful websites, and references.

The second part of the resource is an online ‘involvement cost calculator' to work out the costs for your research study.

Please forward this information to your colleagues and networks.

If you have any questions or queries about Budgeting for involvement please contact:

Thomas Kabir
MHRN Service Users in Research Coordinator
Email: thomas.kabir AT kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 0207 848 0609
To find out about INVOLVE visit www.invo.org.uk

To find out more about the Mental Health Research Network visit
www.mhrn.info

My source: Laura Gardner: Research Design Service North West’s e-mail list.

Research Design Service North West (RDS NW) September 2013 e-bulletin

A very useful resource:

Dear Colleague,

Please follow the link below to the September 2013 e-bulletin from the Research Design Service North West (RDS NW).

http://www.rds-nw.nihr.ac.uk/news-training-events/

In this issue:

• is my study research?
• NIHR showcases the clinical research that could bring hope to the nation’s dementia sufferers
• funding opportunities
• events and training
• approaching funding deadlines.

We hope you find this helpful and as always welcome any feedback.

Thanks,

RDS NW

Research Design Service North West

Central Coordinating Office

Tel: +44 (0) 1524 593209

Follow the Research Design Service on Twitter: @NIHR_RDS

Source: Thanks to RDS NW and Paul Dolby

Global Research Nurses’ Network discussion: Nearly Free Nursing Colleges - Mental Health Nursing Rwanda

Nearly Free Nursing Colleges

Reply by Carole Bennett

I have been working in mental health nursing in Rwanda, I have seen a significant need for a mental health nurses handbook and guide. At the request of the faculty at Kigali Health Institute, I have complied two electronic texts.

1.Mental Health Nursing I: Diagnosis, Treatment Guidelines and Standards of Care : The African Context. and
2.Mental Health Nursing II: Vulnerable Populations of Africa and Emerging Best Practices.

They have links to research, questions that guide the student reading, and then clinical cases for integration of what they have learned in each chapter. They are based on an 8 week course with 3 classes per week.

I would like to place them on the internet for free access but don't know how that is done.

They would be applicable for any nurses, mental health or general nurses working in post-conflict countries. The first handbook uses heavily the WHO MH Gap intervention guide which is excellent and COHSASA standards of care. The second book includes mental health in primary care, chronic mentally ill in villages, pregnant women and infants, refugees, women who are victims of gender based violence, Incarcerated mentally ill, and traditional healers. It is challenging but could be available to anyone with motivation and an internet connection.

Perhaps resources like this could be compiled into a program of study with internet oversight. I would be interested in pursuing this concept with others. I will be returning to the US in a few days but would like to see these ebook widely distributed and utilized. Does anyone have any ideas how this could be accomplished?

www.globalresearchnurses.org

The Lancet: Several articles on health in China and HIFA2015

As well as highlighting some very useful papers, the post below c/o HIFA2015 is also an appeal as follows:

HIFA currently has only eight members in China (compared with 510 in India and 655 in Nigeria), and we would welcome more. If you have contacts with health professionals, researchers and/or policymakers in China, please invite them to join us at www.hifa2015.org


Dear HIFA members,

This week's Lancet includes several articles on health in China. One of them explores the challenge of evidence-based public health policy. Here is the citation and selected extracts:

Fan Jiang, Jun Zhang, Xiaoming Shen. Towards evidence-based public health policy in China.
The Lancet, Volume 381, Issue 9882, Pages 1962 - 1964, 8 June 2013 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61083-1
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61083-1/fulltext?_eventId=login

'In China, most biomedical and even public health research stops at publication. We believe that completing a public health study is not the end of the process, but, in many cases, marks the beginning of the next phase in which research results are applied to solve real-life problems. Efforts are warranted to raise such awareness among researchers and policy makers.'

'A clear, streamlined system is crucial to promote evidence-based public health policy at a large scale. Several mechanisms might be useful. First, a platform for bilateral communication between researchers and policy makers is needed to improve mutual understanding and to establish an effective and efficient dialogue channel. In addition to informal public meetings and knowledge brokers, rapidly spreading social media has been shown to be a very useful means to obtain feedback.11, 12 [...] Although still early in a long journey, China is moving towards evidence-based public health policy.4 With the right knowledge, attitude, and practice, adequate investment in the capability and capacity of implementation, and an efficient system, this goal will be reached.'

[The editor of HIFA2015 also mailed the following to the list]

A Comment in The Lancet makes an observation that is highly relevant to global health professionals, and especially those who undertake systematic reviews (which are often limited to papers in English):

'Any attempt to analyse global data needs to access work published in Chinese. This need is not straightforward to address, but the east-west collaboration of Chan and colleagues is exemplary. The western, anglophone hegemony in the generation and dissemination of research is coming to an end. This change creates challenges for peer review and synthesis of knowledge, but western investigators should no more assume that their Chinese counterparts have published high quality research in English than vice versa.'

Martin J Prince. Dementia in China: east-west collaboration bears fruit. The Lancet, Volume 381, Issue 9882, Pages 1967 - 1968, 8 June 2013.
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60770-9 Cite or Link Using DOI
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60770-9/fulltext

The full text is freely available, after free online registration.

Best wishes,
Neil

HIFA2015 profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is the coordinator of the HIFA2015 campaign and co-director of the Global Healthcare Information Network

Evidence Network Newsletter [II]

I posted about this over two years ago. Here is a revisit, prompted by the arrival of the April Evidence Network e-Newsletter c/o Alan Gomersall at the Centre for Evidence & Policy, King’s College London:

Founded in 2001 as part of an ESRC-funded initiative, the Evidence Network is an information resource aimed at anyone concerned with evidence-informed policy and practice (EBPP) in the broad field of social and public policy.

You have to join but it is very worthwhile for those as noted above.

This issue includes an invitation for submissions to the Research Synthesis Methods Journal:

... Papers may address any aspect of research synthesis, including information retrieval aspects such as searching for studies to incorporate into evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews, health technology assessments and guidelines.

Papers on topics in fields such as the health and social sciences are welcome if they can also demonstrate relevance to general research synthesis.  Papers reporting the results of a particular research synthesis are not, however, appropriate unless the focus is exclusively on an innovative or instructive methodological feature.  To promote widespread dissemination that will enhance methodological innovation and synthesis practice, the articles in this journal must be accessible to a broad and interdisciplinary audience. ...

In addition there's a new website for The Alliance for Useful Evidence, systematic reviews, information for practice and much more across seven-eight pages.

New Dynamics of Ageing: Newsletter & Research

There are some really informative resources on the NDA site, several themes link with the DTMD conference (of which more to follow) notably - information, technology, media, art and identity.

Research and Findings

Newsletters 

Call - 2nd Compendium of innovative health technologies: medical devices and eHealth solutions 2013

Call for theSecond Compendium of innovative health technologies:
medical devices and eHealth solutions 2013

Health - World Health Organization WHO

Call PDF file at: http://bit.ly/ZHF2Yo
eHealth Submission form: http://bit.ly/VSZxeh
Medical Device submission form: http://bit.ly/10fk0lh

The previous compendium 2012 can be found at: http://bit.ly/11g8YLG

The deadline for submission is 15 March 2013 Medical devices and eHealth solutions have the potential to improve lives. However, too many people worldwide suffer because they don’t have access to the appropriate health technologies. This call highlights the importance of these innovative technologies towards improved health outcomes and the quality of life. WHO aims to raise awareness of the pressing need for appropriate design solutions.
The Compendium series was initiated to encourage a dialogue between stakeholders and stimulate further development and technology dissemination.

For the purpose of this call, the term ‘health technologies’ refers to medical devices and eHealth solutions.

In this context, ‘medical devices’ cover medical equipment and instruments, in vitro diagnostics and imaging devices as well as assistive devices and related health technologies excluding clinical procedures, medicinal products, vaccines, biological therapeutic products, or tissue-engineered medical products. 'eHealth solutions' refer to the use of information and communication technologies including electronic and communication devices and applications (such as telemedicine; mobile applications for surveillance, telehealth, diagnostics, appointment reminders; etc.) in support of health systems and services. All eHealth applications should conform to the existing standards.

Innovative health technologies in this context include: 
- New products or applications;
- Products or applications which have been commercialized for less than 5 years in high-resource settings but have not yet been widely used in low- and middle-resource settings;
- Non-health products or applications that have recently been adapted for a health purpose;
- Products available in low-resource settings for less than 5 years but not yet widely used.

Contributors to the previous compendium series whose technology advanced from ‘under development’ status to launched product are encouraged to submit their updated entry.

Eligibility

The ‘Call for innovative health technologies: medical devices and eHealth solutions for low-resource settings 2013’ is open to manufacturers, institutions, academia, individuals and non-profit organizations that design, manufacture and/or supply any type of innovative health technologies that are suitable for use in low-resource settings and address the global health concerns as outlined in section 4 at: http://bit.ly/ZHF2Yo 

Health problems to be addressed 

 The Call for innovative health technologies for low-resource settings 2013 puts a specific focus on the following technologies:

1. Medical device (including telemedicine solutions) that address one of the following key global health concerns:

- Birth asphyxia and birth trauma
- Cancer
- Cataracts
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Diabetes mellitus
- Diarrheal diseases
- Hearing loss
- Ischemic heart disease
- Lower respiratory infections
- Maternal health - Neonatal infections
- Pneumonia
- Prematurity and low birth weight
- Refractive errors
- Vascular diseases 

 2. eHealth solutions may support one of the following areas:

- Decision support systems
- Diagnostic and treatment support
- Electronic health/electronic medical record
- Emergency/humanitarian relief
- Geographic information system
- Healthcare management
- Health workforce training
- Heath information systems
- Health education
- Health surveys
- Management of patient information
- Management of hospital information
- Management of emergencies
- Patient monitoring
- Public health surveillance
- Telehealth/telemedicine
- Treatment compliance 

Selection of technologies

All submissions undergo an evaluation process; technologies will be assessed by an expert panel based on the material and evidence provided by the applicant as well as publicly available information. Note that inclusion in the Compendium does not constitute a warranty for fitness of the technology for a particular purpose nor endorsement of the product by WHO. Entries must demonstrate the technology’s suitability for use in low-resource settings.

Technologies are then selected for inclusion in the Compendium if they meet at least one of the criteria below:

• The technology or the practice is better suited to address a health problem than existing solutions available or improves current health systems and services. Examples of improvements over existing technologies  may include superior effectiveness; enhanced ease of use and maintenance; reduced training requirements; labor saving; improved safety level for user, patient, and/or environment; increased social and cultural acceptability; technical superiority; improved accessibility, better cost-effectiveness and affordability; reduced energy requirements.
• The technology provides an appropriate solution to a health problem not yet addressed by any other technology. 

KMC/2012/KMC
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho


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Open access: everyone has the right to knowledge

SOURCE: The Conversation

By Alessandro Demaio, University of Copenhagen; Bertil Dorch, University of Copenhagen, and Fred Hersch, University of Sydney

This week, we celebrate open access week – an event aimed at bringing attention to this rapidly emerging form of scientific publication and its ethical imperatives.

Traditionally, knowledge breakthroughs and scientific discoveries are shared through publication in academic journals. Peer-reviewed and highly competitive, careers are made and broken on the number and impact of these publications.

With the complex, long-standing hierarchy of journal ranking, scientific publishing is big business. From a distance, one might assume that scientific publications aim to maximise the dissemination of ideas, break down barriers to science and make knowledge accessible to the masses – but this is not actually the case.

The publication process

When a scientist, whether in the field, the laboratory or the hospital, makes a discovery, she puts her ideas into an academic paper and submits it to a journal. The journal’s editors decide whether it’s relevant to the scope of the publication, and if it is, they (usually) send it on to a small group of the researcher’s peers.

These are other specialists in the field who will read and give feedback on the paper. If they think the work is worthwhile, and they have no changes to suggest (which is seldom), then the paper will be published in a future issue of that journal.

At this point, no one has paid for anything. The authors don’t pay to submit the article, the journal doesn’t pay for the scientists’ work and the peer reviewers are voluntary. Even the editors are often unpaid, unless they can integrate this service into their professional work.

Journals seek remuneration through subscriptions or once-off access fees by the user – often in the order of US$30 per paper. Those of us lucky enough to have an affiliation to a university, or live in Denmark where the government spends many millions on subscriptions for the entire population can access scientific knowledge free of charge.

Open access

Open access publication differs in one very important way from “traditional” academic publishing. Instead of the individual paying to access an article, or buying a subscription, researchers pay for the publication of their work, often out of their research funds.

In the order of US$1,000-$2,500 per publication, this article processing fee is payable when and if the paper is accepted – and it’s routinely waived for researchers from low and middle-income nations.
This means that while the editorial and peer review process are the same as above, access to the published work is free forever and available openly (hence, open access) online.

The traditional publishing paradigm can be regressive and exclusive. Think for a moment how it works: I am a researcher, I do research in developing countries. What if I was to go there; take the time, resources, ideas or even blood samples from thousands of local people; take the information back to my university; access all the scientific knowledge I need in order to develop the work; and then publish my findings in journals for which there’s an access fee of one week’s wages for the people involved in my study.

Sure I might be able to send them a copy, but for the vast majority of people in that community, science remains out of reach. Now, these study participants may also have no internet access for open access sourcing, but many now do and at least the barrier to knowledge is not put up by the scientific community itself.

Similarly, in high-income nations, it’s still the wealthy, the highly educated or those at higher-education institutions who have greatest access to the vast majority of published science. How is this just?

And what happens when we add an additional layer of ethical consideration: that these researchers and their work is often is paid for by society, by taxpayers, through public funding. How can we then justify publishing it in academic media inaccessible to the vast majority who paid for it?

We can’t just blame researchers or the research community for this – and we’re not saying that because we’re researchers. Academic performance and assessment, in the large part, is determined by the amount and impact of one’s publications. The older “traditional” journals have greater histories and so researchers are almost coerced into publishing with these journals.

Some good news

The good news is that things are changing. In the first decade of the 21st century, we have seen an explosion in open access publications. During this time, we’ve observed a ten-fold increase in publications (almost 200,000 at 2011) and more than a six-fold increase in the number of open access journals, to almost 5,000.

Things are clearly moving in the right direction, but this impressive number still accounts for only around 20% of all publishing.

Simultaneously, global leaders have acknowledged the ethical dilemmas of our current system and backed open access. The European Union, for example, is currently piloting a project to encourage all EU-funded research to place their results in an open-access repository or publish them in open access journals.

And some nations, including the United Kingdom, Denmark and Australia, are either planning or implementing policies making publication of publicly-funded research in open access journals mandatory.

The call for change is being echoed by the academic community, which is asking for greater open access and the removal of economic barriers to science.

Research should be about furthering knowledge for all. And there’s no reason why open access publication shouldn’t be routine.

There are also strong economic arguments for investing in a knowledge economy. We are confident that with enough support, we will see more nations, companies and organisations mandating open access publication – a move that’s likely to bring social and economic benefits.

And who knows, maybe we’ll also begin to see the “traditional” academic journals change their business model and one day make knowledge open to all.

Dr Alessandro Demaio is PhD Fellow in Global Health with the Copenhagen School of Global Health at the University of Copenhagen. In addition, he is a Director of the Global Steering Committee for the Young Professional Chronic Disease Network and NCD Action. For The Conversation, Alessandro expresses his own views only.
Bertil F. Dorch is currently senior executive adviser to the university librarian at Copenhagen University Library Services (part of The Royal Library, Denmark), and have previously been Head of Center for Research Support Services as well as a research scientist at University of Copenhagen (The Niels Bohr Institute), within the field of astrophysics.
Fred Hersch does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.


This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

Visual Methodologies Workshop in Newcastle

After Oxford Drupal Education Camp this Friday-Saturday proceedings move on to a NE workshop.

If your focus is on person-centered health care then the volume of data involved that pertaining to the individual can be readily apprehended. At least the example of a single episode of care. Of course, there are exceptions, people who might be the subject of special case studies so complex is their condition and pathology. Data volumes do vary markedly from person to person. A great deal of generated data in an individual instance might be taken for granted. In the reported findings, for example, of an MRI scan that is included in a referral. When provided existing diagnoses do much to enrich the information and knowledge contained in a referral, whilst reducing possible avenues for further data gathering.

Once we move from individuals to groups and populations then the volumes involved quickly become massive. Purposes and context reflect this change in scale; codified, anonymised, aggregated the individual is lost.

Both my day-to-day work and study of Hodges' model (in nursing, informatics, literacy...) are centered on individuals. 'Caseness' in a clinical word: a referral, home visits for the day, face-to-face interaction, care concepts in assessments, plans. ... Then there is envisioning a nurse-patient (carer) interaction, or individual's episode of care through Hodges' model. As per the model's structure, however, groups and populations must also be represented. This duality of personal and data scales makes this workshop on visual methodologies of instant relevance. The two days next week cover (with my emphasis):

Introduction to working with visual methodologies: understanding epistemologies and disciplinary boundaries

• Mapping
• Story-boarding
• Artefacts

Quality in visual methods: ethics, validity and reliability
Doing visual methods: lived examples of managing data capture, synthesis, analysis and dissemination
Modes of analysis: focusing on methodological and epistemological influence on the research process

Workshop part 1: working with self-created data
Workshop part 2: creating shared analytic frameworks for self-created data
Overarching ideas and ways forward for thinking about visual methodology

Hodges' model can be readily interpreted and presented as a map and a series of story boards. The model can also support analysis, synthesis: well, this is my belief that is shared by some people.

I have completed modules on research methods, but it seems increasingly that research methods, methodologies, data structures and algorithms overlap. It may be that advances in media, technology, data gathering and improved access to data sets is having this effect. Perhaps more integrative and open attitudes (interdisciplinarity) towards quantitative and qualitative research also accounts for this blurring; or it could just be me? Whatever is the case, I'm really looking forward to the programme, meeting the facilitators and students. I am hoping this will inform my project as per the aims of the workshop:

• Consider the role of visual methods in data collection, research ethics, synthesis, analysis and dissemination;
• Explore the theoretical prospectives, epistemological traditions and latest practices that have shaped the development of visual methodologies; and
• Enable participants to translate how visual methodologies can be used to support their own research.

I'll try and post from Oxford this Friday - Saturday and from Newcastle next week. From Newcastle I'll be heading to Edinburgh for the Scottish Ruby Conference. Lots to follow as I put 10 days unpaid leave to use.