Quarterly Review of Research - July 2023

Arts and Humanities

• Barker, Elton; Konstantinidou, Kyriaki; Kiesling, Brady and Foka, Anna (2023). Journeying through Space and Time with Pausanias’s Description of Greece. Literary Geographies, 9(1) pp. 124–160.

  Sometime in the second century CE, Pausanias of Magnesia (modern-day Turkey) wrote the Description of Greece. Ostensibly a tour of the places to see on the Greek mainland, the Description also provides historical accounts related to the topography through which Pausanias moves. Little attention has been given to how these building blocks of narrative, the entities of place and time, relate to and intersect with each other. In this article, we establish a framework for systematically investigating Pausanias’s chronotopes through a process of semantic annotation. We describe our typology for categorizing place and time, with the aim of enabling this text’s database of information — the descriptions of the built environment, its temples, statues, etc. — to be mapped and analysed. Our emphasis, however, is on how the technology equally facilitates close reading, as we trace how individual locations, objects and people relate to each other through the unfolding of chronotopes, and examine how in turn these chronotopes transform our understanding of the spaces of Greece and Greece as a place. We conclude by offering reflections on the potential for semantic annotation of the kind documented here not only for conducting chronotopic investigations of literary geographies, but also for bringing the textualization of space into direct dialogue with the material culture on the ground.

• Doloughan, Fiona J. (2023). Radical Realism, Autofictional Narratives and the Reinvention of the Novel. Anthem Frontiers of Global Political Economy and Development. London: Anthem Press.

  This monograph treats modes of fictionality in contemporary auto/biography, memoir and autofiction. Within the context of what some writers see as the fabrication and fakery of the traditional novel and given their desire to move closer in their writing to the ‘truth’ of ‘reality’, the monograph focusses on the work of four authors (Karl Ove Knausgaard, Rachel Cusk, Jeanette Winterson, and Xiaolu Guo), all of whom have produced novels, as well as autobiographically informed works and accounts of their lives, along a fact-fiction continuum. Against the backdrop of a seeming hunger for reality, and a distrust of fabrication, the monograph is interested in revisiting assumptions about genre, with a view to problematizing conventional understandings of what separates fiction and non-fiction. In focussing on specific works by the named authors, it seeks to show the extent to which their work enacts aspects of a contemporary concern with the nature and constitution of reality, and the status of an auto/biographical subject produced through writing.

• Hamer, Laura and Minors, Helen Julia (2023). Introducing WMLON: The Women’s Musical Leadership Online Network. In: Cimardi, Linda and Nenić, Iva eds. Women’s Leadership in Music: Modes, Legacies, Alliances. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, pp. 141–152.

  Musical leadership, across many musical genres, remains male dominated. Musical leadership itself is often constructed as residing in male authority figures, quintessentially exemplified in classical music through the maestro conductor. This ‘maestro myth’ (as Norman Lebrecht characterised it, 1997) has been perpetuated since the mid-nineteenth century through the ‘maestro writing tradition’ of male conductors from Berlioz (1843) and Wagner (1869), through Stokowski (1944), Furtwängler (1953), and Boult (1963), to Boulez (2003). This chapter shifts the spotlight to considering women’s musical leadership and explores the impetuses behind the founding of the Women’s Musical Leadership Online Network (WMLON), by the authors in 2019, and its initial findings. With the dual aim of both researching women’s musical leadership and acting as a support network for women musical leaders and potential leaders, WMLON interrogates the current context of women in musical leadership with a specific focus on three areas: women in the music industries, women in educational leadership, and women leading contemporary musical practices. WMLON asserts that women’s approaches to leadership are often different to those of men and calls for women to take ownership of this difference as a positive. Women are more likely to take part in ‘transformational’ training and are often ‘more participatory, democratic and interpersonally sensitive’ as leaders (Rhode, 2019). This chapter acknowledges that there are feminist ways of knowing-doing and interrogates the need for women to have mentors, training, and support to break ‘glass-ceilings’.

• Harrison, Rebecca (2023). Mabel, Marilyn, and Me: Writing about Mabel Normand as a Feminist Film Historian. Early Popular Visual Culture, 21(1) pp. 152–172.

  Drawing on archival research, biographical writing, and autobiography, this article explores the life of early film comedienne Mabel Normand to make a case for feminist methodologies in film history. First, it provides a meta-analysis of existing biographies of, and scholarship about, Normand to interrogate the patriarchal narratives that inform theatrical, musical, and cinematic representations of the star. In doing so, the article uses Jane Gaines and Monica Dall’Asta’s notion of ‘constellating’ women to situate the actress’s biographical canon in a longer history of tragically framed white women that includes Marilyn Monroe, whose commoditisation by writers is crucial to the propagation of myths about Normand. Second, the article reflects on elements of subjective and personal bias that inform the author’s analysis of Mabel Normand’s life and career. And finally, the article argues that the conditions under which research is produced must be recognised as method; acknowledging the inequalities rife in the academy, the article draws attention to the ongoing gaps and ellipses in feminist historiography.

• Johnson, David; Nieftagodien, Noor and Van der Walt, Lucien eds. (2023). Labour Struggles in Southern Africa, 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU). Johannesburg, South Africa: HSRC Press.

  This collection provides fresh perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU). By far the largest black political organisation in Southern Africa before the 1940s, the ICU was active in six African colonies as well as in global trade union networks.

  Thirteen original chapters by major scholars examine different aspects of the ICU’s record in the 1920s and 1930s, assessing its achievements and its failures in relation to the post-apartheid present. In its syndicalist One Big Union approach to protecting workers’ rights; its emphasis on economic freedoms; its internationalism; and its robust protection of women and migrant workers, the ICU challenged fundamentally the axioms, tactics, and programmes of rival organisations like the African National Congress. More than simply an exercise in excavating a crucial chapter in struggle history, this volume demonstrates that the traditions and legacies of the ICU are of great relevance to contemporary Southern Africa.

• Kawabata, Maiko (2023). The New “Yellow Peril” in “Western” European Symphony Orchestras. In: Bull, Anna and Scharff, Christina eds. Voices for Change in the Classical Music Profession: New Ideas for Tackling Inequalities and Exclusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 159–171.

  The “Yellow Peril”—a term referring to the historical racist phobia of invasion by foreigners, specifically East Asians—also describes a current problem among professional Western European orchestras. Interviews with ethnically Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese musicians reveal that bullying, microaggressions, and discrimination occur in a range of settings from conservatoires to auditions, rehearsals, concerts, and tours. The reasons why the pervasive stereotypes of the soulless automaton or the perpetual outsider persist ultimately appear to be structural: the deeply entrenched Eurocentric hypocrisy that the “universal” language of classical music belongs exclusively to white people reflects a white supremacist ideology. While US scholars (Yoshihara, 2007; Yang, 2014; Wang, 2015) have documented racism against East Asian and Asian-American classical musicians, Yellow-Perilism in Berlin, London, or Vienna has received less attention in academic literature. Acknowledging existing inequality is a necessary first step if orchestras are to become truly more diverse and inclusive.

• Tickell, Alex (2023). The Work of Art in the Age of Transnational Reproduction: Form and Intertextuality in Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and A Lover’s Discourse. Studies in the Novel, 55(1) pp. 76–92.

  This article analyses two of Xiaolu Guo’s works: her debut novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007), and her most recent fiction, at the time of writing, A Lover’s Discourse (2020), and redresses a critical bias in readings of Guo’s creative engagement with language and translation by concentrating instead on Guo’s use of fragmentary ‘lexicographic’ form. I suggest that continental philosophy and critical theory provide an unexpected set of formal templates and intertexts for her work. I argue further that form and inter-textual suggestion allows Guo to play with ideas of synonymy, duplication, and concealed meaning, to articulate a sophisticated economic and political critique of her own situation as a migrant cultural producer in the global anglophone creative economy

• Wainwright, Leon (2023). Art and Acceptability: Some Problems of Visualising Caribbean Slavery through Modernism. Africanidades, 2(2) pp. 160–176.

  The uses of art to commemorate resistance to slavery has a complex history in the Caribbean. Two artists, Aubrey Williams and Philip Moore, both born in the colony of British Guiana (subsequently independent Guyana), employed painting and sculpture during the 1960s and ‘70s in order to visualise the historical events of 1763, when enslaved Africans staged a failed yet heroic rebellion against Dutch planters. Williams and Moore were committed to making art in a stridently anti-colonial mode, in their attempts to comment on present-day political circumstances by way of attention to the historical past. Two of their artworks – one produced before, the other after the watershed of Guyanese Independence – bear fruitful comparison as equally unsuccessful gestures. Williams’s painting was withheld from public view for much of the 1960s, while Moore’s monumental public sculpture met with wide disdain. Such unhappy relations between artworks and their various viewers demonstrate the frictions between modernism and the process of historical remembrance with regard to slavery. Ultimately examples from Williams and Moore show that there are limitations that surround art when it is used for memorialisation, and how this process is integral to the Caribbean’s history of art.

Psychology and Counselling

• Havard, Catriona; Breese, Emily; Thirkettle, Martin; Kask, Kristjan; Leol, Kris-Loreen and Mädamürk, Kaja (2023). A background of bias: Subtle changes in line up backgrounds increase the own race bias. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (Early Access).

  In police photo lineups there can sometimes be small variations in shades and hues of the background images due to the faces being filmed under different lighting and cameras. Own race bias refers to a situation where people are better at remembering the faces of those who are the same race as them and find it more difficult to recognise faces from a different race. In this paper we investigated the influence of small colour variations in backgrounds for the recognition of Black and White faces. Across 3 experiments we found when small changes were introduced into the backgrounds of the images this increased false identifications for previously unseen Black faces, but not White faces. This finding suggests that the police need to ensure that the backgrounds of the photo lineups they use are all uniform to reduce mistaken identifications of innocent suspects.

• Langdridge, Darren; Flowers, Paul and Carney, Dan (2023). Male survivors’ experience of sexual assault and support: A scoping review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 70, article no. 101838.

  To develop future care pathways for adult male survivors of sexual assault relevant published studies must be appraised. Here we present a scoping review of the anglophone literature. Using a systematic search strategy, we addressed two main review aims: i) to describe studies about the experience of the sexual assault and ii) to describe studies about experiences of support. Studies were included if they comprised original, empirical, peer-reviewed academic research published in English between 1990 and 2023. 1,453 items were screened for inclusion. 60 articles were eventually included: 45 on the experience of adult sexual assault and 15 articles on the experience of support. Included studies tended to be from the USA and UK and the majority used qualitative designs. Studies on experience of assault employ diverse definitions and are often limited to distinct contexts (intimate partner violence, military). Studies on experiences of support are distinctly limited but suggest major challenges to support seeking, particularly risks of secondary victimisation. The literature is relatively impoverished in relation to almost all aspects of men’s experience of adult sexual assault. Currently there is insufficient knowledge to inform the development of appropriate care pathways. Programmatic research is urgently needed in this area.

• Ntontis, Evangelos; Blackburn, Angélique M.; Han, Hyemin; Stöckli, Sabrina; Milfont, Taciano L.; Tuominen, Jarno; Griffin, Siobhán M.; Ikizer, Gözde; Jeftic, Alma; Chrona, Stavroula; Nasheedha, Aishath; Liutsko, Liudmila and Vestergren, Sara (2023). The effects of secondary stressors, social identity, and social support on perceived stress and resilience: Findings from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 88, article no. 102007.

  Primary stressors are direct outcomes of extreme events (e.g., viruses, floodwater) whereas secondary stressors stem from pre-disaster life circumstances and societal arrangements (e.g., illness, problematic pre-disaster policies) or from inefficient responses to the extreme event. Secondary stressors can cause significant long-term damage to people affected but are also tractable and amenable to change. In this study we explored the association between secondary stressors, social identity processes, social support, and perceived stress and resilience. Pre-registered analyses of data from the COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey Round II (N = 14,600; 43 countries) show that secondary stressors are positively associated with perceived stress and negatively associated with resilience, even when controlling for the effects of primary stressors. Being a woman or having lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher exposure to secondary stressors, higher perceived stress, and lower resilience. Importantly, social identification is positively associated with expected support and with increased resilience and lower perceived stress. However, neither gender, SES, or social identification moderated the relationship between secondary stressors and perceived stress and resilience. In conclusion, systemic reforms and the availability of social support are paramount to reducing the effects of secondary stressors.

• Taylor, Stephanie (2023). Creativity: Celebrations and tensions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass e12737.

  In 1950, the President of the American Psychological Association emphasised the economic and political importance of creativity for US society. His account of creativity exhibits a number of tensions that can be identified in other psychologists' theories and conceptualisations of creativity. This paper considers the tensions from the perspective of critical discursive psychology. In the terms of that approach, the tensions derive from multiple non‐academic discourses around creativity, including popular discourses of creativity and art. The paper argues that conceptualisations of creativity from academic psychology have in turn entered wider discourses, invoked, for example, in recent celebrations of the global sector of the creative and cultural industries (CCI). The tensions within psychology's conceptualisations are significant, however, because they raise questions about the extent to which the psychology of creativity has a common reference and coheres around the study of a single phenomenon.

Social Sciences and Global Studies

• Chappell, Sophie-Grace (2023). Is Consciousness Gendered? European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 19(1) SI8-13.

  We can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be female or male (a question about sex). And we can ask whether there is anything it is distinctively like to be feminine or masculine (a question about gender). I think the answer to both these questions is “Obviously yes”. Why yes? And why obviously? Consciousness is gendered, and obviously gendered, because the political realities of what it is like to be masculine, and what it is like to be feminine, are distinctively different. Moreover, consciousness is sexed too, and obviously sexed, because the physical realities of what it is like to be male, and what it is like to be female, are distinctively different. And that is why the answer to our two questions is not just “Yes”, but “Obviously yes”.

• Cooper, Vickie and McCulloch, Daniel (2023). Homelessness and mortality: an extraordinary or unextraordinary phenomenon? Mortality, 28(2) pp. 220–235.

  Death and its threat are a constant presence in the lives of people experiencing homelessness, but despite the established fact that homeless populations have a far lower life expectancy than the general population, mortality is rarely considered as part of the homelessness plight, nor is it fully acknowledged or understood in official spheres. This article explores the ways in which homelessness and mortality are constructed as an unpreventable phenomenon, not deserving of any meaningful political intervention. Drawing on the conceptual framework of ‘organised abandonment’, we argue that the invisibility of homeless people in death can be linked to their invisibility in life.

• Lorne, Colin and Lambert, Michael (2023). ‘Protecting the NHS’ - and its limits. Soundings, 2022(82)

  There are limits in articulating political struggles around the NHS and the imagined geographies of the nation: struggles based on nostalgia for the post-war welfare state risk co-opting the NHS for an exclusionary, nationalist politics. In tracing the times and spaces of the health service the article asks: when was the NHS? and where is the NHS? The idea of universal healthcare - and changing ideas of nation, state and welfare - are articulated in particular political conjunctures. It is impossible to imagine the NHS without grappling with the ways in which colonialism is integral to the formation of the post-war national welfare state. We therefore insist on the need to get to grips with the complex and partial embedding of private interests and market logics within the organisation of healthcare - often framed, rather crudely, in terms of the 'Americanisation' of the NHS.

• Pike, Jon (2023). Why ‘Meaningful Competition’ is not fair competition. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Early access).

  In this paper I discuss a new concept in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport: ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC). This term is used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue that MC is not fair. I understand MC as a substitute concept, as an attempt to substitute for the perfectly serviceable concept of fair competition. This is important because some International Federations have accepted MC as good coin, and the underlying theory of MC, which I explicate for the first time, underpins the stance taken by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in its Framework Document. To establish that the inclusion of TW in female sport meets the criteria of MC in the sense I explicate here, does not show that the inclusion of TW in female sport is fair. Such inclusion is not fair, and the proper currency of sport is fair competition.

• Wastnidge, Edward and Mabon, Simon (2023). The resistance axis and regional order in the Middle East: nomos, space, and normative alternatives. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (Early Access).

  A decade on from the Arab Uprisings, politics across the Middle East remains contested. As a mix of strategic alliance, security community, and ideational network, the Resistance Axis provides a compelling study into questions of regional order in the Middle East, given its long-standing counter-hegemonic outlook vis-à-vis the US and its regional allies. What holds this complex alliance network together is a broadly shared normative vision of regional order articulated in discourse, driven by ideational heritage and made real through spatial performance. We refer to this normative vision as nomos. In focusing on the Resistance Axis, this paper looks at the ways in which spatialized notions of resistance have been deployed by actors within the axis, namely the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah.

School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences

• Armstrong, Emily May; Larson, Emily R.; Harper, Helen; Webb, Cerian R.; Dohleman, Frank; Araya, Yoseph; Meade, Claire; Feng, Xiangyan; Mukoye, Benard; Levin, Maureece J.; Lacombe, Benoit; Bakirbas, Ahmet; Cardoso, Amanda A.; Fleury, Delphine; Gessler, Arthur; Jaiswal, Deepak; Onkokesung, Nawaporn; Pathare, Varsha S.; Phartyal, Shyam S.; Sevanto, Sanna A.; Wilson, Ida and Grierson, Claire S. (2023). One hundred important questions facing plant science: an international perspective. New Phytologist, 238(2) pp. 470–481.

  This contribution revisits a 2011 exercise in seeking to capture a global snapshot of the current issues and future questions facing plant science. Over 600 questions were collected from anyone interested in plants, which were reduced to a final list of 100 by four teams of global panellists, carefully chosen to provide a globally and gender-balanced perspective including Yoseph Araya from the School of Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences. There was remarkable consensus on the most important topics between the global subpanels. The top 100 most important questions facing plant science in 2022 were identified as ranging from how plants can contribute to tackling climate change, to plant-defence and adaptation mechanisms.

  The authors also provide explanations of why each question is important, and demonstrate how focussing on climate change, community and protecting plant life has become increasingly important for plant science over the past 11 years. The paper illustrates the collaborative and international need for long-term funding of plant science research, alongside the broad community-driven efforts to actively ameliorate and halt climate change, while adapting to its consequences.

• Yuan, Wei; Liu, Mu; Chen, Daizhao; Xing, Yao-Wu; Spicer, Robert A.; Chen, Jitao; Them, Theodore R.; Wang, Xun; Li, Shizhen; Guo, Chuan; Zhang, Gongjing; Zhang, Liyu; Zhang, Hui and Feng, Xinbin (2023). Mercury isotopes show vascular plants had colonized land extensively by the early Silurian. Science Advances, 9(17)

  The colonization and expansion of plants on land is considered one of the most profound ecological revolutions, yet the precise timing remains controversial. As well as paving the way for more complex terrestrial life, plants interact strongly with both land and atmosphere, profoundly changing oxygen and carbon content of the atmosphere, as well as land surface characteristics, and hence caused major changes in Earth's climate. Because land vegetation can enhance weathering intensity and affect the input of sediment to the ocean, changes in terrestrial plant biomass leave traces in ocean sediment cores that can be traced via their isotopic signatures.

  In this paper, Bob Spicer and colleagues used new analyses of mercury isotopes from cores in the South China sea and surrounding areas to show that vascular plants were widely distributed on land during the Ordovician-Silurian transition (~444 million years ago), long before the earliest reported vascular plant fossil, Cooksonia (~430 million years).

School of Computing and Communications

• Domingo, Cecilia; Piwek, Paul; Stoyanchev, Svetlana and Wermelinger, Michel (2023). Discourse annotation - Towards a dialogue system for pair programming. TAL Journal, 63(3) pp. 11–35.

  Chatbots have been used for some time in online banking and many other settings. With recent advances in the automatic generation of programming code, chatbots aimed at programmers are becoming another viable area of application. To train and evaluate such chatbots that can assist programmers, data is needed, not only on the code that is created, but also the surrounding natural language dialogue.

  In this review we examine the most common approaches to collecting and analysing dialogue data, paying special attention to programming settings. We first look at the broader theories that inform these approaches, and after our review of the most widely used schemes, we analyse the peculiarities of the programming context and how well suited the existing schemes are for this setting.

• Balakrishna, Chitra (2023). The Impact of In-Classroom Non-Digital Game-Based Learning Activities on Students Transitioning to Higher Education. Education Sciences, 13(4) p. 328.

  The initial phase of learning at a university has a bearing on students’ long-term academic development and plays a crucial role in enabling them to successfully transition to higher education. While higher education institutes have long been struggling to address the challenge of student retention and student success, the new generation of learners (millennials and Generation Z) entering universities have brought in further complexity. This study explores the impact of in-classroom, non-digital game-based learning techniques on the academic performance, classroom engagement, and peer interaction among the first-year university students studying computing qualification.

  The study aimed to deduce how the overall enhanced learning experience of these students enables them to integrate into the new learning environment in the university, thereby helping them to successfully transition to higher education. Data for this study were taken from among the first-year computing students across two consecutive years of study (N = 251). The results corroborated the findings from previous studies, in addition, highlighted how academic performance, classroom engagement, and peer interaction considerably enhance students’ academic integration. The study concludes with a discussion of the limitations and implications for practice and future research.

School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences

• Silvestri, R., Nicolì, V., Gangadharannambiar, P. et al. Calcium signalling pathways in prostate cancer initiation and progression. Nat Rev Urol(2023).

  The human body is composed of around 40 trillion cells that make up all the tissues and organs that enable us to function. Cancer cells start as normal cells, but events happen within them that lead to their unwanted proliferation and migration within the body. The School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences has a longstanding expertise in understanding the cellular changes that drive prostate cancer: a common cancer and leading cause of cancer-related death in men.

  Currently, there is no cure for an aggressive late stage of prostate cancer. In this article, we reviewed the evidence for changes in cellular communication pathways as the cause of the change from normal to cancerous prostate cells. We focused on communication pathways that involve calcium, which is a key regulator of many things that cells do, to highlight novel therapeutic possibilities that could alleviate prostate cancer, and perhaps other cancers too.

• Rahatekar Singh, Nandita; Gromnicova, Radka; Brachner, Andreas; Kraev, Igor; Romero, Ignacio A; Neuhaus, Winfried and Male, David (2023). A hydrogel model of the human blood-brain barrier using differentiated stem cells. PLOS ONE, 18(4), article no. e0283954.

  The ‘blood-brain barrier’ describes the physiological and cellular structures that prevent toxic molecules from passing from the blood into the brain. Unfortunately, it also prevents more than 95% of potentially useful therapeutic agents from entering the brain. In vitro models of the barrier are used to test barrier-function and delivery of therapeutics, but none fully represent the human blood-brain barrier in vivo. Our group has previously developed a hydrogel model of the barrier, which includes the two key cell-types that form the barrier – astrocytes and brain endothelium.

  The astrocytes sit inside a collagen hydrogel, which is overlaid with a monolayer of brain endothelium. However, the endothelium was a transformed cell line, easy to grow but lacking some key functions. In this paper we used stem-cell derived human brain endothelium, which has properties that are much closer to brain endothelium in vivo. The research also examined the best ways to differentiate the human stem-cells into brain endothelium and the ability of the endothelium to transport biomolecules.

• Alhaboby, Zhraa; Barnes, James; Evans, Hala and Short, Emma (2023). Cyber-victimisation of adults with long-term conditions in the UK: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, article no. 39933.

  People living with chronic conditions and disabilities experience harassment in both offline and online contexts. Cyber-victimisation is an umbrella term for negative online experiences. Cyber-victimisation of people with chronic conditions is a public health issue with worrying consequences. This paper examines the scope of cyber-victimisation among adults living with long-term conditions in the UK and the perceived impact on the self-management of chronic conditions.

  Data from 152 participants showed that almost one in every two adults with chronic conditions in this sample was cyber-victimised (45.4%). Most victims (76.8%) were disabled, and the relationship between cyber-victimisation and disability was statistically significant. Furthermore, 61.1% of victims reported that experiencing cyber-victimisation had affected their health condition self-management plan such as changes to lifestyle and medications. Formal support was generally rated poor, with only 24.5% of victims having disclosed this experience to their physicians. This research provided evidence to support policy change and recommendations for law reforms in the UK.

School of Mathematics and Statistics

• Garzoni, Daniele and Gill, Nick (2023). Large minimal invariable generating sets in the finite symmetric groups. Israel Journal of Mathematics

  Given a set of size n, the symmetric group S_n is the set of all n! permutations of that set. These permutations can be composed with each other so that S_n forms a group. The main result of this paper connects two important group theoretic aspects of S_n, its conjugacy classes and its generating sets. The key definition is this: a minimal invariable generating set of S_n is a set of conjugacy classes of S_n with the property that if one randomly picks a single element from each of these conjugacy classes, then the resulting set of elements will be a minimal generating set of S_n. We are able to prove that the maximum size of a minimal invariable generating set of S_n is roughly n/2 (the paper gives strong upper and lower bounds).

  There are two principle methods involved: first, we need a classification of all almost simple primitive subgroups of S_n that contain at least n/2 conjugacy classes. This classification was completed by the same authors in a companion paper entitled On the number of conjugacy classes of a primitive permutation group. Second, we need a result about “partitions of integers avoiding certain partial sums”. This result is needed because the conjugacy classes of S_n are in one-to-one correspondence with partitions of the integer n. Rather than fully explaining what we mean by the quoted phrase, we give an example: the list P₁=[1,1,2,5] is a partition of the number 9 because it is a set of positive integers that sum to 9; we say that it “does not avoid any partial sums” because it is possible to find a partition of every integer between 1 and 9 by taking sublists – for instance, [1,5] is a partition of the integer 6 and is a sublist of P₁. On the other hand, [1,3,5] is a partition of 9 “that avoids the partial sums 2 and 7” – it is easy to check that one cannot partition 2 and 7 by taking a sublist of P₂, whereas all other numbers between 1 and 9 do occur as partial sums.

  The results in the paper on the existence of partitions of integers avoiding certain partial sums adds to the wide and varied number theoretic literature dealing with partitions of the integers.

• Peng, Fuduan; Xiong, Ziyi; Zhu, Gu; Hysi, Pirro G.; Eller, Ryan J.; Wu, Sijie; Adhikari, Kaustubh; Chen, Yan; Li, Yi; Gonzalez-José, Rolando; Schüler-Faccini, Lavinia; Bortolini, Maria-Cátira; Acuña-Alonzo, Victor; Canizales-Quinteros, Samuel; Gallo, Carla; Poletti, Giovanni; Bedoya, Gabriel; Rothhammer, Francisco; Uitterlinden, André G.; Ikram, M. Arfan; Nijsten, Tamar; Ruiz-Linares, Andrés; Wang, Sijia; Walsh, Susan; Spector, Timothy D.; Martin, Nicholas G.; Kayser, Manfred and Liu, Fan (2022). Genome-wide association studies identify DNA variants influencing eyebrow thickness variation in Europeans and across continental populations. Journal of Investigative Dermatology (Early access).

  Eyebrows are an unassuming but prominent aspect of our facial appearance. They are an important part of our facial expressions that we use for social communication. The fact that they are so important might not be readily apparent, unless someone removes them by shaving or digitally, in which case the face looks very weird!

  The genetic basis of the shape and size of our eyebrows is therefore an interesting question. In this paper, we found some genetic variations responsible for changes in eyebrow thickness among European participants. We then compared these findings to other studies looking at other continental groups, such as East Asians and Latin Americans. Interestingly, it seemed that some of those genetic variations are shared between multiple ethnicities, whereas some are unique to certain ethnicities. These findings enrich our knowledge about the variation and genetics of hair features across ethnicities and between people.

  Why did we do such research? Obtaining basic biological knowledge is useful, because knowing which genes influence a feature helps us in studying when something goes wrong, e.g., in alopecia. So, such studies can have medical, even forensic and cosmetic applications, with further research.

School of Physical Sciences

• Wagner, Sarah M.; Mingo, Beatriz; Majidi, Fatemeh Zahra; Gokus, Andrea; Burtscher, Leonard; Kayhan, Cenk; Kobayashi, Rika; Mehta, Parit; Moss, Vanessa A.; Ossenkopf-Okada, Volker; Rice, Ken; Stevens, Adam R. H.; Waratkar, Gaurav and Woods, Paul (2023). A more sustainable future for astronomy. Nature Astronomy, 7(3) pp. 244–246.

  This paper reports on the inaugural “Astronomers for Planet Earth” conference that was held virtually in late 2022 and included the outstanding young OU postdoctoral research Dr Beatriz Mingo amongst the organisers. There are details of the meeting and other activities by Astronomers for Planet Earth on YouTube.

  Matching closely to the sustainability aims of our own University, and the ambitions of the University’s research initiatives around Open Societal Challenges, Beatriz was a leading force in the meeting, which enabled Astronomy to voice how best to enable Astronomy research in the 21^st century, to be less impactful on our planet, as well as giving a voice to the over 1700 professional astronomer members from 75 countries, who all express concern for climate change impact on Earth.

  Astronomy is an expensive science, often conducted from space environments, with impacts for launch and space sustainability, as well as from telescopes in remote locations, often in sovereign nations with many of their own climate and social or economic challenges. Many of the topics and lessons learned from this meeting are filtering into the wider Astronomy community, and here at the OU Beatriz is championing our own small changes to make our Astronomy research sustainable. Even more impressive is that Beatriz undertakes this work alongside her Astrophysics research into black hole jets!

• Clark, J. S.; Lohr, M. E.; Najarro, F.; Patrick, L. R. and Ritchie, B. W. (2023). The Arches cluster revisited – IV. Observational constraints on the binary properties of very massive stars. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 521(3) pp. 4473–4489.

  In the School of Physical Sciences our published research spans many areas of Physics, Planetary Science and Astronomy, and in the recent quarter included over 38 publications in peer reviewed journals – many were worth of selection for this review – and we usually hope to highlight a range of academic works, particularly those by early career researchers and PhD students. However, this paper is poignant: during the pandemic we were all devastated by the untimely passing of our friend and colleague, Simon Clark. This paper is his final contribution to the scientific literature, and is dedicated to his memory, his life’s research, and his enthusiasm in working towards unveiling the physics of massive young star clusters.

  Along with Westerlund 1 (which features prominently in our teaching materials in level 2 Astronomy), the Arches cluster was one of Simon’s favourites and his coauthors state both clusters will “certainly miss one of their best ambassadors”. Co-authored by former OU post-doctoral researcher (and PhD student before that) Marcus Lohr, the paper discusses just how many massive stars form in binary star systems within our local universe (probably up to 60 %) and reveals through spectroscopy and photometry the birth and evolutionary stages of these stellar giants – and their interactions with the local environment.

  These stars are often the progenitors of electromagnetic and gravitational wave transients at the ends of their lives, and therefore are of renewed interest to the Astronomy community who are trying to detect, interpret and understand gravitational wave events when they are now detected on Earth. This key piece of research is Simon’s final important contribution to the ongoing research challenge of understanding how massive stars are born, live and die.

School of Engineering and Innovation

• Imediegwu, Chikwesiri; Clarke, Daniel; Carter, Francesca; Grimm, Uwe; Jowers, Iestyn and Moat, Richard (2023). Mechanical characterisation of novel aperiodic lattice structures. Materials & Design, 229, article no. 111922.

  Engineering honeycombs are used in a range of engineering applications, for example in the design of bespoke orthopaedic implants mimicking the properties of human tissue, or in aerospace panels resulting in components that are lightweight but strong. These structures derive their mechanical properties from the geometry of their internal structure, as well as from the properties of the base materials from which they are made, and recent developments in additive manufacturing offer the opportunity for exploring a broad range of innovative geometries.

  This paper reports the findings of an EPSRC project into the mechanical properties of aperiodic cellular solids, solids without periodic repetition. This publication builds on earlier work by the team which resulted in a computational method to assess the elastic properties of structures that do not possess periodicity, a feature often used in the background of commercial tools to increase computational efficiency.

  Findings show that at constant density a wide range of elastic properties can be observed from aperiodic tilings and most significantly all the aperiodic tilings reported exhibit mechanical isotropy (the measure of how similar mechanical properties are in all directions which is often not possible with cellular solids). Normally when designing a product with cellular architecture it is not possible to independently control different elastic mechanical properties, and even less control exists if isotropy is essential (which it often is).

  The impact of this work is proving the use of aperiodic tilings to design cellular solids with independent control of elastic properties without losing isotropy. This can open up the design of cellular solids that better mimic natural materials and tissues and enable more optimised and sustainable designs for weight critical applications like aerospace and automotive industries.

• Fournie, T.; Rashwan, T. L.; Switzer, C. and Gerhard, J. I. (2023). Smouldering to treat PFAS in sewage sludge. Waste Management, 164 pp. 219–227.

  Wastewater treatment plants are accumulation points for hazardous compounds, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) - otherwise known as 'forever chemicals'. Our study explored the use of an innovate thermal treatment method - smouldering combustion - to treat PFAS in wastewater sewage sludge. Experiments were completed in various reactors - from beaker-sized (LAB) to oil-drum sized (DRUM)- to understand how the process was affected by system scale. Various low-cost amendments were also explored alongside typical treatment, i.e., supplemental sustainable fuel and simple natural catalysts. Smouldering removed all monitored PFAS from DRUM tests, and most PFAS from LAB tests without amendments.

  However, in these cases, partially degraded PFAS were observed in the emissions. The emissions were improved in cases with supplemental fuel amendments that increased peak operating temperatures to ~900 °C. The addition of the simple catalysts alongside the supplemental fuel led to the best results, with nearly complete PFAS removal and minimal PFAS in the emissions. This final strategy presents breakthrough findings that support the use of smouldering as a novel low-energy and simple method to treat sewage sludge contaminated with forever chemicals.

Knowledge Media Institute

• Trustworthy journalism through AI - Open Research Online

  Opdahl, Andreas L; Tessem, Bjørnar; Dang-Nguyen, Duc-Tien; Motta, Enrico; Setty, Vinay; Throndsen, Eivind; Tverberg, Are and Trattner, Christoph (2023). Trustworthy journalism through AI. Data & Knowledge Engineering (Early access).

  The process of news digitalization over the past two decades has released massive amounts of news content, revolutionizing consumer access to news and disrupting traditional business models. At the same time control over distribution and access to users has shifted from news producers to platform owners, weakening the link between readers and news sources and making it easier for rogue players to spread disinformation. In this transformed media landscape, the need for trustworthy journalism has never been greater.

  This paper, written in collaboration with academic and industrial colleagues associated with the Media Futures Centre in Bergen, puts forward a vision of rigorous evidence-based journalism, based on robust democratic values. In particular, it discusses how the latest Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies can support trustworthy journalism in all phases of the news production lifecycle, from gathering and assessing content to producing novel news items.

• Meloni, Antonello; Angioni, Simone; Salatino, Angelo; Osborne, Francesco; Reforgiato Recupero, Diego and Motta, Enrico (2023). Integrating Conversational Agents and Knowledge Graphs Within the Scholarly Domain. IEEE Access, 11 pp. 22468–22489.

  Over the past few years, chatbots have gained widespread popularity as a means of automating communication on a large scale and accessing information across various domains. Prominent systems such as ChatGPT and Bing are now utilized by millions of individuals worldwide. However, the proliferation of these tools has raised significant concerns regarding the accuracy and reliability of the information they provide, particularly within the scientific field.

  In this paper, the SKM team presented AIDA-Bot, an innovative conversational agent that can respond to questions about scientific research. The primary objective of AIDA-Bot is to assist researchers, scientific editors, and other relevant stakeholders who need to continually monitor the academic landscape. AIDA-Bot was designed to produce factual answers, which are grounded in an extensive repository of scientific articles, augmented by a knowledge graph, encompassing various aspects of academia such as organizations, journals, research topics, and researchers.

• Al Mahameed, Muhammad; Riaz, Umair; Salem Aldoob, Mohammad and Halari, Anwar (2023). The implementation of sustainability practices in Arab higher education institutions. Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting (Early Access).

  This paper aims to explore how sustainability practices were implemented in a higher education institution within a local setting in the Gulf and Arab Emirates Region. This study examined the impact of social and cultural requirements on the development of the master plan for the New Kuwait University campus with regards to sustainability to illustrate how current social and cultural requirements impact the design of a future learning environment whilst highlighting the essential role of organisational actors in this implementation process.

  Using an in-depth case study approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with educators and administrative staff who had been involved in the sustainability implementation process at Kuwait University. These participants were involved at different stages in the implementation of a major sustainability project at Kuwait University. The interviews were further supplemented by analysing supporting documents and communications.

  The analysis reveals that sustainability was embedded in a narrative that was repeated at the practice level; this directed the setting of objectives for the project and its various sub-tasks. It also helped actors to develop their understandings of practice and the importance of social emotions, self-intentions and patterns of culture in the process. This study further reveals that participants mainly focused on environmental issues regarding saving paper/electricity and overlooked aspects of a wider concepts and core values of sustainability, and there is a significant amount of lack of knowledge and awareness on matters about sustainability, especially with the understanding of its definition.

  This study draws on practice-organisation framework used by Schatzki (2002, 2010), suggesting that sustainability implementation is a process led by rules, practical understanding, general understanding and teleoaffective structures, to highlight the role of agency and change among various actors in implementing sustainability. A practice-theory framing is used to signpost the roles played by various actors in establishing goals and tasks for the project while taking account of local understanding and independence in the implementation of sustainability practices. Engaging with practice theory framework offers us theoretical basis that is fundamentally different from the theories of interaction-oriented approaches in sustainable design.

• Barakat, Mahmoud Ramadan; Tipi, Nicoleta and Wu, Jialin Snow (2023). Sustainable supply chain clusters: an integrated framework. Management Decision, 61(3) pp. 786-814.

  Purpose: This research aims to provide a conceptual framework with the scope to assist in establishing sustainable supply chain clusters (SCC) by providing an instrument for organisations to enhance the three sustainability dimensions in a dynamic environment.

  Design/methodology/approach: This research proposes a conceptual framework to enhance sustainability and organisational performance through three theoretical lenses: systems theory, extended resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theory. This approach is carried out through a comprehensive review of the existing literature on SCCs.

  Findings: Four main propositions are formulated and demonstrated using the developed framework, which expands the discussion about SCCs and their key characteristics in a dynamic environment. This is particularly relevant as it allows empirical testing of the theories in a SCC context.

  Research implications: It can be noted that more extensive research is needed to further understand the issues faced in establishing sustainable clusters. Drawing on the theoretical lenses to establish the framework helps to enhance the understanding and operational capabilities of sustainable SCCs during and after disruptions, such as the global disruption created by COVID-19.

  Practical implications: This research paves the way to help organisations improve their adaptability to the dynamic business environment by emphasizing the importance of clustering and linking it to sustainability through dynamic capabilities (DC) to establish a sustainable cluster.

  Originality/value: This research aims to guide organisations’ use of SCCs as tools to enhance sustainability in a dynamic environment, given that the relationship among supply chain cluster design characteristics (SCCDCs), DCs and sustainability remains unexplored. The combination of the three theoretical lenses in developing the proposed framework will assist in further understanding the applicability of these theories when they are considered together.

• Baxter, Jacqueline and Ehren, Melanie (2023). Factors contributing to and detracting from relational trust in leadership: The case of primary schools in South Africa. Frontiers in Education, 8, article no. 1004575.

  Trust in leadership is a key element in organizational effectiveness and the foundations of a successful school. However, this element of leadership is underexplored in terms of empirical work, concomitantly, distrusting school cultures have been identified as inhibitors of school improvement. This paper explores trust in leadership through a relationship-based perspective of trust, taking by taking the case of eight primary schools, in South Africa, to examine: Which factors positively influence trust in leadership of primary schools and which undermine it. The paper begins by conceptualizing trust and relational based trust in leadership before moving on to analyze trust in educational settings. It explores trust between leaders and staff and within staff member groups. From there the paper discusses the implications of the findings within the particular cultural context of South Africa. The paper concludes with a summary of factors detracting from and contributing to trust in leadership, and to what extent these align with relational trust in leadership and the construction of effective learning communities. In so doing, the paper raises awareness of the importance of trust in leadership in the context of South African Primary Education and how it can undermine leadership if not established throughout relationships in schools, offering insights for primary leaders working within the African context. It also questions the appropriateness of adopting a relational understanding of trust in distributed leadership in relation to this particular context.

• Fenton O’Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian (2023). Personality and wealth. Financial Planning Review (Early access).

  To what extent do personality traits predict wealth in adulthood over and above standard demographic factors? In all 3240 adults in the UK completed a Big Five personality test and reported on their property wealth, savings and investments, and their physical valuable items. We also had data on their age, education, household income and gender. Correlations and regressions showed that the demographics, particularly age and income were, as expected clearest correlates of wealth. Conscientious was positively and agreeableness, neuroticism and extraversion were negatively associated with savings and investments. The data pointed clearly to conscientiousness as the most important personality trait in wealth accumulation. Implications of these results as well as limitations of the study are discussed.

• Filiou, Despoina; Kesidou, Effie and Wu, Lichao (2023). Are smart cities green? The role of environmental and digital policies for Eco-innovation in China. World Development, 165 p. 106212.

  In this paper, we employ negative binomial and quasi-natural experimental methods (i.e., Difference-in-Differences and Propensity Score Matching), whereby we examine the joint impact of environmental and digital policies (for designing smart cities) upon the generation of eco-innovations in China. Using longitudinal data for the period 2006–2018, we examine the changes in green patents granted: (i) due to the implementation of various levels of stringency of environmental policies across all cities; and (ii) after the introduction of smart city policies in 2012 in China. The prior literature stresses the importance of environmental policies, yet less attention has been paid to digital policies required to drive eco-innovation and their spatial dimension in the context of a developing economy. Our results show that, when digital policies (artificial intelligence and internet of things) are implemented in cities that have adopted strict environmental policies, the production of green patents increases. We contribute to debates in the literature of policy mix for sustainability transitions in the context of a developing economy by illustrating the importance of both types of policy for eco-innovation, as they correct two market failures and, more importantly, address the systemic coordination problems that occur during the production of green patents.

• Hopkins, Anna (2023). Examining reasons for victim retraction in domestic violence and abuse: A qualitative analysis of police retraction statements in the United Kingdom. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles (Early Access).

  Understanding the factors that influence domestic violence and abuse (DVA) victims to withdraw from the Criminal Justice System globally continues to be a key focus for professionals and academics working within this area. There is a dearth of extant literature examining the motivations behind victim withdrawal, particularly retraction occurring post provision of an initial statement. This paper examines the phenomenon of retraction, by thematically analysing N = 60 police retraction statements (PRS) collected by police officers in a large suburban police force in the North West of England. In examining these statements, insight can also be garnered from those victims still in an active relationship with their abusers. Findings highlight female victims’ motivations for retraction and are framed around victim problem solving including: a) accepting the relationship which resulted in a discordance in proceeding with the prosecution of the abuser b) rejecting the relationship thereby rendering the prosecution as redundant c) engaging in procedural problem solving where alternative measures such as civil actions were sought to substitute a CJS prosecution and d) the effect of children where motivations were split between retracting to return to the complete family unit including the victim as the mother and retracting due to recognising the importance of the father’s role without involvement from the mother. Notwithstanding limitations, this paper demonstrates that there is significant value in conducting an analysis of PRSs in furthering the understanding of why victims choose to retract at this point in their prosecution journey. The extracts from this dataset add insight and understanding into DVA female victim motivations to retract post-initial statement provision and highlight the differences within victim populations who retract their original statement.

• Kutlu, Gizem and Ngoasong, Michael Z. (2023). A framework for gender influences on sustainable business models in women's tourism entrepreneurship: doing and re-doing gender. Journal of Sustainable Tourism (Early access).

  Drawing on the literature that examines business models, feminist ethics of care and social policy, this article develops a theoretical framework for uncovering gender influences on sustainable business models by women entrepreneurs in a highly patriarchal and established tourism destination. Gender influences are socially embedded drivers that inform how women entrepreneurs create and operate sustainable business model archetypes and manifest as doing gender (accepting and complying with gendered perceptions) and redoing gender (resisting gendered perceptions by displaying masculine traits or taking advantage of their femineity) in the business realm. Empirically, the article provides a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with women owner-managers of fourteen small tourism firms in Turkey. The study provides evidence of gender influences that materialise as gendered perceptions of identity, role expectations and legislative practices (regulative). The managerial and social policy implications that encourage and support women entrepreneurs in pursuing sustainable business models are critically examined.

• Monne, Jerome; Rutterford, Janette and Sotiropoulos, Dimitris (2023). Risk taking in the context of financial advice: does gender interaction matter? European Journal of Finance (Early Access).

  This study tests a gender threat hypothesis whereby having a financial advisor of the opposite gender results in gender stereotypical risk attitudes in portfolio choice. We employ a unique dataset of 1,621 advised UK investors, combined with information on the gender of their financial advisors. Confirming the hypothesis, our results show that men advised by a woman take more risk than when advised by a man. Women advised by a man adopt a more cautious approach than when advised by a woman. When the gender threat is alleviated, that is when women are advised by women, and men are advised by men, we found no gender gap in risktaking.

• O’Sullivan, Terry; Daniel, Elizabeth and Harris, Fiona (2023). Media and the Staging of Policy Controversy: Obesity and the UK Sugar Tax. Critical Policy Studies (Early Access).

  In response to the perceived risk to health posed by obesity, governments in over 40 countries have introduced sugar taxes (also known as soda taxes), often as part of wider plans to improve national food environments. In this study we apply critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse 29 television news interviews addressing the sugar tax, in order to expose how and why media companies and the experts involved stage and maintain controversy. Our analysis provides evidence of a broad range of devices, ranging from the macro choice of interviewees and the role of the interviewer to their micro level rhetorical choices. They also include experts moulding the same evidence to support their position and interviewers posing questions they know will result in a blunt contradiction. While individually each device may appear relatively inconsequential, their repeated use generates possibilities for self-perpetuating intertextuality and provides a sense of intractability that contributes to public disengagement with the issue. The value of studies such as this is to elucidate the use, ubiquity and effects of these devices that may otherwise go unnoticed or unquestioned.

• Tori, Daniele; Caverzasi, Eugenio and Gallegati, Mauro (2023). Financial production and the subprime mortgage crisis. Journal of Evolutionary Economics (Early Access).
  
  The causes of the 2007-8 subprime crisis continue to be the subject of much debate, with explanations ranging from de-regulation and fraudulent behavior to global imbalances and rising inequality. However, a comprehensive analysis of the endogenous forces that made the crisis inevitable has yet to be presented. This paper offers a ‘structural’ interpretation of the crisis by synthesising insights from conventional financial economics and the Minskyian and Schumpeterian literature. While highlighting the innovative character of US financial firms evolving from credit providers to producers of financial commodities, we stress the key features of their path towards financial fragility. We contend that financial institutions were able to achieve progressively unsustainable positions due to the ‘enforced indebtedness’ of US households, which played a functional, albeit secondary, role in the development of the crisis.

Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport

• Rix, Jonathan (2023). Labels of (in)convenience / labels of opportunity. In: Done, Elizabeth and Knowler, Helen eds. International Perspectives on Exclusionary Pressures in Education: How Inclusion becomes Exclusion. Springer.

  All labels are a social construct. Researchers and funders choose which aspects of humanity to research and focus upon, dependent upon a wide variety of socio-cultural and economic factors. On the basis of this focus, any number of labels can be created. This chapter explores the consequences of this process as it applies to what is sometimes referred to as special educational needs, additional support needs, exceptionalities, special needs, learning difficulties….and so forth. It considers the diverse international use of categories, their deceptive sense of commonality and the contradictions behind their emergence and use. It highlights the problems that can arise, with particular reference to a label recently developed in England, SEND, and their limited value to practitioners. It then presents a practical alternative. It shows how educators, the experts who advise them, and the policy makers who design the bureaucracies in which they work can move away from labels of (in)convenience to labels of opportunity. These are labels which are locally negotiated, encourage collective action, which are easily understood, enable practice, and reflect the reality of everyday teaching and learning challenges. It would not be hard to design such a system if people wanted to.

• Kroese, Ingeborg (2023). Sex/gender-blind training maintains and creates inequity. Gender, Work & Organization, 30(3) pp. 917–936.

  As system of difference, sex/gender is related to power through the control of resources, agendas, and behaviours. In work environments, employee training programs can potentially reinforce a particular social logic, which may impact the equity and inclusion of sex/gender. An extensive literature review showed that sex/gender in relation to power, resources, and (in)equity has not received significant attention in training theory and practice. This study aimed to understand to what extent current corporate training practices fulfil expectations of gender equity and inclusion. The relationship between training, resources, and power required a critical lens and this article reports on the gender subtext analysis that I conducted to understand the often-concealed organizational practices that seem neutral and impersonal but produce gender differences and inequalities.

  This qualitative case study was based on three international training programs, in the Netherlands, the USA, and the UK, respectively, designed by a multinational corporation. Seven gender subtext forms were identified: (1) The exclusionary practice of dominant, hegemonic masculinities is ignored, (2) gendered perspectives and lived experiences are excluded, (3) the impact of power and privilege is neglected, (4) positioning of concepts as gender-neutral, (5) the mantra of choice, (6) positioning of women as the “other,” and (7) the decoupling of femininity from women. The gender subtext analysis highlighted how the discourse of sex/gender-blindness in training not only risks maintaining the status quo of under-representation of women but can also produce sex/gender inequity. Future training research, theory, and practice should acknowledge and reflect on the impact of sex/gender, and sex/gender equity should be integrated into program design and delivery.

• Stutchbury, Kristina and Biard, Olivier (2023). Practical theorising for the implementation of educational change: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. International Journal of Educational Development, 98(102746)

  The successful implementation of projects designed to bring about the policy aspirations of LMI countries, matters – yet is problematic (Schweisfurth, 2011). When starting to work on TESSA in 2010, I read Schweisfurth’s article setting out the challenges of implementation and resolved to learn more about implementation so that we could do better!

  ‘Implementation’ is well-theorised in literature relating to Health and Sociology, but there is a gap when it comes to ‘implementation’ in Education. ‘Normalisation process theory’ (NPT) is a middle-range social theory, based on empirical evidence, developed in the context of healthcare, which provides a conceptual framework to understand implementation. NPT has guided our work and helped structure how we do, research, learn and think about implementation. Its strength lies in the fact that it provides a framework to plan for and do implementation, but also to analyse, learn from and frame responses when things don’t go according to plan, enabling a reflexive implementation approach. Knowing what works is important but does not guarantee successful innovation. NPT provides a well-evidenced framework to make the link between the work to be done and the context for implementation so that success is more likely.

  This paper is the result of ten years of activity which started out as development work and provided a rich context for this significant research. It builds on Murphy and Wolfenden (2013), who describe a model for change which we came to recognise across contexts. It draws on empirical evidence from TESSA and ZEST to demonstrate how we have operationalised NPT in the context of international educational development and fills a gap in the field which was missing. We are very grateful to Clare Woodward and Lore Gallastegi for their insights and support – often at the end of a long day of workshops in challenging circumstances. We would also like to acknowledge the support of CSGD in providing the opportunity to present our emerging ideas at a WIP seminar – and before that to ITED colleagues who have listened and offered support over the years.

• Sams, Lorna; Langdown, Ben L.; Simons, Joan and Vseteckova, Jitka (2023). The Effect of Percussive Therapy on Musculoskeletal Performance and Experiences of Pain: A Systematic Literature Review. International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 18(2) pp. 309–327.

  The topic of vibration therapy has been extensively researched in relation to physical performance parameters and experiences of pain. Using an array of vibration devices which deliver either direct or indirect mechanical vibration, energy is transferred device to the tendon or muscle. A specific application which involves vibration and rapid pulses being applied in short bursts of pressure to the muscle belly or tendon is known as percussive therapy (PT). Due to the paucity of PT research a systematic literature search was conducted to determine the effect of PT delivered by massage guns on physiological adaptations, focusing on muscle strength, explosive muscle strength and flexibility, and on experiences of musculoskeletal pain, across all adult populations, with thirteen papers meeting the inclusion criteria. A significant relationship was found between one application of PT delivered by massage guns and an acute increase in muscle strength, explosive muscle strength and flexibility, with multiple treatments eliciting a reduction in experiences of musculoskeletal pain. All included studies demonstrated evidence of acute physiological adaptations on the lower body, shoulders and back, with four studies involving multiple treatments and one study measuring the chronic effect of PT. These key findings indicate that PT delivered by massage guns can help improve muscle strength, explosive muscle strength, flexibility and reduce experiences of musculoskeletal pain. Therefore, PT interventions could offer an alternative treatment for a variety of populations to improve physiological performance and reduce experiences of pain. The article has been picked up by Apple News, Esquire and Men’s Health, a well-respected Sports Science commentator has summarised the paper’s findings in an infographic and posted on Twitter, with 27.3K views to date, and a YouTube video created referencing the paper with 59K views in 3 weeks!. In terms of ongoing and future research, there is a need for a standard, validated treatment protocol for research to allow analysis across populations and those with specific performance needs or pain. My latest research, a methods study (currently being analysed), will fill this gap by identifying the most effective protocol for delivering physiological adaptations. In addition, my future research studies will focus on establishing the lasting effects of PT and the impact of multiple treatments.

• Cremin, Teresa (2023). Reading for pleasure: Recent research insights. School Libraries in View (SLIV)(47) pp. 6–12.

  This paper, commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, examines the research base regarding the benefits associated with recreational reading in childhood. Drawing on studies from a range of disciplines, including psychology, education and literary studies, the paper demonstrates the exponential growth of research into such self-directed reading in the last decade. Further, it reveals that across the globe, policy makers, literacy organisations and school based professionals are all turning their attention to young people’s desire to read. This is partly due to a marked international decline in the number of young people who are choosing to read in their own time (e.g., International Literacy Association, 2018; Lindorff et al., 2023), and partly in response to research evidence which reveals that volitional reading is associated with greater engagement with learning and stronger academic outcomes (OECD, 2019; Sullivan and Brown, 2015;Torppa et al., 2020). Increasingly this is also acknowledged as a matter of social justice, with the OECD (2021) affirming that engagement in reading, framed by a desire to read for pleasure can mediate socio-economic status and may help address endemic inequalities. The paper, in offering a resume of recent research evidence in this area, aims to widen knowledge and understanding in the school library sector and broaden conceptions of ‘reading for pleasure’. Furthermore, it seeks to enable a more informed response that draws on the Open University’s pedagogically oriented research which offers effective ways forward (e.g. Cremin et al., 2014; Cremin and Coles, 2022; Hempel Jorgensen, Cremin, Chamberlain and Harris, 2018; Simpson and Cremin, 2022).

Health, Wellbeing and Social Care

• Ferguson, G. (2023). "When David Bowie created Ziggy Stardust" Reconceptualising workplace learning for social workers. The Journal of Practice Teaching and Learning, 20(1) pp67-87.

  Social workers’ lived experiences show the complexity of what is involved in their workplace learning, and daily practice. Recent research shows just how extraordinary this profession is. Social workers’ learning in the workplace can be represented as an intricate web of sensory and emotional experiences that span places, spaces and tasks. Since the original research was undertaken the ideas have been welcomed by employers, organisational development practitioners and those leading professional learning frameworks. A new study focused on the Scottish context is exploring how the research has influenced organisational practices. Dr Ferguson has been invited to talk widely on the research within local authorities and strategic forums promoting a new way of conceptualising learning for the profession.

• Coleman P (2023). Practicum structures and nursing student retention/achievement rates in a United Kingdom university: a quantitative analysis. Quality Advancement in Nursing Education - Avancées en formation infirmière, Vol. 9, No.1, Article 7, pp.1-19. ISSN 2368-6669.

  Unlike pre-registration nurse education programmes offered within some other countries, most of those provided in the UK have traditionally been based solely on a block design but recent changes in the programme options available to learners seeking to acquire Registered Nurse status, combined with growing demand for healthcare placements, have led some UK universities to consider alternative practicum models and so optimise use of available placement capacity. This study investigated whether the consistent application of a specific practicum design to student practice learning experiences within two pre-registration nursing degree programmes offered by The OU affected retention and achievement levels. Quantitative analyses involving a sample of 460 nursing undergraduates found no statistically significant relationship between exclusive student exposure to either block or integrated placement experiences in respect of withdrawal rates or the degree classification achieved by such learners. Given the international paucity of work investigating the potential impact of the two practicum designs on student retention and academic achievement in respect of pre-registration programmes, either in nursing or other health and social care disciplines, the absence of any statistically significant effect of a placement model upon the identified performance measures may therefore be both helpful and reassuring to academic institutions either using, or planning to implement, both designs. The study was undertaken following consultation with several nursing researchers in Australia, led to collaborative research addressing nursing student practicum experiences in Hong Kong, and will shortly be further developed by focusing on radiography undergraduate clinical placements in Australia and the UK.

• Margaret Crowley, Wendy McInally, Nicola Goodall and Janet Webb (2023). Evidencing Enquiry Based Learning: An Innovative Approach to Educating Children and Young People’s Nursing Students. Comprehensive Child and Adolescent Nursing, 46:2, 142-157.

  This discursive paper was published in the international peer reviewed journal, Comprehensive Child and Adolescent Nursing Vol 46, 2023 Issue 2, by a group of Open University nurse academics with expertise in Children and Young People’s (CYPs) Nursing and Enquiry Based Learning (EBL). The paper discusses some of the key challenges that face CYP and this field of practice. The paper highlights the flexibility of an online distance learning programme that has embedded EBL within the three theory modules and supports CYPs nursing students for the challenges and complexity of clinical practice of which nurses and other healthcare professionals are facing today. This approach to pedagogy enriches the student experience and provides a thirst for learning as well as the knowledge and skills the students require to synthesize their learning to diverse CYP clinical settings. In addition, this paper reflects on the leadership and creativity that the Future Nurse Curricula is showcasing across the United Kingdom.

• Watson, N.A. and De-Lappe, J., 2023. Student nurses, nursing curriculums and emergency responses to Covid-19: A scoping review. Science Talks, Vol 6, May 2023, 100211.

  Dr Naomi Watson and Dr Joseph De Lappe from the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) at The Open University conducted a scoping review of research literature on the impact globally of emergency healthcare responses to the Covid-19 pandemic on nursing curriculums and student nurses deployed as frontline staff.

  The review found the transition to online learning brought about by the pandemic was challenging for many nursing educators as well as student nurses on traditional campus-based courses. Whether they chose to be deployed as frontline staff or not, student nurses expressed concerns about the risks of Covid-19 for themselves and their families as well as the impact of the transition to online learning on their future career prospects.

  Significantly, the review found the experiences of student nurses who were distance learners and already used to online learning were overlooked in the research literature to date. Co-funded by PRAXIS and RESDEV, a large-scale study across the four nations of the United Kingdom is now underway to consider the impact of Covid-19 on nursing and social work students and recent alumni on distance learning professional programmes at The Open University.

• Vince Mitchell, Erica Borgstrom, Sam Murphy, Charlene Campbell, Sandy Sieminski and Sandy Fraser (2023). Exploring the experiences of distance learning students being supported to resubmit a final assignment following a fail result. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

  Led by Vince Mitchell (Associate Lecturer), this paper discusses OU students’ perspectives on the support they received when resubmitting an EMA. Based on interviews with students, we identified that written feedback alone was insufficient for these students to feel supported. Tutor support was viewed as enabling students to make sense of feedback and provide emotional proximity to the OU. This paper features one aspect of a much larger project about supporting students to resubmit their End of Module Assignment (EMA) within Health and Social Care modules based on PRAXIS-funded scholarship led by Erica Borgstrom. Project reports are in the Scholarship Exchange (OU internal) or by contact to the project PI. The project was an excellent example of including people from a range of roles and perspectives as part of the team – incorporating student rep up to Associate Heads of School - and enabling skill and career development of team members. This publication of this paper enables us to showcase our excellent scholarship work to a non OU audience, highlighting pedagogical innovations that have wider resonance across the sector.

Languages and Applied Linguistics

• Tuck, Jackie (2023). Defamiliarizing assessment and feedback: exploring the potential of ‘moments of engagement’ to throw light on the marking of undergraduate assignments. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (Early Access).

  Marking is one of the most important and time-consuming, but also most taken-for-granted, aspects of university teaching. While there has been extensive research on higher education assessment feedback, the perspectives and practices of markers are still not well understood, perhaps because of their sheer familiarity. This article is based on a study which aimed to make the ‘familiar strange’ through language- and context-sensitive exploration of markers’ evaluative literacy practices. The study combined analysis of interviews, texts and audiovisual screencasts produced by participants who talked through their processes and decisions as they marked undergraduate assignments. The paper focuses on several close-up ‘moments of engagement’ to throw light on the complexity of the marking task, exposing a range of influences which may not be traceable in written feedback, but which may nevertheless be highly consequential. The paper concludes by reflecting on the potential of this methodology to inform professional development and wider debate about the future of higher education assessment.

• Zuaro, Beatrice (2023). Content adaptations in English-medium instruction: Comparing L1 and English-medium lectures. English for Specific Purposes, 70 pp. 267–279.

  This study addresses an important gap in English-medium Instruction (EMI) research by comparing English-medium and L1-medium lectures in various disciplines at three Italian universities. Five sets of lectures, each given by the same lecturer, about the same topic, are closely examined to investigate which changes accompany the linguistic shift from L1 to English-medium teaching. The analysis reveals significant differences in the way knowledge is conveyed in the two versions of the lectures, which are grouped into three categories: differences in content quantity, differences in content selection and differences in rhetorical devices used. The paper discusses the implications of content adaptations in EMI programmes, highlighting their relevance in terms of lecturer training and curriculum design.

• Lillis, Theresa; Twiner, Alison; Balkow, Michael; Lucas, Gillian; Smith, Miriam and Leedham, Maria (2023). Reflections on the procedural and practical ethics in researching professional social work writing. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice (Early Access).

  Ethics is a key concern in all research. But the extent of the intellectual, practical and relational labour around ethics in research often goes unacknowledged, with university ethics panels typically centering on formal requirements at just one moment of a research project’s trajectory, the starting or ‘access’ point. The ongoing ethical work, particularly when working with the interests and demands of multiple agencies, in highly sensitive situations, and the epistemological consequences- what it is possible/desirable to know, by and for whom, how and when- are often backgrounded. Using the framework of procedural andpractical ethics, in this paper, researchers and participant-stakeholders have tried to challenge what amounts to a “moral hazard” by making visible some key dimensions of procedural and practical ethics in the ESRC funded Writing in Social Works Space (WiSP) project based in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies - Writing in professional social work practice.

• Lee, Helen and Hampel, Regine (2023). Geosemiotics as a multiperspectivist lens: Theorizing L2 use of semiotic resources in negotiation of meaning with mobiles from outside the classroom. Language Learning & Technology, 27(2) pp. 46–71

  Our paper advances semiotic research through presenting an innovative mobile language learning framework. Previous studies have devised frameworks for larger computers, but our study is one of the first to examine negotiation of meaning via mobiles from cafes and museums. Semiotic resources are the multiple actions, materials, and artifacts we use for communicative purposes (Jewitt, 2011). Drawing on a theory of language acquisition and semiotics, we highlight the transformative nature of learning in the mobile age. Findings show how negotiation is supported via semiotic resources which include objects, language, images, gesture, and facial expression. The paper relates the framework to broader practical issues for teachers. As part of this special journal issue, we were invited to speak on the panel on ‘Semiotics and CALL’ at the recent CALICO conference.

• Katz, Silvina and Hubscher-Davidson, Séverine (2023). Hermeneutics as a Route to Translating Auditory Aspects of Emotion in Silvina Ocampo’s Fictional Worlds: An Analysis of “Okno, el esclavo”. Yearbook of Translational Hermeneutics(2) pp. 207–241.

  This paper is situated at the intersection between Translation Hermeneutics and Cognitive Translation Studies and focuses on the translation of “sound sensations” in literature. The authors propose a novel way of reading as part of the translation process which pays special attention to the auditory emotion-eliciting aspects in Silvina Ocampo’s haunting short story ‘Okno, el esclavo’ through an interdisciplinary approach that combines close reading (and listening) with computer-aided qualitative data analysis. It offers insights into this delicate mental processing of sensory information essential to understanding a text’s sensory dimension as an aid to translation.

• Rienties, Bart; Divjak, Blazenka; Eichhorn, Michael; Iniesto, Francisco; Saunders-Smits, Gillian; Svetec, Barbi; Tillmann, Alexander and Zizak, Mirza (2023). Online professional development across institutions and borders. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20, article no. 30.

  Professional development (PD) is a key element for enhancing the quality of academic teaching. An increasing number of PD activities have moved to blended and online formats, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the desire, potential, and need for collaboration among educators to learn from innovative and best practices, several institutions have started to pool their resources and expertise together and have started to implement cross-institutional and cross-national online professional development (OPD). The questions of what type of a (cross-)institutional OPD educators might prefer, and whether educators learn effectively from (and with) peers in such cross-cultural context have not been adequately explored empirically. In this case-study across three European countries from the EU RAPIDE project, we explored the lived experiences of 86 educators as a result of a cross-institutional OPD. Using a mixed methods design approach our pre-post findings indicated that, on average, participants made substantial gains in knowledge. In addition, several cultural differences were evident in the expectations and lived experiences in ODP, as well as the intention to transfer what had been learned into one's own practice of action. This study indicates that while substantial economic and pedagogical affordances are provided with cross-institutional OPD, cultural differences in context might impact the extent to which educators implement lessons learned from OPD.

• Farrow, Robert; Weller, Martin; Pitt, Rebecca; Iniesto, Francisco; Algers, Anne; Almousa, Samia; Baas, Marjon; Bentley, Penny; Bozkurt, Aras; Butler, Walter; Cardoso, Paula; Chtena, Natascha; Cox, Glenda; Czerwonogora, Ada; Dabrowski, Michael T.; Darby, Robert; DeWaard, Helen; Kathy, Essmiller; Johanna, Funk; Jenni, Hayman; Emily, Helton; Huth, Kate; Hutton, Sarah C.; Iyinolakan, Olawale; Johnson, Kathryn R.; Jordan, Katy; Kuhn, Caroline; Lambert, Sarah; Mittelmeier, Jenna; Nagashima, Tomo; Nerantzi, Chrissi; O'Reilly, Jessica; Paskevicius, Michael; Peramunugamage, Anuradha; Pete, Judith; Power, Virginia; Pulker, Hélène; Rabin, Eyal; Rets, Irina; Roberts, Verena; Rodés, Virginia; Sousa, Lorena; Spica, Elizabeth; Vizgirda, Vidminas; Vladimirschi, Viviane and Witthaus, Gabi (2023). The Go-GN Open Research Handbook. Milton Keynes: Global OER Graduate Network.

  The Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) is funded by the Hewlett Foundation to support doctoral and post-doctoral research in open education. The network is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and was recently awarded three more years of funding. In collaboration with our members we have produced an accessible guide to researching open education and using open educational practices in research. The GO-GN Open Research Handbook contains advice on research methods, a range of conceptual framework and practical testimony from active and leading researchers in the field. The guidance offered is suitable for a wide audience and has already been downloaded and shared thousands of times across many countries. The GO-GN Open Research Handbook is available for use under a Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 licence which allows others to freely share, adapt and remix the content openly. During the next phase of GO-GN we will be adding additional sections with guides to academic publishing, grant writing, doctoral supervision, and more.

  Join GO-GN (for free!).

• Aristeidou, Maria; Cross, Simon; Rossade, Klaus-Dieter and Wood, Carlton (2023). Online remote exams in higher education: distance learning students' views. In: INTED 2023 Proceedings, 6-8 Mar 2023, Valencia, Spain, pp. 2556–2563.

  As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities had to re-structure their assessment design, policies and processes. Challenges involved consideration of subject-specific issues, the need to secure access to technology and evaluate staff skills, ensure that assessment standards are met, and finally, gauge student expectations and personal circumstances. The assessment conversation addressed urgent needs but also created success stories and opportunities for radical changes to become possible. This study aimed to explore the views of OU students about participating in online exams as a replacement to the common pre-covid practice of taking face-to-face exams at local centres appointed by the University. The study drew from survey responses of 631 undergraduate students. The majority of the survey respondents showed a clear preference towards online remote exams over the face-to-face alternative. Female students, students who reported mental health concerns or travel stress were more likely to support the idea of online exams, as opposed to students who reported concerns about technical difficulties or issues with access to the internet. The article identifies positive areas of perception and benefits that could help develop and frame an online assessment strategy for temporary and permanent university distance learning programmes.

• Alcock, Sarah; Aristeidou, Maria; Rienties, Bart and Kouadri Mostéfaoui, Soraya (2023). How do professional learners engage with learning analytics dashboards? In: Companion Proceedings of the 13th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK’23), ACM, New York, New York pp. 86–88.

  Learning Analytics Dashboards (LAD) research is mainly carried out in schools and higher education, whilst professional learning has often been overlooked. To address this gap, this fine-grained longitudinal study of 12 professionals over a period of five months has taken exploratory steps into the context of professional accountancy learning. It investigates perceptions and use of a static assessment LAD which incorporates data visualization and personalized written feedback, aiming to purposefully affect learning. Overall, findings demonstrate learners took a positive view of and subsequently actively used the LAD, choosing elements directly related to their needs to inform next revision steps. Learning insights which both provide an understanding of past performance and also specifically recommend how the professional learners might improve performance had the highest frequency of use. The implication for the LAD design community is LAD should include context and learner specific elements, providing personalized next step guidance.

• Chandler, Kathy and Perryman, Leigh-Anne (2023). ‘People have Started Calling Me an Expert’: The Impact of Open University Microcredential Courses. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2023(1), article no. 8.

  Few empirical evaluation studies exist exploring the impact of microcredentials. This article reports a study intended to address that knowledge gap by examining the impact of microcredential courses provided by The Open University. A survey and narrative interviews were used to explore courses’ impact on learners’ knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and practices six months after the course ended. Analysis of the data, and the application of Wenger, Trayner and de Laat’s (2011) Value Creation Framework, suggests that microcredential courses do have impact, in multiple ways, even for those learners not completing their course. Areas of impact include the development of learners’ knowledge and skills, changed thinking about the subject studied, and impact at work and/or on everyday life. For some learners, study of a microcredential course also enables a career change or provides the confidence to go on to further study.

• Goshtasbpour, Fereshte; Pitt, Beck; Cross, Simon; Ferguson, Rebecca and Whitelock, Denise (2023). Challenges for Innovation and Educational Change in Digital Education in Low Resourced Settings: A Kenyan Example. In: European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) 2023 Annual Conference, 18-20 Jun 2023, Dublin, Ireland.

  Many governments invest in digital education and deliver multi-faceted initiatives to develop the capacity of universities and staff confidence in use of technology for enhanced learning and better student outcomes. However, the impact of these initiatives does not always result in improved technology-supported learning or successful digital educational products. Research shows many factors impede the achievement of such objectives. Yet, they are not well understood particularly in low-resourced educational settings. Thus, this paper as part of a larger study aimed to explore barriers to implementing TEL for higher education in low-resourced contexts and potential solutions from the perspective of educators, managers and support staff. The unique inclusion of support staff and management in this research provides a deeper understanding of current barriers to TEL, and the value of multi-stakeholder engagement to develop meaningful context-driven solutions. Using a qualitative oriented mixed-method approach underpinned by Beyond Prototypes conceptual model of TEL complex, the study found that most barriers and enablers of effective TEL implementation are related to the ecology in which it is practised, together with the influence of the salient communities. Findings also suggest that most stakeholders are aware and prioritise barriers related to their role, but have limited awareness of barriers faced by other stakeholders or how others perceived their role in supporting TEL.

• Herodotou, Christothea; Ismail, Nashwa; Lahnstein, A.I. Ana; Aristeidou, Maria; Young, Alison; Johnson, F. Rebecca; Higgins, M. Lila; Khanaposhtani, G. Maryam; Robinson, D. Lucy and Ballard, L. Heidi (2023). Young people in iNaturalist: a blended learning framework for biodiversity monitoring. International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement (Early access).

  Participation in authentic research in the field and online through Community and Citizen Science (CCS) has shown to bring learning benefits to volunteers. In online CCS, available platforms present distinct features, ranging from scaffolding the process of data collection, to supporting data analysis and enabling volunteers to initiate their own studies. What is yet not well understood is how best to design CCS programmes that are educational, inclusive, andaccessible by diverse volunteers, including young people and those with limited prior science experiences who are rather few in CCS. In this study, we interviewed 31 young people, aged 7–20 years old, who used iNaturalist, an online biodiversity monitoring platform, and identified how different forms of participation online and in the field facilitated (or inhibited) certain forms of learning, as defined by the Environmental Science Agency framework. Findings revealed that iNaturalist enabled participation of young people including those with limited science experiences and facilitated science learning such as the development of science competence and understanding. A blended learning framework for biodiversity monitoring in CCS is presented as a means to support the development of hybrid, educational, and inclusive CCS programmes for young people.

• Killian, Chad M.; Marttinen, Risto; Howley, Donal; Sargent, Julia and Jones, Emily M. (2023). “Knock, Knock . . . Who’s There?” ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence-Powered Large Language Models: Reflections on Potential Impacts Within Health and Physical Education Teacher Education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education (Early access).

  This research note suggests the emergence of Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbots like ChatGPT pose challenges to the future of higher education. We as a field should pay attention to issues and opportunities associated with this technology across learning, teaching, and research spaces. We propose ignoring, or being indifferent to, predictions about what technologies like Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbots can do can cause us to do “dumb things.” All health and physical education teacher education faculty members should make efforts to learn about these tools to facilitate informed, solution-focused decisions about whether and where to leverage them. We highlight the importance of maintaining sociocritical perspectives when considering use of digital technologies to understand and address digital (in)equity and promote equitable practices. We conclude by emphasizing the need for field-specific consensus statements to guide ethical and appropriate use of Artificial Intelligence-powered chatbots, to ensure the value of these tools is harnessed for the good of the society. [Output by ChatGPT-3]

• Outhwaite, Laura A.; Early, Erin; Herodotou, Christothea and Van Herwegen, Jo (2023). Understanding how educational maths apps can enhance learning: A content analysis and qualitative comparative analysis. British Journal of Educational Technology (Early access).

  Educational applications (apps) are ubiquitous within children's learning environments and emerging evidence has demonstrated their efficacy. However, it remains unclear what the active ingredients (ie, mechanisms), or combination of ingredients, of successful maths apps are. The current study developed a new, open-access, three-step framework for assessing the educational value of maths apps, com[1]prised of type of app, mathematical content and app design features. When applied to a selection of available maths apps previously evaluated with children in the first 3years of school (the final sample included 23 apps), results showed that practice-based apps were the most common app type tested (n=15). Basic number skills, such as number representation and relationships, were the most common area of mathematics targeted by apps (n=21). A follow-up qualitative comparative analysis showed observed learning outcomes with maths apps were enhanced when apps combined the following: a scaffolded and personalised learning journey (programmatic level[1]ling) and explanations of why answers were right or wrong (explanatory feedback), as well as praise, such as ‘Great job!’ (motivational feedback). This novel evidence stresses the significance of feedback and levelling design features that teaching practitioners and there stakeholders should consider when deciding which apps to use with young children. Directions for future research are discussed.

• Rienties, Bart; Ferguson, Rebecca; Gonda, Dalibor; Hajdin, Goran; Herodotou, Christothea; Iniesto, Francisco; Llorens Garcia, Ariadna; Muccini, Henry; Sargent, Julia; Virkus, Sirje and Isidori, Maria Vittoria (2023). Education 4.0 in higher education and computer science: A systematic review. Computer Applications in Engineering Education (Early Access).

  Education 4.0 is a recently introduced concept focused on innovation, novelty, use of technology and connections with employment and industry. In particular, in engineering disciplines like computer science (CS) it is essential that educators keep up to date with industry developments. Indeed, how CS educators effectively design and implement innovative teaching and learning deserves more systematic attention. This study funded by Teach4EDU project aimed to catalogue and synthesise learning design approaches to teaching and learning within CS: (1) Which innovative pedagogic approaches are used in teaching of CS? (2) Which approaches align with Education 4.0? (3) What skills and competences do educators require to align CS teaching with Education 4.0? Our systematic literature review (SLR) included CS papers published between 2016 and 2020. Two hundred and thirty one studies were identified of which 66 were included in the final phase, which were coded by a multidisciplinary team. The findings indicated that many CS educators included Education 4.0 learning design elements. We found a clear distinctive three cluster solution: (1) EDU4 light, (2) project based/hands on learning and (3) full EDU4, while Education 4.0 refers to our own definition. These findings suggest three broad flavours when designing innovative CS practices, which might help educators align their practice.