Quarterly Review of Research - April 2024

Arts and Humanities

• Shaw, Samuel (2024). Art, Identity and Cosmopolitanism: William Rothenstein and the British Art World, c.1880–1935. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang Verlag.

  The artist, writer and teacher William Rothenstein (1872–1945) was a significant figure in the British art world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was a conspicuously cosmopolitan character: born to a German-Jewish family in the north of England, he attended art school in Paris, wrote the first English monograph on the Spanish artist Goya, and became a prominent collector and supporter of Indian art. However, Rothenstein’s cosmopolitanism was a complex affair. His relationship with his English, European and Jewish identities was ever-changing, responding to wider shifts on the political and cultural stage. This book traces those changes through the artist’s writings and through his art, analysing a range of paintings, drawings and prints created from the 1890s into the 1930s. This book – the first in-depth study of Rothenstein’s art – draws on extensive archival material to situate his practice within broader debates regarding identity formation, transnational exchange and the development of modern art in Britain.

• Graham, Emma-Jayne (2024). The haptic production of religious knowledge among the Vestal Virgins: A hands-on approach to Roman ritual. In: Abigail, Graham and Blanka, Misic eds. Senses, Cognition, and Ritual Experience in the Roman World. Ancient Religion and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–88.

  This chapter brings the sensory potentialities of material objects used in Roman ritualized activities into discourse concerning the nature and production of ancient religious knowledge. By combining perspectives derived from lived religion and material religion it is argued that religious agency should be understood as the product of the intertwining of human and more-than-human things within assemblages. Lived experiences of this production of agency, in turn, cause people to feel and consequently think in certain ways, ultimately producing what can be categorized as distal and proximal forms of religious knowledge. The chapter uses the example of the frieze of the Vestal Virgins from the Ara Pacis Augustae to argue that different forms of ancient religious knowledge were actively created through a multiplicity of lived experiences of ritualized action that brought human and more-than-human material things together, rather than existing only as something that was expressed through ritual behaviours. Exploring the Vestals’ experience of ritualized encounters with material things makes it possible to establish new understandings of the real-world lived experiences and identities of these priestesses, at the same time as offering significant insights into how individualized forms of religious knowledge could be sustained even in the context of shared communal or public rituals.

• Jones, Richard J. (ed.) (2023). Tobias Smollett after 300 years: life, writing, reputation. Eighteenth-Century Moments. US and UK: Clemson University Press in association with Liverpool University Press.

  Smollett after 300 years offers a collection of essays on one of the great literary figures of the eighteenth century: the Scottish writer, Tobias Smollett (1721–1771). Drawing together the work of an international group of scholars, with a variety of critical approaches, the book examines aspects of Smollett’s life, writing and reputation on the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth. Smollett is perhaps best known today as a novelist. However, he also worked tirelessly as a translator, historian, critic and editor. Whilst this book gives space to Smollett’s innovations in writing fiction (described, variously, as malapropic, metaleptic, avuncular and periodical), it also draws on his wider work, situating it in the intellectual and visual culture of the book trade, traditions of domestic and humoral medicine, the politics of the Anglo-Scottish Union and projects to write a national history. Moments of Smollett’s biography are revisited through newly-published correspondence, including accounts of his relationship to the sale of enslaved people. A new area for Smollett studies – his reception in Russia – suggests the reach of his work. The book concludes with some reflections on the state of Smollett studies today and the urgent message this eighteenth-century writer might bring to twenty-first century classrooms.

• Marsden, Richard (2023). Heritage, identity and the creative arts in the South Wales Valleys. National Identities (Early Access).

  The BG REACH project used creative arts methods to support residents of a post-industrial community in the South Wales Valleys to reflect on what the heritage of their local area meant to them. Contrary to expectation, participants did not define their shared identity primarily in relation to the industrial experience. Connections with the pre-industrial past were equally powerful, as were positive views of deindustrialisation as a healing of the landscape. Moreover, the pieces produced drew extensively upon broader motifs of Welshness, suggesting that Welsh identity may not be as terminally fragmented as some scholars have argued.

• Thompson, Marie (2024). Mapping tinnitus. The Senses and Society (Early Access).

  In this article I offer a critical reflection on the production of ‘tinnitus maps’ as part of the Arts and Humanities Research project, Tinnitus, Auditory Knowledge and the Arts. Influenced by both methods and critiques of sound mapping, tinnitus maps mark an attempt to creatively document the relationship between aurality, context and place. Tinnitus maps depart from sound mapping’s focus on the aural specificity of ‘proper noun’ places, instead depicting tinnitus as a mode of aurality. This article situates these maps in relation to the practices and discourses of acoustic ecology: a field that has been associated with and been influential for various methods of sound mapping. I posit that tinnitus maps serve to amplify the exclusions created by acoustic ecology’s ‘aesthetic moralism’ and investment in ‘normate aurality’, while also offering novel insights into tinnitus’ spatial and relational constitution.

Psychology and Counselling

• Bond, Julian; Dixon, John; Tredoux, Colin and Andreouli, Eleni (2023). The contact hypothesis and the virtual revolution: Does face-to-face interaction remain central to improving intergroup relations? PLOS ONE, 18(12), article no. e0292831.

  Research on the contact hypothesis has traditionally prioritized the role of positive, direct, face-to-face interactions in shaping intergroup prejudices, but it has recently expanded to study indirect vicarious, negative, and online contact experiences. In the majority of studies though, there has been little direct comparison of the relationship between these different forms of contact and prejudice. The present research set out to compare the amount and effects of negative, online, and vicarious contact in the context of positive, face-to-face and direct contact in two studies. Study 1 comprised a national cross-sectional survey of relations between White and Black UK residents (n = 1014), and Study 2 comprised a national longitudinal survey of relations between Catholic and Protestant residents of Northern Ireland (n = 1030). The results of both studies indicated that positive face-to-face contact occurred more frequently and had a comparatively stronger relationship with prejudice than other forms of contact. However, they also indicated the effects of online, negative and vicarious forms of contact existed independently of those of direct, positive face-to-face contact. Moreover, online negative contact generally had a stronger relationship to prejudice than negative contact experienced face-to-face. Exploratory mediation analyses suggested the affective pathways from contact to prejudice may vary for different forms of contact.

• Frances, Tanya (2024). A dialogical narrative approach to transitions and change in young women’s lives after domestic abuse in childhood: considerations for counselling and psychotherapy. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling (Early Access).

  Domestic abuse in childhood is seriously impactful, but very little literature uses a critical lens to consider implications for counsellors and psychotherapists working with young adults following domestic abuse in childhood. This article draws on research that explored 10 young women’s accounts of transitions to adulthood after domestic abuse in childhood. Interviews with young adult women in England were conducted and a feminist dialogical narrative analysis was used. Findings suggest that socio-cultural structures and ideologies that shape dominant discourses about what growing up after domestic abuse in childhood means, and what “successful” adult femininity looks like, shaped how women made sense of their experiences. This has implications for counsellors and psychotherapists working with this client group. This article concludes that storytelling could be a powerful therapeutic tool, and attention to power, ambiguity and tensions when working with this client group might facilitate and generate important meaning-making and knowledge in therapy.

• Larkin, Michael and Boden-Stuart, Zoë (2024). The dynamics of interpersonal trust: implications for care at times of psychological crisis. Philosophical Psychology, 37(1) pp. 148–166.

  ‘Trust’ can describe many different positive features of our social relationships with others. In this exploratory paper, we reflect on some of the ways in which people orient themselves towards others in the context of a psychological crisis, a time when trust may be threatened or eroded. We draw upon qualitative data extracts from two previously reported studies, in order to illustrate and develop some observations about the dynamics of relational trust during such periods of acute distress. We show how these dynamics arise out of particular contexts and have particular consequences for psychological health. We discuss how, in a relationship mediated by trust, it can sometimes be an act of care – towards self, or towards others – to filter and limit the extent of what one entrusts to another. We suggest that further consideration by philosophers can be very helpful to the mental health field here, if we are to understand the negotiation of interpersonal trust in the context of mental health crises. We note that it would be extremely helpful to understand more about how to create the kinds of environments which afford trust.

• Sexton, Laura; Moreton, Reuben; Noyes, Eilidh; Martinez, Sergio Castro and Laurence, Sarah (2024). The effect of facial ageing on forensic facial image comparison. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 38, article no. e4153.

  Facial appearance changes over time as people age. This poses a challenge for individuals working in forensic settings whose role requires them to match the identity of face images. The present research aimed to determine how well an international sample of forensic facial examiners could match faces with a substantial age gap. We tested a sample of 60 facial examiners, 23 professional teams, and 81 untrained control participants. Participants matched pairs of photographs with a 10–30‐year age gap between the images. Participants also estimated the ages of the faces. On the matching task, individual professionals, and teams outperformed controls and made fewer high confidence errors. On the age estimation task, there was no advantage for professionals relative to controls. Our results suggest that forensic facial examiners can tolerate substantial age differences between adult faces when performing comparisons, but this advantage does not extend to accurate age estimation.

• Zurbriggen, Eileen L. and Capdevila, Rose eds. (2023). Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan.

  The Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology takes an intersectional feminist approach to the exploration of psychology and gender through a lens of power. The invisibility of power in psychological research and theorizing has been critiqued by scholars from many perspectives both within and outside the discipline. This volume addresses that gap. The handbook centers power in the analysis of gender, but does so specifically in relation to psychological theory, research, and praxis. Gathering the work of sixty authors from different geographies, career stages, psychological sub-disciplines, methodologies, and experiences, the handbook showcases creativity in approach, and diversity of perspective. The result is a work featuring a chorus of different voices, including diverse understandings of feminisms and power. Ultimately, the handbook presents a case for the importance of intersectionality and power for any feminist psychological endeavour.

Social Sciences and Global Studies

• Banda, Geoffrey; Mackintosh, Maureen; Njeru, Mercy Karimi; Makene, Fortunata Songora and Srinivas, Smita eds. (2024). Cancer Care in Pandemic Times: Building Inclusive Local Health Security in Africa and India. Palgrave Macmillan.

  This is a book about improving cancer care in Africa and India following the global COVID pandemic. It is a collaboration between researchers in Kenya, Tanzania, India and the UK, working within a cross-country, multidisciplinary research project, Innovation for Cancer Care in Africa (ICCA). The pandemic crystallised for researchers and policymakers an often overlooked phenomenon: global health security is built on the foundations of strong local health security. We argue in this book that new analytical thinking from social scientists and others is required on how to build local health security. We use the “lens” of original research on cancer care in East Africa and India to build up an understanding of the scope for the development of stronger synergies between local health industries and health care, in order to strengthen local health security and develop tools for policy making.

• Billingham, Luke and Gillon, Fern (2023). (Re)moving exclusions: School exclusion reduction in Glasgow and London. British Educational Research Journal (Early Access).

  School exclusion reduction in Scotland—and especially in the city of Glasgow—has received substantial media and policy attention in recent years. In London in particular, multiple governmental agencies have explicitly expressed a desire to replicate the exclusion reduction which recently occurred in Glasgow, often citing the connection between school exclusion and violence as a key motivating factor. In this paper, after presenting the statistical trends in school exclusions in Scotland, England, Glasgow and London, we mobilise original interview data to (1) explain how school exclusion reduction occurred so rapidly in Glasgow between 2007 and 2019, and (2) explore whether a similar reduction in exclusions could occur in contemporary London. Building on previous research which has contrasted national school exclusion policies in Scotland and England, we conclude that policy conditions surrounding school exclusion in the two cities differ substantially.

• Bhambra, Gurminder K; Mayblin, Lucy; Medien, Kathryn and Viveros-Vigoya, Mara eds. (2023). The Sage Handbook of Global Sociology. SAGE Publications Ltd.

  The SAGE Handbook of Global Sociology addresses the ‘social’, its various expressions globally, and the ways in which such understandings enable us to understand and account for global structures and processes. It demonstrates the vitality of thought from around the world by connecting theories and traditions, including reflections on European colonization, to build shared, rather than universal, understandings.

• Gabb, Jacqui; Aicken, Catherine; Di Martino, Salvatore; Witney, Tom and Lucassen, Mathijs (2023). More–than–relationship quality: A feminist new materialist analysis of relationship quality and the potential of digital couple interventions. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 15(4) pp. 685–705

  Long‐established studies and scales have advanced understandings of family function, marital satisfaction, and couple relationship quality. The underpinning constructs nevertheless remain under‐conceptualized and largely removed from the heuristic of everyday life and the dynamic of contemporary coupledom. We propose that a paradigm shift is required to sufficiently engage with the digital worlds of 21st century intimacies. We demonstrate how using a practices approach, which focuses on everyday lived experience, facilitates investigation of multidimensional public–private worlds. We deploy this to build a feminist new materialist analysis of a digital couple intervention. Through this, we develop the concept of more–than–relationship quality.

• Lombardozzi, Lorena (2023). Untangling the nexus between marketization, crop diversity, farmers' wealth and nutrition: The case of Uzbekistan. Journal of International Development (Early access).

  The impact of marketization and crop diversity loss on dietary diversity is at the centre of a rich debate in agricultural policies. However, more work is needed to unpack the multidimensional factors underpinning these processes. This paper, by looking at the underexplored case of Uzbekistan, expands the analytical understanding of the nexus among those dimensions. First, by using quantitative methods, it evaluates the hypotheses that (a) wealth leads to higher dietary diversity; (b) agrarian marketization leads to lower dietary diversity; and (c) crop diversity leads to higher dietary diversity. Although measures for dietary diversity, crop diversity, agrarian marketization and wealth, constructed from a farmer’s survey, are positively correlated, regression analysis shows that only wealth is an independent determinant of dietary diversity. Second, the paper argues that state policies and social norms, by influencing food availability, knowledge, and nutritional values, are key elements to unpack the relations between agricultural marketization, crop diversity and dietary diversity.

School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences

• Araya, Yoseph N.; Emmott, Andrew; Rawes, William and Zuza, Emmanuel Junior (2023). Promoting climate-smart sustainable agroforestry to tackle social and environmental challenges: The case of macadamia agroforestry in Malawi. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, 14, article no. 100846

  Our global food system needs a holistic transformation for long-term fertility and climate-proof livelihoods.  In this connection there is an increasing recognition of smallholder farmers (making up >80% of farms while having farms of <2 ha in size) as key players for addressing global and environmental issues through climate-smart agricultural practices. Agroforestry-based agriculture i.e., intercropping trees with other crops has the potential to improve farm biodiversity, productivity and climate resilience. In this context, in this study, building on Emmanuel Zuza’s successful PhD (2023), we share the experience of macadamia-based agroforestry in Malawi, with its carbon mitigation damage financing scheme for ecosystem services. 

  More papers from the successful OU–Neno Macadamia Trust charity are available in ORO. The project has also a successful teaching input with live data for the Environment module (SDT306).

• Hönisch, Bärbel; Royer, Dana L.; Breecker, Daniel O.; Polissar, Pratigya J.; Bowen, Gabriel J.; Henehan, Michael J.; Cui, Ying; Steinthorsdottir, Margret; McElwain, Jennifer C.; Kohn, Matthew J.; Pearson, Ann; Phelps, Samuel R.; Uno, Kevin T.; Ridgwell, Andy; Anagnostou, Eleni; Austermann, Jacqueline; Badger, Marcus; Barclay, Richard S.; Bijl, Peter K.; Chalk, Thomas B.; Scotese, Christopher R.; de la Vega, Elwyn; DeConto, Robert M.; Dyez, Kelsey A.; Ferrini, Vicki; Franks, Peter J.; Giulivi, Claudia F.; Gutjahr, Marcus; Harper, Dustin T.; Haynes, Laura L.; Huber, Matthew; Snell, Kathryn E.; Keisling, Benjamin A.; Konrad, Wilfried; Lowenstein, Tim K.; Malinverno, Alberto; Guillermic, Maxence; Mejía, Luz María; Milligan, Joseph N.; Morton, John J.; Nordt, Lee; Whiteford, Ross; Roth-Nebelsick, Anita; Rugenstein, Jeremy K. C.; Schaller, Morgan F.; Sheldon, Nathan D.; Sosdian, Sindia; Wilkes, Elise B.; Witkowski, Caitlyn R.; Zhang, Yi Ge; Anderson, Lloyd; Beerling, David J.; Bolton, Clara; Cerling, Thure E.; Cotton, Jennifer M.; Da, Jiawei; Ekart, Douglas D.; Foster, Gavin L.; Greenwood, David R.; Hyland, Ethan G.; Jagniecki, Elliot A.; Jasper, John P.; Kowalczyk, Jennifer B.; Kunzmann, Lutz; Kürschner, Wolfram M.; Lawrence, Charles E.; Lear, Caroline H.; Martínez-Botí, Miguel A.; Maxbauer, Daniel P.; Montagna, Paolo; Naafs, B. David A.; Rae, James W. B.; Raitzsch, Markus; Retallack, Gregory J.; Ring, Simon J.; Seki, Osamu; Sepúlveda, Julio; Sinha, Ashish; Tesfamichael, Tekie F.; Tripati, Aradhna; van der Burgh, Johan; Yu, Jimin; Zachos, James C. and Zhang, Laiming (2023). Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2. Science, 382(6675)

  The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a key driver of the Earth’s climate. Understanding how it has changed in the geologic past allows us to unravel our climate system, and to better predict future anthropogenic climate change. Ice co8res survive from the last 800,000 years and these trap bubbles of the atmosphere and allow determination of atmospheric CO₂. Beyond that it becomes more difficult and requires “proxies” to estimate this important parameter.

  Dr Marcus Badger was part of the international Cenozoic CO₂ Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium which over a seven-year project expertly documented, evaluated and synthesized published records of proxy atmospheric CO₂ determinations from all available archives. These span the last 66 million years.

  This paper, the result of that effort, represents the most comprehensive and complete community-vetted compilation to date and will allow a step-change in our understanding of the role of carbon dioxide in climate, biological, and cryosphere evolution.

School of Computing and Communications

• Richards, Mike; Waugh, Kevin; Slaymaker, Mark; Petre, Marian; Woodthorpe, John and Gooch, Daniel (2023). Bob or Bot: Exploring ChatGPT’s answers to University Computer Science Assessment. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (Early access).

  The release of ChatGPT and other free-to-use generative AI tools have provided a new and distinct method for students to cheat.  Focusing on five different computer science undergraduate and postgraduate university assessments, a total of 60 student scripts were marked alongside 30 ChatGPT-generated scripts. Our analysis demonstrates that, in most cases, ChatGPT is at least capable of producing adequate answers for undergraduate assessment. 

  This highlights the need for universities to radically consider how they assess students, to retain credibility of their assessment practices; potentially including the greater use of live examinations, and increased reliance on personal portfolios of work.

• Abeywickrama, Dhaminda B.; Bennaceur, Amel; Chance, Greg; Demiris, Yiannis; Kordoni, Anastasia; Levine, Mark; Moffat, Luke; Moreau, Luc; Mousavi, Mohammad Reza; Nuseibeh, Bashar; Ramamoorthy, Subramanian; Ringert, Jan Oliver; Wilson, James; Windsor, Shane and Eder, Kerstin (2024). On Specifying for Trustworthiness. Communications of the ACM, 67(1) pp. 98–109.

  Autonomous systems (AS) are systems that involve software applications, machines, and people — that is, systems that can take action with little or no human supervision. Soon, AS will no longer be confined to safety-controlled industrial settings. Instead, they will increasingly become part of our daily lives, having matured across various domains, such as driverless cars, healthcare robotics, and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). As such, it is crucial that these systems are trusted and trustworthy. Trust may vary, as it can be gained and lost over time. Different research disciplines define trust in different ways.

  This article, published in a premier computer science venue, focuses on the notion of trust that concerns the relationship between humans and AS. AS are considered trustworthy when the design, engineering, and operation of these systems generates positive outcomes and mitigates potentially harmful outcomes.

School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences

• Papadogiannis, Vasileios; Hockman, Dorit; Mercurio, Silvia; Ramsay, Claire; Hintze, Mark; Patthey, Cedric; Streit, Andrea and Shimeld, Sebastian M. (2023). Evolution of the expression and regulation of the nuclear hormone receptor ERR gene family in the chordate lineage. Developmental Biology, 504 pp. 12–24.

  Papadogiannis and colleagues explored the evolution and developmental roles of estrogen-related receptor (ERR) genes across a range of species including molluscs, amphioxus, tunicates, and vertebrates. They discovered that all these species express a single ERR gene variant in the nervous system, with chordates also showing expression in muscles. Their research found that most vertebrates with jaws, as well as lampreys, possess four variations of ERR genes, which originally evolved alongside Estrogen Receptor genes. Interestingly, one of the lamprey's ERR variations shares similar expression patterns in the nervous system with the ERRγ variant found in vertebrates.

  The study suggests that the reason these expression patterns are conserved across different species is due to specific non-coding sequences within the ERR genes that regulate this expression. By inserting these regulatory sequences into lamprey and chicken embryos, the researchers were able to show that these sequences are indeed responsible for driving gene expression in the nervous system. This implies a longstanding connection between ERR genes and nervous system functions, including the processing of light and mechanical stimuli. This connection dates to the earliest common ancestor of vertebrates, which possessed neural regulatory elements in the non-coding regions of ERR genes, elements that have been maintained throughout evolution.

• Kramarova, Eugenia P.; Lyakhmun, Dmitry N.; Tarasenko, Dmitry V.; Borisevich, Sophia S.; Khamitov, Edward M.; Yusupova, Alfia R.; Korlyukov, Alexander A.; Romanenko, Alexander R.; Shmigol, Tatiana A.; Bylikin, Sergey Y.; Baukov, Yuri I. and Negrebetsky, Vadim V. (2023). Reaction of Picolinamides with Ketones Producing a New Type of Heterocyclic Salts with an Imidazolidin-4-One Ring. Molecules, 29(1), article no. 206.

  A series of pyridinium salts with a protonated endocyclic nitrogen atom and a series of heterocyclic salts containing an imidazolidinone ring were synthesised by the reactions of picolinamides with propanesultone in methanol followed by the treatment with ketones The structures of all intermediate and final products were determined by infrared and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy. For several products, the structures were also determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction study. The effects of the identity of ketones and alcohols used in the synthesis on the product yield and reaction pathways were studied by quantum-chemical calculations. The stability of the pyridinium salts in aqueous and alcohol media was evaluated, and the framework of the synthesised compounds was proposed for the search of new types of biologically active molecules.

School of Mathematics and Statistics

• Basyal, Deepak and Stenhouse, Brigitte (2023). Tikaram and Chandrakala Dhananjaya: A collaborative couple in mathematics from Nepal. Endeavour, 47(4), article no. 100899.

  Within the history of mathematics and mathematics education in Nepal, Tikaram and Chandrakala Dhananjaya are relatively well-known figures. This is despite there being almost no archival or manuscript materials offering a window into their lives: we have no letters, no notebooks, no diaries, nor school records. Chandrakala is credited as the author of Śiśubodha Taraṅgiṇī (1933, A Series of Lessons for Children) whilst Tikaram is the credited author of Līlāvatī (1936). In fact, both of these texts are translations of the same Sanskrit source text, Līlāvatī, into Nepali. Thus, rather than focusing on either individual in isolation, in this paper we present an argument for considering the Dhananjayas as an analytically indivisible collaborative couple in mathematics. By comparing the mathematical contents of their two works, we propose different models of spousal collaboration which could plausibly have been adopted by the Dhananjayas and explore what it means to be an author or translator of a mathematical text.

• Wilkinson, Andrew; Pradas, Marc and Wilkinson, Michael (2023). Lubrication dynamics of a settling plate. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 977, article no. A28.

  This paper examines a fundamental problem in the field of fluid mechanics. Classical mathematical findings propose that a solid object falling under gravity through a viscous liquid (such as water or oil) never makes contact with an underlying solid surface. This conclusion contradicts our everyday observations, which suggest that objects do come into contact in finite time. This paper addresses this classic problem and investigates the conditions under which the edge of a flat plate can approach another solid horizontal plate within a finite timeframe. We show that the dynamics of this system can be remarkably complex depending on the initial conditions and mass distribution of the plate. The findings of this work are relevant in mechanical engineering applications, particularly in systems involving slider bearings, which are integral components of almost all systems incorporating large moving parts.

School of Physical Sciences

The School of Physical Sciences has published over 60 peer-reviewed publications this quarter, 10 % of which appear in high-impact broad readership journals such as the Nature and Science journal families. The papers highlighted this month reflect the immense efforts all our early career researchers make to SPS research, particularly our PhD students and postdocs. In these ways the School of Physical Sciences continues to contribute to two major strands of the University research strategy “Building to our Strengths” and “Next generation”.

• Stevenson, Adam T.; Haswell, Carole A.; Barnes, John R. and Barstow, Joanna K. (2023). Combing the Brown Dwarf Desert with Gaia DR3. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 526(4) pp. 5155–5171.

  This article is authored by the OU academics and researchers from the OU Exoplanets group, and is led by third-year PhD student, Adam Stevenson. The existence of planets outside our Solar System has been established since the first exoplanet was detected in 1995. Since then, many different aspects of exoplanets have been studied, from their orbits around parent stars, masses, densities, earth-like properties, and exoplanet atmospheres. However, the extent of these investigations is always limited by the current methods and observations available to astronomers.

  In this paper, the exoplanet-OU team exploited archival data from the Gaia mission (Gaia was launched in 2013 to map the spatial and velocity distribution of as many stars in the Milky Way as possible), to search for Brown Dwarfs, celestial objects whose masses lie between those of planets or stars, which may be found orbiting stars, or free-floating. Their “intermediate status” between stars and planets means astronomers still don’t really understand how such objects form, or even if they are a dual population of objects – both failed stars (forming one way) or failed planets (forming another) but observationally ended up in the same size / mass parameter space. Most interestingly, a brown dwarf desert exists – where brown dwarfs are not found orbiting close to companion stars and are even less likely to be found around Sun-like stars compared to other stars in the Milky Way.

  Using the extensive Gaia dataset, this paper describes a survey of 214 brown dwarfs that are orbiting companion stars in binary stellar systems and further constrains the properties, by mass and orbital distance between each of the 214 brown dwarves and their stellar companion. The key conclusion is that a brown dwarf valley does exist, with a minimum brown dwarf population consistent with objects with masses around 30-35 times that of the mass of Jupiter, and that on either “side” of this parameter valley, effectively the data hints that the brown dwarfs do have population differences i.e., they can form as a result of failed stellar processes, or as a result of failed planetary formation processes. This work forms part of Adam’s thesis and has already been cited by astronomers working with the James Webb Space telescope (JWST) to study brown dwarf populations in higher redshift galaxies in the early stages of the formation of our universe.

• Favaro, Elena A. Balme; Matthew R. Mcneil; Joseph D.; Fawdon, Peter; Davis, Joel M.; Grindrod, Peter M. and Lewis, Stephen R. (2024). Periodic Bedrock Ridges at Oxia Planum and Chryse Planitia, Mars: Evidence for widespread aeolian erosion of an ancient surface by regional paleowinds. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 626, article no. 118522.

  This article, led by Dr Elena Favaro, highlights work undertaken at the OU where geology and space science have been combined to understand the geological evolution of Mars. Elena was formerly a post-doc researcher at the OU with Matt Balme until the end of 2023, was awarded an ESA Fellowship in competitive peer-review across the ESA Member States, and started work at ESA’s research site ESTEC in January 2024. Her paper focuses on the occurrence of periodic bedrock ridges on a region of Mars known as Oxia Planum; a section of the Martian surface that is currently under detailed study, as it is the proposed landing site for the ESA (European Space Agency) ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover.

  The Oxia Planum region is scientifically exciting because it is a region of the Martian surface where there is extensive geological evidence of both aqueous and aeolian activity, for example fluvial valley networks and inverted channels, but also aeolian ridges, wind streaks, sand sheets, and in this article, periodic bedrock ridges. If planetary science and astronomy is to search for evidence of ancient life in the biomarkers in the surface and subsurface of Mars, this is consequently an ideal place to do so; but since biomarker preservation partially depends on erosion rates (and how long the biomarker may be exposed on the Martian surface) coupled with the need to distinguish biological and geological marker chemistries, an understanding of the aeolian activity is critical to corroborate any biological (or past biological) evidence.

  Elena’s paper focuses on the occurrence, directionality, and wind erosion of the ridges, which all lie with their crestlines in the E/W and ESE/WNW direction, in geological regions with Fe/Mg rich phyllosilicate bearing terrains. The evidence suggests these structures (which are regularly spaced) must have formed under wind conditions not found on modern-day Mars. The relationship between the formation and erosion of these ridges could have substantive implications about when and how these rocks were exposed to the surface environment, and consequently what ExoMars might find when it searches here.

School of Engineering and Innovation

• Sobianin, Ihor; Psoma, Sotiria D. and Tourlidakis, Antonios (2024). A 3D-Printed Piezoelectric Microdevice for Human Energy Harvesting for Wearable Biosensors. Micromachines, 15(1), article no. 118.

  This innovative project is based on the utilisation of the mechanical vibrations originating from contraction and expansion of the radial artery of a hand which represent a reliable and constant source for energy harvesting. A 3D-printed model/platform was designed and investigated through a combination of computational simulations and experimental investigations. A prototype was developed and tested with arterial pressure variations. The obtained results are encouraging and open a new horizon for a number of fields such as powering wearable biosensors for healthcare, wellbeing, and space applications.

• Kotir, Julius H.; Jagustovic, Renata; Papachristos, George; Zougmore, Robert B.; Kessler, Aad; Reynolds, Martin; Ouedraogo, Mathieu; Ritsema, Coen J.; Aziz, Ammar Abdul and Johnstone, Ron (2024). Field experiences and lessons learned from applying participatory system dynamics modelling to sustainable water and agri-food systems. Journal of Cleaner Production, 434, article no. 140042.

  System dynamics (SD) is perhaps the most understood and long-standing systems thinking approach familiar to most people. In making representation of core inter-relationships, and particularly feedback loops (representing virtuous and vicious cycles), the SD modelling process provides a powerful tool for revealing precisely the kind of complicated dynamics with interventions on sustainability; interventions that require systemic sensibilities of getting the ‘bigger picture’ including appreciating longer term possible outcomes and wider impacts of interventions. 

  This paper deals specifically with the increased use of participatory system dynamics modelling (PSDM) – representing the wider concern around the importance with systems thinking of capturing and engaging multiple perspectives; a hallmark of the systems thinking in practice (STiP) programme developed at the OU.  This paper includes many exemplar projects, including reference to earlier doctorate work supported by Martin Reynolds on PSDM development through an OU STiP alumnus - co-author Renata Jagustović (Jagustović et al., 2019 - Contribution of systems thinking and complex adaptive system attributes to sustainable food production: Example from a climate-smart village). 

Knowledge Media Institute

• Larasati, Retno; De Liddo, Anna and Motta, Enrico (2023). Meaningful Explanation Effect on User's Trust in an AI Medical System: Designing Explanations for Non-Expert Users. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (Early Access).

  With the NHS running 86 active AI projects in 2023, it’s clear that AI healthcare is becoming a staple in medical care. This paper delves into this rapidly advancing field, focusing on the crucial aspect of trust between users and AI systems. Rather than solely aiming to bolster trust through explanations, the research aims to empower users with the knowledge to make informed trust judgments.

  Through extensive research, Dr. Larasati developed a series of models and design guidelines that translate complex AI processes into understandable language for non-experts. Evaluation of the prototypes targeting breast cancer health scenarios has shown that meaningful explanations can influence users’ trust perceptions. By providing explanations, users can navigate and evaluate AI systems more carefully, ensuring that trust is based on insight rather than assumption. This approach is vital as AI becomes increasingly prevalent in our healthcare decisions.

• Schiller, Daniela; Yu, Alessandra N.C.; Alia-Klein, Nelly; Becker, Susanne; Cromwell, Howard C.; Dolcos, Florin; Eslinger, Paul J.; Frewen, Paul; Kemp, Andrew H.; Pace-Schott, Edward F.; Raber, Jacob; Silton, Rebecca L.; Stefanova, Elka; Williams, Justin H.G.; Abe, Nobuhito; Aghajani, Moji; Albrecht, Franziska; Alexander, Rebecca; Anders, Silke; Aragón, Oriana R.; Arias, Juan A.; Arzy, Shahar; Aue, Tatjana; Baez, Sandra; Balconi, Michela; Ballarini, Tommaso; Bannister, Scott; Banta, Marlissa C.; Barrett, Karen Caplovitz; Belzung, Catherine; Bensafi, Moustafa; Booij, Linda; Bookwala, Jamila; Boulanger-Bertolus, Julie; Boutros, Sydney Weber; Bräscher, Anne-Kathrin; Bruno, Antonio; Busatto, Geraldo; Bylsma, Lauren M.; Caldwell-Harris, Catherine; Chan, Raymond C.K.; Cherbuin, Nicolas; Chiarella, Julian; Cipresso, Pietro; Critchley, Hugo; Croote, Denise E.; Demaree, Heath A.; Denson, Thomas F.; Depue, Brendan; Derntl, Birgit; Dickson, Joanne M.; Dolcos, Sanda; Drach-Zahavy, Anat; Dubljević, Olga; Eerola, Tuomas; Ellingsen, Dan-Mikael; Fairfield, Beth; Ferdenzi, Camille; Friedman, Bruce H.; Fu, Cynthia H.Y.; Gatt, Justine M.; deGelder, Beatrice; Gendolla, Guido H.E.; Gilam, Gadi; Goldblatt, Hadass; Gooding, Anne Elizabeth Kotynski; Gosseries, Olivia; Hamm, Alfons O.; Hanson, Jamie L.; Hendler, Talma; Herbert, Cornelia; Hofmann, Stefan G.; Ibanez, Agustin; Joffily, Mateus; Jovanovic, Tanja; Kahrilas, Ian J.; Kangas, Maria; Katsumi, Yuta; Kensinger, Elizabeth; Kirby, Lauren A.J.; Koncz, Rebecca; Koster, Ernst H.W.; Kozlowska, Kasia; Krach, Sören; Kret, Mariska E.; Krippl, Martin; Kusi-Mensah, Kwabena; Ladouceur, Cecile D.; Laureys, Steven; Lawrence, Alistair; Li, Chiang-shan R.; Liddell, Belinda J.; Lidhar, Navdeep K.; Lowry, Christopher A.; Magee, Kelsey; Marin, Marie-France; Mariotti, Veronica; Martin, Loren J.; Marusak, Hilary A.; Mayer, Annalina V.; Merner, Amanda R.; Minnier, Jessica; Moll, Jorge; Morrison, Robert G.; Moore, Matthew; Mouly, Anne-Marie; Mueller, Sven C.; Mühlberger, Andreas; Murphy, Nora A.; Muscatello, Maria Rosaria Anna; Musser, Erica D.; Newton, Tamara L.; Noll-Hussong, Michael; Norrholm, Seth Davin; Northoff, Georg; Nusslock, Robin; Okon-Singer, Hadas; Olino, Thomas M.; Ortner, Catherine; Owolabi, Mayowa; Padulo, Caterina; Palermo, Romina; Palumbo, Rocco; Palumbo, Sara; Papadelis, Christos; Pegna, Alan J.; Pellegrini, Silvia; Peltonen, Kirsi; Penninx, Brenda W.J.H.; Pietrini, Pietro; Pinna, Graziano; Lobo, Rosario Pintos; Polnaszek, Kelly L.; Polyakova, Maryna; Rabinak, Christine; HeleneRichter, S.; Richter, Thalia; Riva, Giuseppe; Rizzo, Amelia; Robinson, Jennifer L.; Rosa, Pedro; Sachdev, Perminder S.; Sato, Wataru; Schroeter, Matthias L.; Schweizer, Susanne; Shiban, Youssef; Siddharthan, Advaith; Siedlecka, Ewa; Smith, Robert C.; Soreq, Hermona; Spangler, Derek P.; Stern, Emily R.; Styliadis, Charis; Sullivan, Gavin B.; Swain, James E.; Urben, Sébastien; Van den Stock, Jan; vander Kooij, Michael A.; van Overveld, Mark; Van Rheenen, Tamsyn E.; VanElzakker, Michael B.; Ventura-Bort, Carlos; Verona, Edelyn; Volk, Tyler; Wang, Yi; Weingast, Leah T.; Weymar, Mathias; Williams, Claire; Willis, Megan L.; Yamashita, Paula; Zahn, Roland; Zupan, Barbra; Lowe, Leroy; Gabriela, Gan; Charlotte F, Huggins and Leonie, Loeffler (2023). The Human Affectome. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (Early access).

  An interdisciplinary task force of 173 scientists from 23 countries has developed a model of the Human Affectome that situates the enormous array of affective phenomena within a single integrative framework. At its heart is an understanding that we monitor and manage various concerns simultaneously within and outside our own comfort zones.

  Prof. Siddharthan at KMi led an initial computational linguistics approach to scour 4.5 million books to identify and sort thousands of words that are commonly used to describe our feelings, emotions, moods, and sensory experiences. 12 teams of researchers led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai extensively reviewed these from a neuroscience perspective to develop a unifying framework of how our feelings, emotions and moods relate to and impact on our decision making and behaviour.

  We expect this framework to be especially helpful for studying mental health disorders that involve alterations in emotions and mood, such as depression and anxiety. It also offers huge potential for the field of artificial intelligence, where researchers are trying to emulate human feelings and emotions for a wide variety of tasks.

• Taylor-Dunn, Holly and Erol, Rosie (2023). Improving the ‘victim journey’ when reporting domestic abuse cyberstalking to the police – A pilot project evaluation. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 23(5) pp. 694–715.

  Criminal justice responses to stalking in England and Wales have come under increased scrutiny following the Joint Criminal Justice Inspectorate report in 2017. In response, police forces throughout England and Wales attempted to improve their handling of stalking. In one UK police force, a project was developed to improve the identification, investigation and victim journey for domestic abuse cyberstalking offences. The project included a specialist investigation team along with a dedicated and co-located Independent Domestic Violence Advisor. This article draws on research conducted during the evaluation of the project and will evidence high levels of victim engagement, positive reports from victims and a 100% success rate in obtaining restraining orders. These findings highlight the valuable role of specialist teams with integrated, independent support for victims and suggest that the victim journey can be improved through collaborative projects between the police and specialist organisations.

• Liu, Gordon; Chen, Yantai and Ko, Wai Wai (2024). The influence of marketing exploitation and exploration on business-to-business small and medium-sized enterprises. Industrial Marketing Management, 117 pp. 131–147.

  Organisational learning theory proposes firms can gain market knowledge through adaptive processes - marketing exploitation and exploration. Our study examines how these processes impact pioneering orientation, firms’ emphasis on launching innovative products ahead of competitors, in business-to-business (B2B) small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The prevailing view is firms should simultaneously pursue both processes or focus on just one. We challenge this notion and posit B2B SMEs should generally prioritise one process over the other to effectively shape pioneering orientation. However, certain circumstances like upstream supply chain (SC) integration and strong information technology (IT) competence enable firms to optimise benefits by alternating between processes. Our longitudinal analysis of 213 Chinese B2B SMEs supports this argument, revealing marketing exploration has a stronger positive influence on pioneering orientation than exploitation. Furthermore, our analysis shows upstream SC integration alone does not moderate, but combined with robust IT competence, can increase the advantages of marketing exploitation over exploration when fostering pioneering orientation in B2B SMEs.

• Bristow, Alexandra (2023). From the archive with love: a tribute of memory and hope for the future of Organization. Organization, 30(6) pp. 1293–1303.

  Having been an unofficial archivist of Organization over the last 20 years, in this essay I offer a selection of stories from the archive as a tribute to the journal’s 30th anniversary. I draw the stories mainly from the journal’s backstage, hidden archive (comprising old documents, interviews, and observation), but also to a lesser extent from its public (i.e. published) facet (comprising editorials and journal papers). The stories concern the journal’s relationship with Sage, its efforts to internationalize, the evolution of its archive in relation to the journal community, and the preservation of its critical intellectual mission. Altogether, these stories offer insights for the journal’s collective memory and hope for remaking its future.

• Barros, Amon; Bristow, Alexandra; Contu, Alessia; Wanderley, Sergio and Prasad, Ajnesh (2024). Politicizing and humanizing management learning and education with Paulo Freire. Management Learning, 55(1) pp. 3–16.

  Paulo Freire is widely acknowledged as one of the leading 20th-century philosophers of education. Freire’s ideas have been leveraged by scholars across the social sciences, including in the field of organization studies where it has come to inform extant understandings of management learning and education. While such engagements with Freire have enriched many germane discourses in our field, we have yet to excavate the full potential of his writings. This special issue aims to remedy this oversight by illuminating myriad promising trajectories through which scholars in organization studies can return to Freire’s ideas with the intention of enhancing the future of management learning and education.

• Stevens, Alex; Hendrie, Nadine; Bacon, Matthew; Parrott, Steve; Monaghan, Mark; Williams, Emma; Lewer, Dan; Moore, Amber; Berlin, Jenni; Cunliffe, Jack and Quinton, Paul (2023). Evaluating police drug diversion in England: protocol for a realist evaluation. Health & Justice, 11(1), article no. 46.

  There is increasing international interest in the use of police drug diversion schemes that offer people suspected of minor drug-related offences an educative or therapeutic intervention as an alternative to criminalisation. While there have been randomised trials of some such schemes for their effects on reducing offending, with generally positive results, less is known about the health outcomes, and what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why. This protocol reports on a realist evaluation of police drug diversion in England that has been coproduced by a team of academic, policing, health, and service user partners. The overall study design combines a qualitative assessment of the implementation, contexts, mechanisms, moderators and outcomes of schemes in Durham, Thames Valley and the West Midlands with a quantitative, quasi-experimental analysis of administrative data on the effects of being exposed to the presence of police drug diversion on reoffending and health outcomes. These will be supplemented with analysis of the cost-consequences of the evaluated schemes, an analysis of the equity of their implementation and effects, and a realist synthesis of the various findings from these different methods.

• Sondhi, Arun; Maguire, Linda; Leidi, Alessandro and Weston, Claire (2024). Exploring Reasons for Non-Engagement From a Peer-Led Diversionary Intervention for Veterans in Police Custody. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (Early access).

  UK veterans with complex needs arrested in police custody can access support through pre-charge diversion into treatment and ancillary services. We consider why veterans in police custody disengaged from a peer-led criminal justice diversionary support service in one UK region that adopted a continuous case management approach. Seven hundred and fifty-seven veterans were assessed to have high levels of comorbid health needs and socio-economic harms, with one-quarter (26.7%, n = 202) subsequently disengaging from the service. A logistic regression model using Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations identified that veterans of a younger age, no-fixed-abode, a history of incarceration, and those from a Royal Navy background were likelier to disengage from the intervention. We conclude that this peer-based diversionary model has some efficacy in maintaining the engagement of a highly complex, comorbid segment of criminally-justice-exposed UK military veterans. The perceived benefits of an integrated peer-based model predicated on continuous case-management techniques are discussed.

• Rawdin, Clare (2023). Re-thinking learning and development and well-being in the policing of rape: Insights from a rapid review of comparable public-service occupations. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 17 (Early access).

  Research within Operation Soteria Bluestone (OSB) has highlighted a number of challenges within learning and development for officers who investigate rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO). Moreover, one neglected area has been the relationship between learning and development and officer well-being. This article is based on a rapid review of 3,673 English-language titles that aimed to examine ‘best practice’ learning and development in the RASSO field. Using a combination of electronic and hand-searching methods, 52 titles were identified and subject to a full-text review. Three broad themes were identified and highlight the importance of: (1) considering which specialist knowledge and skills to develop; (2) encouraging active and reflective learners; and (3) measuring the impact of learning and development. The findings suggest there is much to learn from comparable, public-service occupations which can usefully inform and shape the re-design of certain elements of specialist RASSO training.

• Johnson, Kara (2023). Capturing virtual voices: using online reflective journals to explore the lived experiences of part-time adult learners. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 25(2) pp. 185–194.

  The opportunities for discovering students' lived experiences and perspectives on online learning are often limited. Embarking upon an undergraduate programme marks a period of transition which, for some adults, can be disorientating and challenging especially as an individual’s lifeworld becomes increasingly entangled with the decision to participate in learning. Educational interactions take place within prescribed and structured virtual fora, each with a clear delineated purpose set out by the university, whether that be social or academic, task-based or informative. Further insights may be gleaned from end-of module questionnaires, internal surveys or the National Student Survey (NSS), but there is little opportunity for informal engagements, insights or snapshots without it being captured in a discussion forum or recorded in the learner management system. This study set out to employ a co created online reflective journal as a space through which to better understand the experiences of adult learners as they begin online study in order to explore how they forge their identities, progress emotionally and socially between the stages of their learning, and navigate the complex interrelationship between the personal, circumstantial and emotional domains.

• Bloomfield, Sarah; Rigg, Clare and Vince, Russ (2024). “I don’t know what’s going on”: Theorising the relationship between unknowingness and distributed leadership. Human Relations (Early Access).

  Surely a leader should know what to do? But what happens when complexity means they cannot know which path to take? We answer this question with an ethnographic study of distributed leadership (DL) in an organisation grappling with inherent tensions within its mission. The article makes a counter-intuitive argument for the value and utility of unknowingness, defined as a state of awareness of both an absence of knowing and one’s inability to know. Three inter-related aspects to unknowingness are developed – acceptance of not knowing, tolerance of the discomfort of not knowing, and distribution of unknowingness – leading to an innovative theory of unknowingness. We reveal how unknowingness and DL are bound with each other in the sense that not knowing can enable distribution of leadership within the organisation, whilst DL addresses challenges in complex organisations associated with not knowing. We thereby provide an illustration of the interplay between those with hierarchical authority and others dispersed throughout an organisation. In sum, we provide an alternative perspective to the heroic, all-knowing individual leader.

• Benozzo, Angelo; Distinto, Marco and Priola, Vincenza (2024). Matter and Method: The Quest for a New-Materialist Methodology in Management Studies. British Journal of Management, 35(1) pp. 86–98.

  The article offers methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of management at the so-called ‘turn to matter’ postulated within new materialist perspectives. It discusses more-than-human perspectives in management research and provides some methodological directions to support new materialist empirical investigations. Theoretically grounded on new materialism and posthumanism, the paper applies the assemblage approach that focuses on understanding the redistribution of agency to the network of people, things and discourses. In developing three exemplars of assemblages, it shows how it is possible to methodologically encompass the entanglement of the material, the organic, the human and the more-than-human to explore a phenomenon such as working from home. The article concludes by reflecting on what new materialist qualitative research in management could become in order to generate new ways of imagining management, organisations and working lives, as more-than-human entanglements.

• Erling, Elizabeth J.; Mukherjee, Sarah Jane; Safford, Kimberly and Tugli, Fritz Makafui (2024). Ideologies of English and language of instruction in Ghana: Educator perceptions and pressures. In: Reilly, Colin; Chimbutane, Feliciano; Clegg, John; Rubagumya, Casmir and Erling, Elizabeth J. eds. Multilingual Learning: Assessment, Ideologies and Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Routledge Series in Language and Content Integrated Teaching & Plurilingual Education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 99–122.

  The chapter explores language-in-education policy in Ghana and how it is interpreted and applied ‘at the chalk face’ in primary schools. Empirical fieldwork illustrates how beliefs about English as the language of opportunity and employment, and English as the language of formal assessment and further education, strongly influence school leadership, teacher practice, and children’s learning experiences and outcomes. Ghanaian education policy directs schools to use a local language for teaching and learning in the early years of education, transitioning to English in upper primary classes. In reality, English is largely used from the start of children’s education, for a range of practical and perceived reasons:

  • Teachers and children do not share the same languages
  • Teachers are not trained to support children from diverse language groups
  • Teachers and school leaders believe they are helping children by using English
  • Formal assessments are only in English
  • There are no teaching and learning resources in the local language

  At the same time, teachers and school leaders are aware that children learn better in their local language, and that the focus on English is a loss for children’s cultural and linguistic identities and practices. The Ghanaian picture is not unique. This context is familiar in schools around the world, where teachers are teaching in a second or third language, and children are learning in an unfamiliar language.

• Burke, Rachel; Baker, Sally; Molla, Tebeje; Cabiles, Bonita and Fox, Alison (2023). How do higher degree research students and supervisors navigate ethics-in-practice for educational research in sensitive or ‘fragile’ contexts? British Educational Research Journal (Early access).

  Funded by Australian Association of Research in Education funding, a team of Australian academics across four Universities with support from Alison Fox based in the UK, designed a study to evaluate the support given to higher degree (MPhil and doctoral) research students in preparing for and during fieldwork in sensitive contexts, termed ‘fragile’. These contexts included those where forced migration, conflict, violence or instability are experienced by peoples. The study began with an evaluation of resources available on public websites across a range of Australian Universities and then moved to a phase of interviewing higher degree researchers and their supervisors about their experiences. The analysis focused on comparing experiences of navigating procedural ethics needed to gain permission from the university to conduct their research with within-study ethical decision-making and experiences, termed ethics-in-practice. The nature of the particular challenges and decision-making needed for studies in these fragile contexts by novice researchers, supervised by supervisors not always familiar with such research settings is revealed. Recommendations of the forms of support both students and researchers would have appreciated from ethics committees and their institutions more widely were articulated, which included recognising the value of peer communities which develop to support one another built through student and supervisor relationship building.

• Twitchen, Alex (2023). The Crusading Days of Jackie Stewart: Evaluating the Development of Safety in Motor Racing During the 1960s. Journal of Motorsport Culture and History, 3(1), article no. 4.

  This article emanates from my PhD that I undertook on a part-time basis between 1997 and 2004. The thesis explored why motorsports have become less dangerous from a sociological and risk management perspective. One of the central questions posed in the thesis was the extent to which the populist idea that a ‘safety campaign’ led by the Scottish racing-driver and three- time World Champion Jackie Stewart was responsible for significantly transforming the safety of motorsports in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Through a multi-layered documentary and qualitative analysis the thesis presented evidence to indicate that whilst Stewart was an influential campaigner he was not solely responsible for making motorsports safer during this period of time. Instead, several long-term social processes converged to create a ‘culture of safety’ that challenged and eroded the hegemony of long-standing beliefs about the risk-taking attitudes of competitors in motorsports. It was this change in cultural beliefs that stimulated the desire to introduce more stringent regulations that made motorsports safer to participate in. The thesis concluded that the popular idea that Jackie Stewart made motorsports safer is an example of a mythical origin story that reduces a complex social process to the actions of a prime-mover. The article was one of three published from my thesis. There is a further forthcoming article exploring the charismatic leadership of Max Mosley whilst President of the sports governing body which is based on an extensive interview with Mosley. The article will argue that the charismatic style of leadership demonstrated by Mosley is a reflection of his upbring and education and not least the influence of the Oxford Union to which he was a member and, for one term, secretary.

• O'Reilly, Michelle; Adams, Sarah; Batchelor, Rachel and Levine, Diane (2023). Exploring the practice of 10-11-year-olds as co-researchers: using a hybrid approach in educational research to promote children as interviewers. International Journal of Social Research Methodology (Early Access).

  This paper presents a critical reflection on the benefits and challenges of adopting a hybrid approach to conducting qualitative research in one primary school with children as co-researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aimed to gain insight into children’s experiences of their own and others’ interactions online with a focus on how this impacted their mental health, well-being and moral decision-making. From a child-centred perspective, the research was initially designed for a researcher to work in school with children as co-researchers. However, at the time the research was conducted schools were tentatively returning to physical spaces and were working in ‘bubbles’ whereby pupils and staff were allocated to a bubble and were not able to mix with others outside of it. In consultation with a child advisory board and an adult professional stakeholder group, a hybrid approach to the research was then adopted. The study involved 18 children (10–11 years old), working as co-researchers in pairs to interview each other to understand their experiences online, particularly in terms of digital citizenship and mental well-being. To develop children’s interview skills, they participated in a pre-research lesson. The lesson was co-designed with the school’s deputy headteacher to support children to understand interviewing as a research method and to develop their skills of asking open questions, probing questions and questions to check meaning. Children were given the freedom to develop their questions and re-word those provided. During the data collection stage of the research, a hybrid approach was employed. Children participated in the research in pairs each taking the turn of interviewer and interviewee. When children were interviewing each other, this took place in a classroom with a Teaching Assistant and an adult researcher who joined the sessions online via the school’s video conferencing platform. The analysis identified three key methodological lessons from the research conducted. First, the co-research approach with foundational learning enabled children to be active and responsible interviewers. Second, the adult researcher and school staff had a role in empowering children through empathy, reassurance, positive praise, and supporting them when upset. The final theme recognised the challenges of research being conducted remotely by exploring the risk, promotive and protective factors. The paper shares implications for future research, particularly if researchers are considering adopting a hybrid approach.

• Morgan, Deborah; Marston, Hannah R.; Maddock, Carol; Williams, Aelwyn; Wilson-Menzfeld, Gemma; Jones, Elizabeth and Gates, Jessica (2023). Adjusting technology for an ageing population: co-producing technological solutions with older adults. Innovation in Aging, 7(Supplement) pp. 1170–1171.

  This conference paper was delivered at the annual Gerontological Society of America (GSA) conference in November 2023. This presentation presents findings from the ‘Adapt Technology, Accessibility Technology’ (ATAT) project led by Dr Morgan (Swansea University) and explores the needs of technology by older adults to seek out solutions for safely and confidently using digital devices.

• Garcia, Rebecca and Qureshi, Irtiza (2023). Nurse identity: the misrepresentation of nursing in the media. Evidence Based Nursing (Early access).

  Since 2019, Nursing has received much attention in the press, initially as heroes (during the pandemic) and more recently, vilified by taking strike action for improved patient safety. This article discusses the mismatch between the misrepresentation of nurse identity by the media and the more accurate insider perspective of nursing from the professional perspective. The media portrayal of nursing is currently damaging and is not contributing to addressing workforce challenges, widening participation in nursing and making it an attractive career choice.

• Borgstrom, E., Driessen, A., Krawczyk, M., Kirby, E., MacArtney, J., & Almack, K. (2023). Grieving academic grant rejections: Examining funding failure and experiences of loss. Sociological Review.

  Bidding for research funding has increasingly become a main feature of academic work from the doctoral level and beyond. Individually and collectively, the process of grant writing – from idea conceptualisation to administration – involves considerable work, including emotional work in imagining possible futures in which the project is enacted. Competition and failure in grant capture are high, yet there is little discussion about how academics experience grant rejections. In this article led by Prof Borgstrom, we draw on our experiences with grant rejections, as authors with diverse social science backgrounds working within death and bereavement studies, to discuss how grant rejection can be conceptualised as a form of non-human loss with associated feelings of grief. The paper ends with a discussion of what forms of recognition and support this lens may enable.

• Paterson, Laura L and McGlashan, Mark (2024). Same-sex marriage, gay marriage, or equal marriage? Category construction in a corpus of 21st century newspaper texts. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 13(2)

  Changes to marriage legislation across the globe have received much academic and public attention. However, the labels used to categorise different marital configurations are somewhat under researched. In this paper we use a corpus of UK newspaper articles (2000–2018) to establish which labels are most commonly used in reference to same-sex marriage. These are gay marriage, same-sex marriage, homosexual marriage, and equal marriage. Drawing on the notion of category construction, we emphasise the fact that these labels are not neutral synonyms. Some labels even linguistically exclude certain groups, such as those who are bisexual or transgender. We use the tools of corpus-based discourse analysis to consider the nuanced differences between the category labels and consider whether the limitations of the labels are ever directly challenged.

• Seargeant, Philip (2023). The Future of Language: How Technology, Politics and Utopianism are Transforming the Way we Communicate. London: Bloomsbury.

  Shining a light on the technology currently being developed to revolutionise communication, The Future of Language distinguishes myth from reality and superstition from scientifically-based prediction as it plots out the importance of language and raises questions about its future. From the rise of artificial intelligence and speaking robots, to brain implants and computer-facilitated telepathy, the book surveys the development of new digital 'languages', such as emojis, animated gifs and memes, and investigates how conventions of spoken and written language are being modified by new trends in communication. From George Orwell's fictional predictions in Nineteen Eighty-Four to the very real warnings of climate activist Greta Thunberg, Seargeant explores language through time, traversing politics, religion, philosophy, literature, and of course technology, in the process. Tracing how previous eras have imagined the future of language, from the Bible to the works H. G. Wells, and from Star Wars to Star Trek, the book reveals how perfecting language and communication has always been a vital component of utopian dreams of the future.

• Nao, Marion et al. (2023). University autonomy and the increasing shift to English in academic programmes at European universities: In dialogue with Liviu Matei. Sociolinguistica, 37(2) pp. 287–299.

  The paper discusses the relationship between the business-like style of higher education governance resulting from widespread reforms towards greater autonomy of universities throughout much of Europe and the rise of English as a language of the curriculum; this, in countries where other languages are typically used in daily life. It does so by reflecting on a dialogue with Liviu Matei, Professor of Higher Education and Public Policy at Kings College London, which stretches sociolinguists – researchers who look at the use of language in its social context – to consider insights from the different but intersecting area of public policy studies.

• Fuertes Gutiérrez, Mara; Márquez Reiter, Rosina and Moreno Clemons, Aris (2023). Descolonización y enseñanza del español. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching 10 (2): 79-91.

  Spanish Language Teaching (SLT) committed to social justice must prioritise accessibility, equity, and inclusivity. However, the organization of languages education often reflects an instrumentalist perspective deeply entrenched in colonial and neoliberal ideologies. To stimulate dialogue on alternative methods of Spanish instruction that promote social justice, we explore the hurdles hindering the discipline's decolonisation efforts and provide an overview of interdisciplinary approaches aimed at fostering inclusivity. We propose recommendations for restructuring curricula to better align with social justice objectives and conclude with a call to reflection-action for both researchers and educators to engage in proactive change.

• O'Hagan, Lauren (2023). ‘Foodstagramming’ in early 20th-century postcards: a transhistorical perspective. Visual Communication, 22(4) pp. 731–744.

  We often think of social media as a novel form of communication that has facilitated new modes of self-presentation. This visual essay challenges such views by showing how the 'real photo' postcard of the early 20th century enabled people to perform identity in ways that anticipate contemporary social media practices. It specifically focuses on the sharing of food, drawing comparisons with ‘foodstagramming’ in terms of its compositional structure, social objectives and communicative functions. In doing so, it places 'foodstagramming' in a broader historical trajectory of patterned practices and uses.

• Yuksel, Dogan; Altay, Mehmet and Curle, Samantha eds. (2024). Multilingual and Translingual Practices in English-Medium Instruction: Perspectives from Global Higher Education Contexts. Bloomsbury Publishing.

  Our edited volume explores context-related ways in which the multilingual English-medium instruction (EMI) model and translingual practices are seen and enacted in higher education contexts across the globe. It includes research in contexts that are relatively new to EMI, as well as in contexts where monolingual forms of teaching and monolingual institutional policies still prevail. Empirical, research-based studies together with theoretical reviews that centre around multilingual and translingual practices in partial (i.e., multilingual) and full (i.e. English-only) EMI settings are elaborated, with case studies from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Iraq, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Japan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

• Balaban, Igor; Rienties, Bart and Winne, Philip H. (2023). Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Education. Applied Sciences, 13(22), article no. 12318.

  COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to blended or fully online learning environments, enforcing educational institutions to embrace technology and offer their students an online or at least blended learning experience. A large amount of data became accessible through learning management systems (LMSs), but, as of yet, this has not been generally analysed in a proper manner nor used to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning. Institutions usually do not consider such data to drive their strategy, nor are teachers required to use the data to improve their teaching practice [4–6]. In this respect, in this Special Issue, we would like to tackle new approaches in creating learning environments that should be smarter, more inclusive, and involve emerging technologies that will boost the digital skills of students and bring them a more personalised experience. In this Special Issue, we included in total 14 contributions from 56 authors from 25 institutions from 13 countries across Asia, Europe, and North America. An impressive 13,512 students and educators were included in these studies, consisting of over 700 different groups, classes, institutions, and/or contexts, thereby providing rich and diverse insights into how ICT is currently being used in various educational contexts.

• Domínguez, Ana; Pacho, Guillermo; Bowers, Lisa; Wild, Fridolin; Alcock, Sarah; Chiazzese, Giuseppe; Farella, Mariella; Arrigo, Marco; Ross, David; Treacy, Rita; Yegorina, Darya; Mangina, Eleni and Masneri, Stefano (2023). Dataset of user interactions across four large pilots on the use of augmented reality in learning experiences. Scientific Data, 10, article no. 823.

  Augmented Reality in education can support students in a wide range of cognitive tasks–fostering understanding, remembering, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating learning-relevant information more easily. It can help keep up engagement, and it can render learning more fun. Within the framework of a multi-year investigation encompassing primary and secondary schools across Europe, the ARETE project developed several Augmented Reality applications, providing tools for user interaction and data collection in the education sector. The project developed innovative AR learning technology and methodology, validating these in four comprehensive pilot studies, in total involving more than 2,900 students and teachers. Each pilot made use of a diferent Augmented Reality application covering specifc subjects (English literacy skills, Mathematics and Geography, Positive Behaviour, plus, additionally, an Augmented Reality authoring tool applied in a wide range of subjects). In this paper, we introduce the datasets collected during the pilots, describe how the data enabled the validation of the technology, and how the approach chosen could enhance existing augmented reality applications in data exploration and modelling.

• Farrow, Robert; Coughlan, Tim; Goshtasbpour, Fereshte and Pitt, Rebecca (2023). Supported Open Learning and Decoloniality: Critical Reflections on Three Case Studies. Education Sciences, 13(11), article no. 1115.

  Open education has been highlighted as a route to social justice and decolonisation. This paper presents reflections on decolonisation processes pertaining to three educational technology projects conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, Myanmar and Kenya, each of which featured contributions by The Open University (UK). Through recognising the importance of under-represented Global South perspectives, we consciously and critically reflect on our cases from a Global North framing to assess the extent to which the Supported Open Learning (SOL) model for engagement supports decolonisation and related processes. We use the categories of coloniality of being, coloniality of power, and coloniality of knowledge to structure our reflections. As open educational practice (OEP), the SOL model can offer a practical approach which emphasises equity and inclusion. SOL involves both an ethos and a set of pedagogical practices. This can support meaningful critical reflection and exchange while offering a pragmatic approach to the delivery of educational technology initiatives. In conclusion, a framework mapping features of SOL and their relation to decoloniality is offered.

• Iniesto, Francisco and Bossu, Carina (2023). Equity, diversity, and inclusion in open education: A systematic literature review. Distance Education (Early Access).

  Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and open education are key areas in the current development of educational systems internationally. However, little is known about the general perspective of what has been addressed about EDI in open educational contexts to date. To address this gap, this paper presents a systematic literature review of 15 papers where we examined the current state of the art and the main suggestions for EDI implementation. Results indicate that practitioners should involve all stakeholders, including institutions, faculty members, and students, in EDI development to enhance open educational practices as well as in the cocreation of open educational resources which need to consider culture, language, and location, among others. This review of literature contributes an evidence base to support the future development and adoption of EDI in open educational contexts by organizing relevant literature into coherent themes that can inform future research.

• Iniesto, Francisco and Rodrigo, Covadonga (2024). The use of WCAG and automatic tools by computer science students: a case study evaluating MOOC accessibility. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 30(1) pp. 85–105.

  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) have been the de facto standard for Web accessibility evaluation for more than two decades and therefore have been introduced into legislation and university curriculum in Computer Science. At The National Distance Education University (UNED) in Spain, we have been teaching the guidelines for the last 15 years but learning how to apply WCAG criteria is complex. In this paper, we present the results of the analysis of students’ performance in applying accessibility heuristic evaluation of an online resource (a Massive Open Online Course – MOOC) using WCAG. The experiment was carried out over two academic years to evaluate how accurate and easy it is to understand and use WCAG criteria by trained students as well as their perceptions of usefulness to evaluate accessibility barriers using automatic tools in combination with manual evaluation. Results from the study show that errors identified are aligned with accessibility evaluation literature: 65% of success criteria in WCAG do not reach 80% of agreement among raters which confirms the complexity of WCAG conformance. In total 62 (86%) criteria are marked as not being correctly addressed by automatic tools with an overlap of those showing false positives, and 25 criteria (34%) are indicated as difficult to evaluate manually. While all areas where raters disagree are potential opportunities for WCAG improvement, this research reinforces that WCAG evaluations are complex and difficult even with current automatic tools, and that the possible solutions for the way forward are: (1) a well-defined evaluation protocol including a combination of automatic tools and manual evaluations; (2) better training and professional development opportunities.

• Havemann, Leo; Corti, Paola; Atenas, Javiera; Nerantzi, Chrissi and Martinez-Arboleda, Antonio (2023). Making the case: opening education through collaboration. Rivista di Digital Politics, 3(2) pp. 305–326.

  This paper reports the pedagogical approach and outcomes of a series of academic development programmes organised between 2016 and 2022 in different countries, which are grounded in the ethos of open educational practices, critical thinking, citizenship and pedagogy as well as ideas around social justice, data justice and data ethics using Open Data as open educational resources, to enable critical reflections and practical exercises with academics from different regions. Our recommendations and conclusions provide practical advice promoting a dialogue between different stakeholders to facilitate the development of curricula, workshops and resources using an open model for academic development.

• Khosravi, Hassan; Viberg, Olga; Kovanovic, Vitomir and Ferguson, Rebecca (2023). Generative AI and Learning Analytics. Journal of Learning Analytics, 10(3) pp. 1–6.

  This editorial looks back at the Journal of Learning Analytics (JLA) in 2023 and forward to 2024. Considering the recent proliferation of large language models such as GPT4 and Bard, the first section of this editorial points to the need for robust Generative AI (GenAI) analytics, calling for consideration of how GenAI may impact learning analytics research and practice. The second section looks back over the past year, providing statistics on submissions and considering the cost of publication in an open-access journal.

• Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes; Dawadi, Saraswati; Giri, Ram Ashish; Devkota, Kamal Raj; Khan, Rubina and Gaved, Mark (2023). Roles of Languages and Technology in Teaching in Marginalised Communities: Perspectives and Practices. Prima Educatione, 7 pp. 103–121.

  Teachers in marginalised communities are known to face numerous challenges that may impact on their classroom practices. However, very little is known about their classroom practices in terms of their use of language and technology. Drawing on data collected in an international research project involving teachers and schoolchildren in several marginalised communities in Bangladesh, Nepal, Senegal and Sudan, the paper reports and reflects on the roles of languages and technology in education from the perspectives of teachers. The research data pertaining to teachers was collected through interviews and classroom observations and analysed through the lens of activity theory. Contradictions emerged between official languages used in class and the need to use local languages to support understanding, communication and discussion. Digital tools for teaching and learning were highly valued but scarce, consequently some teachers filled the gap by using their own digital and financial resources. Despite some challenges using English with students, teachers’ attitudes towards English were positive due to the perceived value of English for employment, access to information and social status. The research contributes to renewed awareness of marginalization and inequity and to promoting inclusivity. It contributes insights directly from communities that have not been studied from the combined perspective of languages and technology use in education. We discuss the implications of the findings for the improvement of pedagogical practices in marginalised communities.;

• Pérez Cavana, Maria Luisa; Edwards, Chris and Luelmo del Castillo, Maria José (2023). Older language learners: 'always too late' vs 'never too late'. A mixed-methods approach. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 25(2) pp. 88–113.

  Research in second-language acquisition considers age as a major factor that has an impact on the ability of an individual to learn a foreign language. The debates are still dominated by the so called 'critical period' theory, developed in the sixties. According to this neurocognitive theory, there is an ideal window of brain development to acquire a language at a very young age, after which learning a language becomes much more difficult, and apart from some 'exceptional' cases, it is almost impossible to attain native-like proficiency. Much of this research has focused on those 'exceptional' learners, implying that for adult language learners it is 'always too late'. While acknowledging this pure neuro-linguistic approach, this paper aims to go beyond this reductionist approach and to contribute to this complex and under-researched field. It explores two aspects of the relationship between age and learning a language within a university context: the impact of age on study trajectories of languages students using quantitative methods, and the lived experiences of language students drawing on a combination of qualitative research and phenomenology. The findings of this study reveal some fundamental aspects of what it means to learn a language as an adult from the first-person perspective and show the importance of introducing an existential view of older language learners, suggesting that is 'never too late'.

• Rodrigo, Covadonga; Iniesto, Francisco and Garcia-Serrano, Ana (2024). Applying andragogy for integrating a MOOC into a formal online learning experience in computer engineering. Heliyon,0(1), article no. e23493.;

  In this paper, we present the results of a research experience of implementing andragogy in a learning environment designed to better meet the needs of adult learners studying part-time at a distance university. The learning environment was composed of a learning experience on a formal distance university online course that has been enriched with a non-formal component based on students’ participation in a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) related to the same topic. The non-formal experience was designed to consolidate the learning of specific content that involved difficult concepts and foster collaborative skills. The university online course is in the field of computer science and human-computer interaction. The instructional design, including the course assignments, has been guided by Knowles’ principles of andragogy. Results from the data analysis of five years of academic results and student satisfaction has helped to understand the learning experience from including a MOOC in adult distance formal learning.

• Toosy, Fesal; Mehmood, Zarqa; Talib, Maria; Siddiqi, Hafsa; Herodotou, Christothea; Poslad, Stefan and Hamid, Khurram (2023). The Impact of Gender on Female Engineering Students. In: 2023 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 28 Nov - 01 Dec 2023, Auckland, New Zealand.;

  This Research paper presents the results and analysis of a study conducted at three different universities in South Asia with the purpose of shedding some light on the gender-based disparities faced by female engineering students. STEM, a male dominated field, typically has less than 10% female enrolment in universities. Such a gender disbalance can have a significant effect on both the culture and work dynamics of the profession during and after student life. Studies have been conducted in different parts of the world related to the effects of this gender ratio in engineering. Yet, little research has been done on how this phenomenon affects students in South Asia. In this study, qualitative data was collected from thirty-five (N=35) female engineering students from three different universities. This was done with a semi-structured interview methodology consisting mainly of questions relating to interaction with peers, teachers and university staff. Participating students were also questioned about what kind of support they got from their family and about their awareness of the laws against harassment of women. Data were analyzed using phenomenological research techniques and eventually clustered into six themes. The first theme was ‘Pre-conceived Notions’ that the society in general and men in particular had about young women, and those notions that men (teachers and peers) had about themselves. The second theme ‘Social Relationships’, referred to connections female students had with their peers, teachers and university staff. The third theme was ‘Harassment’. The fourth theme was about ‘Hesitation’ to come forward and complain about inappropriate comments made by their teachers or peers, mostly for fear of retaliation or being singled out. The fifth theme was about awareness of the laws against harassment and related legal rights. The sixth theme was about ‘Support from Family’, including immediate and extended family. Though the issues unveiled in this study are more relevant to Asian cultures, the insights derived from this research could benefit female engineering students in all parts of the world and the development of policies and structures that can empower female students and help to resolve similar issues observed in this study.

• Weller, M.; Pitt, B.; Farrow, R. and Bossu, C. (2024). GO-GN Annual Review 2023. Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN), The Open University (UK), Milton Keynes.;

  This was a significant year for GO-GN as we celebrated our 10th anniversary. It is unusual for projects to maintain funding over such a prolonged period, and the fact that this has been maintained is evidence of the strength of the network and the contribution of all its members. It is also a vindication of founder Fred Mulder’s original vision and highlights the faith that the Hewlett Foundation have in the project. We co-hosted the OER23 conference in Inverness, which marked the real return of face-to-face meetings since the pandemic, following on from a smaller event in London in 2022. Then we hosted our largest ever GO-GN workshop in conjunction with OEGlobal in Edmonton, which was a great success. This year also saw a new phase of funding from the Hewlett Foundation, which will continue the project through until 2026 at least. We have continued with the core of the approach, such as webinars and the face-to-face workshops, but added in some new activities such as research sprints and scholarships.

• Whitelock, Denise (2024). [Editorial]: Innovation and adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 39(1) pp. 1–3.

  There has been over 20 years of research into Open Learning using Open Educational Resources (OER). This term was first introduced at the 2002 UNESCO Forum on OpenCourseWare. However, the most recent (2019) UNESCO definition of OERs describes them as ‘teaching, learning and research materials that make use of appropriate tools, such as open licensing, to permit their free reuse, continuous improvement, and repurposing by others for educational purposes’ (Miao et al., 2019). As the movement has grown within a framework of Open Practice (Weller et al., 2018) the main driver has been digitalisation together with the disruption caused by COVID-19. A more recent comprehensive guide by Farrell et al. (2021) addresses many practitioners’ concerns about using creative commons licences together with finding and selecting OERs.

  There are still policy issues to be addressed together with ethical issues which often rest within the rights argument; the success of which has been to persuade both individuals and organisations that knowledge is a public good and to publish OERs. There is also a research agenda to be pursued which continues to include ethics, quality and open pedagogy, notwithstanding the transient economic resources available for research