Report from the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, September 10-13, 2007, Nottingham, UK

This is a report from the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham on September 10-13, 2007. This event was the 5th annual All Hands Meeting. The proceedings of the meeting are available from the UK e-Science 2007 All Hands Meeting Website

GRIDCC: Real-time workflow system

The Grid is a concept which allows the sharing of resources between distributed communities, allowing each to progress towards potentially different goals. As adoption of the Grid increases so are the activities that people wish to conduct through it. The GRIDCC project is a European Union funded project addressing the issues of integrating instruments into the Grid. This increases the requirement of workflows and Quality of Service upon these workflows as many of these instruments have real-time requirements. In this paper we present the workflow management service within the GRIDCC project which is tasked with optimising the workflows and ensuring that they meet the pre-defined QoS requirements specified upon them

A legacy handbook for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)

Legacy Handbook reviewing emda's experience of STEM activity. Identifies key achievements and draws out lessons learned that may be relevant to successor bodies active in this area

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available

Enabling quantitative data analysis through e-infrastructures

This paper discusses how quantitative data analysis in the social sciences can engage with and exploit an e-Infrastructure. We highlight how a number of activities which are central to quantitative data analysis, referred to as ‘data management’, can benefit from e-infrastructure support. We conclude by discussing how these issues are relevant to the DAMES (Data Management through e-Social Science) research Node, an ongoing project that aims to develop e-Infrastructural resources for quantitative data analysis in the social sciences

Workflow level interoperation of grid data resources

The lack of widely accepted standards and the use of different middleware solutions divide today’s Grid resources into non-interoperable production Grid islands. On the other hand, more and more experiments require such a large number of resources that the interoperation of existing production Grids becomes inevitable. This paper, based on the current results of grid interoperation studies, defines generic requirements towards the workflow level interoperation of grid solutions. It concentrates on intra-workflow interoperation of grid data resources, as one of the key areas of generic interoperation, and describes through an example how existing tools can be extended to achieve the required level of interoperation

Providing effective trauma care: the potential for service provider views to enhance the quality of care (qualitative study nested within a multicentre longitudinal quantitative study)

Objective: To explore views of service providers caring for injured people on: the extent to which services meet patients’ needs and their perspectives on factors contributing to any identified gaps in service provision

The Development of Sports Medicine in Twentieth-century Britain

Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 29 June 2007. Introduction by Dr John Lloyd Parry, Institute of Sports and Exercise Medicine. First published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009. ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2009. All volumes are freely available online at: www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/wellcome_witnesses/Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 29 June 2007. Introduction by Dr John Lloyd Parry, Institute of Sports and Exercise Medicine.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 29 June 2007. Introduction by Dr John Lloyd Parry, Institute of Sports and Exercise Medicine.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 29 June 2007. Introduction by Dr John Lloyd Parry, Institute of Sports and Exercise Medicine.Annotated and edited transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 29 June 2007. Introduction by Dr John Lloyd Parry, Institute of Sports and Exercise Medicine.Sports medicine has grown in importance and visibility in recent years, yet as a discipline it struggled to gain broad recognition within the medical profession from c.1952 until specialty status was granted in 2005. It has also been neglected by historians: we have little beyond the image of a coach with his ‘magic sponge’ as a cure for all injuries, although the late twentieth-century picture is of new specialists developing high-tech interventions for elite athletes. This Witness Seminar arose from the Wellcome Trust-funded project on ‘Sport and Medicine in Britain, 1920–2000’ at the University of Manchester and examined the establishment of a recognizably modern specialty. Chaired by Professor Domhnall MacAuley, topics addressed included the importance of the 1948 London Olympics; the first 4-minute mile; training and altitude physiology; the postwar institutionalization of sports medicine; the relationship between the different main bodies involved in sport and their aims; the changing practice of professionals including physiotherapists, etc.; the relationship of NHS and private sports medicine practitioners and insurance companies; and the key debates within the sports medicine community over the period. Contributors include: Sir Roger Bannister, Dr Malcolm Bottomley, Dr Ian Burney, Professor John Elfed Davies, Professor Charles Galasko, Dr Robin Harland, Dr Vanessa Heggie, Mr Barry Hill, Professor Michael Hobsley, Dr Michael Hutson, Professor Monty Losowsky, Professor Domhnall Macauley (chair), Mrs Rose Macdonald, Professor Donald Macleod, Professor Moira O’Brien, Dr Malcolm Read, Professor Peter Sperryn, Professor Harry Thomason, Dr Dan Tunstall Pedoe and Mrs Sally Williams. Reynolds L A, Tansey E M. (eds) (2009) The development of sports medicine in twentieth century Britain. Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 36. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. ISBN 978 085484 1219The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL is funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is a registered charity, no. 210183

The Blended Learning Unit, University of Hertfordshire: A Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Evaluation Report for HEFCE

The University of Hertfordshire’s Blended Learning Unit (BLU) was one of the 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) between 2005 and 2010. This evaluation report follows HEFCE’s template. The first section provides statistical information about the BLU’s activity. The second section is an evaluative reflection responding to 13 questions. As well as articulating some of our achievements and the challenges we have faced, it also sets out how the BLU’s activity will continue and make a significant contribution to delivery of the University of Hertfordshire’s 2010-2015 strategic plan and its aspirations for a more sustainable future. At the University of Hertfordshire, we view Blended Learning as the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance the learning and learning experience of campus-based students. The University has an excellent learning technology infrastructure that includes its VLE, StudyNet. StudyNet gives students access to a range of tools, resources and support 24/7 from anywhere in the world and its robustness, flexibility and ease of use have been fundamental to the success of the Blended Learning agenda at Hertfordshire. The BLU has comprised a management team, expert teachers seconded from around the University, professional support and a Student Consultant. The secondment staffing model was essential to the success of the BLU. As well as enabling the BLU to become fully staffed within the first five months of the CETL initiative, it has facilitated access to an invaluable spectrum of Blended Learning, research and Change Management expertise to inform pedagogically sound developments and enable change to be embedded across the institution. The BLU used much of its capital funding to reduce barriers to the use of technology by, for example, providing laptop computers for all academic staff in the institution, enhancing classroom technology provision and wirelessly enabling all teaching accommodation. Its recurrent funding has supported development opportunities for its own staff and staff around the institution; supported evaluation activities relating to individual projects and of the BLU’s own impact; and supported a wide range of communication and dissemination activities internally and externally. The BLU has led the embedding a cultural change in relation to Blended Learning at the University of Hertfordshire and its impact will be sustained. The BLU has produced a rich legacy of resources for our own staff and for others in the sector. The University’s increased capacity in Blended Learning benefits all our students and provides a learning experience that is expected by the new generation of learners in the 21st century. The BLU’s staffing model and partnership ways of working have directly informed the structure and modus operandi of the University’s Learning and Teaching Institute (LTI). Indeed a BLU team will continue to operate within the LTI and help drive and support the implementation of the University’s 2010-2015 Strategic plan. The plan includes ambitions in relation to Distance Learning and Flexible learning and BLU will be working to enable greater engagement with students with less or no need to travel to the university. As well as opening new markets within the UK and overseas, even greater flexibility for students will also enable the University to reduce its carbon footprint and provide a multifaceted contribution to our sustainability agenda. We conclude this executive summary with a short paragraph, written by Eeva Leinonen, our former Deputy Vice-Chancellor, which reflects our aspiration to transform Learning and Teaching at the University of Hertfordshire and more widely in the sector. ‘As Deputy Vice Chancellor at Hertfordshire I had the privilege to experience closely the excellent work of the Blended Learning Unit, and was very proud of the enormous impact the CETL had not only across the University but also nationally and internationally. However, perhaps true impact is hard to judge at such close range, but now as Vice Principal (Education) at King's College London, I can unequivocally say that Hertfordshire is indeed considered as the leading Blended Learning university in the sector. My new colleagues at King's and other Russell Group Universities frequently seek my views on the 'Hertfordshire Blended Learning' experience and are keen to emulate the successes achieved at an institutional wide scale. The Hertfordshire CETL undoubtedly achieved not only what it set out to achieve, but much more in terms of scale and impact. All those involved in this success can be justifiably proud of their achievements.’ Professor Eeva Leinonen, Vice Principal (Education), King's College, Londo