Research Data Management Initiatives at University of Edinburgh

During the last decade, national and international attention has been increasingly focused on issues of research data management and access to publicly funded research data. The pressure brought to bear on researchers to improve their data management and data sharing practice has come from research funders seeking to add value to expensive research and solve cross-disciplinary grand challenges; publishers seeking to be responsive to calls for transparency and reproducibility of the scientific record; and the public seeking to gain and re-use knowledge for their own purposes using new online tools. Meanwhile higher education institutions have been rather reluctant to assert their role in either incentivising or supporting their academic staff in meeting these more demanding requirements for research practice, partly due to lack of knowledge as to how to provide suitable assistance or facilities for data storage and curation/preservation. This paper discusses the activities and drivers behind one institution’s recent attempts to address this gap, with reflection on lessons learned and future direction

‘DIY’ Research Data Management Training Kit for Librarians

Abstract – This paper discusses extended professional development training in research data management for librarians piloted at the University of Edinburgh. This is framed by the evolving research data management Roadmap at the University, national and international initiatives in managing research data by bodies such as Jisc and LIBER, and the subsequent need to ‘up skill ’ information professionals in the emerging area of academic research data management. This knowledge-transfer exercise includes independent study based on the research data MANTRA course and reflective writing, face to face sessions with different speakers giving short presentations followed by discussion, and group exercises. The resultant training ‘kit ’ was released in Spring 2013 with an open licence for other institutions, particularly those without local research data management expertise, to utilise for ‘DIY ’ RDM training

From area-based initiatives to strategic partnerships: have we lost the meaning of regeneration?

For forty years area-based initiatives (ABIs) were the primary tool used by UK governments to tackle problems of concentrated deprivation and dereliction. The last decade saw these initiatives end, replaced by new forms of city-wide or region-wide governance: Local Strategic Partnerships in England and Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland. It was argued in both policy documents and policy analysis that this change would deliver more effective regeneration for all communities. Challenging this narrative, I present this policy shift as a change in the meaning of regeneration policy using the methodology of interpretive policy analysis. The evidence from Scottish experience suggests that for a key policy actor-community activists in deprived neighbourhoods-the approach of ABIs had a great deal of meaning as regeneration. Furthermore, this meaning was still present a decade after an ABI had ended. Meanwhile, the newer strategic partnerships were delivering little meaningful change. This difference in meaning is used to reimagine strategic regeneration as a more positive process

Strategies to address gender inequalities in Scottish schools: a review of the literature

This literature review forms the first part of a study of the strategies employed in Scottish schools to address gender inequalities in relation primarily to attainment. In undertaking this task, the intention is to build upon a number of previous investigations into the nature and causes of gender inequalities in schools. Some of these (Riddell, 1996; Osler et al, 2002; Lloyd, 2005) have considered gender and special educational needs; others have discussed gender at particular stages of schooling (Wilkinson et al, 1999; Croxford, 1999; Biggart, 2000); whilst a number of recent projects in the UK and in Scotland (Powney, 1996; Sukhnandan, 1999; Tinklin et al, 2001) have considered gender, attainment and/or achievement across the population and span of compulsory schooling. A recent nationally commissioned report (Younger, Warrington et al, 2005) has specifically investigated the issue of raising the attainment of boys. Together, these studies and others have established that there are gender inequalities both in the forms of participation in schooling and in its outcomes (albeit there is agreement that gender is not the only, nor even the main, source of inequality). Also available from this body of literature are analyses of causes of gender inequalities and debate about the strategies schools might adopt to address these inequalities. These strategies arise, in general, from understandings of the nature and causes of gender difference. There is, therefore, some contention here. A number of commentators argue that some of the strategies adopted by schools pathologise gender differences and hence reinforce particular forms of masculinity at the risk of suppressing, or marginalising, other forms, and at the expense of femininities. Evidence that there are gender inequalities in attainment in Scottish schools has been discussed in detail elsewhere. It will be reviewed briefly here and will be related to broader patterns of inequality, and in particular to social class. For this study, though, with its focus on school strategies, the debate about the causes of gendered outcomes is especially important and it will be treated in some depth and related to social class before the discussion moves on to consider the range of strategies employed in schools, as far as they are represented in the literature. The strategies to be considered encompass approaches to learning, teaching and assessment; aspects of classroom organisation; and school-wide issues such as staff development. All of these will be considered critically in the light of previous discussion of the causes of gender differences and their intersection by other, and arguably more influential, forms of identity

Giving urban policy its 'medical': assessing the place of health in area-based regeneration

How does regeneration affect health and how have successive urban policy evaluations sought to measure such impacts? This article draws on a systematic review of national-level evaluation documentation relating to government-funded, area-based regeneration initiatives in the UK since 1980. The review examined whether health impacts had been intended and, if so, how they had been measured. The process and difficulties of conducting the review raise significant questions about policy formulation and evaluation. Is evidence-based policy possible where evaluations are not stored centrally? In short, a model policy development as 'enlightened' or incremental is hard to sustain where a lack of systematic storage of data means that researchers, policy makers and practitioners may struggle to produce clear answers to important policy questions

Values and Vision : Working Together in Integrated Community Schools?

Publisher PD

To what extent can headteachers be held to account in the practice of social justice leadership?

Internationally, leadership for social justice is gaining prominence as a global travelling theme. This article draws from the Scottish contribution to the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN) social justice strand and presents a case study of a relatively small education system similar in size to that of New Zealand, to explore one system's policy expectations and the practice realities of headteachers (principals) seeking to address issues around social justice. Scottish policy rhetoric places responsibility with headteachers to ensure socially just practices within their schools. However, those headteachers are working in schools located within unjust local, national and international contexts. The article explores briefly the emerging theoretical analyses of social justice and leadership. It then identifies the policy expectations, including those within the revised professional standards for headteachers in Scotland. The main focus is on the headteachers' perspectives of factors that help and hinder their practice of leadership for social justice. Macro systems-level data is used to contextualize equity and outcomes issues that headteachers are working to address. In the analysis of the dislocation between policy and reality, the article asks, 'to what extent can headteachers be held to account in the practice of social justice leadership?