Collaborative knowledge building with shared video representations

Online video has become established as a fundamental part of the fabric of the web; widely used by people for information sharing, learning and entertainment. We report results from a design study that explored how people interact to create shared multi-path video representations in a social video environment. The participants created multiple versions of a video by providing alternative and interchangeable scenes that formed different paths through the video content. This multi-path video approach was designed to circumvent limitations of traditionally linear video for use as a shared representation in collaborative knowledge building activities. The article describes how people created video resources in collaborative activities in two different settings. We discuss different modes of working that were observed and outline the specific challenges of using the video medium as shared representation. Finally we demonstrate how an analysis of collaborative dimensions of the shared multi-path video representation can be applied to discuss the design space and to raise the discourse about the usefulness of these representations in knowledge building environments

Personal Inquiry: lessons learned

The paper describes a school trial carried out to support inquiry learning between formal and informal settings supported by personal mobile technology. The aim of the school trial was to explore how a first version of the PI Toolkit facilitates secondary school students in performing a personally relevant scientific inquiry both in a science classroom as well as at home. An analysis of classroom video and interviews has resulted in a set of incidents from which we have derived design guidelines and challenges for implementing technology-supported inquiry learning where personal technology is used and within which personally relevant investigations are conducted by students

Learning 21st century science in context with mobile technologies

The paper describes a project to support personal inquiry learning with handheld and desktop technology between formal and informal settings. It presents a trial of the technology and learning across a school classroom, sports hall, and library. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract initial recommendations for the design of mobile technology to link inquiry learning across different contexts. A critical incident analysis was carried out to identify learning breakdowns and breakthroughs that led to design implications. The main findings are the opportunities that a combination of mobile and fixed technology bring to: manage the formation of groups, display live visualisations of student and teacher data on a shared screen to facilitate motivation and personal relevance, incorporate broader technical support, provide context-specific guidance on the sequence, reasons and aims of learning activities, offer opportunities to micro-sites for reflection and learning in the field, to explicitly support appropriation of data within inquiry and show the relation between specific activities and the general inquiry process

Evaluation of a breathing retraining intervention to improve quality of life in asthma: quantitative process analysis of the BREATHE randomised controlled trial

Objective: Explore group differences between interventions (DVD and booklet (DVDB) versus face-to-face and booklet (F2FB), versus usual care) in the BREATHE trial of breathing retraining for asthma. Design: Quantitative process analysis exploring group expectancy, experience and practice before and after intervention delivery for the main trial. Setting: Primary care subjects: Adults with asthma (DVDB n = 261; F2FB n = 132). Main measures: Baseline - expectancy about breathing retraining; Follow-up 3, 6 and 12 months - self-efficacy, treatment experience (enjoyment of treatment, perceptions of physiotherapist, perceptions of barriers), amount of practice (weeks, days/week, times/day), continued practice; All time points - anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), asthma QoL (Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire). Results: No group differences in baseline expectancy. Statistically significant results (p<0.05) indicated that: At follow-up F2FB participants perceived greater need for a physiotherapist than DVDB participants (3.43 (0.87) versus 2.15 (1.26)). F2FB participants reported greater enjoyment of core techniques (such as stomach breathing 7.42(1.67) versus 6.13 (1.99) (DVDB)). Fewer F2FB participants reported problems due to doubts (24 (22.9%) versus 90 (54.2%). F2FB participants completed more practice sessions (75.01 (46.38) versus 48.56 (44.71)). Amount of practice was not significantly related to QoL. In the DVDB arm, greater confidence in breathing retraining ability explained 3.9% of variance in QoL at 12 months. Conclusions: Adults with asthma receiving breathing retraining face-to-face report greater enjoyment and undertaking more practice than those receiving a DVD and booklet, but practice is not related to QoL. Greater confidence in ability to do breathing retraining is associated with improved QoL

A feasibility trial of a digital self-management intervention ‘My Breathing Matters’ to improve asthma-related quality of life for UK primary care patients with asthma

Objective: To assess the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) and acceptability of an asthma self-management digital intervention to improve asthma-specific quality of life in comparison with usual care. Design and setting: A two-arm feasibility RCT conducted across seven general practices in Wessex, UK. Participants: Primary care patients with asthma aged 18 years and over, with impaired asthma-specific quality of life and access to the internet. Interventions: ‘My Breathing Matters’ (MBM) is a digital asthma self-management intervention designed using theory, evidence and person-based approaches to provide tailored support for both pharmacological and non-pharmacological management of asthma symptoms. Outcomes: The primary outcome was the feasibility of the trial design, including recruitment, adherence and retention at follow-up (3 and 12 months). Secondary outcomes were the feasibility and effect sizes of specific trial measures including asthma-specific quality of life and asthma control. Results: Primary outcomes: 88 patients were recruited (target 80). At 3-month follow-up, two patients withdrew and six did not complete outcome measures. At 12 months, two withdrew and four did not complete outcome measures. 36/44 patients in the intervention group engaged with MBM (median of 4 logins, range 0–25, IQR 8). Consistent trends were observed to improvements in asthma-related patient-reported outcome measures. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of a definitive RCT that is required to determine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a digital asthma self-management intervention. Trial registration number: ISRCTN15698435

Blockchain Native Data Linkage

From Frontiers via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: collection 2021, received 2021-02-12, accepted 2021-04-29, epub 2021-10-29Publication status: PublishedData providers holding sensitive medical data often need to exchange data pertaining to patients for whom they hold particular data. This involves requesting information from other providers to augment the data they hold. However, revealing the superset of identifiers for which a provider requires information can, in itself, leak sensitive private data. Data linkage services exist to facilitate the exchange of anonymized identifiers between data providers. Reliance on third parties to provide these services still raises issues around the trust, privacy and security of such implementations. The rise and use of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies over the last decade has, alongside innovation and disruption in the financial sphere, also brought to the fore and refined the use of associated privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols and techniques. These techniques are now being adopted and used in fields removed from the original financial use cases. In this paper we present a combination of a blockchain-native auditing and trust-enabling environment alongside a query exchange protocol. This allows the exchange of sets of patient identifiers between data providers in such a way that only identifiers lying in the intersection of sets of identifiers are revealed and shared, allowing further secure and privacy-preserving exchange of medical information to be carried out between the two parties. We present the design and implementation of a system demonstrating the effectiveness of these exchange protocols giving a reference architecture for the implementation of such a system

Digital interventions for hypertension and asthma to support patient self-management in primary care: the DIPSS research programme including two RCTs

Background: Digital interventions offer a potentially cost-effective means to support patient self-management in primary care, but evidence for the feasibility, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of digital interventions remains mixed. This programme focused on the potential for self-management digital interventions to improve outcomes in two common, contrasting conditions (i.e. hypertension and asthma) for which care is currently suboptimal, leading to excess deaths, illness, disability and costs for the NHS. Objectives: The overall purpose was to address the question of how digital interventions can best provide cost-effective support for patient self-management in primary care. Our aims were to develop and trial digital interventions to support patient self-management of hypertension and asthma. Through the process of planning, developing and evaluating these interventions, we also aimed to generate a better understanding of what features and methods for implementing digital interventions could make digital interventions acceptable, feasible, effective and cost-effective to integrate into primary care. Design: For the hypertension strand, we carried out systematic reviews of quantitative and qualitative evidence, intervention planning, development and optimisation, and an unmasked randomised controlled trial comparing digital intervention with usual care, with a health economic analysis and nested process evaluation. For the asthma strand, we carried out a systematic review of quantitative evidence, intervention planning, development and optimisation, and a feasibility randomised controlled trial comparing digital intervention with usual care, with nested process evaluation. Setting: General practices (hypertension, n = 76; asthma, n = 7) across Wessex and Thames Valley regions in Southern England. Participants: For the hypertension strand, people with uncontrolled hypertension taking one, two or three antihypertensive medications. For the asthma strand, adults with asthma and impaired asthma-related quality of life. Interventions: Our hypertension intervention (i.e. HOME BP) was a digital intervention that included motivational training for patients to self-monitor blood pressure, as well as health-care professionals to support self-management; a digital interface to send monthly readings to the health-care professional and to prompt planned medication changes when patients’ readings exceeded recommended targets for 2 consecutive months; and support for optional patient healthy behaviour change (e.g. healthy diet/weight loss, increased physical activity and reduced alcohol and salt consumption). The control group were provided with a Blood Pressure UK (London, UK) leaflet for hypertension and received routine hypertension care. Our asthma intervention (i.e. My Breathing Matters) was a digital intervention to improve the functional quality of life of primary care patients with asthma by supporting illness self-management. Motivational content intended to facilitate use of pharmacological self-management strategies (e.g. medication adherence and appropriate health-care service use) and non-pharmacological self-management strategies (e.g. breathing retraining, stress reduction and healthy behaviour change). The control group were given an Asthma UK (London, UK) information booklet on asthma self-management and received routine asthma care. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome for the hypertension randomised controlled trial was difference between intervention and usual-care groups in mean systolic blood pressure (mmHg) at 12 months, adjusted for baseline blood pressure, blood pressure target (i.e. standard, diabetic or aged &gt; 80 years), age and general practice. The primary outcome for the asthma feasibility study was the feasibility of the trial design, including recruitment, adherence, intervention engagement and retention at follow-up. Health-care utilisation data were collected via notes review. Review methods: The quantitative reviews included a meta-analysis. The qualitative review comprised a meta-ethnography. Results: A total of 622 hypertensive patients were recruited to the randomised controlled trial, and 552 (89%) were followed up at 12 months. Systolic blood pressure was significantly lower in the intervention group at 12 months, with a difference of –3.4 mmHg (95% confidence interval –6.1 to –0.8 mmHg), and this gave an incremental cost per unit of systolic blood pressure reduction of £11 (95% confidence interval £5 to £29). Owing to a cost difference of £402 and a quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) difference of 0.044, long-term modelling puts the incremental cost per QALY at just over £9000. The probability of being cost-effective was 66% at willingness to pay £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year, and this was higher at higher thresholds. A total of 88 patients were recruited to the asthma feasibility trial (target n = 80; n = 44 in each arm). At 3-month follow-up, two patients withdrew and six patients did not complete outcome measures. At 12 months, two patients withdrew and four patients did not complete outcome measures. A total of 36 out of 44 patients in the intervention group engaged with My Breathing Matters [with a median of four (range 0–25) logins]

La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même

OVERTIME was an exhibition that explored the differences between office spaces and the artists’ studio. SEIZE Leeds invited 26 artists to respond to an office space – to explore the tools and working methods common to such spaces through making art. Occupying a disused floor of Wellington Park House, in Leeds’ busy financial district, the exhibition brought together a diverse range of artists in order to showcase both emerging and more established practitioners from across the UK. SEIZE Leeds is an artist-led organisation that works to engage and support emerging and mid-career artists both regionally and nationally through a programme of ambitious art shows and events. They work with vacant spaces in situ to produce exciting and accessible exhibitions that explore ideas relevant to each location and promote talent