Coping with a changing world: the UK Open University approach to teaching ICT

The rapid pace of change in the ICT field has affected all HE providers, but for the UK Open University (UKOU), used to print-based courses lasting eight years or more, it has been a particular challenge. This paper will present some of the ways the UKOU has been coping with this problem by discussing the design of three courses, the first developed almost a decade ago. All three are distance learning courses that are either core or optional in a variety of bachelors' degrees, including the BSc programmes in: Information and Communication Technology; IT and Computing; and Technology; as well as the BEng (Hons) engineering programme. The first course, Information and Communication Technology: people and interactions is a level 2 (second year undergraduate) course first presented in 2002. It is predominately a print-based course with an eight year lifetime. The second course Networked Living: exploring information and communication technologies is a level 1 (first year undergraduate) course first presented some three-and-a-half years later in 2005. It is expected to have a course life of five years, and uses a mix of print-based (60%) and computer-based (40%) material. Both these courses use assignments as key tools for annual updating. The third course, Keeping ahead in ICT is aimed primarily at equipping students with advanced information searching and evaluation skills that will serve them well in professional life, and is presented at level 3 (final year undergraduate). It was first presented in 2007 and has an expected course life of 8 years. It uses much less print than in most OU courses, and has a greater reliance on third-party resources such as newspaper, conference and journal articles, websites, and other electronic resources. Some elements in each block are designed to change from year to year, in order to retain currency. Finally, the paper will look forward to the development of a new level 2 course with an expected first presentation in 2010, drawing out the lessons learned about course updating, and predicting the approach that the course team may tak

Ethical decision-making, passivity and pharmacy

Background: Increasing interest in empirical ethics has enhanced understanding of healthcare professionals' ethical problems and attendant decision-making. A four-stage decision-making model involving ethical attention, reasoning, intention and action offers further insights into how more than reasoning alone may contribute to decision-making. Aims: To explore how the four-stage model can increase understanding of decision-making in healthcare and describe the decision-making of an under-researched professional group. Methods: 23 purposively sampled UK community pharmacists were asked, in semi-structured interviews, to describe ethical problems in their work and how they were resolved. Framework analysis of transcribed interviews utilised the four decision-making stages, together with constant comparative methods and deviant-case analysis. Results: Pharmacists were often inattentive and constructed problems in legal terms. Ethical reasoning was limited, but examples of appeals to consequences, the golden rule, religious faith and common-sense experience emerged. Ethical intention was compromised by frequent concern about legal prosecution. Ethical inaction was common, typified by pharmacists' failure to report healthcare professionals' bad practices, and ethical passivity emerged to describe these negative examples of the four decision-making stages. Pharmacists occasionally described more ethically active decision-making, but this often involved ethical uncertainty. Discussion: The four decision-making stages are a useful tool in considering how healthcare professionals try to resolve ethical problems in practice. They reveal processes often ignored in normative theories, and their recognition and the emergence of ethical passivity indicates the complexity of decision-making in practice. Ethical passivity may be deleterious to patients' welfare, and concerns emerge about improving pharmacists' ethical training and promoting ethical awareness and responsibility

A new prescription for empirical ethics research in pharmacy: a critical review of the literature

Empirical ethics research is increasingly valued in bioethics and healthcare more generally, but there remain as yet under-researched areas such as pharmacy, despite the increasingly visible attempts by the profession to embrace additional roles beyond the supply of medicines. A descriptive and critical review of the extant empirical pharmacy ethics literature is provided here. A chronological change from quantitative to qualitative approaches is highlighted in this review, as well as differing theoretical approaches such as cognitive moral development and the four principles of biomedical ethics. Research with pharmacy student cohorts is common, as is representation from American pharmacists. Many examples of ethical problems are identified, as well as commercial and legal influences on ethical understanding and decision making. In this paper, it is argued that as pharmacy seeks to develop additional roles with concomitant ethical responsibilities, a new prescription is needed for empirical ethics research in pharmacy - one that embraces an agenda of systematic research using a plurality of methodological and theoretical approaches to better explore this under-researched discipline

The development of automatic control in France

This paper discusses the history and development of automatic control in France

From compliance to concordance: meeting the needs of patients?

Abstract of a pharmacy practice research paper presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference, Glasgow, 23-26 Sep 2001. Interviews with 21 English speakers of Pakistani origin with type 2 diabetes. Results suggest that it may be more appropriate to link concordance to an approach which seeks to sensitively elicit patient narratives as a basis for shared understanding

Simulation of seismic events induced by CO2 injection at In Salah, Algeria

Date of Acceptance: 18/06/2015 Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the operators of the In Salah JV and JIP, BP, Statoil and Sonatrach, for providing the data shown in this paper, and for giving permission to publish. Midland Valley Exploration are thanked for the use of their Move software for geomechanical restoration. JPV is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Early Career Research Fellow (Grant NE/I021497/1) and ALS is funded by a NERC Partnership Research Grant (Grant NE/I010904).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sex trafficking in Nepal: A qualitative study of process and context. Abstract.

Thousands of Nepalese girls are trafficked to India and other neighbouring countries every year, primarily for sex work and the majority return to Nepal after spending a years in sex trade. The sub‐group of Nepalese girls who become involved in sex work via trafficking are the focus of this paper. The aim of this study was to increase understanding regarding the context of sex trafficking, the methods and means of trafficking, living conditions in brothels and survival strategies among trafficked girls. We conducted 33 in‐depth interviews in early 2013 with returned trafficking survivors (n=14) and policy‐makers, people working in trafficking related NGOs/INGOs (n=19) in Nepal. All 14 trafficking survivors were recruited in Nepal through the NGO working on trafficking field. The young girls trafficked from Nepal to India in this study were typically unmarried, illiterate and very young (8 to 14 years at the time of trafficking). The key methods of trafficking were false marriage, fake job offer, and abduction. Among the 14 respondents, some had spent one month and others nearly 5 years in Indian brothels. Respondents were either rescued, escaped or released by brothel owners. Four out of 14 were HIV positive. Most policy makers mentioned that poverty, unemployment and illiteracy are the causes behind the trafficking of young girls. The anti‐trafficking interventions need to be considered at a) community level before movement has begun; b) urban centres which are both source and transitory centres for trafficking; c) trafficking level when girls are highly mobile and when they are in brothels; and d) return from trafficking as girls to m ove back into the community

Factors that promote or hinder maternal health service provision by female community health volunteers in rural Nepal

Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) provide basic Maternal Health Services (MHSs) to pregnant women and mothers in their communities. Their contribution to maternal health has been praised, as Nepal managed to reduce its maternal mortality by more than two-thirds and met the Millennium Development Goal 5. However, little published evidence is available on FCHVs’ views and the factors that promote or hinder their services. This thesis explores the role of FCHVs in MHS provision in two regions (the hill and Terai ) of Nepal, from the perspectives of health workers, service users, and FCHVs themselves. A qualitative approach was adopted using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and field notes. Interviews were conducted with 20 FCHVs, 11 health workers and 26 women in villages from the two study regions. In addition, four FGDs were held with 19 FCHVs and field notes were taken throughout the data collection. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that FCHVs play an important role in MHS provision in the hill villages where there is limited access to professional healthcare. The FCHVs detected pregnancies, referred them for health check-ups, accompanied them for deliveries and assisted in child-births. They also distributed medicines and informed women on the availability of safe abortion services. In both regions, the FCHVs raised health awareness among pregnant women/mothers casually or through organised meetings. In the hill villages, they used interesting casual approaches to share maternal health information, for example, singing folk songs with health messages in them or visiting new mothers with nutritious food hampers. Such services were beneficial to the women in the remote villages, who otherwise would not have received any healthcare. The FCHVs also shared maternal health messages through regularly organised mothers' group meetings. Unfortunately, these meetings were also used for monetary discussions, which left a little time for discussion on health topics. Such activity combined with the lack of FCHVs’ education often proved to be counterproductive on their service provision. They have a desire to volunteer, as they saw their service as social responsibility, felt empowered and enjoyed community recognition. However, a lack of financial and non-financial incentives was the key hindrance for them followed by perceived community misconceptions regarding their voluntary status. The FCHVs’ illiteracy and older age also affected their services. Finally, various health systems related factors also hindered their services: a lack of access to medical supplies, inadequate training and supervision. In general, volunteers in the terai region were less supported than those in the hill region. In addition, a perceived lack of respect by some health workers towards volunteers and a lack of coordination between government health centres and NGOs were noted. Overall, the study found that most interviewees perceived FCHVs as a valuable resource in improving the maternal health of the poor women. In some remote hill villages, they are the only MHS providers. Therefore, their contribution to MHS needs to be recognised and respected by both the health workers and the communities. It is important that FCHVs are provided with context specific support - incentives, access to supplies and supportive supervision - to enable them to deliver services more productively and to ensure that these services flourish in the future

Health consequences of sex trafficking: A systematic review

Background: Sex trafficking is one of the most common forms of human trafficking globally. It is associated with health, emotional, social, moral and legal problems. The victims of sex trafficking when returned home are often ignored. This study aimed to explore the health consequences of sex trafficking among women and children. Methods: Medline EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL were systematically searched, from date of inception to July 2016 using a combination of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and text words on health risks and consequences of sex trafficking. Electronic searches were supplemented by searching the reference lists of included papers and citation tracking. Both Qualitative and quantitative primary studies published in English and exploring health-related problems among sex trafficked women and children were included in this review. Health outcomes considered were: physical, psychological or social risks and consequences of sex trafficking among women and children. No restrictions were applied to geographical regions as sex trafficking involves victims being trafficked between different countries, and within countries. Data were extracted and study quality independently appraised by two reviewers and narrative synthesis was conducted for this review. Results: A total of fifteen articles were included covering health risks and well-being related to sex trafficking. Sexual and physical violence among victims such as rape and repetitive stress and physical injuries were common. The prevalence of STI (sexually transmitted infections) and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) was also reported as high. Being trafficked at a young age, having been in brothels for a longer period and sexual violence and forced prostitution were linked with a higher risk for HIV infection. Physical health problems reported included headaches, fatigue, dizziness, back pain, memory problem, stomach pain, pelvic pain, gynaecological infections, weight loss, lesions or warts, unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The studies on mental health reported that depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were commonly reported health consequences among sex trafficking victims. Conclusion: there is a compelling need for interventions raising awareness about sex trafficking among young girls and women most at risk of being trafficked. Most studies in this review have focussed on the physical health problems of the trafficked victims although there is also remarkable mental burden amongst those victims. Key policy makers, government officials, public health officials, health care providers, legal authorities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should be made aware about the health risks and consequences of trafficking. Trafficking consequences should be recognised as a health issue and all the sectors involved including regulating bodies should collaborate to fight against sex trafficking. Due to the heterogeneity of the articles, no meta-analysis could be conducted

Factors influencing the utilization of health facilities for childbirth in a disadvantaged community of Lalitpur, Nepal

Background: In Nepal, half of deliveries take place at home (HMIS 2014), while institutional birth assisted by skilled birth attendants (SBAs) are still infrequent. Objectives: This study explores factors influencing the utilization of health facilities for childbirth in a disadvantaged community of rural Nepal. Method: A qualitative study with two focus groups: mothers-in-law and husbands, and female community health volunteers. 28 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants 20 mothers and 8 grass-root and policy level stakeholders. Data were analysed by three delays model of conceptual framework. Results: The main reasons for giving birth at home included cultural tradition, lack of awareness about danger signs during pregnancy and childbirth, about importance of skilled birth attendants and lack of knowledge about availability of free 24-hours delivery sites/birthing centers, inability to afford two way transportation costs despite transport incentives provided by government for institutional delivery, fear of episiotomy/surgery/physical abuse and health service provider’s attitude for home delivery. Health facilities were mostly used by women who experienced complications during childbirth Policy Implications: Significant gaps from policy to grass root levels were identified which -suggests that dissemination of information about free delivery must be more effective. The health workers should convincingly inform families about benefits of institutional delivery, especially in marginalized/disadvantaged communities