Inclusive and Accessible Social Media Guide: A guide for social media content creators

While multimedia content provides a fun and expressive outlet for people, the experience isn’t the same for everyone. For a large portion of the population, some kinds of content are inaccessible. People of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities study with the OU – for instance, there are over 7,700 international students directly studying with us, and in 2019/20, 30,791 OU students declared having a disability. It is therefore crucial that we consider inclusive design practices on social media to benefit as many people as possible. The ‘Inclusive & Accessible Social Media’ guide is intended to provide tips for creating accessible content on social media to ensure that we are integrating equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) for the long term. An integral part of ensuring inclusivity involves accurately representing the wide breadth of people - of all ages, races, genders and abilities - who work and study with the OU. The guide focuses on the main social media platforms we use, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram; however, the guidance provided can be applied to all forms of social media content’

SCONUL Access: The Open University student experience

This research includes two phases focussing on students at The Open University: an analysis of SCONUL Access membership and the correlation with attainment and a second phase which uncovers what aspects of the SCONUL Access scheme members use (if any) and the impact that the programme has on their studies. In the data analysis, we found that a higher percentage of students who were members of SCONUL Access gained a distinction (32%) in comparison to students who weren’t a member (22%). This difference is calculated as statistically significant. In the second phase of our research, most students (62%, n=320) reported that being part of the scheme has a positive impact by supporting their studies and wellbeing

Appearance-focused Internet Use and the Thin-beauty Ideal

Websites featuring appearance-focused content are a medium for constant appearance comparisons, addiction and pressure to meet existing beauty-ideals. This study investigated a sample of 264 males and females who use appearance-focused websites, with a view to determining the relationship with appearance dissatisfaction and self-worth. Data collection involved posting links to online questionnaires on popular social networking sites. Internet appearance exposure was found to correlate with a greater drive for thinness in females, suggesting that exposure to the thin-ideal body images presented online reinforces women’s desire to achieve the cultural expectations of body shape and weight. Furthermore the study highlighted that internet addiction was associated with a drive for thinness and low self-esteem in both males and females, with differences exhibited in regards to body-esteem. These findings emphasise the need for pathological internet use to be incorporated into media literacy programs and to encourage a critical stance toward current beauty standards

Outcomes from elective colorectal cancer surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

This study aimed to describe the change in surgical practice and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mortality after surgical resection of colorectal cancer during the initial phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Accessibility Matters: Supporting Inclusive Social Media in Academic Libraries

While visual content provides a fun and expressive outlet for people, the experience isn’t the same for everyone, particularly when it comes to social media. For a large portion of the population, some kinds of content are inaccessible. The Open University’s mission is to be open to people, places, methods, and ideas, and this means that a commitment to equality is embedded in all that we do, including our social media activity. People of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities study with The OU – for instance, 30,791 students declaring a disability studied with us in 2019/20 – so it is crucial that we consider inclusive design practices on social media to benefit as many people as possible. This reflective piece will look at the journey taken by the OU Library’s Engagement and Insight team to create an ‘Inclusive & Accessible Social Media’ guide, that can be shared amongst other academic libraries and beyond, to help them also use social media in a way that promotes diversity, equality, and inclusion. If the effort is made to make content inclusive and accessible, then more people can enjoy it, feel connected with it, and engage with it

Behaving badly online:establishing norms of unacceptable behaviours

Victims of online abuse suffer measurable negative effects equivalent to survivors of traumas such as bombings and sexual assaults but it has been suggested that the general population view such online behaviour as acceptable, with victims consequently receiving little support. This is an issue of increasing import as the number and accessibility of online communication apps, and their incorporation into our everyday lives, increases the opportunity for Deviant Online Behaviours (DOBs) to be perpetrated. In order to better understand individuals’ attitudes to specific DOBs 118 psychology undergraduate students rated 11 examples of DOBs on a scale of severity. Individual difference measures of online cognitions and interpersonal sensitivity were also collected. A factor analysis revealed 3 emerging online behaviour types: use of false information (theft of identity, tricking others), unsolicited behaviour (unsolicited e-mailing/messaging), and persistent communication (frequent contact and use of multiple identities). ‘Persistent communication’ was viewed as more unacceptable than ‘unsolicited behaviour’ and ‘false information’, though all contained behaviours which have been demonstrated to cause severe harm to victims. These findings attempt to demonstrate how individuals categorise deviant online behaviours in terms of severity and individual differences that may be associated with these perceptions

Dissolved gases in the deep North Atlantic track ocean ventilation processes

Gas exchange between the atmosphere and ocean interior profoundly impacts global climate and biogeochemistry. However, our understanding of the relevant physical processes remains limited by a scarcity of direct observations. Dissolved noble gases in the deep ocean are powerful tracers of physical air-sea interaction due to their chemical and biological inertness, yet their isotope ratios have remained underexplored. Here, we present high-precision noble gas isotope and elemental ratios from the deep North Atlantic (~32°N, 64°W) to evaluate gas exchange parameterizations using an ocean circulation model. The unprecedented precision of these data reveal deep-ocean undersaturation of heavy noble gases and isotopes resulting from cooling-driven air-to-sea gas transport associated with deep convection in the northern high latitudes. Our data also imply an underappreciated and large role for bubble-mediated gas exchange in the global air-sea transfer of sparingly soluble gases, including O2, N2, and SF6. Using noble gases to validate the physical representation of air-sea gas exchange in a model also provides a unique opportunity to distinguish physical from biogeochemical signals. As a case study, we compare dissolved N2/Ar measurements in the deep North Atlantic to physics-only model predictions, revealing excess N2 from benthic denitrification in older deep waters (below 2.9 km). These data indicate that the rate of fixed N removal in the deep Northeastern Atlantic is at least three times higher than the global deep-ocean mean, suggesting tight coupling with organic carbon export and raising potential future implications for the marine N cycle