The National Teaching Repository − Sharing effective interventions: Learning from each other so that we can continue to enhance and improve what we do

The National Teaching Repository (NTR) is a widely recognised Open Educational Resource (OER) that has made a significant impact on the global higher education community. Recently, the UNESCO Secretariat invited the NTR team to present reports on the repository’s reach and impact (Wooff and Irving-Bell, 2022), which has prompted this article. In it, we provide an overview of the NTR’s origins, values, and vision, and we also extend an invitation for you to join us in this exciting initiative

Innovative placement allocation model for pre-registration student nurses

Student nurses require a variety of high quality practice placements to prepare them for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) yet in reality this can be difficult to achieve. This case study reports on the development and implementation of a Practice Placement Allocation Model that has provided one University in the north west of England and its partner practice placement healthcare organisations with a framework to shift from a traditional, process-led pre-registration nursing student placement allocation system (adult field) to a robust, proactive, student-focused approach. The model is based upon practice placement allocation partnership concepts and these include advanced planning of student placements and clear lines of communication between all stakeholders involved in the practice placement of students. Application of the model has resulted in the sharing of timely information across organisations via a central framework and this has allowed for any underlying practice allocation problems to be quickly identified and resolved. Importantly, each practice partner now fully understands the role that they play and how to communicate more effectively. Challenges and opportunities are presented together with the evidence of how the model can be transferred to other healthcare professions and fields of nursing. 5 key points: 1. The government is insistent on producing and maintain a nursing workforce that provides quality and compassionate nursing care 2. The nursing students’ practice placement is a key component of an effective pre-registration nurse education programme 3. Ensuring that all nursing students have the variety of placements can be a challenge to providers of pre-registration nurse education 4. Practice placements should be mapped and allocated according to the students education programme requirements and individual needs 5. Application of a Practice Placement Allocation Model provides the best platform for the effective placement of nursing students and promotes partnership working between stakeholder

The role of networks to overcome large-scale challenges in tomography : the non-clinical tomography users research network

Our ability to visualize and quantify the internal structures of objects via computed tomography (CT) has fundamentally transformed science. As tomographic tools have become more broadly accessible, researchers across diverse disciplines have embraced the ability to investigate the 3D structure-function relationships of an enormous array of items. Whether studying organismal biology, animal models for human health, iterative manufacturing techniques, experimental medical devices, engineering structures, geological and planetary samples, prehistoric artifacts, or fossilized organisms, computed tomography has led to extensive methodological and basic sciences advances and is now a core element in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research and outreach toolkits. Tomorrow's scientific progress is built upon today's innovations. In our data-rich world, this requires access not only to publications but also to supporting data. Reliance on proprietary technologies, combined with the varied objectives of diverse research groups, has resulted in a fragmented tomography-imaging landscape, one that is functional at the individual lab level yet lacks the standardization needed to support efficient and equitable exchange and reuse of data. Developing standards and pipelines for the creation of new and future data, which can also be applied to existing datasets is a challenge that becomes increasingly difficult as the amount and diversity of legacy data grows. Global networks of CT users have proved an effective approach to addressing this kind of multifaceted challenge across a range of fields. Here we describe ongoing efforts to address barriers to recently proposed FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reuse) and open science principles by assembling interested parties from research and education communities, industry, publishers, and data repositories to approach these issues jointly in a focused, efficient, and practical way. By outlining the benefits of networks, generally, and drawing on examples from efforts by the Non-Clinical Tomography Users Research Network (NoCTURN), specifically, we illustrate how standardization of data and metadata for reuse can foster interdisciplinary collaborations and create new opportunities for future-looking, large-scale data initiatives

The National Teaching Repository and social media

The idea behind the National Teaching Repository is to create a central space where anyone with an interest in teaching and learning or supporting developments can view, download and share the very best ideas either to use off the shelf or with some slight adaptation to meet their needs as teachers, lecturers or researchers

An evaluation of a young people's drop-in clinic based within a health centre The first twelve months

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Fitspiration and thinspiration: a comparison across three social networking sites

Abstract Background Fitspiration, or images and text promoting health and fitness, and thinspiration, or images and text promoting thinness, have both received criticism for their negative effects on body image and dieting behaviors. In this study, we critically examined and compared the content of fitspiration and thinspiration on three social networking sites (SNS). Methods Fitspiration and thinspiration posts (N = 360) from three photo-sharing SNS (Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter) were collected quasi-randomly on four days over two weeks. Image and associated text content were coded for variables related to weight and shape, muscularity, thin ideal, and eating. Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests compared content of fitspiration and thinspiration posts overall and among the three SNS. Results Thinspiration images portrayed body parts more frequently than fitspiration (69.8% vs. 30.2%). Similarly, posts highlighting bony body features and references to mental illness appeared only in thinspiration. No differences were found between fitspiration and thinspiration posts with regard to sexual suggestiveness, appearance comparison, and messages encouraging restrictive eating. Fitspiration and thinspiration posts included similar images across the three SNS—focusing on appearance, sexually suggestive images, and restrictive eating—with three exceptions. Fitspiration posts exhibiting body positivity were found only on Tumblr. In thinspiration posts, references to mental illness were more frequent on Tumblr and Instagram than on Twitter, and bone emphasis was coded more frequently on Twitter than on Instagram. Conclusions Although fitspiration posts were less extreme than thinspiration posts on the whole, notable similarities in their content support that fitspiration endorses problematic attitudes towards fitness, body image, and restrictive eating in pursuit of a fit-and-thin body ideal

LTHEchat – The Story of a Community of Practice through Twitter

The original idea for an ongoing tweetchat for professional development came from Dr. Chrissi Nerantzi. The idea emerged through the success of the #BYOD4Lchat, a daily feature of the 5-day openly-licensed course Bring Your Own Devices for Learning (BYOD4L), first offered in January 2014 and based on flexible, distance and online learning (FDOL) Offered Monday to Friday from 8-9pm UK time #BYOD4Lchat always created a real buzz. Chrissi saw the potential for a tweetchat on its own, outside a course that would have the potential to develop a community around it. Courses have such a short lifespan, she thought. What about a community approach to professional development? If we want our academics engaged in ongoing professional development could a weekly tweetchat be an attractive option? Could it work? She wanted to give it a go! When the idea matured a little bit in her head, she shared it with Sue Beckingham over a Skype meeting and then with Dr. David Walker and Peter Reed in an email signing as Chrissi and Sue. She wanted the tweetchat to become a truly collaborative project from the outset and therefore creating the conditions for co-ownership were important to her. The Learning and Teaching in Higher Education tweetchat, or #LTHEchat, came to live. The name came from a core module Chrissi led while working at the University of Salford. Chrissi, Sue, David and Peter became the steering group and decided to run a 3-month pilot and see how it went