Literacy practices: using the literacies for learning in further education framework to analyse literacy practices on a post-compulsory education and training teacher education programme

The Literacies for learning in further education framework describes nine aspects of a literacy practice that elaborate the basic questions of what?, why?, who?, and how? that are needed to understand and describe literacy practices. The framework was used to analyse two literacy practices encountered on initial teacher education courses in the post-compulsory education and training (PCET) phase of the Teacher Education Department in order to understand those literacy practices and improve them. The framework was found to be a useful tool in articulating competing and contradictory purposes in literacy practices in order to clarify them particularly in the context of the complex partnership and stakeholder relationships within teacher education. It was also useful as a planning tool to support collaborative work between the PCET phase of the Teacher Education Department and faculty-based and central support services in supporting the academic literacy of trainees. The use of the framework by other University departments should be considered in supporting academic literacy

Racism and cultural identity: the reflections of two Black trainee teachers' engagement with the Stephen Lawrence Symposium

The Stephen Lawrence Symposium held in London in 2013 provided an opportunity for academics and educators to reflect on changes in education and wider society resulting from the legacy of Stephen Lawrence over the 20 years since his racist murder. A Black African trainee teacher and a Black Caribbean trainee teacher in post-16 teacher training at a large university in the North of England participated in a series of lunchtime discussion groups as part of their university-based training. This led to them presenting a workshop at the Stephen Lawrence Symposium in London based upon artefacts that conjured up memories of racism for them. Reflections on their experiences of engaging with the Stephen Lawrence symposium suggested that family-support and support from the wider Black community was important to them in sustaining their engagement. Such family and community support may ameliorate the sense of alienation that Black trainees may experience from their predominantly White-British peers in university-based teacher training. Whilst such support may be more significant for Black trainee teachers than that provided through formal student support systems, it is not widely recognised as such by universities and may be seen as contrary to university-culture. Personal experiences and memories of racism were key to the Black trainees' engagement with the Stephen Lawrence Symposium. Capturing those memories through the writing of personal narratives was more problematic than presenting at the Symposium itself. Structured support with collaborative writing is needed if the 'student-voice' on student-engagement is to be heard. Recommendations for future work on racism that resonated with the particular interests of the four participants have been made along with some wider recommendations that may be transferable to other contexts. Recommendations for further research are made. Keywords: Stephen Lawrence; Black trainee teachers; memories of racism; family/community support; student voice; student engagement

Recent-undergraduate to trainee-teacher : exploring the complexities of teacher-identity-formation through narrative inquiry

This article reports on a narrative inquiry into Amy's transition from recent graduate to trainee teacher in further education. Amy's story was analysed using the three commonplaces of temporality, sociality and place. Teacher-identity-formation was confirmed to be a complex process. Recommendations for promoting teacher-identity-growth, including through literacy practices, were made. Key words: Narrative inquiry, teacher-identity-formation, literacy practices

'That blasted Facebook page': supporting trainee-teachers' professional learning through social media

The creation and use of a Facebook group amongst trainee-teachers in post-16 and further education on a PGCE course at a large university in the North of England was studied. The Facebook group was self-initiated and self-managed by the trainee-teachers as a means of socialisation and peer-support amongst themselves. Data was gathered through parallel interviews with a PGCE trainee and a course tutor. Interviews were semi-structured using Tuckman's stages of group development (forming, storming, norming, performing) to explore the functioning of the Facebook group throughout the duration of the PGCE course. The role of teacher-trainers in influencing professional learning within the Facebook group initiated and owned by the trainee-teachers themselves was explored using the didactical triangle as a theoretical framework. It was found that the Facebook group was highly-valued both for supporting socialisation amongst trainee-teachers and as an additional means of mediating the course content of the PGCE. Lessons can be learnt both by trainee-teachers using social media for socialisation and peer-support and by course-tutors in designing teacher-training courses that may better ameliorate the pressures and sense of alienation trainee-teachers experience during initial teacher training

Non-Academic Research Impact: A Case Study Exploring the Perceived Importance of Non-Academic Impact of Doctoral Students’ Research at Bournemouth University

Research Councils UK (RCUK) defines research impact as 'the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy'. At Bournemouth University (BU) we actively support our doctoral students to understand what constitutes impact and how their research can benefit society. However, tangible measures for non-academic impact are not easily articulated, particularly for doctoral students whose research is predominantly inward facing. We have initiated a pilot study to investigate doctoral students’ attitudes to research impact (both academic and non-academic) to identify how we can best support and facilitate individuals in maximising the reach and impact of their research

Executing multi-taxa eDNA ecological assessment via traditional metrics and interactive networks

Current approaches to ecological assessment are limited by the traditional morpho-taxonomic methods presently employed and the inability to meet increasing demands for rapid assessments. Advancements in high throughput sequencing now enable rapid high-resolution ecological assessment using environmental DNA (eDNA). Here we test the ability of using eDNA-based ecological assessment methods against traditional assessment of two key indicator groups (diatoms and macroinvertebrates) and show how eDNA across multiple gene regions (COI, rbcL, 12S and 18S) can be used to infer interactive networks that link to ecological assessment criteria. We compared results between taxonomic and eDNA based assessments and found significant positive associations between macroinvertebrate (p < 0.001 R2 = 0.645) and diatom (p = 0.015, R2 = 0.222) assessment metrics. We further assessed the ability of eDNA based assessment to identify environmentally sensitive genera and found an order of magnitude greater potential for 18S, versus COI or rbcL, to determine environmental filtering of ecologically assessed communities. Lastly, we compared the ability of traditional metrics against co-occurrence network properties of our combined 18S, COI and rbcL indicator genera to infer habitat quality measures currently used by managers. We found that transitivity (network connectivity), linkage density and cohesion were significantly associated with habitat modification scores (HMS), whereas network properties were inconsistent with linking to the habitat quality score (HQS) metric. The incorporation of multi-marker eDNA network assessment opens up a means for finer scale ecological assessment, currently limited using traditional methods. While utilization of eDNA-based assessment is recommended, direct comparisons with traditional approaches are difficult as the methods are intrinsically different and should be treated as such with regards to future research. Overall, our findings show that eDNA can be used for effective ecological assessment while offering a wider range of scope and application compared to traditional assessment methods

Access to routinely collected health data for clinical trials - review of successful data requests to UK registries.

BACKGROUND: Clinical trials generally each collect their own data despite routinely collected health data (RCHD) increasing in quality and breadth. Our aim is to quantify UK-based randomised controlled trials (RCTs) accessing RCHD for participant data, characterise how these data are used and thereby recommend how more trials could use RCHD. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of RCTs accessing RCHD from at least one registry in the UK between 2013 and 2018 for the purposes of informing or supplementing participant data. A list of all registries holding RCHD in the UK was compiled. In cases where registries published release registers, these were searched for RCTs accessing RCHD. Where no release register was available, registries were contacted to request a list of RCTs. For each identified RCT, information was collected from all publicly available sources (release registers, websites, protocol etc.). The search and data extraction were undertaken between January and May 2019. RESULTS: We identified 160 RCTs accessing RCHD between 2013 and 2018 from a total of 22 registries; this corresponds to only a very small proportion of all UK RCTs (about 3%). RCTs accessing RCHD were generally large (median sample size 1590), commonly evaluating treatments for cancer or cardiovascular disease. Most of the included RCTs accessed RCHD from NHS Digital (68%), and the most frequently accessed datasets were mortality (76%) and hospital visits (55%). RCHD was used to inform the primary trial (82%) and long-term follow-up (57%). There was substantial variation in how RCTs used RCHD to inform participant outcome measures. A limitation was the lack of information and transparency from registries and RCTs with respect to which datasets have been accessed and for what purposes. CONCLUSIONS: In the last five years, only a small minority of UK-based RCTs have accessed RCHD to inform participant data. We ask for improved accessibility, confirmed data quality and joined-up thinking between the registries and the regulatory authorities. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42019123088

Evolution of floating offshore wind platforms: A review of at-sea devices

Using floating platforms to support offshore wind turbines will be necessary for many countries to reach their Net-Zero targets, since much of the wind resource is located at water depths at which fixed offshore wind turbines are uneconomic or technologically unfeasible. However, floating platforms for wind turbines are still at an early stage of development, and there are a wide range of platform designs. This paper reviews the current state-of-the-art of floating offshore wind turbine platform designs which currently have or have previously had a prototype, demonstration, or farm scale project at sea. The most common design goals for the platforms and the corresponding design features of platforms used to achieve those goals are reviewed. Past, current and projected future levelized cost of energy values for floating offshore wind are reviewed and discussed. The development of each platform design is described, including evolving design goals and resulting changes in platform features. Finally, overall trends in platform designs are discussed and divided into three phases, defined by changing goals: (i) influences from the offshore oil and gas industry, (ii) specialization to floating offshore wind, and (iii) further specialization to local environment