Councils In England Research Articles

Developing strategies to ensure compliance with funders’ open access policies

Funding bodies for higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK) have recently introduced policies with a strong focus on open access (OA). The Research Councils UK (RCUK) ‘Policy on Open Access’ mandates OA compliance through either hybrid or pure OA journals, or through self-archiving. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has recently introduced a self-archiving policy for journal articles and conference proceedings. Both policies have necessitated new practices among UK HEIs that relate to advocacy, adoption of internal OA policies, managing article processing charges (APCs), and monitoring and reporting compliance with them. This case study details the path Royal Holloway University of London, has taken to navigate its way through these recent changes and challenges.

Managing organisational culture and identity in a dual sector college

Purpose – This paper is drawn from a doctoral study that was funded as part of Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Leadership, Governance and Management project. The college referred to as City College in this paper, was an higher education (HE) College and was formally part of the HE Sector. The college was one of the institutions that was studied as part of the research that aimed to identify issues in managing across the interface of further education (FE) and HE. Multiple sources of evidence, such as, interviews with staff and managers, documents such as, institutional strategic plan, reports on quality assessment and monitoring, and other institutional data have informed the findings of this paper. The college had roots in FE and had gradually evolved to become an HE institution. The institutional background in FE had vitally shaped the perceptions of the institutional managers on combining FE and HE within an institutional framework. Two sets of beliefs had emerged at the college, one that related to retaining the FE ethos of the college and another that supported a progressive diffusion of aspects of HE culture within the college. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a case study of an English dual sector college that delivered substantial levels of FE and HE. Findings – The paper presents the challenges associated with managing the college’s culture and identity as it continued to consolidate its position as an HE institution while remaining optimistic that it was not “drifting away” from its FE roots. The teachers and managers at the college had prior experiences of FE and their approach to work was influenced by FE practices. College was described to be “non-academic” and arguments were made to facilitate more “university-like” practices and arrangements for HE lecturers to help develop research and scholarly activity at the college. Practical implications – The paper also highlights issues and considerations related to enhancing internal progression of students from FE to HE, pressures for separate and distinctive buildings and spaces for HE to help raise student aspirations, and the perceptions of internal and external stakeholders that related to a “confused” institutional identity of the college. Whilst the college had aimed to maintain a strong presence in the FE markets, it had simultaneously “concealed” its FE identity in order to appeal more strongly to the HE students. Originality/value – In presenting the analysis of evolution of the college from an FEC to an HEI, this paper will be of interest to institutions that are considering or aspiring to strengthen their positioning as HE providers without compromising on their identity as FE colleges.

Humanism, non-religious worldviews and the future of Religious Education

This article considers whether non-religious worldviews ought to be included in the curriculum content of religious education (RE). While the immediate context is that of the campaigns of the Religious Education Council for England and Wales (REC) and the British Humanist Association (BHA) to extend the content of RE to include non-religious worldviews, the arguments reviewed have a wider application to RE elsewhere. A short account is provided of the 2013 REC Framework and of current legislation governing RE. The main part of the article is devoted to the evaluation of a number of publicly expressed recent arguments advanced by humanists in favour of including non-religious worldviews in the RE curriculum. Critical attention is also given to two further considerations, that of the principle of inclusion and that of the aim of RE to challenge religious bigotry and intolerance. It is concluded that the case for the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in the content of RE is unconvincing on educational grounds and unnecessary given the secular nature of the school curriculum.

Using dialectic debates to enhance innovative teaching of Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology

An enormous amount of research and debate on innovative teaching and learning strategies has gone on over the last three decades (e.g. The Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2013; Dearnley, McClelland & Irving, 2013; Hannan, English & Silver, 1999, 2000). HEA rightly champions excellence in innovative teaching and learning across the higher education sector. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) takes a monitoring role with the aim of ensuring that all higher education (HE) students benefit from a high-quality learning experience that fully meets their needs and the needs of society. The critical issue is not so much about governing bodies and frameworks, rather it is about the individual tutor’s enthusiasm and how such enthusiasm can inspire active learning. It is also worth recognising that some topics, such as Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology (CHIP) can be potentially boring. Such topics require enthusiastic tutors with innovative approaches to teaching and learning. The CHIP module delivered at the University of Derby uses dialectic debates to enhance students’ learning experience. No assumption is made here that dialectic debates are the only innovative approach as other papers in this volume show. We chose dialectic debate because of its potential for interactivity and critical thinking. The dialectic method (dialectics) has its roots in philosophy (e.g. Hegelian dialectic) where it encouraged critical analysis of propositions, counter-propositions and the synthesis of new insights. For dialectic debates to succeed the teaching and learning strategy has to be very different from traditional didactic approaches. For example, trying to be interactive by simply asking questions may end up with uncomfortable silence as students may not be actively engaging with the course material. To create the atmosphere and aura of the dialectic debate both authors undertake team teaching with the specific aim of giving students thesis and antithesis. Students on the CHIP module are very familiar with two tutors presenting a lecture based on its thesis and antithesis.This approach builds on to include at least one dialectic debate given by the whole module teaching team. This is used as an example which is then followed in subsequent weeks by student’s own dialectic debates. So far this has been the most successful and enjoyable learning experience as stated by students themselves. This paper will briefly look at the monitoring role of HEFCE in relation to innovative teaching and learning. Attention will then turn to the nature and use of dialectic debate as part of the innovative approach to teaching CHIP at the University of Derby. An example of the typical CHIP module as it is run at the University of Derby will be offered including some of the essential guides shared by students and teaching staff.

Online metrics show who’s saying what about scientists’ research

Journal websites are now highlighting their articles’ likes, shares, and tweets, but information scientists still aren’t sure what the numbers really mean.

Choice and control for older people using home care services: how far have council-managed personal budgets helped?

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to report the experiences of older people who use council-managed personal budgets (PBs) to fund home care services and their satisfaction with the level of choice and control they are able to exercise.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from 18 older people from eight home care agencies across three councils in England. All interviews were semi-structured and face-to-face.Findings– Despite some optimism about improvements in choice and flexibility experienced by older people using home care services, the findings from this small study suggest that the gap between the “ideal” of user choice and the “reality” of practice continues to be significant. The level of choice and control older people felt able to exercise to tailor home care services to their personal needs and preferences was restricted to low level choices. Other choices were constrained by the low levels of older people's PBs and council restrictions on what PBs can be spent on. Older people's understanding of limitations in public funding/pressures on agencies and their reluctance to play an active consumer role including willingness to “exit” from unsatisfactory care arrangements appeared to further challenge the potential for achieving greater choice and control through council-managed PBs.Originality/value– The English government's policy emphasis on personalisation of care and support and new organisational arrangements for managed PBs aim to promote user choice and control. This is the first study to report the experiences of older people using managed PBs under these new arrangements. The paper highlights areas of interests and concerns that social care staff, support planners and commissioners may need to consider.

Primary care competition and the effect of new providers on quality of care in England

BackgroundHealth system reforms in England have welcomed competition by opening broad areas of clinical practice to new providers of care. As part of these reforms new entrants, including private companies, have been allowed into the primary care market since 2004 under contracting mechanisms known as alternative provider of medical services. The characteristics and performance of general practices working under new alternative provider contracts are not well described. MethodsBetween 2008–09 and 2012–13, we compared performance on 17 established quality indicators that included clinical effectiveness, efficiency, access, and patient experience in all general practices in England by contract type. Data were obtained from the Quality and Outcomes Framework and General Practice Patient Survey. We used linear regression in cross-sectional and time series analyses, adjusting for practice and population characteristics and underlying trends, to compare quality in practices using alternative provider contracts to traditional practices. We created a regression model using practice fixed effects to estimate the effect on performance of practices changing to the new contract type. Findings347 (4·1%) of 8300 general practices in England were run by alternative contract providers. These practices tended to be smaller, and serve younger, more diverse, and more deprived populations than traditional providers. Practices run by alternative providers performed worse than traditional providers on 15 of 17 indicators after adjustment for practice and population characteristics (p<0·001 for all 15), including diabetes and hypertension control, admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions, and overall satisfaction with care. Alternative providers had a higher percentage of patients reporting satisfaction with opening hours and higher prescribing of generic medications than did general practices not run by alternative providers. Switching to a new alternative provider contract did not result in improved performance in our fixed-effect models. InterpretationThe introduction of contracts for new alternative providers to deliver primary care services in England has not led to improvements in quality and might have resulted in worse care. Strengths of our study include use of a 5-year national data sample. Limitations include risk of lack of adjustment for unmeasured confounding factors. Regulators should ensure that new entrants to clinical-provider markets are performing to adequate standards and at least as well as traditional providers. FundingThere was no specific funding for this work. FG is funded by London Deanery and the Commonwealth Fund. CM is funded by the Northwest London National Institute for Health Reasearch Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Reaching out or missing out: approaches to outreach with family carers in social care organisations.

Outreach is advocated as a way of improving the uptake of services among underserved populations and of filling the gaps between mainstream services and the populations they are intended to support. Despite the policy emphasis on providing better help for family carers, research consistently shows that many of those providing unpaid care to a family member or friend report difficulties in finding out about the assistance to which they are entitled. This article presents results from a concurrent mixed-methods study, which aimed to describe different ways of working with family carers in adult social care departments and to collect the views of a range of stakeholders about the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches that were identified. A total of 86 semi-structured face-to-face interviews were undertaken with a purposive sample of funders, carers' workers, representatives of voluntary organisations and family carers based in four contrasting localities. An email survey was sent to all local councils in England with social care responsibilities and resulted in a 53% response rate. Data collection took place in 2012, with a small number of interviews being completed in 2011. Our approach to data analysis combined methodological, data and theoretical triangulation. The findings presented here mainly draw on the interview data to highlight the different models of outreach that we identified. The article highlights important differences between outreach and the provision of information. It concludes that organisations providing support for carers need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of different models of outreach as they develop carers' support and the extent to which different models might be more effective than others in reaching particular types of carer.

The Necessity of Clinical Legal Education in University Law Schools: A UK Perspective

This paper proposes that the expansion and subsequent unbridling of the provision of a law clinic in the sector will provide the students with the skills necessary of graduates in the increasingly corporate, commercially motivated, UK university sector. Secondly, it provides a basis for the rationale of a movement in funding bands, a study which is being undertaken by the Higher Education Funding Council for England over the proceeding three years, in consequence to the increasing costs involved to the institutions. This increase in funding, coupled with a determination from the institution and case study evidence as presented in this paper, will hopefully propel clinical legal education to the forefront of undergraduate legal studies in the UK. Clinical legal education is a method of improving the student experience and offers various advantages if integrated fully into the university administrative set up. Such views have been given rigorous academic coverage, however this paper further analyses the academic benefits passed on to the student populace, in relation to the potential advantages to UK universities.

Teaching and Learning Projects as 'Heterotopias'

Using the lens of Foucault's ideas about heterotopias, this paper discusses the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) which were teaching and learning projects funded between 2005 and 2010 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The paper explores the 'location' of the CETLs in different kinds of real, social and imagined space. This enables an examination of the ways in which CETLs were both 'within' and 'without' their institution, both reflecting the institutional culture which created them and yet were also necessarily 'other'. The paper concludes with some speculation on some characteristics of funded teaching and learning projects in general which are illuminated by the issues the CETLs faced about their location, their place, and their identity.

Thinking Beyond the Thomson Reuters “Impact Factor”

Thinking Beyond the Thomson Reuters “Impact Factor”

Open access for REF2020

Open access (OA) may have been the ‘big thing’ in 2013 but the OA juggernaut is still rolling and plans are now afoot for the requirements for the ‘next REF’ (which from now on we will refer to as REF2020). In 2013, on behalf of the four UK Funding Councils, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) undertook a two-stage consultation exercise on open access requirements for articles submitted to REF2020. There are a number of nuances and caveats to the current proposals. This article will reflect on what the probable rules might be, and their implications for research managers, administrators and institutional repository managers alike.

Seeking a fresh perspective: a research funder's view of open access

For open access (OA) to become a reality, all stakeholders will need to engage positively with each other to rise to the substantial practical challenges it brings. This means moving beyond advocacy and resistance towards a more mature, evidence-based dialogue that seeks to understand all perspectives and find workable solutions. For research funders, scholarly publication delivers crucial public benefits; funders' OA mandates should be seen as tools for maximizing these benefits. The Higher Education Funding Council for England's (HEFCE) policy for open access in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) has been put together by listening to all sides of the debate, and its success depends on continuing positive, sensitive and engaged discussions between everyone involved.

CT textural analysis of abdominal aortic aneurysms as a biomarker for aneurysm growth

BackgroundSize of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) does not account entirely for rate of expansion or risk of rupture. More accurate methods of risk stratification are needed. Textural analysis of aneurysm CT data (CTTA) provides one approach. CTTA measures heterogeneity within standard CT images. Greater heterogeneity in tumours corresponds with adverse pathological features such as hypoxia and neovascularisation, and predicts reduced survival. In this study, we prospectively tested CTTA in AAA, assessing its association with annual expansion and need for intervention. In addition, we assessed the correlation between CTTA and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake on PET, a marker of AAA inflammation. MethodsPatients with small and medium AAA underwent contrast CT and FDG PET with usual surveillance. CTTA (TexRAD software) was used on CT images from the sac and shoulder of each aneurysm. Fine, medium, and coarse CT textures were quantified with histogram-based parameters (standard deviation [SD], kurtosis, and entropy). Non-parametric statistical testing was used to assess significant correlations. Findings63 patients with a mean AAA diameter of 4·3 cm (SD 0·7) were included. Median annual expansion was 0·1 cm (IQR 0–0·3), with 13 patients requiring surgery across a median follow-up of 2·3 years (1·9–3·3). Shoulder CTTA kurtosis for medium texture was positively correlated with annual AAA growth (r=0·338 p=0·027). Shoulder CTTA entropy was significantly higher in patients who went on to require surgery (unfiltered images p=0·035), suggesting more heterogeneity in these patients. There were significant correlations between CTTA parameters and PET standardised uptake value in both the sac and shoulder—positive correlations with SD (sac, unfiltered r=0·313, p=0·012; shoulder, fine textures r=0·270, p=0·033), and inverse correlations with kurtosis (sac, unfiltered r=−0·330, p=0·008; sac, fine textures r=−3·03, p=0·017; shoulder, fine textures r=−0·247, p=0·051). InterpretationOur findings suggest that CTTA analysis can provide useful prognostic information about AAA. CT heterogeneity might be correlated with corresponding AAA FDG PET signal. CTTA parameters can be derived from standard CT images, potentially providing a straightforward and cost-effective means of risk stratification. FundingNational Institute for Health Research, Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Training costs fall by 80 percent at Northumberland County Council

Purpose – Explains how Northumberland County Council in England cut its training costs by 80 percent. Design/methodology/approach – Describes how a new learning-management system has improved efficiency, access and course quality and opened up new opportunities for the future. Findings – Charts the benefits as: a new online-appraisal process that will link individual performance objectives with individual and team learning and development plans; the future development of 360-degree feedback tools that will provide employees with the ability to seek and receive objective feedback on their performance and how their managers, peers and customers feel that they demonstrate the competencies and behavioral-success factors espoused by the council; having one central place for learning and improving consistency of delivery that will meet the needs of the council and its partners; savings in time and money from delivering training more quickly than with a traditional classroom approach; effective management of programs and the ability to avoid costly licensing fees; swift updates to learning, saving time and money; and extensive support offered by Learning Pool, the team that installed the learning-management system. Practical implications – Demonstrates how savings have been achieved through a combination of: online training in place of more than 10,000 hours of classroom delivery; self-service functionality for course bookings, which has saved more than 1,200 hours of administration time; the creation of more than 20 hours of bespoke content; and a reduction in CO2 omissions and fuel savings, all while improving consistency and scalability. Originality/value – Provides the inside story of how a 6,000-plus employee council revolutionized its training delivery and made significant savings into the bargain.

UCARIS – Making the Most of Your Current Resources

This paper outlines the work carried out by the project team over the last three years to develop an in-house current information management system, focused on the specific need to gather information from across various departmental databases to fulfil the research excellence framework requirements for a specialist arts institution.The overall objective of the project was to support the university's successful submission to the REF2014 in November 2013. The system was used to collate relevant information from various institutional databases and transfer this to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Submission System, thereby increasing institutional efficiency by reducing repetition of data entry and saving time in checking and organising information.

Haye v General Teaching Council for England

Haye v General Teaching Council for England

The determinants of public trust in English local government: how important is the ethical behaviour of elected councillors?

One of the most difficult and under-examined issues in integrity research is understanding whether regulatory interventions designed to improve the ethical conduct of public bodies actually have any effect on public trust. In this article, we present the results of research which has sought to unpack this issue. Drawing on a large-scale public survey and case study analysis of nine local councils in England, the research examined the relative importance of ethical conduct (whether elected councillors displayed good behaviour) on public trust in local government. We found that contextual factors (such as the size of the population and its social and ethnic diversity) and the ethical standards and behaviour of councillors were among the more important determinants of public trust. The most important variable in explaining levels of public trust was how a council performed. Points for practitioners One of the aims of ethics regulation is to improve levels of trust by promoting changes in behaviour and providing some reassurance for the public. Our results show that councils with low levels of councillor misconduct and good performance generally enjoy higher levels of public trust. The behaviour of councillors and whether they told the truth were important determinants of public trust, but ‘good conduct’ is not always narrowly ‘caused’ by ethics regulation; rather, it may reflect the culture of an organization. Public trust is also determined by a range of contextual variables which are difficult for public institutions to steer.

Reading videogames as (authorless) literature

AbstractThis article presents the outcomes of research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in England and informed by work in the fields of new literacy research, gaming studies and the socio‐cultural framing of education, for which the videogame L. A. Noire was studied within the orthodox framing of the English literature curriculum at A level (pre‐university) and undergraduate (degree level) in the United Kingdom. A mixed methods approach was adopted. Firstly, students contributed to a gameplay blog requiring them to discuss their in‐game experience through the ‘language game’ of English literature, culminating in answering a question constructed with the idioms of the subject's set text ‘final examination’. Secondly, students taught their teachers to play L. A. Noire, with free choice over the context for this collaboration. Thirdly, participants returned to traditional roles to work through a set of study materials, designed to reproduce the conventions of the ‘study guide’ for literature education. Fourthly, interviews were conducted after each phase. The interviews informed a redrafting of the study materials, which are now available online for teachers. In the act of inserting the study of L. A. Noire into the English literature curriculum as currently framed, this research raises epistemological questions about ‘subject identity’, and the implications for digital transformations of texts for ideas about cultural value in schooled literacy and also the politics of ‘expertise’ in pedagogic relations.

Contemporary nursing wisdom in theUKand ethical knowing: difficulties in conceptualising the ethics of nursing

This paper's philosophical ideas are developed from a General Nursing Council for England and Wales Trust-funded study to explore nursing knowledge and wisdom and ways in which these can be translated into clinical practice and fostered in junior nurses. Participants using Carper's (1978) ways of knowing as a framework experienced difficulty conceptualizing a link between the empirics and ethics of nursing. The philosophical problem is how to understand praxis as a moral entity with intrinsic value when so much of value seems to be technical and extrinsic depending on desired ends. Using the Aristotelian terms poesis and praxis can articulate the concerns that the participants as well as Carper (1978) and Dreyfus (in Flyvbjerg, 1991) among others share that certain actions or ways of knowing important for nursing are being devalued and deformed by the importance placed on quantitative data and measurable outcomes. The sense of praxis is a moralized one and most of what nurses do is plausibly on any account of normative ethics a morally good thing; the articulation of the idea of praxis can go some way in showing how it is a part of the discipline of nursing. Nursing's acts as poesis can be a part of how practitioners come to have praxis as phronesis or practical wisdom. So to be a wise nurse, one needs be a wise person.