Use Of Stakeholders Research Articles

Development of a core outcome set and identification of patient-reportable outcomes for primary brain tumour trials: protocol for the COBra study.

IntroductionPrimary brain tumours, specifically gliomas, are a rare disease group. The disease and treatment negatively impacts on patients and those close to them. The high rates of physical and cognitive morbidity differ from other cancers causing reduced health-related quality of life. Glioma trials using outcomes that allow holistic analysis of treatment benefits and risks enable informed care decisions. Currently, outcome assessment in glioma trials is inconsistent, hindering evidence synthesis. A core outcome set (COS) - an agreed minimum set of outcomes to be measured and reported - may address this. International initiatives focus on defining core outcomes assessments across brain tumour types. This protocol describes the development of a COS involving UK stakeholders for use in glioma trials, applicable across glioma types, with provision to identify subsets as required. Due to stakeholder interest in data reported from the patient perspective, outcomes from the COS that can be patient-reported will be identified.Methods and analysisStage I: (1) trial registry review to identify outcomes collected in glioma trials and (2) systematic review of qualitative literature exploring glioma patient and key stakeholder research priorities. Stage II: semi-structured interviews with glioma patients and caregivers. Outcome lists will be generated from stages I and II. Stage III: study team will remove duplicate items from the outcome lists and ensure accessible terminology for inclusion in the Delphi survey. Stage IV: a two-round Delphi process whereby the outcomes will be rated by key stakeholders. Stage V: a consensus meeting where participants will finalise the COS. The study team will identify the COS outcomes that can be patient-reported. Further research is needed to match patient-reported outcomes to available measures.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval was obtained (REF SMREC 21/59, Cardiff University School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee). Study findings will be disseminated widely through conferences and journal publication. The final COS will be adopted and promoted by patient and carer groups and its use by funders encouraged.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021236979.

Developing a core outcome set for periodontal trials.

There is no agreement which outcomes should be measured when investigating interventions for periodontal diseases. It is difficult to compare or combine studies with different outcomes; resulting in research wastage and uncertainty for patients and healthcare professionals. Develop a core outcome set (COS) relevant to key stakeholders for use in effectiveness trials investigating prevention and management of periodontal diseases. Mixed method study involving literature review; online Delphi Study; and face-to-face consensus meeting. Key stakeholders: patients, dentists, hygienist/therapists, periodontists, researchers. The literature review identified 37 unique outcomes. Delphi round 1: 20 patients and 51 dental professional and researchers prioritised 25 and suggested an additional 11 outcomes. Delphi round 2: from the resulting 36 outcomes, 13 patients and 39 dental professionals and researchers prioritised 22 outcomes. A face-to-face consensus meeting was hosted in Dundee, Scotland by an independent chair. Eight patients and six dental professional and researchers participated. The final COS contains: Probing depths, Quality of life, Quantified levels of gingivitis, Quantified levels of plaque, Tooth loss. Implementation of this COS will ensure the results of future effectiveness trials for periodontal diseases are more relevant to patients and dental professionals, reducing research wastage. This could reduce uncertainty for patients and dental professionals by ensuring the evidence used to inform their choices is meaningful to them. It could also strengthen the quality and certainty of the evidence about the relative effectiveness of interventions. COMET Database: http://www.comet-initiative.org/studies/details/265?result=true.

Effective Virtual Teaching through the Interactive and Inexpensive Teaching Laboratory Data Management (TLDM) System

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted a significant number of on-campus and in-person activitiesto an online, virtual setting. This has caused difficulty in achieving the same learning outcomes in the absence of in-person interaction, particularly for lab courses. In 2014, the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at The University of British Columbia developed and implemented a Teaching Laboratory Data Management (TLDM) system to improve the delivery andeffectiveness of lab-based courses. The TLDM system guides students through experimental calculations and automates a significant amount of grading for instructors. The TLDM system aided the department to better adapt to online lab courses and was integral to the virtual instruction of lab courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through conducting surveys and group feedback sessions with students, teaching assistants (TAs) and instructors, we found that the TLDM systemhas been well received by all three groups of stakeholders for use in online lab courses, and provides several key benefits. Namely, it helps students understand the calculations involved in experiments and provides an effective substitute for in-person lab activities, while reducing workload for TAs and instructors. The TLDM system can potentially be a great tool to complementonline courses around the world in an inexpensive way.

Reconsidering healthcare evidence as dynamic and distributed: the role of information and cognition.

The basic thrust of evidence-based healthcare is that current best evidence should be used explicitly and judiciously for diagnosis, management, and other activities in healthcare settings. For this to be possible, researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders must have a clear and accurate conceptualization of what constitutes 'evidence' in healthcare environments, and the manner in which it is used in decision-making and other activities. Currently, the dominant conceptualization of evidence is that of a body of information that can be retrieved by stakeholders for use in healthcare practice. The aim of this article is to critically examine the concept of evidence, particularly in light of recent models of human cognition and information use in decision-making and other cognitive activities. In this theoretical article, we employ both analytical and synthetic methods to critically examine the concepts under investigation. Key concepts, such as evidence and information, and the essential relationships between them are analyzed from the vantage point of cognitive science, information science, and other relevant disciplines to explicate a conceptualization of evidence that moves past static and objectivist accounts. We demonstrate that evidence is fundamentally information that takes various forms-i.e., artifacts, mental structures, or communication processes. Specific forms and manifestations of evidence can thus be described in the context of information use in dynamic information environments. Furthermore, evidence-based healthcare activities are shown to be fundamentally cognitive in nature. For any given evidence-based healthcare activity, its quality and outcome can be understood in the context of how different sources of evidence are coordinated within a distributed cognitive system. In this sense, evidence based health care activity becomes more a matter of understanding the movement of information and knowledge within a distributed and dynamic cognitive system than mere access to or translation of a ready-at-hand resource. The conceptualization of evidence presented in this article has a number of implications for evidence-based healthcare-in terms of where attention is focused, the direction of future research efforts, how evidence generation, use, and practice are conceptualized and discussed, and how healthcare technologies are designed and evaluated. Furthermore, the conceptualization presented in this article has implications for the manner in which evidence 'hierarchies' are developed. Such hierarchies do not provide a complete picture of evidence and the way it is used in healthcare activities. Understanding the dynamic nature of evidence and its role in distributed cognitive activities may lead to more robust and multi-faceted taxonomies, frameworks, and hierarchies related to evidence-based healthcare.

Roles for Education in Development and Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices for Community Programs for Older Adults

It is essential for key stakeholders in evidence-based practice (EBP) to be informed about barriers and achievements in EBP and collaborate in developing and implementing EBP. This article provides information to assist educators, students, practitioners, clients, and researchers who are stakeholders in use of EBP in community-based aging programs to understand barriers to EBP and approaches for developing and implementing EBP. Highlighting roles of education in EBP, the authors describe barriers to EBP; use of education to address gaps among research, education, and practice for EBP; cultural competence; and educational approaches for community-based implementation. EBP has been central to development of quality health and social services for older adults, but challenges remain in translation of research findings into EBP. Examples of programs in which research, education, and practice are linked for provision of EBP, as well as educational resources and tools for developing and implementing EBP, are identified.

A QUAINT Tool: Quantitative Uniform Analysis of Instructor Talent

In todays educational landscape, subject areas that involve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are receiving renewed attention in part due to the rapid proliferation of technology in our daily lives and in the marketplace. One of the most important factors affecting the quality of a STEM education is the quality of the instructor delivering the material. Despite the recognized importance of the instructor in the educational process, there exists no common, quantitative method to determine how effective or valuable the instructor actually is. We present the QUAINT methodology for determining the value of a college level instructor using an analytical and quantitative process. This methodology employs a systems analysis approach in understanding the primary functions and value measures that define an instructors worth. The model incorporates information from a set of stakeholder interviews, focus groups and surveys from all levels of the academic spectrum ranging from Dean of Academics to everyday students. Using value modeling, we are able to create a quantitative assessment based on the input of stakeholders for use in assessing individual instructors or comparing a group of instructors with diverse strengths.

Constructing a legitimate argument — Narrative techniques in the Ghana-EU VPA

This paper illustrates how an explicit focus on policy practitioner's use of narrative techniques in their policy arguments can be a way to identify when in the policy process risks of ‘good policies’ becoming ‘un-implementable’ emerge. A typology is developed identifying six specific types of narrative techniques used in policy argumentation: Framing, omission, fitting facts, means-to-aims, glorifying, and scapegoating. The typology is used for analysing how stakeholders involved in the Ghana-EU FLEGT VPA use narrative techniques to construct their policy arguments and the implications of this use. The paper shows that a focus on interviewed stakeholder's use of narrative techniques enables the identification of potential areas of tension and contradictions in the narratives upon which the Ghana-VPA is built. It is argued, that the identified use of narrative techniques is to be seen as a result of an implicit urge among stakeholders to ensure consistency in their arguments rather than strategic misappropriations. The implications of research findings for the practical feasibility of the Ghana-EU VPA and the general applicability of the suggested typology are discussed.

The Chemistry Scoring Index (CSI): A Hazard-Based Scoring and Ranking Tool for Chemicals and Products Used in the Oil and Gas Industry

A large portfolio of chemicals and products is needed to meet the wide range of performance requirements of the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas industry is under increased scrutiny from regulators, environmental groups, the public, and other stakeholders for use of their chemicals. In response, industry is increasingly incorporating “greener” products and practices but is struggling to define and quantify what exactly constitutes “green” in the absence of a universally accepted definition. We recently developed the Chemistry Scoring Index (CSI) which is ultimately intended to be a globally implementable tool that comprehensively scores and ranks hazards to human health, safety, and the environment for products used in oil and gas operations. CSI scores are assigned to products designed for the same use (e.g., surfactants, catalysts) on the basis of product composition as well as intrinsic hazard properties and data availability for each product component. As such, products with a lower CSI score within a product use group are considered to have a lower intrinsic hazard compared to other products within the same use group. The CSI provides a powerful tool to evaluate relative product hazards; to review and assess product portfolios; and to aid in the formulation of products.

On impact factors and university rankings: from birth to boycott

In this essay we explore parallels in the birth, evolution and final ‘banning’ of journal impact factors (IFs) and university rankings (URs). IFs and what has become popularized as global URs (GURs) were born in 1975 and 2003, respectively, and the obsession with both ‘tools’ has gone global. They have become important instruments for a diverse range of academic and higher education issues (IFs: e.g. for hiring and promoting faculty, giving and denying faculty tenure, distributing research funding, or administering institutional evaluations; URs: e.g. for reforming university/ department curricula, faculty recruitment, promotion and wages, funding, student admissions and tuition fees). As a result, both IFs and GURs are being heavily advertised — IFs in publishers’ webpages and GURs in the media as soon as they are released. However, both IFs and GURs have been heavily criticized by the scientific community in recent years. As a result, IFs (which, while originally intended to evaluate journals, were later misapplied in the evaluation of scientific performance) were recently ‘banned’ by different academic stakeholders for use in ‘evaluations’ of individual scientists, individual articles, hiring/promotion and funding proposals. Similarly, URs and GURs have also led to many boycotts throughout the world, probably the most recent being the boycott of the German ‘Centrum fuer Hochschulentwicklung’ (CHE) rankings by German sociologists. Maybe (and hopefully), the recent banning of IFs and URs/GURs are the first steps in a process of academic self-reflection leading to the insight that higher education must urgently take control of its own metrics.

Equity dimensions of micro-generation: A whole systems approach

Micro-generation represents one technology ready option for making the low carbon transition. Energy choices we make in the present have implications for future generations. Existing methods for formulating energy policy and assessing the suitability of micro-generation technology often concentrate upon a subset of issues relating to specific economic criteria or policy targets or on one technology, but often fail to adopt a whole systems approach or consider present or future equity issues. Important factors are often overlooked leading to poorly implemented policy or unsatisfactory technology deployment. There is a clear need for a process or assessment methodology that focuses upon equity while making choices relating to micro or small-scale generation projects. This paper describes an integrated whole systems methodology developed heuristically by a wide range of interdisciplinary stakeholders for use by groups of decision makers when assessing the equity aspects of micro-generation projects. The paper discusses the desirable attributes that this type of assessment should have and outlines the merits of the whole systems approach. Steps taken to develop, test, and refine the methodology using case studies are discussed. The equity issues arising from each case study are examined in wider context by quantifying the impact micro or small-scale generation could have within English households of varying age and tenure in a range of settings including a real community case study. This provides a snapshot of where equity issues manifest themselves and considers the numbers of households they affect. Using the methodology and focusing upon equity has allowed recommendations to be made that could inform future energy policy.