Wednesday 18 January 2017
Monday 16 January 2017
Blue Monday and the problem of junk science
Today is Blue Monday which, if you believe the annual news reports, is the most depressing day of the year. In this article Dr Andrew Bell - a lecturer in Quantitative Social Sciences at the Sheffield Methods Institute - explains why this is not the case, and why this type of reporting is cause for concern.
Andrew is an academic on the free course How to Make Sense of Data in the Media which will be running again later in the year. This article first appeared on the Futurelearn blog.
It’s Blue Monday, so you might be feeling pretty low today. Alternatively, you probably feel much like you did last Monday.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, for the last 10 years, the 3rd Monday of each year has been awash with tabloid articles about the ‘research’ conducted for travel company Sky Travel, reporting on ‘scientific’ evidence that today is the most miserable day of the year (or possibly it’s next week, depending on who you ask). Accompanying these articles are a similar quantity of news articles debunking the theory, and bemoaning the presence of junk science in the media.
Andrew is an academic on the free course How to Make Sense of Data in the Media which will be running again later in the year. This article first appeared on the Futurelearn blog.
It’s Blue Monday, so you might be feeling pretty low today. Alternatively, you probably feel much like you did last Monday.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, for the last 10 years, the 3rd Monday of each year has been awash with tabloid articles about the ‘research’ conducted for travel company Sky Travel, reporting on ‘scientific’ evidence that today is the most miserable day of the year (or possibly it’s next week, depending on who you ask). Accompanying these articles are a similar quantity of news articles debunking the theory, and bemoaning the presence of junk science in the media.
There are enough articles showing that Blue Monday doesn’t exist – I won’t add to them. So why write this? Is any of this ‘Blue Monday’ debate even important? I believe it is, and not because it matters whether Blue Monday exists or not.
Why ‘Blue Monday’ is important regardless of if it exists
First, stories like this devalue real evidence: real findings about the world that actually do matter to people. Hundreds of researchers across the world are working to find things out that will better society. When they find things out that are important, we need to know about it, and we can’t do that if it is buried by stories about chocolate helping you lose weight (it doesn’t).
Second, stories like this make the news media less valuable. When we no longer see value in the news as a source of reliable information, what does it provide? A source of entertainment perhaps, but I think we should be striving for more than that.
And third, when we live in a world where real evidence is undervalued, and the aim of the media is to provide for the whims of the masses rather than actual information, it becomes dangerous. When a headline suggests that one in five Muslims support violent Jihadis (they don’t), or that climate change is a myth (it isn’t), people who read these are affected – presence in even the least reputable newspaper implies a veneer of truth, so readers’ beliefs may change or be hardened, or readers may feel offended, or ostracised. And that is bad for the world when the story is, in fact, junk, and its conclusions can lead to bad personal and policy decisions.
How can we improve our understanding?
So, is there anything that can be done to change the way the media works, and make it value good evidence more highly? Whilst there are many examples of excellent journalism out there, junk science and junk media are probably not going anywhere any time soon. As a result, we as readers and consumers of the media need to learn how to process it. We need to be able to dig deeper into stories, and make our own decisions about what is real, what matters, and what we can, and should ignore. We need to take responsibility for what we believe and what we do not.
That is the reason why my colleagues and I at the Sheffield Methods Institute have produced a new Futurelearn course on Making Sense of Data in the Media as well as creating a new undergraduate degree to ‘level-up’ our students’ quantitative social science skills. Whilst it is not reasonable to expect everyone to understand all the complex statistics that are reported in the media, there are some simple things that we can do as readers to help us be critical about the findings that we see. By signing up to the course, we can help you learn the skills to do this.
In the meantime, don’t feel too down. After all, apparently the happiest day of the year is only a few months away!
Tuesday 10 January 2017
Durham Blackboard Users Conference 2017
Last week was the annual Durham Blackboard Users Conference, and once again I was lucky enough to be able to attend. As it’s a conference organised by and for users, it is always a very useful and productive event and over the last few years I have brought back so many great ideas to build on.
On the day before the conference there are a number of parallel workshops running, and I attended
the Blackboard Mobile User Group meeting, which was both a face-to-face and video conference meeting as there were users attending from Europe as well as those unable to get to Durham. The user groups are set up and run by users (I set up and run the North England Group) so this is a chance to really engage in what other institutions are doing round the country, both in HE and FE. We got the chance to share what we are currently doing with mobile apps and Blackboard apps (MOLE runs on Blackboard Learn) and it was comforting to find out that we are all in pretty much the same place at the moment, as this gives us the chance to share and build on practice and influence the direction of app development as a whole community.
Day one of the conference kicked off with a welcome from Durham and the usual humorous introduction to the conference theme (always decided by delegates at the end of the previous conference) from Malcolm Murray. This year the theme was Ticked Off: Towards Better Assessment and Feedback. The opening keynote was from Dr Susie Schofield of the University of Dundee, who runs the largest MMEd course in the world, largely online and delved in to translating evidence-based principles into improving feedback practices. Following on from that were sessions from Chris Slack of Leeds University who was returning with a follow on from last year regarding their implementation of the Enterprise Survey Tool. This showed real time and cost savings from moving these from alternative survey methods to the Blackboard Learn tool. The afternoon covered sessions from Content Collection usage from Derby University and an interesting delve into the world of gamification from Malcolm Murray of Durham. The day wrapped up with a look at the new accessibility tool that Blackboard have released called Ally, which looks a very powerful app that can convert content on the fly to a number differing accessible formats.
Day two started with a keynote from Alan Masson from Blackboard, discussing their take on assessment and feedback and how they are developing their approach to support us in this area. We also go to meet Phill Miller from Blackboard, who had some rather refreshing things to say about the company, the way things had developed over the last few years and how he wants to drive the company away from ‘Truthiness’. The rest of day two covered the ASR Database access (for those of us who are system admins) from John Langford of Edge Hill University and a meeting of the UK Usergroup Leaders, which is a regular meeting at Durham as most of us are usually there. This is one of the many examples of the excellent community network I have the pleasure of being part of, and something that brings many benefits to us. My last session of the conference was taking a look at Numbas, which is a maths assessment tool developed by the University of Newcastle. This was very timely for me, as we have recently been looking at how we can improve the difficulties of handling maths in an online environment. It was very useful to get to speak to Chris from Newcastle as we have actually started to consider this for testing. Having seen it and spoken to them, I hope we can get this in to testing soon as it’s looks very good indeed.
Of course, around all these sessions is the chance to meet people, both new faces and old friends and colleagues, and get a chance to talk about the issues we are facing, the ideas we have and the things we would like. I took the chance to talk to several people about how they are using Kaltura, as we are now embarking on that journey, and th support we have there if needed we certainly help us as we progress with this. We get to have a drink and some good food too, of course :) This is the most powerful part of any conference, particularly this one and it’s something that will continue to help us develop in to the future. It was, as ever, a very good conference.
 |
| My turn at the usergroup Photo by Maria Tannant |
the Blackboard Mobile User Group meeting, which was both a face-to-face and video conference meeting as there were users attending from Europe as well as those unable to get to Durham. The user groups are set up and run by users (I set up and run the North England Group) so this is a chance to really engage in what other institutions are doing round the country, both in HE and FE. We got the chance to share what we are currently doing with mobile apps and Blackboard apps (MOLE runs on Blackboard Learn) and it was comforting to find out that we are all in pretty much the same place at the moment, as this gives us the chance to share and build on practice and influence the direction of app development as a whole community.
 |
| Malcolm Murray opens the conference Photo by Paul Durston |
Day two started with a keynote from Alan Masson from Blackboard, discussing their take on assessment and feedback and how they are developing their approach to support us in this area. We also go to meet Phill Miller from Blackboard, who had some rather refreshing things to say about the company, the way things had developed over the last few years and how he wants to drive the company away from ‘Truthiness’. The rest of day two covered the ASR Database access (for those of us who are system admins) from John Langford of Edge Hill University and a meeting of the UK Usergroup Leaders, which is a regular meeting at Durham as most of us are usually there. This is one of the many examples of the excellent community network I have the pleasure of being part of, and something that brings many benefits to us. My last session of the conference was taking a look at Numbas, which is a maths assessment tool developed by the University of Newcastle. This was very timely for me, as we have recently been looking at how we can improve the difficulties of handling maths in an online environment. It was very useful to get to speak to Chris from Newcastle as we have actually started to consider this for testing. Having seen it and spoken to them, I hope we can get this in to testing soon as it’s looks very good indeed.Of course, around all these sessions is the chance to meet people, both new faces and old friends and colleagues, and get a chance to talk about the issues we are facing, the ideas we have and the things we would like. I took the chance to talk to several people about how they are using Kaltura, as we are now embarking on that journey, and th support we have there if needed we certainly help us as we progress with this. We get to have a drink and some good food too, of course :) This is the most powerful part of any conference, particularly this one and it’s something that will continue to help us develop in to the future. It was, as ever, a very good conference.
 |
| First night networking - often the best place to learn stuff Photo courtesy of Fraser McLeish |
Monday 9 January 2017
Getting Creative With Science
‘Science is not finished until it is communicated’
- Sir Mark Jeremy Walport, Government Chief Scientific Advisor
Dr Millie Mockford from Animal
and Plant Sciences believes that effective communication is essential for a wide
range of careers, and that it is a fundamental responsibility for scientists.
This passion has resulted in an
innovative Level 2 module called Talking the Talk:
Getting Science onto Film, that has immersed her students into a previously unknown world of storyboards, cutaways and 'two shots'.
The Digital Academic Content Team in CiCS
had the opportunity to speak to Millie and her colleagues involved in this
module - you can find out more about it in the video below:
Students were given the task of
creating a short film suitable for a general audience (think The One Show!) to explain how an aspect of modern biological research is relevant to
them personally. Not an easy task, especially considering this had to be done
in a week. There was no scope for a David Attenborough – esque 6 month shoot
here.
During the week long course, students had practical advice from Matt Pitts Tucker, (a graduate from
the department and now a freelance Producer / Director), training from the
University of Sheffield Enterprise Academy, a visit from Mike
Dilger and editing workshops from the Creative Media Team in The Diamond.
Alongside all of this, students
were researching, planning and scripting their videos, arranging interviews
with contributors, scouting locations, filming in and around Sheffield,
searching for appropriately licensed images & music, and editing together the
finished videos.
"To see the students being curious, and expressing their creativity through a new medium, that's fantastic" - Prof Mike Siva-Jothy, Head of Animal & Plant Sciences
The students worked closely with
the Creative Media Team
in the Diamond during the production phase of the week. The team has a whole
range of camera equipment available for hire, and provided an editing workshop, as well as ongoing support with the post production. The Creative Media Team is
an invaluable resource for this kind of project, and their services are freely available for all
students across the university.
"I think I'll look back at this module as being one of the highlights of my university career" - Student from the module
The finished films, along with some videos that explore the key themes of the course are available on iTunesU.
Friday 6 January 2017
Helping to improve the standards for forensic science work
Our new, free, online course Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr X traces the investigation of a real crime case to examine how forensic science techniques can be used to determine the identity of an unknown person.
The ‘Body in the Bag’ was a murder case, which was solved using forensic techniques, including a facial reconstruction of the victim, who police had called ‘Mr X’. The hunt to identify ‘Mr X’, however, is only part of the story, as the course also seeks to provide an insight into the different pathways that can lead to a career in forensic science.
Dr Katherine Linehan, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Biomedical Science, wanted to create a resource for students on her Forensic Anatomy module that would explain the application of facial reconstruction within the broader field of forensic science.
Dr Linehan approached the Online Learning Team to develop a course that would highlight the link between the rare technique of Facial Reconstruction and the subject of forensic anatomy, as well as the important role that this technique can play in police investigations.
In the case of Mr X, a forensic facial reconstruction was the key to identifying the victim and solving the crime.
The course features interviews with specialists in facial reconstruction, including Senior Forensic Scientist Nikki Taylor who conducted the original reconstruction of Mr X whilst working at The University of Sheffield, and Professor Caroline Wilkinson whose high-profile work includes Richard III, St Nicolas and J.S. Bach.
This year, all students enrolled on the Forensic Anatomy module will complete the FutureLearn course as part of their studies, marking the first occasion where Sheffield students have been invited to learn alongside the wider public in an online course.
It is our hope that this diverse cohort will create a rich learning experience, encouraging Sheffield students to share their advanced knowledge whilst also benefiting from the experiences of other learners who may include forensic experts and practitioners as well couch detectives.
This course comes at a time where standards in forensic science in England are at risk of slipping. Forensic Science Regulator, Gillian Tully has today warned that the quality of forensic science work in England and Wales is risking the integrity of the criminal justice system, calling for more funding for this vital work from the National Police Chiefs Council. Tully suggests that we face a loss in confidence in forensic science if statutory standards aren’t enforced.
This is where free online courses on forensic science can have a positive influence. Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr X will give learners a taste of higher-education teaching and an insight into how further study can lead to a career in forensic science. It is our hope that this course will inspire learners to continue their studies and seek a qualification, either at the University of Sheffield or elsewhere. Perhaps then, they’ll be able to play a part in raising the standards of the forensic sciences in the country.
Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr X is a free, open online course from the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield. It launches on the 6th February 2017 and you can learn more about at FutureLearn.
The ‘Body in the Bag’ was a murder case, which was solved using forensic techniques, including a facial reconstruction of the victim, who police had called ‘Mr X’. The hunt to identify ‘Mr X’, however, is only part of the story, as the course also seeks to provide an insight into the different pathways that can lead to a career in forensic science.
Dr Katherine Linehan, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Biomedical Science, wanted to create a resource for students on her Forensic Anatomy module that would explain the application of facial reconstruction within the broader field of forensic science.
Dr Linehan approached the Online Learning Team to develop a course that would highlight the link between the rare technique of Facial Reconstruction and the subject of forensic anatomy, as well as the important role that this technique can play in police investigations.
In the case of Mr X, a forensic facial reconstruction was the key to identifying the victim and solving the crime.
The course features interviews with specialists in facial reconstruction, including Senior Forensic Scientist Nikki Taylor who conducted the original reconstruction of Mr X whilst working at The University of Sheffield, and Professor Caroline Wilkinson whose high-profile work includes Richard III, St Nicolas and J.S. Bach.
This year, all students enrolled on the Forensic Anatomy module will complete the FutureLearn course as part of their studies, marking the first occasion where Sheffield students have been invited to learn alongside the wider public in an online course.
It is our hope that this diverse cohort will create a rich learning experience, encouraging Sheffield students to share their advanced knowledge whilst also benefiting from the experiences of other learners who may include forensic experts and practitioners as well couch detectives.
This course comes at a time where standards in forensic science in England are at risk of slipping. Forensic Science Regulator, Gillian Tully has today warned that the quality of forensic science work in England and Wales is risking the integrity of the criminal justice system, calling for more funding for this vital work from the National Police Chiefs Council. Tully suggests that we face a loss in confidence in forensic science if statutory standards aren’t enforced.
This is where free online courses on forensic science can have a positive influence. Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr X will give learners a taste of higher-education teaching and an insight into how further study can lead to a career in forensic science. It is our hope that this course will inspire learners to continue their studies and seek a qualification, either at the University of Sheffield or elsewhere. Perhaps then, they’ll be able to play a part in raising the standards of the forensic sciences in the country.
Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Finding Mr X is a free, open online course from the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield. It launches on the 6th February 2017 and you can learn more about at FutureLearn.
Wednesday 4 January 2017
Changes and Improvements to Adobe Connect in MOLE
Following feedback from users we fed back to the company that designed the integration for MOLE, and worked with them to improve both the speed and functionality of the product.
We have now implemented this new integration which means the following;
All sites should create a new Course Meeting Room
This will be the hub for all future sessions.
Once you have created this hub (including custom URL) you can then create multiple sessions by clicking Manage Sessions underneath the room name. All the permissions will be set by the room so you can just add a session, and users will be added to any new sessions you schedule.
I have created some new help guides that can be found here http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/adobe-connect/sessioncreation
We have now implemented this new integration which means the following;
All sites should create a new Course Meeting Room
This will be the hub for all future sessions.
Once you have created this hub (including custom URL) you can then create multiple sessions by clicking Manage Sessions underneath the room name. All the permissions will be set by the room so you can just add a session, and users will be added to any new sessions you schedule.
I have created some new help guides that can be found here http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/adobe-connect/sessioncreation