Live Project love: building a framework for Live Projects

Live projects adopt a wide range of approaches: design/ build, community engagement, participation, protest, analysis, etc. They are driven by tutors with passion, expertise and the ability to manage risk, in ways that exhibit fluency and high levels of skill. They also offer sites of student-led and community co-learning, can support research, demonstrate ‘impact’ and satisfy universities’ policies on outreach. Whilst the breadth and reach of Live Projects is now demonstrably wide, we still fail to fully locate Live Projects within a pedagogical context, tending instead to limit our descriptions and hence analysis to the architectural process and outcome. This failure to locate Live Projects within a pedagogical framework means we still struggle to encapsulate, critique, progress, and indeed, elevate the work.

This chapter draws on some of the case studies presented in recent papers and international conferences in order to provide educators with signposts and important overviews around which and in respect to they can develop their own pedagogical frameworks.

Systematic evaluation of patient-reported outcome (PRO) protocol content and reporting in UK cancer clinical trials: the EPiC study protocol

Introduction Emerging evidence suggests that patient-reported outcome (PRO)-specific information may be omitted in trial protocols and that PRO results are poorly reported, limiting the use of PRO data to inform cancer care. This study aims to evaluate the standards of PRO-specific content in UK cancer trial protocols and their arising publications and to highlight examples of best-practice PRO protocol content and reporting where they occur. The objective of this study is to determine if these early findings are generalisable to UK cancer trials, and if so, how best we can bring about future improvements in clinical trials methodology to enhance the way PROs are assessed, managed and reported. Hypothesis: Trials in which the primary end point is based on a PRO will have more complete PRO protocol and publication components than trials in which PROs are secondary end points.

Methods and analysis Completed National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Portfolio Cancer clinical trials (all cancer specialities/age-groups) will be included if they contain a primary/secondary PRO end point. The NIHR portfolio includes cancer trials, supported by a range of funders, adjudged as high-quality clinical research studies. The sample will be drawn from studies completed between 31 December 2000 and 1 March 2014 (n=1141) to allow sufficient time for completion of the final trial report and publication. Two reviewers will then review the protocols and arising publications of included trials to: (1) determine the completeness of their PRO-specific protocol content; (2) determine the proportion and completeness of PRO reporting in UK Cancer trials and (3) model factors associated with PRO protocol and reporting completeness and with PRO reporting proportion.

Ethics and dissemination The study was approved by the ethics committee at University of Birmingham (ERN_15-0311). Trial findings will be disseminated via presentations at local, national and international conferences, peer-reviewed journals and social media including the CPROR twitter account and UOB departmental website (http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/cpro0r).

Rotating Brains / Beating Heart:International collaborative performance with Stelarc, the virtual reality ensemble Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Pauline Oliveros, Martin Parker and saxophonist Franziska Schroeder.

The work ROTATING BRAINS / BEATING HEART was specifically developed for the opening performance of the 2010 DRHA conference. The conference’s theme ‘Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity explored collaborative relationships between the body and sensual/sensing technologies across various disciplines, looking to new approaches offered by various emerging fields and practices that incorporate new and existing technologies. The conference had a specific focus on SecondLife with roundtable events and discussions, led by performance artist Stelarc, as well as international participation via SecondLife.
The collaboration between Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse (AOM) and myself as the DRHA2010 conference program chair was a unique occurrence for this conference.

Commentary on International Copyright Act 1886

The Act enabling the British government to become a signatory to the Berne Convention, which Convention came into force on 5 December 1887. The commentary describes the nature and extent of British participation in the three conferences which led to the signing of the Berne Convention, against a backdrop of several unsuccessful attempts to reform and consolidate the British copyright regime, the importance of pursuing meaningful Anglo-American copyright negotiations, and the significance of imperial-colonial copyright relations. The commentary also explores the extent to which the cause of Irish Nationalism, and the case for Home Rule, dominated the political landscape in early 1886, so explaining why the opportunity of adhering to the Berne Convention did not also lead to substantive reform of the domestic copyright regime at this time.