Monthly Archives: April 2014

How to get started on E-learning

Eva GerdtsThere is a need for the implementation of new, student activating teaching methods.  This will be the main topic of this year’s Exam and teaching seminar which will be arranged on Wednesday 17.09.14 at Hotel Terminus.  Remember to set aside the date now!

The medical faculties in Norway are cooperation on a national platform for e-learning resources. Harald Wiker is our contact person for the development of e-learning resources both in DIGUiB and towards the national e-learning platform.  As a starting point all lecturers are encouraged to contact the IT department at brita and apply for access to the program Camtasia Relay.  With this program you may create video-recordings for e-learning at your own PC.  Dean of Education, Arne Tjølsen, has created a user manual (in Norwegian).

Good luck!

Eva

Public defence week 18

Lara A. Aqrawi will have her public defence on Wednesday April 30, 2014.
Trial lecture: Tuesday April 29, 2014, 14:15
Topic: «B cells in the immunopathological context of Sjögren’s syndrome»
Public defence: Wednesday April 30, 2014, 10:15
Place: Auditorium 1, BB-building, Jonas Lies vei 91
Title of dissertation: “B cell specificity and pattern in primary Sjögren’s syndrome – studies in humans and a murine model”
1st opponent: Professor Jacques-Olivier Pers, University of Brest, France
2nd opponent: Associate Professor Per Eriksson, University of Linköping, Sweden
Press release

National research education conference

UiStavanger logoUniversity of Stavanger is hosting the annual national conference on research education, June 2-3 2014. The conference is held by UHR’s forum for research education. The title of this year’s conference is “The
PhD education is changing – perspectives and consequences”. Registration deadline is May 2nd. For more information (in Norwegian).

Alumni Days 9 and 10 May

Per BakkeI will use this column to strike a blow for the Alumni Days. What is alumni? The word alumni is Latin and means former pupils at a school. Alumni enterprise means to establish ties between alumni and their university

University of Bergen invites for the first time to Alumni Days Friday 9th and Saturday 10th of May. It will be an eventful weekend with academic replenishment, happy reunion and social activities at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, and the entire University.
Everyone who are studying, have studied or are employed at UoB is considered UoB alumni.

UoB Alumni is a meeting place for alumni, academic groups and students associated with the University of Bergen. The alumni portal UoB Alumni is the tool used to convey information and contact. Register as UoB alumni here.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Easter and hope that people charge their batteries!

Per

Waste in the room for risk waste in the 9th floor, lab-building

At times there have been a great deal of uncollected waste in this room. This is due to several reasons:

  • inadequately filled out declaration form
  • the waste has not been marked with declaration number
  • the red boxes have been sealed, thus making it impossible to check the contents

farlig avfallIt turns out that we have been given the wrong type of red waste boxes. We should only use the boxes with hinges on one side, not the ones with removable lids. The idea is that the declaration form will lie inside the box, since the lid can be opened. There may be several types of waste with different declaration forms in the same box, but it is important that the declaration number is written on the correct waste. The waste will be removed from the box at the waste centre, and the boxes will be reused. The following documents have thorough descriptions: «Handling of dangerous waste» («Håndtering av farlig avfall») which you can find at Innsiden under Hospitaldrift Transport and «Guidelines for filling out declaration forms» («Veileder for utfylling av deklarasjonsskjema») in Helse-Bergen’s electronic quality handbook (both sites require a log in).

Remember to fill out the declaration forms correctly. Miljøhallen may help you if you have questions. Contact Pål Andersen (section manager) at 7-2583 or Aspjørn Gelin (Unit leader) at 7-2550.

Declaration forms must be ordered from Sentralforsyningen, form number 202 580. Clear waste cans, cones and red boxes may be ordered from the porters in the lab-building (tlf. 7-7892) or Miljøhallen (tlf. 7-6930). Blue plastic waste cans will no longer be used. The clear cans will now be sent for destruction, and will not be reused like before.

Information about transportation and mail during Easter

påske

There will only be one round of mail delivery April 14-15. There will be no mail delivery on Wednesday. TPS is open until 12:00 and external post going out that day must be in by 10:30.

The Campus Bus will go as usual April 14-15. No bus on Wednesday April 16.

The unit for material, moving and other transportation is closed all of Easter, from Monday April 14 to Monday April 21.

All units, institutes and faculties that are closed during Easter should report to TPS on e-mail.

For more information (in Norwegian).

Extension of the agreement between the UoB and the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)

UoB signed an agreement with NSD in February 2006 that NSD should be the privacy protection authorities for research projects that deal with personal information under the Personal Data Act. Due to the Health Research Act UoB is now in dialogue with NSD to revise and expand the agreement to include research covered by the Health Research Act. For more information (in Norwegian).

Important information about applications and application deadlines

We are creating a process this spring with the Research Council of Norway’s FRIPRO applications, with deadline May 21st. See schedule (in Norwegian).

Here is a short description of FRIPRO

Here you can find an overview of the health research programs of NFR (in Norwegian).

NFR is also including the calls from EU, H2020. You will  find the deadlines here (in Norwegian). First deadline is at 25th of March for ERC young researchers.

NB!!! IMPORTANT! The institute MUST approve applications at least  two weeks before the deadline to get rent and administration costs covered for employees of the Cancer Society, BMFS, BFS and Jebsen.

Symposium about clinical studies

logo oslo og akershusThe research group Aging, health and welfare will hold the symposium: “What is the best way to conduct a randomised controlled study on clinical patient based research?” The symposium will address guidelines for the implementing of a randomised controlled study and assessment of quality, and the challenges that follow these guidelines to reach a high quality of clinical patient based research. The symposium will be held Tuesday May 13, 09:30-15:00, in Pilestredet 46, PA 308, Oslo. For more information (in Norwegian).
Registration must be sent to Astrid Bergland.

This week`s Editorial

Roland Jonsson

Scientific publishing, expert committee and nominations for level 1 and 2

As you all know, institutions (for example UiB) are accredited for scientific publications authored by persons acknowledging affiliation with the institutional unit at the time of publishing (through author affiliations included in the publication). The units are credited based on the share of the publication’s authors affiliated with the unit. This is called author shares. Thus it is important that addresses etc. are correct in Cristin and here the responsibility rests on the individual institution (read: also researcher).

The national measurement system for scientific publications is based on a subdivision of scientific publications in various levels based on an evaluation of the quality of the journals.  The purpose of a quality division of journals is to stimulate high quality output when publishing scientific articles. When the publication channel has level 1 or 2 it means that it is of approved standard, and level 2 channels have the highest international prestige (about 20 % of all scientific journals within respective disciplines).

NSD is case handling level 1 channels, whereas UHRs’ Publication council is coordinating the placement of level 2 channels. This is done based on feedback from UHR’s many national expert committees. The national expert committee you will find here.

You may search for any scientific journal at NDS‘s publication channel register.

In order to find out where “your” scientific journals are situated, you may read pages 4 and 5 in the following letter. This was sent out together with the nomination process last autumn 2013.  Here you will find links to all scientific journals in medicine, sorted into academic sub-disciplines. Note that changes done last autumn will not be updated in this letter (which was sent out prior to the nominating).

If you wish to suggest changes in levels 1 and/or 2 within your academic area you may contact the national expert committee or NSD which is responsible for administering centralized services for the documentation system, such as registers for authorized publication channels (scientific journals, series and publishers):

Procedures for suggestions to the register (in Norwegian):

 Description of procedures for adding new channels to the register, with focus on how user suggestions are processed.

Criteria for approval of new publication channels (in Norwegian): Information about criteria used to evaluate new channels.

System for research documentation (in Norwegian): Information about the model for the documentation system.

Deadline for suggesting new channels within the reporting year 2014 is November 30.

Roland

Information to groups wanting to apply MSC-ITN with deadline April 9

Unlike most other project types in the Horizon2020, you cannot apply for coverage of salary costs through these training networks. Instead, a fixed sum is given for salary. The difference between the payment from the project and actual salary cost for a PhD at UoB is approximately 200.000 NOK/year. This difference was formerly covered through NFR’s supplementary financing of Marie Curie candidates with the so-called IS-TOPP scheme. It appears that this scheme will no longer be available in the Horizon2020.

The management wants the University’s communities to apply, and therefore will UoB warrant for these costs – if the scheme from NFR is removed.

For more information (in Norwegian).