Australia's national asthma research agenda: Priorities for end-users of research

Introduction/Aim: The fifth objective of the 2018 National Asthma Strategy called for the development of a national research agenda. Asthma Australia and partners have completed this project: the National Asthma Research Agenda. Method(s): A national, mixed-method study design adapted from the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership was adopted. Comprising two discrete phases . A cross-sectional purposive survey of people with asthma, their careers, clinicians and public health professional. The survey findings were analysed thematically. Themes containing questions already answered by high quality research were removed. The project executive team approved the remaining list of themes for phase 2. Three consensus workshops were held comprising health and policy professionals, people with asthma, parents and people from diverse backgrounds to achieve consensus on prioritising and ranking the themes. Workshop participants did this under the guidance of a trained/skilled facilitator. The ranked themes from the workshops were filtered through a computer algorithm, resulting in a top ten list of asthma research priority themes. These themes summarise specific topics and questions and form the National Asthma Research Agenda. Result(s): 593 people completed the survey. Most respondents were female and had asthma. The top ten research priority themes are: Asthma in children Asthma and COVID-19 Asthma care and self-management Diagnosis and medication Managing asthma attacks Causes, prevention and features of asthma Mental health Asthma and ageing Severe asthma Asthma and other health conditions These themes include sub-topics, which reflect the specific inputs of the survey participants. Results were consistent among subgroups. Conclusion(s): The end-user methodology used has been useful in determining what's important to the people who rely on the answers provided by asthma research in Australia. This is a broad research agenda, which highlights the extent of research output that consumers require in order to manage asthma.

Faculty Perspectives of Academic Integrity During COVID-19: A Mixed Methods Study of Four Canadian Universities

Faculty members are crucial partners in promoting academic integrity at Canadian universities, but their needs related to academic integrity are neither well documented nor understood. To address this gap, we developed a mixed methods survey to gather faculty perceptions of facilitators and barriers to using the existing academic integrity procedures, policies, resources, and supports required to promote academic integrity. In this article, we report the data collected from 330 participants at four Canadian universities. Responses pointed to the importance of individual factors, such as duty to promote academic integrity, as well as contextual factors, such as teaching load, class size, class format, availability of teaching assistant support, and consistency of policies and procedures, in supporting or hindering academic integrity. We also situated these results within a micro (individual), meso (departmental), macro (institutional), and mega (community) framework. Results from this study contribute to the growing body of empirical evidence about faculty perspectives on academic integrity in Canadian higher education and can inform the continued development of existing academic integrity supports at universities. © 2022, Canadian Society for Studies in Higher Education. All rights reserved.

Core protocol for the adaptive Platform Trial In COVID-19 Vaccine priming and BOOsting (PICOBOO).

BACKGROUND: The need for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination in different age groups and populations is a subject of great uncertainty and an ongoing global debate. Critical knowledge gaps regarding COVID-19 vaccination include the duration of protection offered by different priming and booster vaccination regimens in different populations, including homologous or heterologous schedules; how vaccination impacts key elements of the immune system; how this is modified by prior or subsequent exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and future variants; and how immune responses correlate with protection against infection and disease, including antibodies and effector and T cell central memory. METHODS: The Platform Trial In COVID-19 priming and BOOsting (PICOBOO) is a multi-site, multi-arm, Bayesian, adaptive, randomised controlled platform trial. PICOBOO will expeditiously generate and translate high-quality evidence of the immunogenicity, reactogenicity and cross-protection of different COVID-19 priming and booster vaccination strategies against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants/subvariants, specific to the Australian context. While the platform is designed to be vaccine agnostic, participants will be randomised to one of three vaccines at trial commencement, including Pfizer's Comirnaty, Moderna's Spikevax or Novavax's Nuvaxovid COVID-19 vaccine. The protocol structure specifying PICOBOO is modular and hierarchical. Here, we describe the Core Protocol, which outlines the trial processes applicable to all study participants included in the platform trial. DISCUSSION: PICOBOO is the first adaptive platform trial evaluating different COVID-19 priming and booster vaccination strategies in Australia, and one of the few established internationally, that is designed to generate high-quality evidence to inform immunisation practice and policy. The modular, hierarchical protocol structure is intended to standardise outcomes, endpoints, data collection and other study processes for nested substudies included in the trial platform and to minimise duplication. It is anticipated that this flexible trial structure will enable investigators to respond with agility to new research questions as they arise, such as the utility of new vaccines (such as bivalent, or SARS-CoV-2 variant-specific vaccines) as they become available for use. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12622000238774. Registered on 10 February 2022.

Faculty Perspectives of Academic Integrity during Covid-19: A Mixed Methods Study of Four Canadian Universities

Faculty members are crucial partners in promoting academic integrity at Canadian universities, but their needs related to academic integrity are neither well documented nor understood. To address this gap, we developed a mixed methods survey to gather faculty perceptions of facilitators and barriers to using the existing academic integrity procedures, policies, resources, and supports required to promote academic integrity. In this article, we report the data collected from 330 participants at four Canadian universities. Responses pointed to the importance of individual factors, such as duty to promote academic integrity, as well as contextual factors, such as teaching load, class size, class format, availability of teaching assistant support, and consistency of policies and procedures, in supporting or hindering academic integrity. We also situated these results within a micro (individual), meso (departmental), macro (institutional), and mega (community) framework. Results from this study contribute to the growing body of empirical evidence about faculty perspectives on academic integrity in Canadian higher education and can inform the continued development of existing academic integrity supports at universities.

Facing the Ethical Challenges: Consumer Involvement in COVID-19 Pandemic Research.

Consumer involvement in clinical research is an essential component of a comprehensive response during emergent health challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the moderation of research policies and regulation to facilitate research may raise ethical issues. Meaningful, diverse consumer involvement can help to identify practical approaches to prioritize, design, and conduct rapidly developed clinical research amid current events. Consumer involvement might also elucidate the acceptability of flexible ethics review approaches that aim to protect participants whilst being sensitive to the challenging context in which research is taking place. This article describes the main ethical challenges arising from pandemic research and how involving consumers and the community could enable resolution of such issues.