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Hi. Do tables count within the word count? Thanks.

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Hi, how much of the ethics form needs including in the Appendix?

Does the whole document need appending or can it just be the signed section?

I'm just conscious that my full ethics form is 11 pages

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Hi Jo, The assignment brief for ARP is no longer showing on the Assessment tab - has it been deleted or just moved elsewhere ? please advise how I can find this thankyou 

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Hi Jo, The assignment brief for ARP is no longer showing on the Assessment tab - has it been deleted or just moved elsewhere ? please advise how I can find this thankyou 

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I understand a small number of you have experienced difficulty saving interview recordings within SHUs required drive. To allow for this interviews may be saved as audio only and compressed to increase storage space. I hope this is helpful however please do continue to raise any issues / concerns relating to research data storage etc. Many thanks, Jo

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Hi, if we're using Qualtrics is there a way to assign participation IDs?

I'm just conscious if someone completes a survey/ questionnaire and then changes their mind, how do we identify their responses?

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Hi, is it possible to see past ARP examples from DA students. I am currently writing my literature review and struggling to work out if i am writing too much or too little...

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Hi, aware that dissertations have a certain cover sheet, format etc. Do you have information on this?

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RTPI | New from the RTPI

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Patter is Pat Thomson's research based blog. Pat is currently Professor of Education in the School of Education at The University of Nottingham.

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Patter is Pat Thomson's research based blog. Pat is currently Professor of Education in the School of Education at The University of Nottingham.

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patter | research education, academic writing, public engagement, funding, other eccentricities. (patthomson.net)

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The dictionary definitions of contribution are:

1. A gift or payment

2. The part played by a person or thing in bringing about a result or helping something to advance and

3. A piece of writing submitted for publication in a journal or book

When scholars talk about contribution it might be 3. A contribution might be a piece we have submitted to an edited collection, a text book, an anthology of cases or an encyclopaedia.

But the most usual scholarly formulation of contribution is as a "contribution to knowledge".

Contribution to knowledge is an apparently simple idea, but in reality it's pretty slippery. So here's few thoughts about how to make sense of it, just to start with.

A contribution to knowledge is more like dictionary definition 2. Your research and/or writing helps to advance understandings about a topic. People know a little or a lot more about a topic because they've engaged with your work, read what you've written. And you've been able to explain to readers that the work adds up to a contribution - it takes the field somewhere - through

a defensible and well-designed inquiry, investigation, exploration, interrogation, deconstruction, experimentation, testing out, bringing things together that were previously apart and so on

a thorough analysis which is explained and available for scrutiny

the development of a credible and clearly ordered argument that explains the results, which leads to

a conclusion about the specific place of the results within the existing research on the topic - and how it complements, contradicts, adds something new, challenges, questions, confirms, reframes etc what is already known.

pointers for further development in policy or practice or further research.

In English language/Western traditions of research your readers/examiners/reviewers expect you to spell the contribution out to them in detail. ( This is not always the case in other cultural traditions.)

Readers/examiners/reviewers always expect to see the particulars of where the research fits and sits in relation to published literatures. In some disciplines, there is also a strong expectation that you'll make connections to policy and professional practice.

And, justifying and explaining your contribution in relation to the field and extant literatures may well be an integral part of your viva or defense.

That's not all to contribution of course. Most university guidelines still refer to contribution as 'original'. Original doesn't mean that it hasn't been done before; in some disciplines re-doing what has been done before is very important. And original in the context of contribution doesn't mean that the researcher has made a ground-breaking discovery - although that is very occasionally the case. Nor does original mean that the research is all your own work, although that is always a requirement and, perhaps in the light of AI, this meaning of original will come to matter much more .

No, what is meant by original is very clearly definition 2. Your research has taken you somewhere new. At the end of your research you know much more about your topic than you did at the start. Even if some if it is what not to do or think.

But the research also takes the field somewhere, it sets a line of thinking or does more to an established line of thinking, it offers well argued and evidenced results which others can build on.

And this is of course how contribution relates to significance. The field won't move forward and/or no one will bother with the research if it isn't of some value. A contribution generally isn't just something that wasn't there before (ie it fills a gap) but something that, like a contribution to a conversation, supports thinking and talking in the field to go somewhere.

In this sense, an original contribution is also definition 1. A gift. A gift to the scholarly community which colleagues can use to help build their own contribution. A (re)payment for the work of others that you used to build your own. A down payment on the work of others you will use in the future.

Making a contribution to knowledge is the essence of what scholarship is about. Taking a field and its thinking forward, even if only a little.

Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

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research education, academic writing, public engagement, funding, other eccentricities.

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Planning Portal Blog

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As mentioned in Friday's update, we were continuing to investigate a fix for the issue that had affected payment and submission of a small number of applications created on the old system. A series of fixes have now been successfully applied to the system to prevent the issue affecting any further submissions. Our developers are working as a priority to deal with the small number of applications previously affected. They are testing a fix for this today and we will update as soon as we have further information. Please don't contact Support if your application remains affected, as they will not be able to provide any further information at this stage.

I can also confirm that all 2 years' worth of application data is now in the system and we are now focussing on importing supporting documents for those applications.

In parallel, our Support team have been working to respond to as many calls and emails as possible. Obviously call volumes are much higher than usual and even with extra staff, it is taking longer than usual to reply. We were unfortunately hampered yesterday by our phone lines being unavailable for much of the day, but they are back up and running again this morning. Thank you again for your ongoing patience.
4 February 2022
Firstly, let me start by saying a big thank you to our customers this week, for your positive feedback and messages of support. The new Planning Portal system offers a step change in user experience and a platform from which we will add new functionality, forms and continue to enhance.

Our new Planning Portal system went live last weekend and for the vast majority of our customers, it is working well, with +2,000 planning applications a day being successfully created, paid for and submitted to local authorities.

However, some customers and local authorities have been experiencing a small number of issues. We appreciate that issues are not welcomed, but please be rest assured that we and our TerraQuest colleagues have been working tirelessly to fix the issues which have arisen.

The issue affecting payment and submission of some applications created on the old system has been our priority since Monday. Fixes have been applied but for the small number of remaining customers affected, using the copy facility (shown below) to replicate the application and submit, works. One further fix related to this is under investigation, and we are confident that once the fix is put in place, this issue will be resolved.

In parallel, we have now almost completed the input of 2 years' worth of application forms from the old system. The work to complete the import of all supporting documents is underway.

This is the fourth version of the Planning Portal service and therefore the third time we have rebuilt the system and moved over the user and application data. We geared up operationally for this; at Planning Portal we added resource to our Support Desk and we worked closely with TerraQuest technical support post go live. The teams have been working hard in support and to allow all our customers to take full advantage of this much improved system and the improvements it offers.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. For now, if you are one of the customers experiencing issues, we apologise for any inconvenience and ask for your continued patience as you wait for the final issues to be fixed or for a call back from our Support team. We will continue to post further updates as we have them.

Government agency invests in Public Practice
Homes England and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) have announced an investment of more than £200,000 in social enterprise Public Practice.
Laura Edgar, The Planner

'Little known' rule should be used to protect local green spaces
Protection designations of local parks and green spaces are an important mechanism to levelling up access to nature for people living in towns and cities, says countryside charity CPRE.
Laura Edgar, The Planner

Student accommodation approved for central London
The City of London Corporation's planning and transportation committee has granted planning permission for a 644-bed purpose-built student accommodation scheme in the Square Mile.
Laura Edgar, The Planner

Our planning news is published in association with ThePlanner, the official magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

*Updated - 3 February, 11:00am

As of 09:30am this morning (3 February) we can confirm that:

All application forms modified since 14 December 2020 have been loaded into the system and we are currently loading the remainder of the two years' worth of data.

All supporting documents modified since 06 January 2022 have been attached to these applications and we are currently loading the remaining documents.
Will be running another import today.
Further updates to follow.
*Updated - 2 February, 12:00

As of 09:30am this morning (2 February) we can confirm that:

All application forms modified since 28 March 2021 have been loaded into the system and we are currently loading the remainder of the two years' worth of data.

All supporting documents modified since 06 January 2022 have been attached to these applications and we are currently loading the remaining documents.
Will be running another import today.
Further updates to follow.
*Updated - 1 February, 11:00am

As of 09:00am this morning (1 February) we can confirm that:

All application forms modified since 04 June 2021 have been loaded into the system and we are currently loading the remainder of the two years' worth of data.

All supporting documents modified since 06 January 2022 have been attached to these applications and we are currently loading the remaining documents.
Will be running another import today.
Further updates to follow. 31 January
You will be aware that Planning Portal has been unavailable over the weekend while we prepared our new service and transferred two years' worth of application data and registered user accounts. Unfortunately despite months of meticulous planning and preparation, we encountered an issue with the final data load from the old system over the weekend.

Our technical teams worked hard over the weekend to fix the issue and to test it was working and application data was loading correctly. We're pleased to say that this has been fixed and the data has now begun to load into the new system, but unfortunately it is further behind that we were expecting.

In order to ensure we can complete the loading of supporting documents to all draft applications or applications submitted but not yet downloaded by local authorities, we have reluctantly decided not to make the site available from 9am as planned. We anticipate making the new site available again from 10:00am.

This means that if you log in early this week some applications and supporting documents may not yet be available. We expect all applications and their supporting documents to be available in the coming days and we will update this post regularly with expected time frames.
As of 09:00am this morning (31 January) we can confirm that: All application forms modified since 02 July 2021 have been loaded into the system and we are currently loading the remainder of the two years' worth of data. All supporting documents modified since 06 January 2022 have been attached to these applications and we are currently loading the remaining documents.
If your application is urgent you can manually re-upload supporting documents to your application, but if possible we recommend waiting for them to become available as manually uploading may cause duplicate attachments.

We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and ask for your patience at this time. We will continue to update this message every two hours to give you the latest progress.

Please don't contact our Support Desk as they will not be able to provide any further updates.

Do you work in, or have an interest in the land development lifecycle?

If so, Nova, in partnership with Planning Portal, would love your input about challenges people face in finding viable land development projects. The feedback from the survey will help us to identify these challenges and what actions need to be taken in order to improve the success rate of them.

Last September, a number of the Planning Portal team undertook the Somerset Sportive, cycling 70 miles across North Somerset up through Cheddar Gorge to raise money for We Build the Future UK. They managed to come fifteenth out of 125 riders!

High off the success of their last ride, they are attempting the challenge again, but this time even further! Aiming to ride 100 miles in a single day, the team are already out training; there is a lot of cycling-related chat and complaints about cold feet at the moment!

The team are taking the opportunity to raise more funds this year and this is where we need you. We have narrowed the options down to three charities and would love you to vote for who you think it should be over on our LinkedIn page.

The new application service and guidance site will be launching 31 January 2022. This new website will bring with it improved functionality and accessibility and also provides the framework for our future development.

Defra have published their consultation on Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) regulations and implementation. It's open until 5 April 2022.

To help LPAs understand what it covers and how best to respond, PAS (Planning Advisory Service) are running overview events with Defra, Natural England and DLUHC for officers on 8, 10 and 16 February and for members on 15 February. They will also run deep-dive topic-based discussion sessions in March - dates TBC. Further information on BNG for local authorities, including FAQs, is available on the PAS website.

We know from our Annual Conference in November just how much interest there is in this new policy, so this is a great opportunity to understand it in more detail.

Introduced in mid-December 2021 and taking affect through the first two weeks of January 2022, The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development etc.) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2021 is the latest in a long line of government tweaks to permitted development.

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As mentioned in Friday's update, we were continuing to investigate a fix for the issue that had affected payment and submission of a small number of applications created on the old system. A series of fixes have now been successfully applied to the system to prevent the issue affecting any further submissions.