Several years ago, at the start of the Open Voice Factory project, it became clear that we’d need to register the Open Voice Factory, or some part of it, as a medical device. It was publicised to, in the words of the relevant european directive ‘mitigate handicap’, and so it needed to be registered. There is NO moral way around that.

It also became clear that there were almost NO other open source medical devices. Or at least, none that could be found. The only documentation was largely incomprehensible and everything was guarded. Nobody had put their technical file online, almost nobody wanted to say what their technical file contained.

I swore that by the end of the process I’d write the document I wanted at the start.

It will be a while before I can write that post, but I promise that I’ll put everything relevent here in the meantime.

Currently, that’s relatively little (well, it’s 6,000 words, but most of the good content is at the bottom). But I try and give you most of the information I have.

As a result of the Nesta Prize we had £10,000 in fees we could give to consultant to help us through this process. We wanted to do everything right, and so we got professionals in. I’ve reproduced the majority of the correspondence (or at least everything that might be useful to another project like ours) below. It’s all entirely focused on our situation and, as written below, nobody takes any responsibility for the advice within.

In the coming months I hope to be adding our technical file to this post, as well as doing updates to the correspondence, and some content from the people helping us make the technical file.

Resources

This is the letter we sent to the MRHA originally:  MRHA letter.

04/06/18 17:12:

Here’s were we are at the moment. We’ve consulted with a developer who has experience taking software through medical device registration and who already has some familiarity with our work.  Here’s the understanding we now have:

To register as a medical device you must produce a technical file. Part of that technical file is about the organisation itself – how do you decide what features to add, how do you assess risk and so on.  To show this, we need to have a set of policies that cover the developement of the device, and, we need to be able to show that we are following them.  So the process looks like this:

• Write and approve policies
• Wait (while writing the rest of the technical file)
• Check that we’ve been following our own policies (with evidence)
• Add the evidence to the technical file and submitt.

Our consulting developer has recommended the following five policies (based on his experience, this isn’t a standard set):

• Development,
• Document Management,
• Risk Management,
• Continuous Improvement
• Post Market Surveillance

Now, the medical device rules say that you have to have a ‘state of the art’ process.  It appears that you can either prove your own process to be state of the art, or follow one of the International Standards, on the basis that it’s understand that these standards establish the state of the art.  The relevent standards here appear to be:

• IEC 82304, 6
• ICE 2304
• ISO 14971
• Possibly  ISO 13485

The standards aren’t publically availible, in fact they are expensive to purchase, which is one of the other barriers to Open Source Projects getting medical device status.    In any case they have statements like “There should be a throught process for X”, whereas the policies say “Our process for X is” so there should be some flexbility.

We’ve tracked the process of producing these policies in this github issue.

30/07/18 17:12:

Okay, the policies have been produced, we’ve been implementing them happily, and we’re now at the point of creating a technical file, which in summary is “The policies and the evidence that we are following them” but which actually contains a few more bits. Our ongoing issue for this is: https://github.com/eQualityTime/TheOpenVoiceFactory/issues/73

Communications

It started with:

Jul 11, 2016, 3:44 PM

The first of the emails

Sep 20, 2016

Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 3:12 PM

Tue, Oct 4, 2016, 8:44 AM

Tue, Oct 4, 2016, 11:31 AM

Fri, Oct 7, 2016, 12:20 PM

Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:59 PM

Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 4:43 PM

Oct 18, 2016, 2:42 PM

Dear Mr. Reddington,

 I hope all is well. My name is Patrice and I am part of Emergo’s project management team coordinating your Device Classification project. I would like to thank you for entrusting Emergo with this project. My primary job function is to ensure that all project related work progresses successfully, so please feel free to contact me if you ever have any concerns regarding your account. Below I would like to discuss some project details with you. 

Scope
As per the proposal the scope is currently defined as follows:

Emergo provides support with device classification for AzuleJoe (5 budgeted hours). 

1. E-Quality Time Limited wants to determine if the technology would be classified as a Medical Device under the Medical Device Directive (MDD).
2. Emergo will prepare a document to be sent to the UK Competent Authority (MHRA) to ask for their determination of the classification.
3. It is recommended that E-Quality Time Limited send the final document to MHRA as this, in our opinion, solicits a better response.

<some information removed as it pertains only to Emergo’s internal workings>

Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 9:19 PM

Hello Joe,

I have the links and information provided to Colin in September.

I assume I should prepare the MHRA enquiry from the perspective of AzuleJoe *not* being a medical device ?

Kind regards

Brian

Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 3:46 PM

Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 3:57 PM

Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 9:06 PM

Hi Joe,

I’ve worked through the MHRA guidance again – please see my discussion doc attached, and the MHRA guidance.

The key question is on the medical definition of what azuleJoe does for a user – if the phrase “Compensation for a handicap” is appropriate for enabling speech, then the device is considered a medical device !

Based on this assumption, it would be class I, which is a low regulatory burden.

Please review and comment ?  if a call would be a good idea, please suggest a time on Tuesday ?

Kind regards

Brian

Tue, Oct 25, 2016, 1:34 PM

Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 9:29 AM

Mon, Nov 7, 2016, 1:25 PM

Mon, Nov 7, 2016, 2:50 PM

Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 3:27 PM

Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 7:33 PM

(included only because you’re reading that very blog)

Thu, Feb 2, 2017, 1:21 PM

Hi Brian, 

MHRA have come back to us with:

“Dear Joe,

Firstly I must apologise for the lengthy delay in replying to your enquiry due to unforeseen staffing issues.

With regard to your letter we would tend to agree with your opinion that the product is likely to be a Class I medical device under Rule 12.

Regards.

Rob Higgins

“

What’s the next step? 

Thu, Feb 2, 2017, 1:40 PM

Hi Joe,

This is a typical MHRA response – they don’t give a strong opinion !  This is perhaps a borderline decision, and the only way to get a firm opinion would be through the courts.

The next step would be to build up a technical file, on the basis of which you can sign a declaration of conformity and apply the CE mark to the product.  

If you’d like Emergo’s assistance in this process, I can request a proposal be sent to you .

Kind regards

Brian

Thu, Feb 2, 2017, 1:48 PM

That’s interesting – when you say technical file – what would that look like?

Thu, Feb 2, 2017, 3:06 PM

Tue, Feb 7, 2017, 12:40 PM

Cool,  do you have an example laying around somewhere can we could use to get our heads in the right place for moving on? We also need to start talking about US regulation as well.

Wed, Feb 8, 2017, 9:16 AM

Hi Joe,

There is no “one size fits all” – but below is a typical list of documents you would expect to see in such a tech file:
User Requirement Specification
Software Development Plan
Risk Management Plan
Risk Analysis Report
Software Requirement Specification
Verification Test Plan and Specification
Verification Test Results
Validation Test Plan and Specification
Validation Test Results
Trace Matrix
Risk_Management_Report
Usability Engineering Plan
Release note
Labelling note
Essential Requirements Checklist
Declaration of Conformity
Technical File Table of Contents
Clinical Evaluation Report
Usability Engineering Report
Release Design Review

Kind regards
Brian

Wed, Feb 8, 2017, 12:19 PM

Cool. We’ll get started – what’s our next move in terms of the US?

Wed, Feb 8, 2017, 12:29 PM

Hi Brian.

Thu, Feb 9, 2017, 11:59 AM

Thu, Feb 9, 2017, 12:29 PM

Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:06 AM

Hi Joe,

Emergo colleagues advised that an RFD is for a combination device, and a better option would be an email – which I’ve sent off – see below…  we should get an answer in a few days…

Kind regards

Brian

—–

Dear sir/madam,

We are assisting a company (in the UK) that has developed a speech aid for those who are unable to speak. The device is software, running on a tablet or similar computing platform.

The user indicates what they want to say by selecting icons on a touch screen, then the software builds a phrase or sentence which is digitally generated and played through a loudspeaker for others to hear.

The device may be viewed here:  http://www.theopenvoicefactory.org/

The device is considered a medical device in some countries, and the company would like to know if this device is considered a medical device by the FDA, and if so, a classification for the device. We have searched the FDA classification database, under the Ear, Nose, Throat panel, but not found any suitable product code.

We would appreciate your assistance,

Kind regards,

Brian

Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 9:29 AM

I’ve removed a bit of haggling where I was asking for a summary that I could give to funders.  We ended up with this, which I’ve included as a fair summary.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Ok – my text can be as follows:

CE Marking

The MHRA have confirmed that the device can be classified as a Class I medical device. CE marking for a Class I medical device is a self-declaration, based on a technical file against which a declaration of conformity can be signed by the manufacturer.

FDA clearance

It is not clear whether the product requires clearance from the FDA. Accordingly, we have submitted an enquiry to the FDA seeking clarification. The standard FDA response has been that “this evaluation process may take 60 or more days”. Other than a request for an update, we are not able to advance the FDA clearance process at this stage.

If this text is sufficient, I can apply to a letterhead. It will need to go through a peer review process within Emergo, which may take a day or two.

Kind Regards

Brian

Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 3:22 PM

Mon, Jun 12, 2017, 7:51 PM

Fri, Jul 7, 2017, 10:38 AM

Good afternoon Joe,

I hope you are well.  I am emailing with a quick project update.

Brian last checked in with the FDA in May, but we have still not received a response.  They did indicate that it could take 60 days or more, but we are uncertain when or if they will reply.  How would you like to proceed?  Would you like us to send another reminder?  Please advise.

Project hours: 3.75 hours worked (1.25 hours remain).

Thank you!

Regards,

Patrice

Fri, Jul 7, 2017, 12:48 PM

HI Patrice,

Fri, Jan 19, 2:51 PM, 2018

Tue, Jan 23, 2018 5:32 PM

Wed, Feb 14, 2018 11:24 AM

Mon, Feb 26, 8:31 PM

Please do.

Tue, Feb 27, 1:18 PM

Good afternoon Joe,

Thank you for your reply.  I will let Brian know to try another outreach to the FDA.

Regarding your other inquiry, I will put you in touch with my colleague in Business Development, Mr. Rehema Mussanzi (in copy), who can assist with providing information on Technical Files and what Emergo can offer to support.

We also have a resource library on our website with some free information to get you started.  For example a white paper on Preparing a European CE Technical file for a Medical Device or a video on In-Depth: Europe CE Marking Medical Device Approval and Compliance with a brief segment on preparing a Technical File.

Wed, Feb 28, 6:13 PM

Awesome, will look forward to hearing form Rehema

Joe

Mon, Mar 5, 7:38 PM

Hello Joseph,

Thanks for requesting the whitepaper about European Tech Files. Please click this link to download (PDF):
Download

For additional information about Europe, check out our Library: www.emergogroup.com/resources/europe

Regards,
Rehema

Monday, 23 April 2018 3:56 PM

(first ever response from the FDA – sent to Emergo rather than eQuality Time)

Dear Brian Goemans,

Thank you for contacting the Division of Industry and Consumer Education (DICE) at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) DICE@fda.hhs.gov e-mail account.

If your product meets the definition of a medical device, it will be regulated as a device.

A medical device is defined in Section 201(h) of the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act; or 21 USC 321(h)) as “an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, contrivance, implant, in-vitro reagent, or other similar or related article, including any component, part, or accessory, which is … intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals, or [which is] intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals … .”

Other useful information on device determination can be found at the What is a medical device, Is The Product A Medical Device and the Device – Not a Device webpages.

For regulatory information about your medical device of interest, please search the Product Classification and Establishment Registration & Device Listing databases to check if a device similar to your product is listed with FDA.  I found a list of speech related devices on the Product Classificationdatabase. You can use this database to search for other products you plan to import into the U.S.

If you are still unable to determine whether your product is a medical device, please contact the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) Device Determination Officers, Office of Compliance, via e-mail atDeviceDetermination@fda.hhs.gov for their determination. Within your email, please include a complete description of your product and its intended use, as well as any draft promotional material and labeling that you might already have.  Please note that they do not determine the classification of a device nor do they determine whether a premarket application is required.  The Office of Compliance will only provide their determination of whether or not your product is a medical device.

If you have more software specific questions I would recommend you email our software experts at digitalhealth@fda.hhs.gov.

Meanwhile, here is a list of digital health related references.

• Guidance for the Content of Premarket Submissions for Software Contained in Medical Devices
• General Principles of Software Validation; Final Guidance for Industry and FDA Staff
• Guidance for Industry – Cybersecurity for Networked Medical Devices Containing Off-the-Shelf (OTS) Software
• Guidance for Industry, FDA Reviewers and Compliance on Off-The-Shelf Software Use in Medical Devices
• Mobile Medical Applications

• Cybersecurity [Homepage]
• Content of Premarket Submissions for Management of Cybersecurity in Medical Devices (Oct. 2, 2014)
• Postmarket Management of Cybersecurity in Medical Devices (Final – Dec. 28, 2016)
• Guidance for Industry – Cybersecurity for Networked Medical Devices Containing Off-the-Shelf (OTS) Software (issued January 2005)
• Information for Healthcare Organizations about FDA’s “Guidance         for Industry: Cybersecurity for Networked Medical Devices          Containing Off-The-Shelf (OTS) Software”

Meanwhile, I will provide you with information on how to market a medical device in the U.S.

Registration and Listing

To register with FDA, please review the Device Registration and Listing, Who Must Register, List and Pay the Fee webpages and follow the instructions on How to Register and List. You should also review information on Entry Process and Importing into the U.S.

It is the responsibility of manufacturers to classify their medical devices.

Medical devices are classified based on intended use, risk and the level of control necessary to provide reasonable assurance of their safety and effectiveness. There are three regulatory classes of medical devices: Class I, Class II, or Class III. The regulatory class of a device type is defined in Section 513(a) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) (21 U.S.C. 360c(a)). Review the information on Regulatory Controls to learn about the types of regulatory controls applicable to each class of medical device.

If you need help with classifying your device, you can submit a Request for Classification (513(g)). The 513(g) request fee is on the FY 2018 MDUFA User Fees list. If you wish to directly contact the Office of Device Evaluation, please refer to the CDRH online directory for the appropriate contact information.

If you qualify as a “small business,” you will be eligible for a reduced fee for some types of CDRH submissions that require a user fee. Please review theSmall Business Determination Program webpage, and the FY 2018 Medical Device User Fee Small Business Qualification and Certification guidance document for information regarding eligibility and the application process. A small business is defined as a business, including its affiliates, whose gross receipts and sales are less than $100 million for the most recent tax year.

If a device requires premarket application submission, the owner or operator should send to FDA the required premarket submission such as: Premarket Notification 510(k), Premarket Approval (PMA), Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) etc. Review How to Study and Market Your Device for information on premarket submissions. Note that most Class I devices and a few Class II devices are exempt from the premarket notification 510(k)requirements, subject to the limitations on exemptions. Please review theMedical Device Exemptions requirements.

Finally to legally market a medical device in the U.S., manufacturers must register their firms and list their devices with FDA. Manufacturers also have the opportunity to market devices, which do not require a premarket submission, for up to 30 days before they register and list with FDA.Registration is done annually. It is the responsibility of manufacturers to meet all FDA requirements before registering and listing. Importers too should register with FDA, but they do not have to list products. Importers must ensure that their foreign manufacturers or vendors have registered and listed with FDA. Foreign firms exporting devices to the U.S. should have a U.S. based agent. For more information on marketing a device in the U.S., please review the Overview of Device Regulation, and CDRH Learnwebpages.

The Annual Establishment Registration Fee for FY 2018 will is $4,624. See FY 2018 MDUFA User Fees.

Please note that not all medical devices legally marketed in the U.S. are considered FDA “approved.” The term FDA “approved device” specifically refers to Premarket Approval (PMA). PMA devices are usually Class III devices. Similarly, the term FDA “cleared device” specifically refers toPremarket Notification 510(k). 510(k) devices are usually Class II devices and a few Class I devices.. Manufacturers are not allowed use the terms “approved” or “cleared” to describe devices that have not successfully gone through the respective PMA and 510(k) submission processes. Devices not requiring premarket submission can be marketed if a registered manufacturer lists them with FDA. Manufactures can also market such devices up to 30 days prior to listing them with FDA.

Sincerely,

Division of Industry and Consumer Education
Office of Communication and Education

Center for Devices and Radiological Health

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Wed, Apr 25, 10:58 AM

Hi Joe, 

It’s been a while – but at last there has been a response from the FDA !

Unfortunately the response has come from DICE – a response from Device Determination would have been more helpful !

However, referring to the definition below (linked from the email)

(h) The term “device” (except when used in paragraph (n) of this section and in sections 331(i), 343(f), 352(c), and 362(c) of this title) means an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, contrivance, implant, in vitro reagent, or other similar or related article, including any component, part, or accessory, which is-

(1) recognized in the official National Formulary, or the United States Pharmacopeia, or any supplement to them,

(2) intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, in man or other animals, or

(3) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals, and

I suggest that it would be reasonable to state that a speech aid does not fit in the definition of 1-3 above, so is not a medical device.

Please consider this email below, and provide feedback ?

The interpretation above is informal – Patrice is away this week, but when she is back next week, I will discuss the next step – in Emergo an internal peer review is required to provide a determination of your device being a medical device or not.

Kind regards

Brian

Thu, Apr 26, 10:56 AM

Fri, May 4, 2:39 PM

Tue, May 8, 3:12 PM

Bit confused, is that:  “Brain can spend four hours writing a report for you” or “Brian can spend four hours writing a report and sending it to the FDA”?

Joe

Tue, May 8, 3:40 PM

Brian can write a report for you.  He can do a more in-depth research and provide a formal advice/standpoint (from Emergo’s point of view).

Tue, May 8, 3:46 PM

I understood we are paying you because you know this area already.  Why do you need four more hours to make a recommendation?

Tue, May 8, 4:21 PM

———

In an team with real flexible work you would be able to shut your laptop at any time without any guilt.

There’s lots of reasons you might want to. Maybe you are sick. Maybe someone you care about is sick. Maybe you want to spend some time on your mental health and maybe someone has broken into your house and you need to ring the police. The reason isn’t important. What is important is that you know the system will be fine.

We know this is possible because Wikipedia works that way. So do the writing camps that we run in schools: sometimes students are sick, or suddenly expelled, or drop out. The system continues.

I want eQuality Time’s work to be real flexible work as far as it can.

To make that happen, we have to build it in from the start. Here’s what we need to be doing:

No hiding
Unless a file contains confidential info (in almost all cases this means ‘personal information about an individual), it is shared. All our files are in Dropbox or Google Drive. No exceptions.

Always act like someone else will be the next person to work on this
eQuality Time uses github issues to manage our work. On each issue we (try to) list all things we need, and the steps needed to meet the goal. If we’ve done that right, then someone else can come along and say “Oh, this is a funding application – I see they’ve created the folder in Dropbox and marked that off, and the next thing to do is to copy and paste the question information into a new word file – I can do that for them”. If we act like someone else will do that, then we get really good at writing specific plans.

No locking
We never write: “I’m going to do X” on an , because then the project needs you before it can move forward. Instead we write “The next thing to do is X”. That way someone else can do it when they have a free moment. You might have been looking forward to doing X, or you might worry that someone else would do X wrong – in which case you should either have done X or you should give so much detail about X that it’s hard to do wrong.

Rewrite a process every time you follow it
There are lots of activities that we do again and again. A good example is publishing books from White Water Writers. For these activities, we’ve put the list of steps and advice into a wiki so that people don’t have to work it out every time. The important bit is this: when you are working through a process on the wiki, you should also be rewriting it. This might be because you are dealing with a special case, or because there’s something you missunderstood at first and you want other people to be warned, or because you want to add photos or reword. You might be rewriting it because you want to do it a bit differently this time and that’s fine. We rewrite so that the next person to follow the process finds it easier, and also so because it keeps us honest.

We work on the most important action first
If we have real flexible work, then we have NO locking. Without locking, it’s impossible to know what you are going to work on before you log in. Someone might have logged in overnight and finished off the last project you were looking at or someone working on an important project might have fallen ill. So when we log on, we should look at the most important project first (they are sorted by importance).

By definition, working on the most important project is the most important thing to do.

The last person to work on it should have followed “Always assume someone else will be the next person to work on this” and there will be a written down action for you to take. If it’s something with a process (like publishing a book) then it’s easy for you to do the next action and move the project along. If there isn’t an action written, then it’s worth pinging Joe (or, in future, the person on call) and finding out what the action should be. Work on the second most important issue while you wait.

Bottom line
Of course, there are deadlines. This system only works if there is someone that you can pass the work onto. Or, someone who is senior enough to say “Okay, we can drop that ball”. At eQuality Time, both of those people, are, sooner or later, Joe. Sometimes he might make the call to abandon a project – because we put worker’s heath above projects. Sometimes he might do it himself. But there is somewhere that the buck stops.

eQuality Time has a project we’ve been working on for some time.   It’s an artistic project and we’ve submitted to the arts council. We’ve been rejected.    Six times.

Each time we got back over the project, make big changes or little changes (there are two ways that the arts council can reject you, one has a wonderful amount of artistic feedback, and the other gives almost no feedback, we’ve had the feedback twice) and send it back, and each time we get rejected.

I truly believe that transparency is the silver bullet, so I wanted to share the application here in the hope that some kind passer-by might look over it and say something like “Oh, you need to make X clear, that’s what the Arts Council Like…”

The elevator pitch for the project looks like this:

The 2015 report: ‘Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Market Place’ found that BAME authors were less likely to be published or have an agent and were pushed to have their characters match cultural stereotypes. The 2015 Diversity Baseline Survey Results found massive underprepresentation for disability at all levels in the publishing industry, At the same time, writers are more likely to been privately educated and older.

The results are novels far from the perspective of most UK readers, losing sales in an world that puts more and more value on ‘now’ and ‘real’.

Our project is the answer. Twenty of the best young British writers will team up create a topical novel that is relevant to the changes in life in 2016/2017. They will go from blank pages on Monday morning to a publication on Sunday night and show that the long-form novel remains a reflection of life rather than a memory of it.

eQuality Time will select these writers for their words and for their ability to speak to audiences that feel their voices aren’t heard in mainstream publishing. Audiences will be hit by the twin shock of characters that both like them and are reacting to events that they themselves are still processing.

This is a ‘time to write’ project, compensating two groups of ten professional- standard writers for the time over week-long periods to produce two full length literary works on topics in the ‘now’.  It is supported by industry figures whose testimonials are attached and our methodology and has been shown to produce spectacularly strong, heartfelt work with writers from primary school age to university students.

We know we can make this work – White Water Writers has been successful over 100 times and there are a dozen of those were university level writers.

Here are our files:

• The Word version of the main Arts Council Applicaton Form
• The Audience Development Plan, which is attached the application as a Word Document.
• The budget as an excel file (it is entered into the arts council form by hand)

If you are passing, and you fancy a glance. Please get stuck in.

(If you are wondering why it’s called BATTLECRY – after the first four rejections I’ve started naming the projects alphabetically so I can tell which one is current in the arts council applications list)

Postscript

This application was submitted and later rejected, as was the one after it. The interested reader may find much to enjoy in the feedback we got here: export (and indeed, the feedback we had for our previous application, which actually scored better… export.1)

In the last post I talked about my (Joe’s) failing to get good results about the White Water Writers project.    By contrast, today I’m posting about the far far better science done by our team at Keele University.  Below is  the abstract that they have sent to the AERA conference recently.  Some bits that I’m particularly interested in:

• “The process allows young people to explore issues through their novels, which creates an innovative methodology for exploring their views and understanding of topics.”   I’ve long been advocating that White Water Writers is an amazing way of unpicking complex social systems in a way that no focus group or survay could.
• “scientists were described as ‘mad’, ‘loopy’ and ‘dangerous’.  There was also a lot of discussion about how scientists had ruined the world, for example by turning people into robots and ruining the environment: ‘They thought the scientists could be totally unaware of the effects their experiments are having on the outside world’. ”  it is interesting to me that while we as as society spend a lot of time promoting STEM, we haven’t spent much time looking at the cultural picture of ‘scientist’ compared to, say, ‘programmer’.

Abstract

A novel way to explore young people’s views of science and scientists via their writing

Although there is a generally positive view of science, with 81% of people surveyed feeling that science will make people’s lives easier, only 55% think the benefits of science outweigh harmful effects (Public Attitudes to Science Survey, 2014).  Furthermore, young people often see scientists as ‘brainy’ and this can put them off science careers (ASPIRES, 2013).  Indeed it has been found that young people who do not view science and scientists positively may be dissuaded from pursuing a scientific career (Barma et al 1997).  However, much of this research has been explicit and asked young people to report their attitudes.  The current study explored attitudes more implicitly by exploring stories which had been written by young people.     

“White Water Writers” gives groups of young people the chance to collaboratively write and publish their own full length novel in a week.   The participants plan, write, proofread and develop their novel as a team. The book is placed for sale on Amazon and a few weeks later we host a book signing.  The project has demonstrable effects on literacy, soft skills and feelings of control.  The process allows young people to explore issues through their novels, which creates an innovative methodology for exploring their views and understanding of topics.   In this study we did not specifically invite writers to produce a book about scientists, but gave them a broad brief, namely that something strange was happening in their city and a group of young people had come together to solve the issue. 

In this study, sixty young people aged 15 wrote six novels based on this brief.  We thematically analysed the books and found a very strong theme of “elitism”.  Specifically, scientists were described as ‘mad’, ‘loopy’ and ‘dangerous’.  There was also a lot of discussion about how scientists had ruined the world, for example by turning people into robots and ruining the environment: “They thought the scientists could be totally unaware of the effects her experiments are having on the outside world”. 

Scientists and other authority figures were presented as being entitled “The way he spoke sounded like he was posh, Ava thought. Ava hated posh prats. They got away with everything. They didn’t earn a simple penny to their name.”  Scientists were also seen as unreachable “Lily tries to talk to the government about it in hopes of getting them to acknowledge the fact the loopy scientist was destroying lots of their things, their people, their crops, their animals. Strangely, the government brushed it off as if it were nothing.”

Thus experts such as scientists were seen as entitled, uncaring, arrogant and dangerous. They were also disconnected from the world around them and, for the young people in the stories, unreachable.  This negative perception of science and authority might explain why many young people do not aspire to these sorts of careers.  However, this also suggests novel ways of encouraging young people, by changing perceptions of scientists rather than focussing on perceptions of science.

The Open Voice Factory is an Open Source Medical Device, so when I saw a video called “Are We Ready for Open Source Medical Devices?” from Hackaday, I was interested. Althought Ashwin is much more hardware-focused than we are, but it’s worth watching the whole video, and my main highlights were:

• Ashwin gives a nod to the difficulty in registering medical devices “More than the topic of a PhD” – I’d aggree with that, registering a medical device has been by far the hardest part of bringing Open Voice Factory to people.   It was interesting to me that Ashwin starts by saying he’s going to avoid talking about it, and then is forced by the topic to keep aluding to it right through the talk. I particularly liked (paraphrased) “The countries we want to work in don’t have standards anyway”
• “about 90% of the world’s investment in medical research benefits only the most affluent 10% of its population” – that’s pretty awful.
• There are *cheap* medical devices, but it’s hard to trust them – poor documentation and ‘questionable compliance’.   This was a reminder for me – I tend to think about Open Source being ‘cheap’ (because it’s free) and standing in contrast to expensive but much more well supported commerical solutions.  That’s true, but it’s incomplete – there are also ‘bottom of the market’ manufacturers that are also ‘cheap’ but also low quality.
• “If it’s NOT easy to deploy, it’s NOT relevent”