Research Developer, Digital Resource and Database of Palaeography, Manuscripts and Diplomatic (DigiPal)

Description

Job ref G6/AAV/1236/12/JM

Closing date 1 January 2013

The Department of Digital Humanities (DDH), King's College London is looking for a highly motivated and technically sophisticated individual to work as a developer on the research project “Digital Resource and Database of Palaeography, Manuscripts and Diplomatic” (DigiPal). The position will involve designing and developing computer tools and methods to facilitate digital scholarship in the study of medieval and ancient handwriting and documents.

DDH is an international leader in the application of technology in research in the arts and humanities, and in the social sciences.  It is in the School of Arts and Humanities, and undertakes research on a collaborative basis across discipline, institutional and national boundaries: it has collaborative relationships across King’s College and with a large number of institutions and bodies in the UK and internationally.  DDH has 13 established staff, and 16 research staff working on research projects. It has generated over £17 million in research grants over the past 7 years, and is involved in more than 30 major research projects, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Leverhulme Trust and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.  DDH is responsible for the MA programmes in Digital Culture and Society, and Digital Humanities; it also runs undergraduate Digital Humanities modules.

DDH hosts the King’s Visualisation Laboratory. It has recently merged with the Centre for e-Research (CeRch), involving collaboration in research and joint responsibility for an MA programme in Digital Asset Management.

Details
The successful candidate for this position will have wide experience in modelling structured data and developing tools to search, query, retrieve and display them using relational databases and related technologies; in designing, writing and modifying programs which facilitate content creation; and collaborating in the development of integrated interfaces for web publication.

Experience in creating and manipulating structured data with a range of RDB-related and web-delivery standards and technologies (SQL, Django/Python, Javascript/JQuery) is essential. Familiarity with ontologies, text processing techniques and standards-compliant XHTML and CSS is highly desirable, as is experience in the modelling of humanities data, especially that relating to manuscripts and documents.

In addition you will need to have an understanding of how research is conducted in the humanities and social sciences and you will be expected to make a contribution to the departmental research profile. The successful candidate will need to be able to work effectively as part of a team, as well as independently. The successful candidate should have good communication skills and the ability to document their work in clear written English.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 1 January 2013

Equality of opportunity is College policy.

Salary
The appointment will be made, dependent on relevant qualifications, within the Grade 6 scale, currently £31,020 to £37,012, per annum plus £2,323 per annum London Allowance

Post duration
Fixed term contract for 18 months.

Contact
For an informal discussion of the post please contact Dr Peter Stokes on 020 7848 2813, or via email at peter.stokes@kcl.ac.uk.

Further details and application packs are available on the College’s website at www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs. All correspondence should clearly state the job title and reference number G6/AAV/1236/12/JM. If you have any queries please contact your Recruitment Co-ordinator at recruitmentteam3@kcl.ac.uk