The Faculty ITC is starting to develop an innovative platform, the Geo Course Hub, to support future educational activities. Geo Course Hub is an online ontology-based course compilation platform with which Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (GI&EO) courses can be constructed out of existing internal and external learning objects. A learning object is fine-granular teaching content with a focused learning objective and assessment. Multiple learning objects will be combined into courses on demand, based on their semantics. This will facilitate students and education developers to create on-demand learning paths based on modular content. A related platform called Matching ITC eXpertise (MIX), will also be built in parallel to map ITC's expertise as well as to match it to relevant project calls or themes. MIX can also be used to create international partner networks as it will be built upon the European Body of Knowledge for GI&EO (http://www.eo4geo.eu/bok/).

Your tasks

You will:

• Develop the semantic infrastructure for both platforms.
• Develop an ontology, with concepts, covering the content of pilot studies, and connect this ontology to one or more external ontologies / bodies of knowledge.
• Design and implement a web platform, connected to ITC's Living Textbook tool, through which content can be searched and connected.
• Implement and test a selection of existing courses, based on ontology-based learning objects together with an e-learning specialist.
• Implement and test methods to input and store education, research and opportunities into concrete data entries, together with project staff,
• Define a sustainable strategy to keep both platforms up-to-date beyond the duration of the project.

You will be working in a team of researchers, e-learning developers, and project officers who are also involved in the design of the Geo Course Hub and MIX platforms, and you support them with software implementation and testing of the developed ideas. You will also engage with teachers who develop course content and with project staff.

You:

• Have an MSc or PhD in a related field, such as Geo-ICT, Semantic Web or Artificial Intelligence.
• Have the following key skills: Ontology engineering, programming, database engineering, web development (including JavaScript).
• Are highly motivated and interested in educational research.
• Have excellent communication skills.
• Are fluent in spoken and written English.

We offer an inspiring international environment. You will be initially employed for two years. Extension of the employment after this period is a possibility

• Gross monthly salary between € 2.836.00 and € 4,474.00 depending on experience and qualifications (job profile Researcher, level 4).
• A holiday allowance of 8 % of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3 %
• Facilities for professional and personal development.
• A solid pension scheme
• Possibilities to save up holidays for sabbatical leave
• A total of 41 holiday days in case of full-time employment

The Department of Geo-Information Processing (GIP) is a vibrant, multi-disciplinary scientific team, specializing in methods and techniques for processing (acquiring, organizing, analyzing) spatio-temporal data and information, and in building tools (models, algorithms, visualizations) that improve our understanding of dynamic spatial systems and help in decision-making at multiple spatial and temporal scales.