The department of developmental psychology is looking for a research assistant for the NWO-project “Mini Many Labs: Creating a shared infrastructure for collaborating within the Experience Sampling Method community to improve reproducibility”.

Function description
Researchers are increasingly turning to smartphone diary techniques, such as the experience sampling method (ESM) to understand the dynamic daily-life processes underpinning a range of psychological phenomena. ESM is booming, but remains a methodological wild west, where methodological challenges threaten transparency, reproducibility, and replicability. The Mini Many Labs project will create an open platform and infrastructure to advance collaboration and foster open and team science within the ESM research community, by facilitating collaborative research projects, embedding open science practices, and training within these projects, thus driving culture change in a field where open science is the exception not the norm. The initial set-up of the project will take place within the context of the Belgian-Dutch ESM Network, a large and dynamic group of international researchers using ESM to investigate mental health across the lifespan.

We are offering a position for 0.6-1.0 FTE for 8-12 months (the duration of your contract will depend on the hours you work per week), with flexible and negotiable tasks. Your contributions to resulting research outputs will be recognized with authorship, which we will support in preparing and finalizing as a team. 

In this role, you will be the project coordinator of the NWO-funded Open Science project Mini Many Labs and will work closely together with the project members Dr. Eeske van Roekel, Dr. Dominique Maciejewski, Dr. Olivia Kirtley, Dr. Thomas Vaessen, and Dr. Vera Heininga. The overall goal is to develop a blueprint of an Open Science platform for collaboration in future ESM projects. There is a lot of room for creativity and your own input. 

We also welcome applications from people who do not necessarily tick all the boxes and have an unusual resume. Gaps in your resume will not affect the evaluation.

What will you do?

• conduct user research on the requirements of the platform of the Mini Many Labs project
• develop, test, and maintain a platform (likely on the Open Science Framework (OSF) website)
• develop protocols for collaboration between universities (e.g., regarding instruments, procedures)
• make concrete recommendations on improving the platform
• monitor progress of the project
• organize and take minutes during meetings
• develop a custom data checkout system, including national and international data transfer agreements
• document data standards and develop a data preprocessing pipeline
• develop data-harmonization procedures
• help writing ethical applications
• formulate a marketing strategy to keep other researchers involved
• help to create user guidelines 
• Have the opportunity to contribute to and co-author research outputs associated with the project
• help organizing a workshop

Requirements
We are looking for candidates who meet the following requirements:

• you have strong organization skills, enabling you to coordinate activities across different universities and ensure adherence to project deadlines
• You have excellent communication skills, to effectively communicate with researchers involved in the project, providing support, and facilitating collaboration and information exchange
• you proactively identify action items and work independently
• you are curious and interested to learn in this role
• you are interested in open science and ideally have experience with open science practices (e.g., pre-registration) and with the Open Science Framework platform
• completed your bachelor's degree (ideally in social sciences or related field)
• fluent in English

Nice to have:

• Experience in website development (e.g., html, Rmarkdown, wordpress)
• Experience in data collection and analysis, in particular of ESM or related type of data
• Experience with project management tools (e.g., BaseCamp, Asana, Notion)

The starting gross salary for a full-time appointment amounts from € 3,377.- up to (maximally) € 4,640.- gross per month, based on UFO profile Education/Research officer 2 and salary scale 9 of the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities. This is a temporary position; the period ranges between 8 and 12 months and depends on the hours per week that you work (8 months in case of 1.0 FTE to 12 months in case of 0.6 FTE; you can choose this based on your preferences). 

You are entitled to a vacation allowance of 8% and a year-end bonus of 8.3% of your gross annual income. If you work 40 hours per week, you will receive 41 paid days of leave per year.

All employees of the university are covered by the so-called General Pension Fund for Public Employers (Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP). Researchers from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for a tax-free allowance of 30% of their taxable salary. The university applies for this allowance on their behalf. 

Tilburg University offers excellent employment conditions with attention to flexibility and (personal) development and attractive fringe benefits.

The collective labor agreement of the Dutch Universities applies.

Please visit working at Tilburg University for more information on our terms of employment. 

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