Postdoctoral Fellowship in Usable Linked Open Data

[Daryl Hepting]

Dear All,

I am pleased to share a new opportunity with you: a Postdoctoral 
Fellowship in Usable Linked Open Data. The position summary is just
below, with all the details of the position to be found in the document at:
http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting/assets/research/usableLOD-PDF.pdf

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Please share this notice with anyone who might be interested.

Best regards,
Daryl
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Position Summary
++++++++++++++++
In Information Management: A Proposal, Tim Berners-Lee described a global 
hypertext system, the aim of which “would be to allow a place to be found
for any information […] which one felt was important and a way of finding 
it afterward. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use, […] so 
that the usefulness of the scheme would, in turn, encourage its increased 
use”. 
Naturalist and conservationist John Muir wrote that “when we try to pick 
out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the 
Universe.” In this age that values commodification and abstraction, the 
interconnections between concepts are broken as a matter of course. Linked 
open data is a means to reinforce and restore the interconnectedness of 
concepts.
The postdoctoral fellow will work under the direction of Dr. Daryl Hepting 
to conduct research aimed at addressing the usability of linked open data 
with a specific focus on realizing Sterling’s concept of a spime (coined 
from the words space and time) for the semantic web where the “overwhelmingly 
extensive and rich informational support” for an object can emphasize its 
connections. 
One example of this approach is described in: 
D. H. Hepting, J. Jaffe, and T. Maciag. Operationalizing Ethics in 
Food Choice Decisions. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental 
Ethics 27, 453–469 (2014). 
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-013-9473-8
The research to be supported by the postdoctoral fellow will include the 
implementation and evaluation of a spime for chicken eggs that supports 
sustainable consumption and production (http://metadata.un.org/sdg/12?lang=en) 
and applying the lessons learned to realize other spimes, for example, 
supporting climate action (http://metadata.un.org/sdg/13?lang=en). 
The postdoctoral fellow will have some flexibility within this research to 
pursue related projects. The initial appointment for the postdoctoral fellow 
will be one year, with the ability to renew the appointment on a yearly basis
based on performance, up to a total of three years. The postdoctoral fellow 
will  spend 80% of their time on duties associated with this position, with the 
remaining 20% (one day per week) dedicated to other research-oriented “passion 
projects”, following Google’s “20 percent time” philosophy. In order to assist 
the postdoctoral fellow with their academic career development, the postdoctoral 
fellow will be assigned to teach two graduate-level courses in the area of 
human-centred computing each year of the appointment. The specific topic and 
details of the courses will be based on the postdoctoral fellow’s expertise 
and skillset, and will be developed and delivered under the guidance of 
Dr. Daryl Hepting.
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Daryl H. Hepting, Ph.D.
Professor  * Department of Computer Science * CW 308.22
University of Regina     * Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4S 0A2
daryl....@uregina.ca * http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting/
cell: (306) 596-6312     * tel: (306) 585-5210 * fax: (306) 585-4745