"A centre of excellence in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities."

UKOLN is based at the University of Bath.

Person Specification

UKOLN

UKOLN is a centre of expertise in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information, education and cultural heritage communities by:

• Influencing policy and informing practice
• Promoting community-building and consensus-making by actively raising awareness
• Advancing knowledge through research and development
• Building innovative systems and services based on Web technologies
• Acting as an agent for knowledge transfer

UKOLN is based at the University of Bath directed by Dr Liz Lyon and currently has a staff of thirty two. UKOLN is funded by the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA); the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the funding bodies for higher and further education; as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Community. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based. More details on UKOLN activities can be found on its website: www.ukoln.ac.uk/.

UKOLN aims to inform practice and influence policy in the areas of: digital libraries, metadata and resource discovery, distributed library and information systems, bibliographic management, and web technologies. It provides network information services, including the Ariadne magazine, and runs workshops and conferences.

IEMSR

The JISC IE Metadata Schema Registry (IEMSR) project is funded by JISC as part of the Shared Infrastructure Services strand of the Information Environment programme. The IEMSR project is developing a metadata schema registry as a pilot shared service within the JISC Information Environment. Metadata schema registries enable the publication, navigation and sharing of information about metadata. The IEMSR will act as the primary source for authoritative information about metadata schemas recommended by the JISC IE Standards framework.

Metadata within the JISC IE is based largely on two key standards: the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) and the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard. The IEMSR will provide the JISC IE with a single point of referral for recommended schemas. It will allow various initiatives within the JISC IE to publish "application profiles" of these standards in a common registry, making them available to others. This provides a concrete way of encouraging sensible uniformity alongside necessary divergence, which helps avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, and supports sharing of common approaches. The IEMSR itself is based on Semantic Web technologies.

The Systems Developer will work on the Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry project. This project is concerned with the development of the Service, and embedding of the outputs of this development project into the fabric of the wider Shared Infrastructure Services environment. As such, this role will focus on prototypes based on commonplace Web technologies (AJAX etc.) Specifically, the post will be responsible for:

• Development of demonstrators to support the IEMSR service
• Enhancement of existing user-facing tools based on the IEMSR
• Preparing documentation so that the wider community can replicate and/or build upon the work carried out by the postholder.

Attributes and skills

The post-holder will require excellent technical expertise and good communication skills. Knowledge of the UK higher education sector would be advantageous.

This position provides an excellent opportunity to enhance valuable skills in an interesting environment at the leading edge of digital information developments.

The following attributes and skills will be assessed at application and interview stages of the recruitment process.

Criteria	Essential	Desirable	Assessed by
Qualifications:			A/F	I/T	R
Educated to degree level	X
Experience/Knowledge
Experience in working with one or more of the following programming languages: Java, Perl, Python, Ruby	X		X	X
Experience in developing with other supporting technologies, especially HTTP, SQL and XML	X		X	X
Experience of working with AJAX (Javascript and XML) and/or CSS for interface design	X		X	X
Experience of developing in a UNIX/Linux environment	X		X	X
Expertise in information and resource discovery technologies and standards.	X		X	X
Good knowledge of Perl		X	X	X
Experience of system administration in a UNIX/Linux environment		X	X	X
Familiarity with SPARQL and RDF		X	X	X
Familiarity with the digital repository area within the education sector will be beneficial but not required		X	X	X
Familiarity with the technical and interoperability challenges in the digital repository area will be beneficial but not required		X	X	X
Skills
Good written communication skills	X		X	X
Good presentation skills	X		X	X
Attributes
Ability to work with small groups of people	X		X	X
Good inter-personal skills	X		X	X
Must be able to work independently, prioritise tasks and be confident in dealing with a range of external contacts	X
Code: A/F – Application form, I/T – Interview/Test, R - References