We are always looking for talented people who help us making Mr. DLib the best machine-readable digital library and recommendations-as-a-service provider in Academia. We are very flexible about the specifics: you can join full-time or part-time; on-site (Dublin, Konstanz, or Tokyo) or off-site (home office); paid or unpaid; as student, post-doc, or professional; as volunteer, intern, or employee; as researcher, developer, data analyst, web designer, or system administrator; …

Locations & Supervisors

Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland / Ass. Prof. Joeran Beel

Trinity College Dublin is Ireland’s most prestigious university and among the top universities in Europe. It is located directly in the city center with a beautiful campus. Trinity College retains a tranquil collegiate atmosphere despite its location in the centre of a capital city (and despite it being one of the most significant tourist attractions in Dublin). This is in large part due to the compact design of the college, whose main buildings look inwards and are arranged in large quadrangles (called squares), and the existence of only a few public entrances [1]. Dublin is the capital city of Ireland. Its vibrancy, nightlife and tourist attractions are renowned and it is the most popular entry point for international visitors to Ireland. It’s disproportionately large for the size of Ireland with nearly two million in the Greater Dublin Region – well over a third of the Republic’s population! The centre is, however, relatively small and can be navigated by foot, with most of the population living in suburbs. Being subject to the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, Dublin is known for its mild climate. Contrary to some popular perception, the city is not especially rainy. [2]

Your supervisor at Trinity College Dublin will be Dr. Joeran Beel, founder of Mr. DLib. Joeran is Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems in the school of computer science and statistics. He is also affiliated with the ADAPT Centre, which is a research centre closely cooperating with industry partners such as eBay, Intel, Microsoft, and PayPal. Joeran’s research focuses on recommender systems: recommendations as a service, recommender-system evaluation, and user modelling in the domain of digital libraries. He has published three books and over 40 peer-reviewed papers, and has been awarded various grants for research projects, patent applications, and prototype development as well as some business start-up funding. Joeran is involved in the development of several open-source projects such as Docear, Mr. DLib, JabRef, and Freeplane. He founded two successful IT start-ups and received multiple awards and prizes for each. He studied and researched in Australia (Sydney), the US (Berkeley), Germany (Magdeburg & Konstanz), Cyprus (Nicosia) and England (Lancaster). Joeran has a M.Sc. in Project Management, a M.Sc. in Business Information Systems and a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Prior to TCD, Joeran worked as IT product manager in the tourism industry (Munich, Germany), and as post-doctoral researcher at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan.

Konstanz University, Germany / Junior Prof. Bela Gipp

The University of Konstanz (German: Universität Konstanz) is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was founded in 1966, and the main campus on the Gießberg was opened in 1972. The University is situated on the shore of Lake Constance just four kilometers from the Swiss border. As one of eleven German Excellence Universities, University of Konstanz is consistently ranked among the global top 250 by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2016 it was ranked 7th globally by the Times Higher Education 150 under 50 rankings. It is often referred to as “small Harvard” by the German media. [3]

Your supervisor at Konstanz University would be Dr. Bela Gipp. Bela Gipp serves as Juniorprofessor in Information Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Prior this, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley and at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo. From 2009 to 2013 he received an invitation from the University of California Berkeley, to conduct his doctoral research at the School of Information and the Department of Statistics, while being an external doctoral student at the University Magdeburg, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science with distinction. His research interests are information retrieval and visualization, knowledge management systems and web technologies. His recent work focuses on developing semantic methods that analyze links, citations and other language independent characteristics to improve recommender systems and plagiarism detection software. He also researches the use of mind maps for different knowledge management tasks. He has published over 40 articles, three books and filed four patents. As a founder of SciPlore he develops the open-source software Docear. Starting at the age of 16, he won several prizes at Jugend Forscht, Germany’s premier youth science competition. The German Chancellor honored him after winning the 1st place in the state-level round three times in a row. Today, he acts as a jury member for Jugend Forscht. Scholarships allowed him to study abroad in Sydney, Beijing, and at UC Berkeley. After obtaining his Master of Science in Information Systems and a Master of Business Administration (MBA), he worked for the VLBA-lab, a joint venture of the SAP AG and the University Magdeburg. He has taught at the universities in Berkeley, Magdeburg and at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin. He volunteered in rural China and India, teaching math and computer science, as well as at Syria’s Wadi International University. In his spare time he enjoys photography.

National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan / Prof. Akiko Aizawa

The National Institute of Informatics (国立情報学研究所 Kokuritsu Jōhōgaku Kenkyūjo?, NII) is a Japanese research institute created in April 2000 for the purpose of advancing the study of informatics. This institute is also devoted to creating a system to facilitate the spread of scientific information to the general public. The NII is the only comprehensive research institute in Japan in informatics. It also oversees and maintains a large, searchable information database on a variety of scientific and non-scientific topics called Webcat. [4]

Your supervisor at NII would be Prof. Akiko Aizawa (and Joeran Beel would be the co-supervisor). Akiko Aizawa is member of the Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division at NII and works in the field of recommender systems, citation and content analysis as well as math retrieval. Akiko Aizawa has successfully supervised many students from the University of Konstanz and was also the supervisor of Joeran Beel and Bela Gipp during their time at NII.

Positions

Compensated positions

PhD Scholarship (Trinity College Dublin)

We have one open PhD scholarship at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) beginning mid 2017. The yearly compensation is 16,000€ plus tuition fees and some extra benefits (e.g. laptop). Deadline for Application: Until a suitable candidate is found.

Your PhD research will focus on improving the state-of-the art in recommender systems for digital libraries. The exact goal will be based on your interests and skills, and will be discussed between you and your PhD supervisor. One potential goal could be to develop a novel recommendation approaches based on, for instance, machine learning, network analysis or natural language processing. Alternatively, you may explore new ways to ensure reproducibility in recommender-systems research, or tackle one of the other issues that the community of recommender systems for academia is currently facing. A major part of your research will be conducted with Mr. DLib, which is a recommendation-as-a-service provider who delivers thousands of recommendations every day to different partners. For more details, please visit http://mr-dlib.org and refer to these two publications:

Beel, J., Breitinger, C., Langer, S., Lommatzsch, A., & Gipp, B. (2016). Towards Reproducibility in Recommender-Systems Research. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI), 26(1), 69–101. doi:10.1007/s11257-016-9174-x

Beel, J., Gipp, B., Langer, S., & Breitinger, C. (2016). Research Paper Recommender Systems: A Literature Survey. International Journal on Digital Libraries, (4), 305–338. doi:10.1007/s00799-015-0156-0

In addition to your contribution to the Mr. DLib project, you have the opportunity to collaborate with other researchers at ADAPT and apply your research in their projects and with industry partners.

The ideal candidate has the following skills and expertise

• Degree in Computer Science or a related discipline
• Excellent JAVA knowledge
• Good knowledge in Linux, Tomcat, MySQL, REST Web Services (Jersey), Apache Lucene/Solr, Mahout, Hadoop, XML, and JSON
• First experiences with recommender systems, machine learning, artificial intelligence, network analysis, or natural language processing
• First experiences with data science (ideally with R or Python)
• High self-motivation, love for details, excellent problem solving abilities, and reliable and structured working style
• Project management and open-source community management skills
• Good written and oral proficiency in English (essential)

For further information and informal contact, please email joeran.beel@adaptcentre.ie. Please apply via email to joeran.beel@adaptcentre.ie, including:

• A targeted cover letter (600-1000 words) expressing your suitability for the position
• A complete CV
• Names and contact details of two academic referees
• Please include the reference code ADAPT_PHD_BEEL in the subject of your email

There will be a screening and interview process.

Postdoctoral Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin

The ADAPT Centre is a research centre that combines the world-class expertise of researchers at four universities (Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University College Dublin and Dublin Institute of Technology) with that of its industry partners to produce ground-breaking digital content innovations. Recently, the ADAPT Centre – in cooperation with further research centres and universities – has secured funding for 71 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ireland as part of the EDGE COFUND action. These fellowships allow postdoctoral researchers to pursue their own research project over a period of two years at one of the participating research centres, under guidance of a supervisor and an industry partner.

If you are an experienced postdoctoral researcher, who would like to pursue a research project independently in Ireland, in cooperation with Joeran Beel as supervisor and an industry partner, have a look at http://edge-research.eu for more information.

Begin: April 2017
Deadline to discuss a project with Joeran Beel as supervisor: November 1, 2016
Deadline for application: December 1st, 2016

Post-doctoral scholarships for Germans working abroad

• DAAD P.R.I.M.E is a competitive post-doc fellowship that allows German post-docs conducting a 12 months project at the Trinity College Dublin, or NII, and then stay an additional 6 months at a German host university. During the whole time you will be employed by the German host university and be paid according to the TVL13 salary scheme. The German host university could be Konstanz University or any other university you like. The program usually has a call for applications once per year.
• The DAAD Postdoc program (Kurzstipendium) allows German post-doctoral researchers to conduct a research project at Trinity College Dublin or NII for 3 to 6 months. There is also a similar program for 7 to 24 months but it is currently restructured. The compensation is around 2500€ per month.
• The DAAD FITweltweit program for postdocs is one of the most attractive fellowships at all. It allows you to pursue a research project of your choice at the NII in Tokyo with a highly competitive remuneration (around 3700€ per month, tax free, and if you are married or have children you get some extra remuneration). The fellowship also includes an additional budget that allows you to pay a Master or PhD student to work for you. Both Prof. Bela Gipp and Prof. Joeran Beel successfully applied for this scholarship and we can support you with your application. Applications are possible at any time.

Research Internships

Irish Students and Students from Konstanz to NII, Tokyo

The NII in Toyko offers 3-6 months internships for Master and PhD students, with a montly compensation of 171,000 YEN. Usually, there are two calls for application per year but only students from selected universities may apply. The University of Konstanz is one of these selected universities. In addition, the Lero Centre in Ireland is a selected organization whose member may apply for the NII internship. Members or Lero are almost all major Irish universities, including Trinity College Dublin. If you study at one of these universities, you may apply for a scholarship.

German Students to Trinity College Dublin or NII, Tokyo

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has numerous scholarship options for Master and PhD students, and one option for Bachelor students. These scholarships allow to conduct a research internship and/or writing a thesis at a foreign university such as the Trinity College Dublin or the NII.

• DAAD FITweltweit allows German Master and PhD students to pursue a research project for some months at the NII in Tokyo or the Trinity College Dublin. Applications are possible at any time.
• DAAD R.I.S.E Weltweit allows German Bachelor students to conduct a research project abroad. Between 1 November and 22 December 2016 you can browse and apply for a project you would like to pursue. We have two projects to offer, one in Tokyo, one in Dublin and both projects are about improving Mr. DLib’s recommender system. To see the project descriptions sign up, log-in, and then search in the DAAD database for Software Engineering projects in Japan or Ireland.

Uncompensated positions

Bachelor, Master, and PhD Projects

If you are planning to write your thesis in one of the areas we are interested in, you are very welcome to contact us  to discuss if one of us may supervise your work.

Voluntary Work

There are various options to work as volounteer with the Mr. DLib team. You might join the developement team, analyze some of our data as researcher, or you may work with us at one of your prefered locations if you organize some funding for yourself.

 

Application & Contact

If you are interested in any of the positions, then send the following information to joeran dot beel at adaptcentre dot ie

• The standard information such as current academic status, which position do you apply for, when do you want to start, …
• Brief letter of motivation (explain in which project you want to participate and why)
• CV
• A list that specifies for each of the listed requirements, how good your knowledge is (e.g. JAVA: Excellent; Linux: Basic; Databases: Good; …)
  • JAVA
  • MySQL (or other databases)
  • English proficiency (oral and written)
  • Academic Writing
  • Data Analysis (R/Python/Mathlab)
  • Linux
  • Recommender Systems
  • Machine Learning
  • Tomcat
  • Apache Lucene/Solr
  • JAVA Jersey
  • Web Services
  • Any other skill you feel important to list
• If you have: List of publications and software projects you contributed to; link to Google Scholar profile and GitHub page or similar.

We will get back to you with further information as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please send an email to joeran dot beel at adaptcentre dot ie.

Project Ideas

We have many ideas for conducting research in the field of recommender systems. However, we will not publish them here for various reasons. If you are interested in our idease, please contact us.

 

[1] Paragraph copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_College,_Dublin

[2] Paragraph copied from http://wikitravel.org/en/Dublin

[3] Paragraph copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Konstanz

[4] Paragraph copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_of_Informatics