Knowledge Media Institute (KMi)
£29,799 – £38,833 (Grade AC1 / AC2), Ref: 14482
Based in Milton Keynes
Temporary contract for 18 months
Application closing date: Thursday 31 May 2018.
The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) is a distinct research unit within the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at the Open University. KMi is looking for a Research Assistant or a Research Associate to work on the IoC project & how blockchains can be used to store student accreditation and lifelong learning records in order to enhance employability.
The Open University leads the IoC’s first theme on university learning, which aims to influence computer science teaching in universities nationally. An important part of that theme will be collaboration with a number of IoC partners and industry representing employers and educators to create an IoC Industrial Accreditation standard that will connect students and employers in new ways, using blockchain based accreditation and learner records, with the aim of:
- Increasing learner employability;
- Decreasing the skills gap in key technical and non-technical areas associated with computing in industry;
- Decreasing hiring costs for employers.
This IoC blockchain learning verification work will build on the work of the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University (KMi) who have built up an active research and development group focusing on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Members of KMi are working on the use of blockchains to create a trustable, decentralised repository for educational certification, ePortfolios and datasets with privacy concerns or which could be subject to tampering. We are also working on connecting blockchains with Linked Data. More information on our work can be found at: http://blockchain.open.ac.uk/
For more information about the post visit: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/jobs/14482