OII News [2015.07.30]: New Positions, Part-time MSc, New Project on Virtual Labour, Open days, Webcasts

OII Newsletter July 2015

Dear friends and colleagues,

From this September, we are delighted that we will be able to accept applications for part-time study on our MSc degree in Social Science of the Internet. Our existing full-time MSc has attracted high numbers of excellent applicants since its launch in 2009; by offering the part-time option we're hoping to bring an even broader mix of people with diverse experience into our community -- in particular, people already in work, such as professionals working in industry, government or Internet-related fields, and policy experts looking to increase their expertise in IT policy and regulation, and the growing and policy-critical fields of data science and the ethics of information.

I am also very pleased to say that Research Fellow Vili Lehdonvirta has been awarded a five-year European Research Council Starting Grant to study the fundamental change taking place in labour markets, that is, the institutional arrangements through which work and earnings are allocated in society (we’re recruiting, see below). These grants aim to support up-and-coming independent research leaders and the creation of excellent new research teams. OII Associate Professor Mark Graham already has an ERC grant on sub-Saharan knowledge economies: to have landed two such grants in a (modest-sized) department like ours is testament not just to the talent and hard work of our faculty, but also to the tremendous breadth and richness of the Internet as an exciting area in which to forge a research career. Congratulations, Vili!

Of course, a by-product of large grants like this -- and the many other grants and research collaborations of all sizes that we already have -- is that we are continuing to expand; we're recruiting for three positions, with more advertised in the coming months.

Best wishes,
Helen Margetts, Director

Virtual Labour and Markets

A fundamental change is taking place in labour markets, i.e. the social, technical, and institutional arrangements through which work and earnings are allocated in society. As part of the ongoing digitization of almost every aspect of society, these arrangements are increasingly being shaped and constrained by private software systems that mediate between workers and employers. The objective of the new iLabour project is to understand the social and policy implications of this momentous shift in labour markets.

It is a five-year project funded by the ERC. We are recruiting for a Researcher position.

Blog post: why are citizens migrating to Uber and Airbnb, and what should governments do about it?

Blog post: Uber and Airbnb make the rules now — but to whose benefit?

New positions

Researcher in ICTs, Geography and Development
Grade 7: £30,434 – £37,394 p.a.
Working with Mark Graham on the ERC-funded project Geonet: Investigating the Changing Connectivities and Potentials of Sub-Saharan Africa's Knowledge Economy

Researcher (data science)
Grade 7: Salary £30,434 – £37,394 p.a.
Full-time Researcher to work with Vili Lehdonvirta on the ERC-funded project iLabour: The Construction of Labour Markets, Institutions and Movements on the Internet.

Developer
Grade 7: Salary £30,434 – £37,394 p.a.
Full-time Developer to work on a newly funded project, Gorongosa Webcam, which will harness the Zooniverse volunteer crowd to identify species of African wildlife from camera trap photos.

More jobs will be advertised in the coming weeks: keep an eye on our Twitter account!

Teaching News

From September 2015 we will be accepting applications for part-time study for the post-graduate MSc degree in Social Science of the Internet. This will enable students to take the degree on a part-time basis, but one that is fully integrated with the full-time programme. If you would like to know more about the programme and the department, we will be holding open days on 18 September and 17 November, and a virtual open day on 1 December. A couple of tasters of the MSc option courses are included below, with more released over the summer:

Big Data in Society

Eric Meyer and Ralph Schroeder discuss their MSc option course.

Online Social Networks

Bernie Hogan and Taha Yasseri discuss their MSc option course.

This year’s Summer Doctoral Programme was, as usual a huge success. Our 31 excellent PhD students formed an incredibly close-knit group as evidenced by the Twitter-storm that accompanied the fortnight’s seminars and student presentations. We were also delighted to have an array of exciting visiting speakers and alumni, including Rey Junco, Homero Gil de Zuniga, Stuart Shulman and Bill McGeveran. We can't believe it's over so soon!

In the Press

Anxieties about technology engaged the press with our research. Fears that robots could come to dominate humans featured in ‘Lessons from Luciano Floridi, the Google philosopher’ a long article on ABC (Australia). His keynote at the Thinking Digital Conference in Gateshead explored the same area, as featured in The Journal. Facial recognition and iris scanning also provoked concerns, which were addressed by Anne-Marie Oostveen; the Daily Mail reprinted her article co-authored with Diana Dimitrova in The Conversation and her work was reported in The Telegraph and also the New Zealand Herald. Computer ethicist, Mariarosaria Taddeo addressed the issues around the tensions between citizens’ rights and the responsibility of the state to keep them safe in an article about the grey areas in which hackers, both well intentioned or malevolent, operate. And the latest map from Mark Graham and team, which reconfigures the world based on the percentage of population connected to the Internet, was very widely reported, including in the Washington Post.