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I would be grateful if you can bring this job to the attention of anyone you think may be interested in working for the Department of History at University of Aberdeen The Department of History at the University of Aberdeen wishes to employ a research assistant for a period of 9 months to prepare databases for analysis, and to write a tutorial aimed at students at levels one and two which explains how to use GIS in historical enquiry. The research assistant will work under the supervision of the Department's Computing co-ordinator, but will also co-operate with a number of members of staff who have used CAL in the past. The research assistant will also be expected to help those colleagues who do not yet use GIS in their teaching to develop datasets and maps for classroom use should they wish to have such assistance. It is expected that the identification and modification of datasets will take seven to eight months and that the remainder of the term of the research assistant's contract will be used to compose a tutorial for self study. Further Details: The aims of the project are: the design and implementation of a user-friendly Geographical Information System (GIS) aimed at historians for the use in teaching at all levels, particularly levels one and two. The ability to make sense of facts and figures and to relate these to time and space is a vital element in the historian's craft. Recent work by members of the Department of History has shown the importance of linking statistical material to geographical factors and on this background the Department is keen to introduce students to the benefits of mapping technology throughout their period at the Department of History and Economic History. However, despite the obvious advantages in using computers for this kind of analysis, the skills of using GIS are rarely taught at UK universities. It is our belief that there are two obstacles that need to be overcome before the latest advances in database mapping can become a general tool for our students the students must have regular access to visually stimulating presentations which relate statistical information to geographical and historical factors in a meaningful way and they must be encouraged to perform comparable analyses on datasets that have not already been used for classroom presentations. The generally counter-intuitive interfaces offered by traditional database and statistical software must be explained and made comprehensible to students at all levels of study through the provision of a self-paced training program. We believe that by storing a large number of databases and spreadsheets and providing these with an intuitive and visually appealing interface and easy-to-understand tutorials written specifically for historians, tutors will be able to set statistical task to students and ask them to present their results in terms of geographical and temporal distribution by the help of GIS at an early phase in their studies. Tasks based on such data sets can include investigations as diverse as plotting the flow of commodities, capital exports and labour flows between regions, countries or continents to demonstrate trends in economic history, and more unusual investigations such as the interrelations between the treatment of minorities and the impact of Italian and Erasmian Humanism or the plotting of royal itineraries to show the development of medieval royal authority. The Department wishes to provide facilities for accessing large datasets of a wide variety of types and to provide all level one and two students and selective level three and four students with a good background in the manipulation of such datasets within the next academic year. In future years the Department expects GIS to be an integral part of the teaching of all students of History at the University of Aberdeen. We propose to make this possible by employing one post-graduate research assistant (historian) for a period of nine months and another research assistant (Computer scientist) to serve concurrently with the historian for the last three months of the project. It will be the responsibility of this historian: 1. to identify a suitable number of historical databases covering all of the period (and area) within the Department's remit to allow meaningful statistical assignments to be assigned to classes as early as levels one and two. 2. to help make these databases available in a format that will allow first and second year history students to manipulate them using the computers in the university's computing centre. 3. to compose and desktop publish a tutorial for self-study to be aimed at students in levels one and two explaining how to use the GIS software. This project is designed to be flexible enough to be of benefit to all levels of the Department's teaching, but one of its major advantages is that students at levels one and two are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the techniques of IT almost from day one of their studies at Aberdeen. Further particulars and informal enquiries to: Frederik Pedersen Department of History King's College Meston Walk Old Aberdeen Scotland, UK AB24 3FX Phone: (+1224) 272 464 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%