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The research position below is still open and we are looking to fill it as soon as possible. We expect to advertise shortly. For informal enquiries and information about the application process contact Dr. Douglas Tudhope. e-mail [log in to unmask] http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/research/hypermedia UNIVERSITY OF GLAMORGAN SCHOOL OF COMPUTING - HYPERMEDIA RESEARCH UNIT 3 year EPSRC Research Associate Salary: £15,205 - 23,199 depending on qualifications and experience. For a project in collaboration with the Science Museum, unlocking access to NMSI's collections database. The project explores how the semantic structure underlying information can enhance intelligent browsing and search tools. You should possess a postgraduate qualification or relevant experience in computing or information science and a programming/database background. You will join an active hypermedia research unit specialising in the cultural heritage domain. You will conduct independent research but also work as part of a team. You will liase with the Science Museum, the mda, and other collaborators. Knowledge of any of the following would be an advantage: database programming; information science; thesaurus or classification theory; Museum collections and IT. You will be expected to become familiar with previous thesaurus research in information science and measures of semantic closeness. You will design, program and evaluate research prototypes of thesaurus-based retrieval tools employing semantic closeness measures. You will conduct evaluations with users and analyse results. You will have the opportunity to write and collaborate on academic publications. Overview Facilitating access to information is a topical concern. Major efforts are underway to digitise collections for the Internet while existing databases, previously the domain of the professional, are being opened to a new range of users. Problems of information access are well known, and are heightened when users are unfamiliar with indexing conventions. There is a critical need for tools that will assist users to formulate and refine queries, and navigate through information space. The recent growth of cultural heritage applications has served as a major impetus in promoting access to multimedia collections and has coincided with a concern by museums to rethink their public role. As a result, there has been a move to unlock collections databases to the public, which has foregrounded the question of 'access points' and indexing practice. One of the most commonly used controlled vocabulary indexing tools is the thesaurus. More powerful use of thesauri in retrieval is seen as key to widening public access. Advantages of the semantic relationships between index terms in faceted thesauri are widely recognised, however their potential has yet to be realised in retrieval. The project will identify heuristics to guide expansion of strings of query and index terms, in order to yield a wider set of semantically close terms. These will be applied in novel navigation and retrieval tools that are not dependent on exact matching of keywords. The proposed research involves close collaboration with the Science Museum in its attempts to promote wider access to its collections database. More information can be found at http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/research/hypermedia %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%