Call for Applications: Academic TikTok (Virtual RA Positions x3)

 

Call for Applications: Three Virtual Research Assistant Positions with the Academic TikTok Pilot Project, working with the KMDI/Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

 

Job Description

60 hours, May 17 (revised from original May 10) - June 30, 2021 

$28-$38/hour (commensurate with experience)

 

The Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) is seeking 3 Research Assistants to assist in a pilot study of the use of TikTok for academic knowledge mobilization. The pilot will include a review of both the literature (academic/industry) and the compilation of a collection (or playlist) of current examples of TikToks made for educational purposes, which will be used to produce a report or white paper on the topic which will be published on TSpace and on the KMDI website (open access). The report should emphasize whether/how TikTok might be used to relay new and emerging research findings, and identify of a preliminary list of best (or promising) practices. Lastly, the research team will produce a series of TikTok videos aimed at sharing the findings of a recent global study of children’s rights in the digital environment. This project will enable a unique and timely intervention into emerging academic discussions about the use of corporately owned social media for academic knowledge mobilization, while laying the groundwork for future research in this area. 

  

Responsibilities:

1)     Assist with designing and building the pilot study research design;

2)     Assist with the review of relevant academic literature and industry publications/reports on the topic of educational and knowledge mobilization uses, challenges and opportunities associated with TikTok or other video/image based social media; 

3)     Assist with identifying, recording/screen capturing and managing relevant TikTok videos in a shared repository; 

4)     Collaborate on the production (planning, writing, filming, directing, editing, etc.) of a series of TikTok videos aimed at mobilizing knowledge of a recent academic study among diverse targeted audiences (team will have access to KMDI video/audio recording equipment); 

5)     Attend regular virtual meetings with the research team to share and compare findings, address anomalies and resolve discrepancies;

6)     Maintain a record/documentation of your work, process, and findings (weekly research memos); 

7)     Contribute to the writing and preparation of a preliminary report or white paper on the current state of research and practice relating to TikTok as an educational and/or knowledge mobilization platform.  

 

Qualifications:

●      Previous experience with TikTok and/or similar video-based social media platforms.

●      Previous experience producing videos and/or related digital content;

●      Strong to excellent technical skills in video production, audio production, video editing, post-production, special effects or other media-related areas;

●      Strong to excellent research skills, especially relating to the retrieval, critical evaluation, and synthesis of academic literature (literature review); 

●      Strong to excellent written and verbal communication skills; 

●      Committed, reliable, organized, ability to work both independently and as part of a team.

Qualified applicants must have the resources and availability to complete all the work remotely (personal computer, reliable internet connection), in accordance with COVID-19 physical distancing requirements, and must be legally entitled to work in Canada for the duration of the contract. Preference will be given to current University of Toronto Faculty of Information and/or Knowledge Media Design (Collaborative Specialization) students. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas and perspectives. 

Please note that the start and end dates are negotiable (to some extent), but that the work must be completed in its entirety before July 30, 2021. If you have any questions, concerns, or require assistance completing this application please contact sara.grimes@utoronto.ca

 

How to apply: 

Email sara.grimes@utoronto.ca with brief cover letter and CV. 

Applications are open until the position is filled. Please note that only qualified, short-listed applicants will be selected for an interview.

Summer Research Assistant Positions: Come work with me!

Please see below for 2 separate Calls for Applications. I'm looking for summer (2021) research assistants to help me with two related research projects that I'm working on right now. The first is for The Media Ratings Project (2 RAships), and the second is for the the In-Game Ads Study (2 RAships). Please pay special attention to the qualifications, including the resources and ability to work remotely. Note that preference will be given to current UofT students in the Faculty of Information and/or Knowledge Media Design (Collaborative Specialization), and that applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas and perspectives are especially encouraged and welcome.

Call for Applications: Virtual Research Assistant Position(s) with The Media Ratings Project, working with Professor Sara Grimes, KMDI/Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

 

Job Description

100 hours, May 10- July 16, 2021 

$28/hour

 

Dr. Sara M. Grimes, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information and Director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) is seeking 2 Research Assistants to assist with designing and conducting a comprehensive content analysis of Canadian and US media ratings systems. Data will be used to conduct a comparative analysis of how children’s media (here defined as media made and targeted directly to children and youth) is classified by formal ratings systems, such as the MPAA or the ESRB, across different formats, age categories, geographical regions and time. This project will enable a unique and timely intervention into emerging academic and policy discussions about age-appropriate media and design, while laying the groundwork for future research in this area. 

  

Responsibilities:

1)     Assist with designing and building a coding protocol suitable for cross-media content analysis;

2)     Assist with defining and delineating of the data set, and conduct the data collection;

3)     Assist with inputting, cleaning and managing data in a shared database; 

4)     Assist with conducting and interpreting data analysis, generating frequencies, cross-tabs, etc., identifying and interpreting patterns/trends;   

5)     Maintain a record/documentation of your work, process, findings (weekly research memos); 

6)     Contribute to the writing and preparation of a preliminary report of findings. 

 

Qualifications:

●      Strong to excellent research skills, especially relating to the retrieval and critical evaluation of digital/online sources; 

●      Strong to excellent skills in data management, and knowledge of relevant tools and software (e.g. SPSS, Excel, OneDrive, etc.);

●      Strong to excellent written and verbal communication skills; 

●      Previous experience with quantitative research methods and modes of analysis, especially those used in content analysis (intercoder reliability, frequencies, cross-tabs); 

●      Previous experience or familiarity with Canadian and/or US media regulation (governmental) and industry-driven ratings systems (e.g. ESRB, MPAA, Canadian Ratings Classification System, App Store (iOS) Ratings, etc.);

●      Committed, reliable, organized, ability to work both independently and as part of a team.

Qualified applicants must have the resources and availability to complete all of the work remotely (personal computer, reliable internet connection), in accordance with COVID-19 physical distancing requirements, and must be legally entitled to work in Canada for the duration of the contract. Preference will be given to current University of Toronto Faculty of Information and/or Knowledge Media Design (Collaborative Specialization) students. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas and perspectives. 

Please note that the start and end dates are negotiable (to some extent), but that the work must be completed in its entirety before July 30 2021. If you have any questions, concerns, or require assistance completing this application please contact sara.grimes@utoronto.ca

 

How to apply: 

Email sara.grimes@utoronto.ca with brief cover letter and CV. 

Applications are open until the position is filled. Please note that only qualified, short-listed applicants will be selected for an interview.

 

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Call for Applications: Virtual Research Assistant Positions with the In-Game Ads Study, working with Professor Sara Grimes, KMDI/Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

 

Job Description

100 hours, May 10- July 16, 2021 

$28/hour

 

Dr. Sara M. Grimes, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information and Director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) is seeking 2 Research Assistants to assist in the compilation and coding of a comprehensive data set (database) of the “in-game ads” (advertisements) that appear in popular app games categorized as appropriate for children in Canada. Data collection will involve both playing a large number of children’s games/apps and documenting the ads as they appear through the capture of images/video other relevant qualitative and quantitative data. This data will be used in a subsequent study of the effectiveness of current age classification systems in children’s games across platforms. This project will enable a unique and timely intervention into emerging academic and policy discussions about age-appropriate media and design, while laying the groundwork for future research in this area. 

  

Responsibilities:

1)     Assist with designing and building a database and coding protocol;

2)     Assist with the collection of data by actively playing a large number of games classified as appropriate for children aged 4years+ (devices and games will be provided) while documenting ads as they appear (intermittently, and often without warning);

3)     Attend regular virtual meetings with the research team to share and compare findings, address anomalies and resolve discrepancies;

4)     Assist with inputting, cleaning and managing the data in a shared database; 

5)     Maintain a record/documentation of your work, process, and findings (weekly research memos); 

6)     Contribute to the writing and preparation of a preliminary report of findings. 

 

Qualifications:

●      Previous experience playing digital games especially on Apple iPad and/or Samsung Galaxy.

●      Previous experience working with children, or strong/demonstrated knowledge of children’s studies, children’s media and/or children’s literature theories;

●      Strong to excellent research skills, especially relating to the retrieval and critical evaluation of digital/online sources; 

●      Strong to excellent skills in data management, and knowledge of relevant tools and software (e.g. SPSS, Excel, OneDrive, etc.);

●      Strong to excellent written and verbal communication skills; 

●      Previous experience with creating, organizing digital images and/or video; 

●      Committed, reliable, organized, ability to work both independently and as part of a team.

Qualified applicants must have the resources and availability to complete all the work remotely (personal computer, reliable internet connection), in accordance with COVID-19 physical distancing requirements, and must be legally entitled to work in Canada for the duration of the contract. Preference will be given to current University of Toronto Faculty of Information and/or Knowledge Media Design (Collaborative Specialization) students. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas and perspectives. 

Please note that the start and end dates are negotiable (to some extent), but that the work must be completed in its entirety before July 30 2021. If you have any questions, concerns, or require assistance completing this application please contact sara.grimes@utoronto.ca

 

How to apply: 

Email sara.grimes@utoronto.ca with brief cover letter and CV. 

Applications are open until the position is filled. Please note that only qualified, short-listed applicants will be selected for an interview.

 

 

Critical Technology Podcast

And here's the podcast itself: Critical Technology, now available on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Play and numerous other podcasting platforms. Enjoy! And if you like what you hear, please share it with your networks:

  

It's here! Trailer for my upcoming new podcast, Critical Technology.

We'll I did it! Er, almost. We're still recording and editing the actual episodes, but things are coming together quite nicely, and we remain on track to launch a new podcast this semester (Fall 2020) as a substitute for the KMDI's annual speaker series. The podcast is called Critical Technology, and it features an amazing roster of interviewees (which I'll announce soon in a more formal way). For now, here is the trailer. Enjoy!

Critical Technology (Trailer)

Exploring podcasting for academic and course delivery, in response to COVID-19

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be exploring the feasibility and desirability of creating a podcast to replace the regularly scheduled speaker series my research institute (KMDI) hosts every year. There are a few reasons why finding a way to continue the series virtually is important to me and the Institute, one of which is that students taking our collaborative specialization have a required course that is directly tied to attending a number of the Series talks. Another is that I was already planning on launching a set of initiatives over the coming months aimed at helping researchers and community partners test out and (potentially) start up their own podcasts, so this can serve as the best guinea pig test case for sorting out logistics, pros/cons, actual costs/time required, etc. And yet another is that podcasting is a really flexible and popular form of knowledge media, one that I and many of my students and colleagues are big fans of, and thus something I'd like to get involved with.

I'm very aware that there are already a LOT of people and places getting into podcasting right now, and so this is a total bandwagon, AND I'm going to find it particularly challenging to even track down the basic equipment required. But, that's fine, and actually supports the need for considered and critical analysis of the processes, procurement, and so on involved.

My first step, as always, is to do research, which has so far consisted of tracking down and listening to a number of podcasts created by academics with a similar "academic" purpose, including The Radical AI Podcast and The New Normal with Maydianne Andrade. I've also been taking workshops and reading a ton about the basics of producing a podcast, drawing resources from established experts like The Podcast Garage (their workshops are really excellent, by the way). I have an elevator pitch of what the podcast will be about, a theme for season 1, and an emerging idea about the type of genre and style I want to aim for. I'm not ready to share any of that with the world yet, but it feels like it's coming together quite nicely.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will (hopefully) be hiring a work-study research assistant to help me plan and put together Season 1. The position is currently only open to f/t UofT students, but I will extend the pool if needed. If all goes well developing the prototype, I will likely make this a recurring (non work-study) position come fall.

Wish me luck, friends!

Come work with me at the KMDI: P/T (or student) Job Opportunity for a Data Visualization/Graphic Designer

DATA VISUALIZATION + GRAPHIC DESIGNER POSITION

WITH KMDI + SEMAPHORE

The Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, is seeking to fill a Data Visualization & Graphic Designer position reporting to the Institute’s Director.

The Data Visualization & Graphic Designer will focus on promoting research produced by members of the KMDI – Semaphore to diverse communities, which include cross-sector partners, children and youth, people from marginalized groups, as well as the public at large. The successful hire will also develop a new logo design for the KMDI and advise on its implementation across the Institute’s various communications and marketing.

Qualifications: 

- Experience in Graphic Design, Intermediate to Advanced Skills in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop), and/or other comparable graphic design software (e.g. Inkscape, Corel)
- Specialized skills in data visualization practices and software

- Familiarity with research methods used in the social sciences and science and technology studies  (STS), including qualitative and quantitative approaches 

- Ability to convey complex information, including findings and theoretical advances, through polished and engaging visuals

- Demonstrated ability and experience in clearly communicating research findings through data visualizations, interactive charts, graphs and other tools to diverse audiences. 

- Experience teleworking or working remotely, including collaborating with co-workers and team members through teleconferencing/virtual collaboration programs (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack)

- Excellent reading comprehension and communication skills

- Solid understanding of marketing and branding

- Excellent organizational skills 

- Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills

- Self-motivated; takes initiative; pro-active

- Committed, reliable, ability to work both independently and as part of a team

Desired Skills

- Familiarity with popular social media platforms, e.g. Hootesuite, Facebook, Discord, and Twitter

- Familiarity with current web standards-based HTML, CSS 

Responsibilities:

- Creating data visualizations of select KMDI research findings and activities, that support effective knowledge translation and knowledge mobilization to audiences from diverse sectors and communities; 

- Creating original graphics and infographics for use in research communications (e.g. reports, conference presentations), public outreach, marketing and branding purposes; 

- Assisting in the development of new data visualization and visual communication design “iSkills” workshops and complementary course modules, aimed at KMD and Faculty of Information students.

Qualified applicants must have the resources and availability to complete most (potentially all) of the work remotely) (in accordance with COVID-19 physical distancing requirements), and must be legally entitled to work in Canada for the duration of the contract. The KMDI is strongly committed to diversity within its community and welcomes applications from racialized persons/persons of colour, women, Indigenous/Aboriginal people of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

The successful applicant will be offered an initial contract of 150 hours, to be completed between May 25, 2020 – December 31, 2020 (with possibility of renewal). Hours are flexible but should average a minimum of 5 hours a week for the duration of the contract. Salary will be commensurate with experience, projected between $33-$37/hour.

Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted for an interview.

To apply, email a CV, cover letter, and portfolio to KMDI Director Dr. Sara M. Grimes (sara[dot]Grimes[at]utoronto[dot]ca) by end of day on May 14, 2020.  

New Job Opportunity Alert: Local Indie Game Dev Seeking a Unity 2D/C+ Programmer to Help Finalize Very Cool New Project

I don't normally post third-party job ads/opportunities (because I feel like that could quickly get out of control, for one), but this is the exception. My partner, @jaydubfilm, has recently decided to take the plunge and launch his own game dev studio, A-Games, here in the GTA. He has created a really quite awesome game to mark the launch, and is now seeking some programming help to get it finalized, polished and ready for publication. Please check out his job ad, cut+paste below, and posted on his site here:  http://agamedesign.co/jobs.php

Please distribute widely. The timeline is short for both applications and for the work itself, because of the particular grant he's applying for to fund this final stage of development. So if you or someone you know is interested, please get in touch asap.

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SEEKING UNITY 2D / C# PROGRAMMER
for short-term $3,000.00 contract

Accomplished writer and filmmaker seeks an up-and-coming freelance game dev / software engineer for help with startup: A-GAME Design Co. The applicant will help flesh out a prototype for presentation to funders + publishers. Potential for continued employment with the company if pitch is successful.

APPLICANT REQUIREMENTS:

• Under 30 years of age (IRAP funding requirement)
• ONTARIO-based (Ontario Creates funding requirement)
• Degree in computer science / game design / what have you
• Ability to collaborate and communicate with other humans
• Dykstra’s algorithm and axial coordinate systems DON’T strike fear into heart

THE GAME:  A 2D action puzzle / survival game with sci-fi theme for mobile and PC release.  It’s DON’T STARVE meets TETRIS. In space.

THE PLATFORM: UNITY / C#

THE COMMITMENT: About 60-120 hrs of work to be completed between Feb 1st andMarch 15th, 2020.

THE FEE: flat $3,000 for the completed project (works out to between $25 -  $50 / HR epending on your experience level + efficiency)

PLEASE send resume / CV to jobs@agamedesign.co

“This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship…”

Preference will be given to diverse applicants under the Ontario government’s definition of diversity which includes but is not limited to: ancestry, culture, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, language, physical and intellectual ability, race, religion (creed), sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic status).