More information and how to apply at JobbNorge.
Application deadline: 15th August 2021
Job description
Applicants are invited to apply for a position as Data Steward (Head engineer, SKO 1087) based at Natural History Museum (NHM), University of Oslo (UiO). The contract period is 3 years full-time.
More about the position
Traditionally the main tasks related to our scientific collections focused on scientific and technical curation of physical objects. During the last twenty years we have accomplished a tremendous amount of work in databasing and digitisation of our collections for research, management and posterity. To achieve this we have had to invest in training existing and new staff in digital literacy and related skills. Through large external projects such as Revita, MUSIT and GBIF Norway we will continue this development, and make a larger share of our collections available to the public and the scientific community. Digitized collections enable innovative research across all museum collections to study salient topics. These could include temporal phenotypic variation (e.g. changes in morphology in response to climate change; effects of urban heat islands on flowering duration; etc), spatial dynamics of species and ecosystems (e.g. implications of morphological changes for plant and animal spread and feedback on climate) as well as development of artificial intelligence based identification of specimens and observation (e.g. automated identification of new collections; processing of indet. collections; scanning a collection for new undescribed species, and verification of current expert identifications), to name a few. There is also a considerable potential in connecting research, collections and outreach through digital solutions for involvement of citizen scientists (as demonstrated in the award-winning Natur i endring project at our museum).
In order for NHM to take a leading role not only in digitalization and databasing of our collections, but also in innovative scientific research on museum collections, we need to consider our resource allocations carefully. To this objective we now seek to recruit a full time Data Steward for National and International Coordination in a three-year position (SKO 1087, head engineer, overingeniør). The Data Steward will work on agreed commitments in externally financed projects. These tasks are grouped together in 1) data stewardship; 2) teaching and training; and 3) organisation and advocacy. Specifically these include:
- Data steward tasks for the national GBIF node for Norway.
- Training and capacity building (linked to external project commitments, incl BioDATA, BioMedData, NiN).
- Contribution to development of best practices for scaling up the digitisation of collections metadata, including geological, mineralogical and paleontological collections at NHM-O.
- Alignment of collection data portals for museum collections in Norway (CMS Natur) with international initiatives (GBIF, DiSSCo and CETAF).
- Integration of ecological data to the museum information management systems.
- Integration of eDNA into collection CMS.
Qualification requirements
The candidate must have:
- Minimum Master degree (MSc) in natural sciences complemented with work experience from biodiversity informatics and management of research data.
- Experience with biodiversity informatics, FAIR data principles, and best practices for open research data and metadata management.
- Capability and willingness to contribute to workshops and training courses on data mobilisation.
- Willingness to work in a decentralized international team to deliver technical support-services.
- Good written and verbal communication skills in English, and willingness to learn Norwegian.
The following skills will be considered as an advantage:
- Experience with best practices for communication of research data.
- Experience with biodiversity data preparation and open data publication in GBIF.
- Knowledge of the most common international standards and protocols for data exchange, publication and archiving of biodiversity data, including Darwin Core and other standards endorsed or ratified by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG).
- Experience with metadata standards and formats for describing datasets (GBIF uses the Ecological Metadata Language, EML, to describe datasets).
- Experience with the implementation of globally unique identifier keys (e.g. UUID, DOI, Handles, or similar).
- Experience with JSON-LD, RDF, Frictionless data or similar data exchange formats which can contribute to interoperability between different data sources.
- Willingness and skills for working in a dynamic international research community.
- Basic knowledge of Norwegian nature and biodiversity.
Contact information
Questions regarding the position: Professor Olav Skarpaas (olav.skarpaas@nhm.uio.no), Dr Dag Endresen (dag.endresen@nhm.uio.no) or Prof Hugo de Boer (h.de.boer@nhm.uio.no)
Questions regarding the recruiting system and the application procedure:
HR-adviser Anita Marie Hansen (a.m.hansen@nhm.uio.no)
