GTA in Computer Science

P A R T I C U L A R S O F A P P O I N T M E N T

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

Graduate Teaching Assistant in Computer Science Salary £3,892 pa, plus £8,108 maintenance grant and payment of fees Available from 1 September 2005 for 4 years.

Ref: E1966

Applications are invited for a Graduate Teaching Assistantship in Computer Science. Each Graduate Teaching Assistant is expected to undertake teaching-related duties within the Department, not normally exceeding six contact hours per week during term, while undertaking research leading to a PhD. In association with the Graduate School of the University, the Department of Computer Science is also able to offer successful applicants a fee waiver studentship to run for the first three years of their appointment. The Graduate Teaching Assistantships offer an excellent opportunity to pursue a doctorate in a dynamic and successful department. Successful applicants must have a good (normally first-class) first degree in Computer Science or cognate subject, and ideally, should have a Masters degree in Computer Science (or be about to complete one). Applicants must demonstrate both a strong interest in research and the potential to become high quality teachers.

The Graduate Teaching Assistant is not restricted to any particular field of Computer Science, but must have research interests that are clearly aligned with the research interests of their likely eventual supervisor. A list of example project titles is given below. In the case of each project, the name of the likely eventual supervisor is given below and that person will be willing to discuss the project further, or to discuss related projects. Example titles include:

The semantics of calling and binding (Dr. Roy Crole), Architectural modelling of software-intensive systems (Prof. José Fiadeiro) The impact of class transformation patterns on UML diagrams (Dr. Piotr Kosiuczenko) Property-preserving model transformations (Dr. Reiko Heckel) Automatic and hyperbolic monoids (Dr. Michael Hoffmann) Policies for on-demand service composition (Dr. Stephan Reiff-Marganiec) Formal languages and groups (Prof. Rick Thomas) Operational semantics with priorities for biological systems (Dr. Irek Ulidowski)

A fuller description of these projects is available at http://www.cs.le.ac.uk/news/GTA/index.html

In all cases, for full consideration, the applicant should: a) Provide the names of up to two members of staff in the department under whose supervision they would be willing to do a PhD; b) If a potential topic for a thesis has not been agreed with the potential supervisor then a half- page description of a proposed thesis topic. The University

The University of Leicester is one of the UK’s leading research and teaching universities. The University was founded as a University College in 1921 and granted a Royal Charter in 1957. It has an estate of approximately 232 acres that includes a fifteen-acre Botanic Garden, an arboretum and a range of residences in the suburbs that are set in attractive gardens.

The University has 18,005 students including 8,514 at postgraduate level. There are 33 academic departments located in six faculties: Arts, Education and Continuing Studies, Law, Medicine and Biological Sciences, Science and Social Sciences. There is a University-wide Graduate School and an Institute of Lifelong Learning. The University employs approximately 3,500 staff.

The University has been ranked in the UK’s top twenty universities in three consecutive years since 2001 by the Financial Times. It was placed in the top 20 UK universities for research grant and contract income in 2004. The University had 25 ratings of 5*, 5 or 4 in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise when 84% of the staff were in units of assessment of national and international excellence. In the Teaching Quality Assessment four units achieved a grade of excellent before 1995 and since then 14 units have received a score of 22 or more out of 24. The University has been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in Higher and Further Education in 2002 for its submission in Genetics.

The University is committed to producing research and teaching of the highest quality, to promoting undergraduate and postgraduate studies through campus-based and distance-learning programmes and to developing close collaboration with the local and regional community.

The Department of Computer Science

Computer Science is a young and dynamic department in the midst of rapid expansion in the scope of our research and teaching activities. This expansion signals the University’s commitment to the continued development of Computer Science. We aim to establish ourselves firmly among the UK’s top Computer Science departments over the next few years.

The Department currently consists of three Professors, two Readers, one Senior Lecturer, twelve Lecturers and four Demonstrators, and further Lectureships are to be advertised shortly. There are also a number of post-doctoral research associates and PhD students.

There are three research groups, roughly equally sized, focussing on Algorithms and Complexity, Program Analysis and Construction, and Software Specification and Design. The Algorithms and Complexity group has wide-ranging interests including: algorithm engineering, bioinformatics, data structures, data compression, external-memory algorithms, formal language theory, automata theory, computation in algebraic structures, automatic groups and monoids, hyperbolic monoids, word problems of groups, algorithmic aspects of communication networks, graph algorithms, streaming algorithms and algorithms for dealing with semi-structured data. The broad aim of the Program Analysis and Construction group is to develop the foundations of the theory of programming and computation. The group has attracted several large grants from EPSRC, the Royal Society and the European Union, and has research links with leading research groups nationally and internationally. ts research interests include category theory, domain theory, structural operational semantics, term rewriting, classical and constructive logics and theorem proving. A uniquely distinctive feature of the group is that almost everyone makes use of category theory or categorical logic. The members of the Software Specification and Design Group (SoftSD) are working in calculi and models for concurrent and distributed systems, software architectures, model-driven development, service-oriented development, web technologies and system re- engineering. SoftSD is involved in several research projects at EU and UK level focusing on a number of areas and technologies in the above research topics, thus providing a diversified international environment, including industry. The Department benefits from being in a School of Mathematics and Computer Science, and has good research links with both Pure and Applied Mathematics.

2 More details on the research within the department are available on: http://www.cs.le.ac.uk/research

In addition to undergraduate teaching, the Department participates in a number of postgraduate programmes, principally the MSc in Advanced Software Engineering, the MSc in Advanced Distributed Systems (starting September 2005) and the MSc in Bioinformatics (with the School of Biological Sciences). Leicester is an active participant in the Midlands Graduate School, which organises advanced postgraduate courses for PhD students in nearby universities in the Midlands, including Warwick, Nottingham, Loughborough and Birmingham.

Job Outline

The Department welcomes applications from promising researchers in any area of Computer Science, who have a good (normally first-class) first degree in Computer Science or cognate subject, and preferably are likely to have just completed, or to be about to complete, a Masters degree in Computer Science, and are committed to high quality teaching. It is essential that the research interests of the candidate are aligned with a suitable supervisor in the department.

Main purpose of the post:

The postholder will be ultimately responsible to the Head of the Department of Computer Science, but for teaching-related duties will report to the Director of Teaching. The postholder will undertake research, normally leading to the award of a PhD degree in due course, as well as teaching and other activities supporting the work of the Department and developing and enhancing its reputation, both internal and external to the University.

Main duties and responsibilities:

The duties and responsibilities outlined below are not intended to be an exhaustive list but provide guidance on the main aspects of the post.

Research-related duties include:

1. To pursue research of high quality in any area of Computer Science, as part of a PhD degree registered in the Department (initially successful applicants will normally register as ‘Advanced Postgraduate Students’). 2. To disseminate the results of research and scholarship through presentations in the internal seminar series in the Department. 3. To ensure that all research activities undertaken are in compliance with the ‘Research Code of Conduct’ operated by the University. 4. Consistent with the resources available and departmental and other obligations, to attend and present research findings and papers at academic and professional conferences, and to contribute to the external visibility of the department. 5. To contribute fully to the thriving research culture of the department, through attendance and participation in staff seminars, internal seminars and workshops, PhD seminars and other means, as appropriate. 6. To undertake, subject to agreement of the Head of Department and the University as appropriate, external commitments which reflect well upon and enhance the reputation of the University.

Teaching-related duties include:

7. To give seminars, tutorials and laboratory sessions, as appropriate, in support of the required teaching obligations and to be available for consultation by undergraduate students, during appropriately specified office hours.

3 8. To ensure that student feedback on teaching is sought, through questionnaires and other means, and to respond constructively to such feedback and to advice from peers. 9. To develop and maintain a broad knowledge of up-to-date research and scholarship in relevant fields to ensure that teaching meets the standards expected within a research-led University. 10. To undertake academic duties (e.g. providing feedback to undergraduate students on formatively assessed coursework, to participate in the assessment of oral presentations by undergraduate students, to provide pastoral support of students and undertake invigilation duties where appropriate) required to sustain the delivery of high quality teaching. 11. To support and comply with the University and departmental teaching quality assurance standards and procedures including the provision of such information as may be required by the Department or the University. 12. To engage in continuous professional development, for example through participation in relevant staff development programmes. 13. To ensure compliance with health and safety requirements in all aspects of work.

Scope of the post:

The main duties of all GTA posts involve research in Computer Science, normally leading to the degree of PhD from the University of Leicester, and teaching within the Department’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Teaching duties, which are flexibly organised, are allocated by the Director of Teaching and will not ordinarily exceed six hours per week. The University provides training in teaching skills for all newly appointed teaching personnel. Much of the teaching will be concerned with the provision of tutorials/seminars to support lecture courses.

On appointment, each successful candidate will register as an ‘Advanced Postgraduate (APG) Student’. All students who wish to read for a higher degree by supervised study (including MPhil and PhD) at the University of Leicester normally register as an APG student on arrival. There is then a probationary period of study (usually 12 months for full-time students) at the end of which, and subject to satisfactory progress having been made, the student registers for a specific degree. The minimum period of registration for a PhD is two years full-time, but this includes the year studying under APG status, reflecting the fact that this probationary year constitutes the first year of the PhD programme.

Each successful candidate will be assigned a Thesis Committee, which consists of a supervisor, an Adviser, and the Director of Graduate Research. Immediately after registration, the Thesis Committee meets with the student to review the student’s background, decide on any taught courses that the student will be required to attend, and help to plan the programme of research over the course of the first year. The Committee will also specify grade requirements that must be achieved during this first year in the chosen taught courses to proceed from APG status to full PhD registration. All first year research students are expected to attend the Postgraduate Training Course in Social Science Research Methods, provided by the Faculty. These courses are designed to facilitate students’ development as researchers and help students to carry out their research as effectively as possible. Postgraduate research students are also typically encouraged to attend lectures from the Masters Programme in subject areas that will be of value to their research activities.

In addition to these teaching and research duties, the Graduate Teaching Assistants are expected to participate in other activities within the Department. There are currently three seminar/workshop series and the persons appointed will be encouraged to participate in these and to make a yearly presentation to the Staff-Graduate Student Seminar Programme. Towards the conclusion of their PhD research, graduate students in the Department are encouraged to present their findings at external conferences and financial assistance is available to support this.

Responsible to: Head of Department

4 Person Specification

Qualifications and Experience

The successful candidate will show outstanding promise of research achievement in any of the main areas of research, consistent with a Computer Science department that is aspiring to achieve the equivalent of a Grade 5 in the next RAE.

Profile of personal skills, qualifications, knowledge, abilities, competencies and experience:

Essential · Potential to initiate, develop and deliver high quality research in Computer Science, likely to lead to the award of a PhD under supervision by academic staff.** · Potential to teach effectively undergraduate students in tutorials, seminars and other classes in a variety of core Computer Science subjects · Should have, or shortly be expected to obtain, a good (normally first class) BSc degree in Computer Science or cognate area (normally 1st class). Degree class may be partially mitigated by relevant work experience.* · Good effective communication (oral and written) skills, presentation and training skills · Good interpersonal skills · Ability to work independently as well as part of a team on research and teaching related activities. Desirable · A track record in, develop and deliver high quality research, likely to lead to the award of a PhD under supervision by academic staff. * · Experience in teaching undergraduate students in tutorials, seminars and other classes in a variety of core Computer Science subjects. * · Should have, or shortly be expected to obtain, a good Master’s degree in Computer Science (or be close to completing one). *

Items marked with an asterisk (*) will judged on CV and references, and would be used for short- listing criteria; the remaining items will be assessed in the interview. Items marked with (**) will be judged partly by the applicant’s research statement and references, and partly in the interview.

Terms and Conditions

Staff are responsible through their Supervisor to the Head of Department.

The appointment is subject to the University Charter, Statutes, Ordinances, and Regulations and to the standard Terms and Conditions of Appointment for Academic Related Staff.

The salary will be £3,892 per annum, plus £8,108 maintenance grant and payment of fees.

The person appointed may be required to serve a probationary period.

Academic and related staff eligible for membership may, immediately on starting their employment, join USS - the occupational pension scheme provided by this University. Unless, prior to becoming an employee, he/she declares in writing a wish not to be a member of USS, he/she will automatically be deemed to be a member from the start of the employment and contributions will be deducted from the date of entry to the Scheme, at which time full details of benefits, etc will be forwarded by the University Superannuation Office, from which further information can be obtained at any time. The University contributes an amount equal to approximately 14% of salary.

Conditions of service may be varied by agreement after consultation and negotiation through established channels.

5 The total holiday entitlement is 5 days per annum, starting on 1 January. The University is closed to staff on 8 public holidays, plus a further 6 days in each year as allocated by the University. These days normally fall near to Christmas and Easter public holidays. All leave arrangements are to be agreed with the Head of Computer Science, but are subject to the exigencies of the service.

Prior to confirmation of any appointment by the University, the successful candidate may be required to pass a medical examination. In addition, if the person appointed has occasion to work with either ionising or laser radiation, the University will require regular or ad hoc medical examinations or tests as may be prescribed by the Radiation Protection Committee or by the Safety Committee.

Appointments of members of the academic-related staff may be terminated by one month’s notice in writing by either side.

Staff are required to reside in or near Leicester unless otherwise especially permitted. The University has a scheme whereby it is prepared to give some assistance towards removal expenses in certain cases.

Informal Enquires

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be addressed to Professor Rajeev Raman (Head of Department), telephone (0116) 252 3894, email [email protected], or to the individual members of staff mentioned above.

Applications

Applications should be made on the form provided, forwarded to reach the Personnel Office (Appointments) not later than 21 June 2005.

Candidates who wish acknowledgement of their application should affix a first or second class stamp to a self-addressed postcard or envelope, stating on the reverse the reference number and title of the post, and return it with their application form. It is anticipated that candidates shortlisted for interview will be contacted within four weeks of the post closing. If you do not receive a communication by this date, then please assume that your application has been unsuccessful.

K J Julian Registrar and Secretary

University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH Telephone: 0116 223 1341 Fax: 0116 252 5140 Email: [email protected]

May 2005