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Pay Grade/Pay Range: $15.00/hour

Department/Organization: 219101 - University Libraries

Normal Work Schedule: Flexible; Monday - Friday 8:00am to 4:45pm, 15 hours per week

Job Summary: The Machine Learning Data Encoder Student Assistants report directly to the Project Director and work closely with other project staff. Digitize newspaper materials and develop original descriptive metadata in accordance with archival best practices. Review digitized content to ensure that digital preservation best practices are upheld. Perform research for and contribute to scholarship efforts that document the project work and topic.

Additional Department Summary: The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections seeks three student research assistants to support an ORED-funded FUSE grant project, digitizing and encoding historical issues of the Crimson White student newspaper. UA's Hoole Library is processing tens of thousands of pages from its Crimson White newspaper collection and generating machine learning ground truth data for computational dataset creation and archival preservation. The project will generate archival preservation metadata including newspaper feature segmentation and classification data, traditional descriptive metadata, OCR, vector embeddings, derivative files for computer-vision/web-delivery, and explore using existing large language models to identify categorical topics within OCR text for assigning subject headings. The project will also train custom AI models with the ground truth data collected to further the creation of automated subject based collection description, discovery, and access.

Required Minimum Qualifications: Current University of Alabama graduate student. Basic experience with plain text markup (XML, JSON). Experience with basic image capture and digitization principles. Interest in working through summer semester months.

Skills and Knowledge: Knowledge of image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Camera Raw. Strong attention to detail. Self-motivation and ability to work on tasks independently. Basic technical competency, including Microsoft Excel and Notepad++. Familiarity with basic archival principles and practices.

Preferred Qualifications: Experience with digitization projects in a library or cultural heritage setting. Proficiency with basic metadata principles and image file formats. Interest in training and analyzing computer vision models. Experience working with command line API\'s. Ability to work consecutive semesters.

Enrollment Requirements: Applicants must meet enrollment requirements to be eligible for on-campus student employment. Applicants must be enrolled in a UA degree program and meet minimum credit hour requirements during the academic year: Undergraduate Students must be registered for at least 6 credit hours during fall/spring semesters; Graduate Students must be registered for at least 4.5 credit hours during fall/spring semesters; International Students must be registered full-time (Undergraduate = 12 credit hours, Graduate = 9 credit hours) during fall/spring semesters. Enrollment requirements must be maintained for the duration of on-campus employment. Individual hiring departments and programs may also have additional eligibility requirements for employment.

Background Investigation Statement: Prior to hiring, the final candidate(s) must successfully pass a pre-employment background investigation and information obtained from social media and other internet sources. A prior conviction reported as a result of the background investigation DOES NOT automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration for this position. A candidate with a prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags will receive an individualized review of the prior conviction or negative behavioral red flags before a hiring decision is made.

Equal Employment Opportunity: The University of Alabama is an Equal Employment/Equal Educational Opportunity Institution. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment or volunteer status without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, age, genetic or family medical history information, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, and will not be discriminated against because of their protected status. Applicants to and employees of this institution are protected under Federal law from discrimination on several bases. Follow the link below to find out more. "EEO is the Law" Poster