Internship — Linked Metadata and Information Retrieval (remote/distance)

Posted by Christopher Landbeck on

Summer Internship in Linked Metadata and Information Retrieval

Organization Overview

SAE International is a nonprofit membership society and digital library which advances vehicle and system knowledge in a neutral forum for the benefit of society. Our mission is to provide our international body of scientists, engineers, researchers, and practitioners information through our Digital Engineering Library and research aids.

Internship Description

This project will consist of metadata interoperability creation, terminology research, thesaurus building, and information retrieval enhancement. Students will be trained in indexing, information retrieval, taxonomy, ontology, data mining, and interoperability standards. Opportunities to learn about machine learning and data visualization will also be offered through assignments. Most training will expect the student to be a beginner level but it is hoped the student will bring some education with them on a few of these training topics. No programming skills are required for this internship.

Each intern will be assigned to a weekly task and will be guided through the process of the assignment by an experienced information practitioner-researcher. The assignments will be based on the educational background, skills, and experiences of the intern and will evolve to accommodate the intern’s growth. The output of the project will be an interoperable metadata and terminology mapping between the LCSH, NASA Thesaurus, Transportation Research Board, WordNet, Dbpedia, as well as multilingual terminologies. The mapping will be used as an aid for academic and digital library researchers, machine learning classification and indexing, and as a resource for subject librarians. Any scholarship resulting from the project will acknowledge the intern’s contributions.

Intern Credentials

We are looking for graduate students to work with our Digital Library and Content Management Department summer, July 2015 to the end of August, 2015. A longer term, from July 2015 to December 2015 is also available. This is a paid ($10.00/hr) internship that students can take as Field Experience and/or a Paid Internship. We hope the student can work at least 15 hours per week. The internship is designed for students who are currently enrolled in a Master’s program or are interested in furthering their education. It is ideal if they have completed at least one year of graduate work or equivalent project/work experience. We would prefer someone who can commute to SAE International World Headquarters in Warrendale (30 minutes North of Pittsburgh by car/bus) but we also accept students who would work online-remotely from around the United States.

The strongest candidates will have interest or some skill in the following areas:

  • Metadata
  • Strong critical thinking skills
  • Cataloging, classification, or records management
  • Beginner data architecture (taxonomy, ontology, etc.)
  • Basic web search
  • Analysis of large and complex data sets

Application Procedure

SAE International will accept applications from February 9 to May 1 of 2015. If you are interested in this opportunity please include the following and send to afaith@sae.org:

  • A cover letter highlighting your skills, experience, and interest in the project
  • Resume or Curriculum Vita
  • 1 sample or link to your previous work (academic or professional)