Research Fellowship – SmartEDU | CENTRO-01-0247-FEDER-072620 – 841704

CALL FOR RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP – SMARTEDU – 841704

University of Coimbra opens a call for one research fellowship, in the framework of the research project “SmartEDU – Smart assistant for generating educational questions and presentations” (reference: CENTRO-01-0247-FEDER-072620), co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through Centro Regional Operational Program (CENTRO 2020), of Portugal 2020, in accordance with the Incentive System for Research and Technological Development (SI ID&T), in the following conditions:

Scientific area: Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

Skills/Qualifications/Admission requirements: Bachelor’s Degree in Informatics Engineering or similar enrolled in a Master’s Degree in Informatics Engineering or similar.

Although the recipients must be enrolled in a cycle of studies leading to the attribution of an academic degree, at the time of application it is not necessary for the candidate to have made such an enrollment, and proof of enrollment must be presented until the fellowship is contractualized. Candidates are only required to meet the requirements to enroll in the training offer. If there are candidates already enrolled (including attending a course), they compete on an equal footing with those who are not enrolled.

Work plan/ Objectives: Research of approaches for the automatic generation of questions from any textual documents, written in Portuguese, including the following tasks:

– Literature revision;

– Identification of data to be used for training and evaluation;

– Exploration of approaches for the selection of candidate passages for response;

– Experimentation with the automatic generation of questions;

– Writing a report on the conclusions reached, including the proposal for future improvements.

In addition to knowledge in the scientific domain of the problem, the scholarship holder is expected to acquire skills in research methods and teamwork.

Regime: The attribution of the fellowship does not generate or entitle a relation of a legal-labour nature, and the fellowship is undertaken in an exclusive dedication regime. The fellowship holder is awarded the Fellowship Statute of the UC, in its current wording, according to the Research Fellowship Holder Statute , and according to the Regulation for Research Fellowships of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., both in their current wording.

Location: Department of Informatics Engineering at the University of Coimbra.

Duration: Four months.

Renewal: Possibly renewable, by agreement between both parties, not being allowed to exceed the project’s deadline.

Scientific orientation: Professor Hugo Ricardo Gonçalo Oliveira.

Financial conditions: The amount of the fellowship is € 875,98 corresponding to the monthly compensation stipulated in the FCT table

(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores.phtml.en ), plus personal accidents insurance. The payment will be made by bank transfer. This amount will not be increased during the entire period of the fellowship duration.

Selection methods: CV Evaluation (50%) and Interview (50%).

Selection criteria: The evaluation of the CV will focus on:

A. Bachelor’s Degree Average (50%);

B. Academic achievement in the areas of the Work Plan (50%).

The interview will focus on:

C. Interest in the areas of natural language processing, answering, and automatic question generation (50%);

D. Motivation (50%).

Jury responsible for selection: Professor Catarina Helena Branco Simões da Silva, Professor Hugo Ricardo Gonçalo Oliveira and Professor Ricardo Manuel da Conceição Rodrigues.

Alternate Juror: Ana Cristina da Costa Oliveira Alves.

Formalization of application:

1.Detailed curriculum vitae including academic titles;

2.Motivation letter;

3.Bachelor’s Certificate with a list of grades obtained;

4. The intention of enrolment in a Master’s Course (mentioned in the application) or Proof of registration in a Master’s Course (optional-the proof of enrollment must be presented until the fellowship is contractualized

Declaration on the honor of the candidate(s) with the indication of the fellowship(s) of the typology to which the contest was held and the respective duration(s).

Applicants with academic degrees obtained abroad will be required to present a Certificate of Recognition in accordance with applicable law. This document is mandatory only in the contractualization phase.

Applications submission: Applications must be submitted in https://apply.uc.pt .

Submission of applications: Between 19/09/2022 and 30/09/2022.

Submission deadline date: 30/09/2022.

Additional information: The evaluation results will be announced within 90 working days after the end of the applications submission deadline, by notifying the applicants via email. After the announcement of the results, candidates are considered automatically notified to, if they wish to do so, comment on the results on a preliminary hearing period within 10 days after that date. After this, the selected candidates will have to declare in writing their acceptance. Unless a justification worthy of consideration is presented, if the declaration is not submitted within the referred period, it is considered that the candidate waivers the fellowship. In case of resignation or withdrawal of the selected candidate, the next candidate with the highest evaluation score will be notified immediately.

Once the selection process is completed, the fellowship contract will be drawn up in accordance with the draft contract provided by the FCT.

After the contracted period, the fellowship holder and supervisor must prepare the final report in accordance with the respective assessment criteria that were established.

Selection reserve list: Jury do not intend to constitute a reserve