Applications received by October 20, 2010, are assured full consideration.
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The Knowledge Technology (KT) group in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen is one of the key players in the area of semantics and ontology technologies with excellent balance between theoretical work and pragmatic applications.

The KT group offers a friendly yet stimulating environment of a leading research group in the field of semantics and ontology; an active collaboration with leading academic institutes and major companies in fields like software engineering, multimedia, product (such as aircraft engines) engineering, bioinformatics and Web science; as well as experience of collaboration with standardisation bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Object Management Group (OMG).

The KT group is looking for one PhD candidate who will be based in the RCUK-funded dot.rural Digital Economy research hub (www.dotrural.ac.uk). The title of the PhD project is *Linked Open Data & the Crowd*. There are many challenges associate with the creation and curation of linked data, and one solution that has been suggested is to make use of large numbers of users (the "crowd") to perform tasks such as creation of new data, parsing/linking existing unstructured data, and correcting errors. Of course, once crowd-sourcing is introduced, issues will arise as to what is the "truth" – in terms of the reliability of new data and any edits to existing data – and how to query and exploit such data with mixed trust levels. This PhD will explore the issues associated with crowd-sourcing and linked data, and in particular on trust reasoning for linked data, so as to support provenance and to make assessments of quality and reliability. Tuition fees will be paid at UK/EU rates, for 2010/2011 this is £3,400.  A maintenance grant will also be paid, for 2010/2011 which is £13,590. Unfortunately, applications from International applicants cannot be accepted for this studentship due to specific criteria set out by the funding body.

The KT group expects: (1) A strong background in Computer Science, i.e., a good Undergraduate (at the 2-1 level or higher) or Masters Degree in either Computing Science or a related discipline. (2) Research interest and some expertise in at least one of the following areas: ontology, reasoning, linked data, query answering, inconsistency reasoning, uncertainty reasoning, provenance. (3) The willingness to combine formal theoretical work with application-oriented research. (4) Solid programming skills as well as personal skills required to work closely with other collaborators in the Digital Economy research hub.

Informal academic enquiries should be directed to  Dr J Pan (http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~jpan/), with a copy of your current CV. All general enquiries should be directed to the Graduate School Admissions Unit(http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cops/graduate/admissions/enquiry/). Formal applications can be completed online: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply.  In your application, please include your curriculum vitae, a list of publications (if applicable) and digital versions of your most relevant work (such as graduation thesis or latest publications).

More information of the posts can be fond at:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cops/graduate/phds/64/

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