Oxford University Computing Services are offering internships to Oxford University Students only. This is an exciting opportunity to join our committed IT work force and we are looking for students from various backgrounds. The internship will offer you valuable work experience that will help in your future career, as well as being part of a key project for the University.
All internships will run for eight weeks between July and August 2010, and you will be paid £10.06 an hour.
The seven vacancies available are:
· Looking at Automating Content Management Upgrades
· Developing E-learning Case Studies
· Developing the University’s Mobile Oxford Services
· Upgrading our Mailing List Service
· Making WebLearn Video Tutorials and Guidance Sites
· Oxgarage: Developing a Document Conversion Web Service
· Hierarchical File Server (HFS): Porting TSM client to Microsoft Installer
These are all described below in more detail.
To apply please request a fuller job description for the internship(s) you are interested in from recruitment(a)oucs.ox.ac.uk and then send your CV making sure that it addresses the essential and desirable criteria, to OUCS's Personnel Office, OUCS, 13 Banbury Road or recruitment(a)oucs.ox.ac.uk. Your CV should arrive no later than 12.00 noon on May 7th 2010. To repeat, this scheme is only open to current students of Oxford University.
1. Looking at Automating Content Management System Patching
Content Management Systems (CMSes) are a popular means of managing web content. However they can also present a security risk, if not properly managed and maintained.
The Network Systems Management Service (NSMS) team within OUCS hosts a number of websites running the Typo3 and Drupal content management systems (with further systems to be added soon). As the number of content management systems supported by NSMS increases, so the task of maintaining and patching the software becomes increasingly onerous.
We are looking for an intern to review upgrade procedures and develop an automated upgrade mechanism. After an introduction to the hosting infrastructure, the applicant should start with a CMS of his/her choice and automate the upgrade as much as possible.
This is an exciting opportunity to gain hands on experience of scripting and systems management within a team of experienced professionals, and to build on existing Linux skills
2. Developing E-learning Case Studies
The Learning Technologies Group in Oxford University Computing Services is a high profile lively organization which combines media, technology, education, e-learning and academic practice. We conduct research projects and offer a wide range of services including WebLearn, Oxford on iTunes U, and the LTG on YouTube.
This internship is an opportunity for you to work with us for 8 weeks over the summer to write and record case studies which will form part of a growing collection on the LTG website. It is an opportunity to work closely as part of a group of learning technologists and with academic staff who use the technology. This would be an ideal opportunity for someone considering a career in learning technology, e-learning, teaching, new media, or journalism. You should bring excellent writing skills, an understanding of Oxford and an enthusiasm for learning technology. During the 8 weeks you will develop interviewing skills, be supported in your use of recording and videoing equipment and be trained in a variety of graphics and publication tools. You will have opportunities to choose appropriate tools and strategies to produce the best case studies. Your work on this project will make a real impact and may achieve a national or international profile.
3. Developing the University’s Mobile Oxford Service
Mobile Oxford (http://m.ox.ac.uk) was set up in October 2009 to provide custom web services to members of the University of Oxford whilst on the move. It currently targets any web capable mobile device and with advanced browser detection it gives a customised experience to each class of device. Further development of the platform has resulted in the "Molly Project" (http://mollyproject.org), an open source community project with deployments expected at several Universities and possible commercial implementations in the coming months.
Working with the small but dynamic Mobile Oxford team, you will have a good knowledge of Python preferably with experience of the Django framework upon which Mobile Oxford is built. You will be required to take initiative in solving both technical and social problems encountered whilst enhancing the codebase and contributing to the Molly Project developer lists. Creative solutions are a must and to help foster this, one day per week will be assigned to your own personal project involving technologies related to mobile computing.
There will be many sections of the project where you will be able to work and we will best tailor the work to suit your abilities and interests. Planned enhancements include a fully AJAX/HTML5 skin and UI optimisation, further development of our RESTfull interface and native platform (e.g. iPhone/Android) app development as well as integration with other university and local data services.
The sucessful candidate will have the opportunity to help mould both an international open source project in a rapidly expanding industry sector, as well as directly affect the course of a service designed to be accessible by almost anyone in the city and University of Oxford.
4. Upgrading our Mailing List Service
Are you interested in developing your Linux skills? If so, OUCS is offering an internship to explore requirements and options for an upgrade of the Linux-based electronic mail list service. The successful candidate will work alongside members of the Systems Development and Support Section, who are a largely Linux-based team responsible for running many of the University's central IT services.
This 8-week project will see you liaise with selected University members to gather user requirements, investigate available mail list management packages, and develop a demonstration install of a preferred solution.
5. Making Weblearn Video Tutorials and Guidance Sites
Would you like to learn how to produce short screen capture tutorials demonstrating how to use the WebLearn Virtual Learning Environment at Oxford University?
OUCS has produced a collection of written support materials for WebLearn, and would like to enhance this by the addition of visual demonstrations. These video tutorials will demonstrate aspects of WebLearn such as a ‘tour’, ‘Getting started ‘, ‘How to use the Forums tool’, ‘How to create a survey’, and so on. The internship will also involve helping to redesign the existing WebLearn Guidance support site, to make it more aesthetically pleasing and engaging.
The successful applicant will attend the WebLearn Fundamentals and the Screen Capture training courses, and will learn how to use the Captivate software to produce visual demonstrations.
6. Oxgarage: Developing a Document Conversion Web Service
The aim of this short project is to set up, as a production service for Oxford University, a REST-enabled document conversion web service. This will enable documents created in Word, OpenOffice, TEI XML, and Docbook to be metamorphosed to and from the other formats, and for all of them to be converted to ePub ebook format and PDF.
This work will be based on Java servlet code developed by the University of Poznan, and XSLT transformations written at OUCS. Candidates will need to be familiar with Java, especially servlet technology, and be happy using command-line interfaces and RESTful services.
The successful intern will gain experience of developing on an open source project, contributing to code written by others, in creating a new public service, and setting up rigorous testing.
7. Hierarchical File Server (HFS): Porting the user client to Microsoft Installer
The HFS is a site-wide service allowing users across the University to backup their critical data to a central site. To do this requires the installation of a client software package onto the user's local machine.
With nearly 4,000 separate Windows systems using the HFS, we are now looking at investigating robust, standard package delivery mechanisms on Windows. The primary purpose will be to allow the easy installation of highly-configured software 'readymade' to use Oxford's HFS backup systems.
A secondary product may be the ability to allow local IT system managers to automate deployment of the configured software across hundreds of machines. In this way, clients’ machines will more easily keep their software uptodate, be ensured a working configuration and therefore be assured of working backups of their important work
To this end we are looking for someone able to investigate, evaluate and develop a method of delivering such a product on Windows systems. A good familiarity with the Windows platform, experience of Windows Systems management and an interest in the inner workings of Windows are therefore important skill requirements. An appreciation of package deployment methods, an ability to grasp and evaluate technical resources and an interest in developing solutions are equally desirable. You will be joining a small team working with and supporting a large amount of hardware that underpins the HFS service.
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Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
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