Research Assistant

<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p></p><div>We have an exciting opportunity to join Professor Ekaterina Hertog to work on her project &#8220;The Promise of AI in Childcare: Comparative Analysis of Parental Control Apps to Support the Work of Childcare&#8221; at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. &#160;</div><br> <div>This project examines monitoring technologies, often referred to as &#8220;parental control apps&#8221;, and how parents make use of them to help them with the work involved in childcare.&#160;</div><br> <div>The research assistant will work under Professor Ekaterina Hertog&#8217;s guidance and scrape data from Google and Apple app stores to get a basic picture on the use of parental control apps (apps used to monitor children (often by their parents), children&#8217;s online behaviours and sometimes offline behaviours (like tracking kids with a map app).</div><br> <div><strong>Skills required:</strong></div><br> <ul><br> <li>Strong proficiency in Python and related libraries such as BeautifulSoup and Selenium&#160;</li><br> <li>Experience in web scraping using Python and related libraries&#160;</li><br> <li>Proficiency in working with databases (SQL, NoSQL) and Docker&#160;</li><br> <li>Understanding of HTTP requests and responses, web page structure, and HTML/CSS&#160;</li><br> <li>Knowledge of Git and version control systems</li><br> <li>Experience with Natural Language Processing in Python: the candidate will need to be able to pre-process a large body of parental control app reviews in multiple languages and then carry out topic modelling of the reviews using packages, such as BERTopic.</li><br> </ul><br> <div>To give you an example: have a look at this paper on fertility apps:&#160;https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/2va3n/</div><br> <div>Professor Ekaterina Hertog&#8217;s would like to do similar kind of work, but for parental control apps.</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div>This is a variable hours role, starting as soon as possible thereafter. &#160;</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div>You will have an opportunity to contribute to a resulting research paper that will aim to answer the following questions:&#160;</div><br> <div><strong>RQ1:</strong> How do cultural factors influence the use of parental control apps, as reflected in user reviews across different countries or language groups?&#160;</div><br> <div><strong>RQ2:</strong> Are there differences between parents and children&#8217;s perceptions?</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div>If you would like to discuss this role please email&#160;Ekaterina.Hertog @oii.ox.ac.uk. Further details are also found in the Job Description provided. &#160;</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div>You will be required to upload a supporting statement, setting out how you meet the selection criteria, curriculum vitae and the names and contact details of three referees as part of your online application.&#160;</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div>Only applications received before noon UK time on 3 April 2024 can be considered.&#160;</div><br> <div>&#160;</div><br> <div><strong>Committed to equality and valuing diversity</strong></div><br> <div>&#160;</div> </div>