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About KMi

Studentships


Studentships
The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) is home to internationally recognised researchers in educational multimedia, collaboration technologies, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and human-computer interaction. KMi offers students an intellectually challenging environment with exceptional research and computer facilities. You will be joining a dynamic PhD programme which brings together students in KMi with their peers in the Computing department and Institute of Educational Technology who together make up the OU's Centre for Research in Computing.

There are Research Studentships in KMi for highly motivated researchers interested in pursuing a Full-time 3 year doctorate under supervision. KMi sees PhD students as critical to its mission, and awards Studentships (£12,978/year tax free for 2008/09), with no additional fees, compulsory examinations or teaching required. Participation is required in CRC PhD events and thesis milestones, as specified in the KMi Research Degrees policy. Additional training courses to develop your generic research skills are run across the OU, attendance at which is agreed with your supervisor.

We tend to give preference to candidates who have been KMi interns, or with whom we have worked in some capacity (e.g. doing your Undergraduate or Masters project with KMi). So check out the opportunities for Visitors and Research Trainee positions.

Application Deadline

Applications are currently being sought for the following PhD projects.

The deadline for application is 7th June 2012

How to Apply

Refer to the online prospectus at http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/ and download and complete the 10-page MPhil/PhD application form.

It is strongly recommended that applicants contact the named contact point for the project of interest to get more information about the project in question.

Applications should be sent by email to Miss Ortenz Rose, including a covering letter, a research proposal (a maximum of 2,000 words) and a full CV, giving contact details for two academic referees.

Your PhD Proposal

Studentships
PhD Proposals should address one of the PhD Projects. These have funding for 3 year studentships. If you wish to pursue your PhD part time, or have your own funding for full time study, you may write a proposal that addresses one or more of the core KMi research themes. See our research projects listed under each theme:

Narrative Hypermedia

Knowledge Management

Social Software

New Media Systems

Semantic Web and Knowledge Services

Multimedia and Information Systems

Key Information Links

Studentships
KMi-specific PhD info:

Open University Research School:

Open University info:

PhD Admissions Coordinator: Dr Paul Muholland - feel free to contact for advice about doing a PhD in KMi (email, telephone +44 (0)1908 654506).

General information: Ms Ortenz Rose, KMi Office (email, telephone +44 (0) 1908 654774, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK).
 
The Open University
 

Semantic Web and Knowledge Services is...


"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation" (Berners-Lee et al., 2001).

Our research in the Semantic Web area looks at the potentials of fusing together advances in a range of disciplines, and applying them in a systemic way to simplify the development of intelligent, knowledge-based web services and to facilitate human access and use of knowledge available on the web. For instance, we are exploring ways in which tnatural language interfaces can be used to facilitate access to data distributed over different repositories. We are also developing infrastructures to support rapid development and deployment of semantic web services, which can be used to create web applications on-the-fly. We are also investigating ways in which semantic technology can support learning on the web, through a combination of knowledge representation support, pedagogical theories and intelligent content aggregation mechanisms. Finally, we are also investigating the Semantic Web itself as a domain of analysis and performing large scale empirical studies to uncover data about the concrete epistemologies which can be found on the Semantic Web. This exciting new area of research gives us concrete insights on the different conceptualizations that are present on the Semantic Web by giving us the possibility to discover which are the most common viewpoints, which viewpoints are mutually inconsistent, to what extent different models agree or disagree, etc...

Our aim is to be at the forefront of both theoretical and practical developments on the Semantic Web not only by developing theories and models, but also by building concrete applications, for a variety of domains and user communities, including KMi and the Open University itself.