Research Assistant/Research Associate (x2)

Full-time, Fixed Term until 1^st October 2017

Applications are invited for 2 posts of Research Assistants / Research Associates in the Serious Games Applied Research Group at Coventry University. As part of a highly research-active team, you will be expected to bring expertise in education, computer science or psychology, to an interdisciplinary team working to research and develop serious games in the context of national, international projects and commercial / consulting services. Key to the role will be your ability to contribute to the creation of quality research proposals as well as design and implement robust research investigations and methodologies to assess and inform game-based learning approaches, and as such postgraduate training will be essential (PhD is essential for the Research Associate position), as will a track record of high-quality publications.

As a Research Assistant / Research Associate you will contribute in a leading role to the delivery of various R&D projects with a special focus on the European-funded MAGELLAN project, supporting the training implementation in terms of designing, developing and evaluating an array of training / learning content for helping creative people to design location-based games via an ad-hoc games authoring environment. The training content will be available online and discerned through various training events in Europe. You will be confident in authoring key deliverables, organising and implementing training workshops across UK and beyond, preparing dissemination material and working with partners across Europe to address the goals of the project and support them with documenting their pilot processes. You will also need to be assertive in conveying learning / training content and principles with technical staff in terms of deciding how the training resources will be visualised on the online portal. Excellent knowledge in both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies for evaluating the effectiveness of the training content for enabling purposeful design of location-based games will be essential. You will also be supported in developing your established personal research agenda, and be able to communicate effectively how this maps to the area of serious games or technology-enhanced learning as a more wider strand. Travelling nationally and internationally for various project meetings and workshops with the rest of the consortium is essential.

You will possess theoretical and practical knowledge on: games design with special focus on design for learning / training in different types of games (games for change, assessment, prevention), awareness with programming (e.g. Lua or C#) and familiarity with game engines (e.g. Unity), or be able to convey your designs and concepts to technical developers with a high degree of ability, drawing on your expertise in technology-enhanced learning / computer science and/or psychology. You may also have skills in 2D (Photoshop) or 3D (3DSMax) artwork, and an interest in feeding-in to the visual design and aesthetics of games to synergise entertainment and educational features. Regardless of your field of expertise, you will be a proactive member of the team with excellent communication skills, and a passion for transforming research ideas to projects with the potential to receive national (UK-funding) or International (EU-funding) as well as delivering high-quality research publications, demonstrable through prior experience.

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to Dr. P. Lameras – Research Fellow (PLameras@cad.coventry.ac.uk).

For more information or to apply online, please visit our website at www.coventry.ac.uk/job-vacancies or click here to download a job description:
https://staffrecruitment.coventry.ac.uk/tlive_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID%3d334758CEFt&WVID=1861420Izv&LANG=USA

Closing Date: 7^th April 2016