Researcher: Ai - London, United Kingdom - British Council

British Council

Verified Company

London, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

Researcher:
AI & Data Science in Assessment

Date:11 Mar 2024

Location:
London, UKM, GB

Company:
British Council

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.

We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK.

We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.

Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In we reached 650 million people.

Further Information

Pay Band - 8 £38,280- £46,203 plus london weighting £3,300

Contract Type - Indefinite Contract

Location - UK - Manchester Cardiff London Edinburgh Belfast

Closing Date -1st April 2024 at 23.59 UK Time

Role Purpose
The Assessment Research Group (ARG) sits within the wider English and Exams Strategic Business Unit (E&E SBU).

This position will contribute to ARG work in support of teams working with language assessment across the British Council, including specialized test development teams such as Global Assessments and IELTS, assessment in learning products, and British Council educational reform projects.

The ARG leads on research in key language assessment areas including innovative language test design and development, the use of educational technology in language assessment, Language Assessment Literacy engagement aimed at teachers, policy makers, and other stakeholders, and research and expert advisory work supporting assessment and language education reform projects in education systems.

ARG works with teams across the British Council, including the E&E SBU and English for Education Systems teams situated in the Cultural Engagement SBU.

ARG coordinates and oversees an active thought-leadership agenda, including publishing and presenting as experts in the field, providing editorial direction on specialized publications and research reports, and convening conferences and events that bring together international experts on language assessment, learning and policy

To contribute to the British Council's position as a world leading language assessment provider by contributing to and supporting projects in the areas of language assessment research, development, and validation, with a particular focus on the use of AI, machine learning, and educational technology in assessment.

The role will also support the ARG team on tenders and procurement excercises that involve relevant AI and machine learning approaches, e.g.

for automatic speech processing and auto-rating solutions.

A key aim of the ARG is raising the profile of the British Council's research in the academic and professional community.

The post holder is expected to support the dissemination of the research that is carried out within the team, via both spoken presentations and written reports, and be able to communicate effectively with both expert and non-expert audiences.

Main opportunities and challenges for this role:
Subject/Sector Expertise

Contributes to building a body of work through research, publication and dissemination which builds and enhances the British Council's position of international leadership and authority in language assessment and learning, with a particular focus on the use of AI, machine learning, and data science techniques.
Designs and implements procedures to collate, clean, and archive test and research data sets to support the scope of research and analysis activities carried out by ARG researchers.
Designs and implements analysis procedures on test and research data sets to support the research objectives of ARG researchers, including querying and manipulating large datasets, databases, and language corpora.
Performs data manipulation and analysis using popular programming and scripting languages (such as Python, BASH, etc), statistical software (R, NumPy, SciPy, Pandas) and relevant psychometric and measurementorientated packages.
Applies machine learning tools (such as SciPy, PyTorch, TensorFlow, HuggingFace, etc) and Natural Language Processing libraries (such as NLTK, spaCy, etc) to build adhoc solutions that support research projects within ARG.

Relationship and stakeholder management

Develops and maintains effective working relationships with a wide range of teams that work on assessment, teaching and learning products within the English and Exams SBU. The role will also work closely with the Global Information Systems (GIS) team that oversees the data strategy and architecture for the British Council.
Participates with other SBUs, product owners and regional colleagues in working groups and other collaborative forums to develop coordinated, corporate strategies for cultivating, managing and leveragin