The School of Computer Science of the University of Manchester is one of the leading Schools in the UK renown for the excellence of its research. The international reputation of its research reflects on its 5* rating in the last national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which places the School among the best 6 Computer Science Departments in the UK. The School has a vibrant research environment with more than 150 PhD students, 90 research staff and 70 academic staff.

The studentships can cover research on any Computer Science topic. The School has a wide spectrum of research activities in a number of subject areas, ranging from engineering and systems to theory, technology and applications including many interdisciplinary activities. (see http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/research/groups/ for an overview of the research activities of the School). Two of the studentships, in particular, must relate to research in areas of interest to the Medical Research Council.

If you are interested, you are encouraged to approach potential supervisors and suggest a possible PhD topic. A list of members of the academic staff with their research interests is available from: http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/people/index.php?category=academic

To submit an application, please follow the instructions available from: http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/apply/

Applications will be processed in two phases. In the first phase, your qualifications will be considered and, if approved, you will receive an offer for a place in our PhD programme. In the second phase, you will be considered for funding. Processing of applications for funding will commence on June 20th. Applications submitted after this date will be considered only if there are still places remaining. Applicants who have already submitted an application and are eligible for these studentships will be considered automatically.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
School of Computer Science
Research Associate

Reference: EPS/134/07

Starting salary will be up to 25,889 GBP p.a

An exceptional opportunity has arisen to work within a research team who are world leaders in Web Accessibility and support for visually impaired uses surfing the Web. We are looking for a Research Associate to work on the EPSRC project “Single Structured Accessibility Stream for Web 2.0 Access Technologies (SASWAT)“. SASWAT, will allow independently updating Web 2.0 (AJAX, iFrames, XForms, etc) micro contents to be accessible to disabled users. This will be achieved by placing a `black-box’ software application between the website and the accessibility tool of choice such as a screen reader. This application can then interpret the requests sent between the webpage and its server and relay that information, based on our psychology research, in a format which can then be used by accessibility tools.

The successful candidate will have experience in the investigation of web annotation, visual rendering and presentation of imagery, access to non-linear structural information, and visual cognition, along with a solid knowledge of Web accessibility and transcoding. In addition, the candidate should have experience in authoring and presenting scientific papers, in collaborating with users from other areas and with other computer scientists, and in the implementation of JAVA / Tomcat / XUL software applications.

If you are unable to go online you can request a hard copy of the details from the Faculty HR Office, tel: +44(0)161 275 8837, email: eps-hr@manchester.ac.uk
Application forms and further particulars are available from our website http://www.manchester.ac.uk/vacancies