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Applications Sought for Midwest Big Data Hub Learning Innovation Fellowship
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The Midwest Big Data Hub (MBDH) is announcing a one semester paid fellowship of $2,000 for students (graduate or undergraduate) with convergent interests in coding, data analytics and/or sustainability/environmental science beginning in September 2021. If you are enrolled in a college or university within the 12-state (MBDH) region, please consider applying!
The mission of the MBDH is to strengthen the data ecosystem by developing effective networks across academia, industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations. The Hub strives to address scientific and societal issues of regional and national interest and to foster innovation across a number of priority and crosscutting areas important in the Midwest.
This work will place you in small teams to enhance learning modules on the open-access, open-source learning environment learngala.com. In collaboration with faculty leaders with experience developing Open Educational Resources (OER) such as QubesHub, and scientific research communities supported by the National Science Foundation, you will collaborate to create integrations and features that make learning modules more accessible and powerful for those interested in data analytics. Applicants should be interested in the emerging fields of sustainability and environmental science. Qualifications for the fellowship can include a mix of the following:
- working knowledge of R or Python
- geospatial analysis using software such as ARCGIS (ESRI online)
- skills at team-based analytical or learning design work
- experience working with web APIs, React, and/or Ruby
The MBDH Learning Innovation Fellowship will help prepare you for a range of industry practices, having had a specific, small, team-based introduction to:
1) learning to work toward a collaborative deliverable with coding and platform integration elements
2) data analytics training for addressing existing environmental problems,
3) using best practices in learning design and assessment, including user experience analysis.
Our vision is for teams where experts across these domains learn one another's "languages" enough to collaborate in creating the kinds of professional development tools to rethink our environmental management systems, and teaching effectively about them in classrooms and beyond. The commitment will be between five and 10 hours a week for some part of the term, on slightly different timelines for each of the teams, contingent on members’ schedules and availability. We affirm our interest in considering applicants from community colleges, tribal colleges and universities, historically Black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions.
You can read about the prior cohort of student fellows here.
Please send the following by September 1, 2021, to [email protected]. This will be a competitive process, awarding roughly five fellowships for the term, to join us in work on teaching and learning with data for a better world.
1) your resume and contact information
2) the names of two references and their contact information (no letters needed)
3) a short statement of interest (500 words or less) structured around any case you wish to choose from the platform learngala.com. Outline what YOU would do to build a data analytics learning component into that case that would be both practical and engaging—or even empowering—to use. Remember: Your statement is aspirational. It does not have to be entirely realistic (though it should not be fantastical). It should include details of the kinds of data you might leverage, what kinds of questions you would enable learners to ask of those data, and the possible uses of that information for addressing the actual problem or decision outlined in the case.