The Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, a joint institution of the
University of Toronto and the University Health Network, is a leading
research centre devoted to improve health for all through information and
communication technology, located at the Toronto General Hospital in
downtown Toronto.
As part of the Centre's involvement in a major European Union project
(PIPS - Personalized Information Platform for Life and Health Sciences),
co-funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Eysenbach group at
the Centre is recruiting 2 Post-Docs with health informatics or engineering
background
The PIPS project is a major international collaborative and
interdisciplinary eHealth research & development project funded under the EU
FP6 IST programme with 18 partners including 5 Member States of the European
Union (EU), Switzerland, Poland, Israel, the People's Republic of China, and
Canada. The Centre's role in this project focuses on quality and trust
management of information. Some of the work required for this position is a
follow-up from the MedCERTAIN/MedCIRCLE projects. MedCIRCLE project is a
non-profit collaboration of health gateways on the web. MedCIRCLE members
use a standardized metadata language (HIDDEL) to describe and annotate
health information (see www.medcircle.org). MedCIRCLE has developed
prototypes to aggregate metadata from member gateways, for example a
"toolbar" (an Internet Explorer browser helper application) which integrates
user preferences with what health information providers say about themselves
or what health gateways say about other health websites, calculating and
displaying a trust score. The toolbar will also feature reputation
management, feedback for users, collaborative filtering etc. The applicant
will work with a pre-existing metadata framework based on XML/RDF, thus
familiarity with XML/MSXML and RSS/RDF is a requirement. A prototype toolbar
exists which is programmed as a Visual C++ ActiveX DLL. Ideally, the
applicant should have knowledge and experience with:
- COM/COM+/OLE
- Win32 API
- Java/Servlet
In addition, the candidate should have
- strong oral and written communication skills
- experience and ability to write technical reports
- interest in working in an international environment
- a publication record
The position requires a creative individual with a solid research
background (for example in fields like artificial intelligence, natural
language processing, or knowledge management) and strong writing and
programming skills. The candidate will take a leading role in identifying,
developing, and implementing methods (such as semantic web technologies) for
quality assurance and trust management, to ensure that information within
the PIPS platform is trustworthy. Through CIHR and NSERC grants, funding is
secured for one year. It is expected that in the first months the candidates
actively help with the identification of research issues and the development
of a grant proposal to NSERC to secure follow-up funding for their own
salary. The candidate will also have to write progress reports to the
funding agencies and should be able to have a hands-on approach to
application development.
A CV, a full list of publications, three references, and a statement of
research interests as they relate to the field of quality or trust
management of information are required. In addition, applicants are asked to
write a 1/2- 1 page (plus references) mini-review on technical methods for
quality assurance of information.
Salary range: Commensurate with experience
Position will start as soon as possible (September 1st or earlier).
Open until filled
Contact:
Gunther Eysenbach MD, MPH
Senior Scientist, Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Division of Medical Decision Making and Health Care Research;
Toronto General Research Institute of the UHN;
Associate Professor,
Department of Health Policy,
Management and Evaluation,
University of Toronto;
Mailing address:
Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
Toronto General Hospital
R. Fraser Elliott Building, 4th Floor, room # 4S435,
190 Elizabeth Street
Toronto, ON M5G 2C4
Telephone (+1) 416-340-4800 Ext. 6427
Fax (+1) 416-340-3595
Email:
geysenba@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Website: eHealth Centre:
http://www.uhnres.utoronto.ca/ehealth/
Post-doctorate positions in
ehealth