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Postdoctoral Research position at Bayonne Institute of Technology (France) : https://www.iutbayonne.univ-pau.fr

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# Qualifications required :

• PhD in machine learning or in intelligent tutoring systems or in educational data mining
• Proven relevant experience in the fields.

# Contact & Supervision : Prof. Thierry Nodenot  / thierry.nodenot@iutbayonne.univ-pau.fr

# Research center

The Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Bayonne-Pays Basque and the Laboratoire d’Informatique (LIUPPA) of the University of Pau offer an academic postdoctoral position on their site at  Anglet (near Biarritz, south-west France).

The Institute’s overall strategy is to set up a centre of excellence with significant impact of research and innovation on vocational learning at University level.

The research to be conducted will rely on the technological infrastructure of the Institute massively used by undergraduates in computer science, engineering, management and business). At the best international standards, this infrastructure is operated by a technical team of 5 engineers working in tight cooperation, coordination and exchanges with lecturers and researchers in computer science, information technology  as well as pedagogical engineers. This synergy between technology, research and education has led the Institute to obtain significant success for the benefit of 1000 students, particularly in distance-teaching/learning (complete distance degree course, distant mentored scholar projects, …) and e-learning innovations (active learning methods and tools, cooperation tools, …).

# Research focus

The program focuses on active learning, that is any approach to instruction in which all students are asked to commit to the learning process. In the context of vocational education, students of the Institute are thus provided with a set of desktop applications from which they are asked to solve concrete simple or complex problems in relation with their bachelor’s degree. Support to achieve these tasks can be provided to each student, on or without demand, by dedicated resources included in a Learning Management System, by other connected students (cf. cooperative learning), or by human tutors …

Considering the available infrastructure and tracking tools, the research will consist in :

a-     formalizing the behavioral models of such a system for doing and learning,

b-     designing reinforcement-learning algorithms and extending available tools to provide these algorithms with the required convenient data (cf. students’ tracks),

The concrete outcome of the research should be a recommander system extending the current infrastructure and tools (tracking tools, notification tools), as well as adequate protocols to assess this recommander system with our students.

# Your tasks

• Develop the extensions needed to provide an existing e-learning infrastructure with an opportunistic recommender system
• Publications in top conferences and journals dedicated to e-learning and machine learning
• From the research conducted, promoting collaborative research and drafting structuring projects to succesfully respond to different call for projects from Pau University (junior chair, thematic research hub, start-up creation, …), and/or from other national and international funding agencies

# Skills

• recommender systems
• reinforcement learning
• educational data mining
• small data machine learning

# Experience in various areas will be appreciated:

• active learning theory ; applications to education
• causal inference
• privacy-preserving Machine Learning

# Benefits package

Partial reimbursement of public transport costs

Subsidized meals

Leave : 6-7 weeks of annual leave + extra days off due to statutory reduction in working hours (RTT)

Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)

Possible French-learning tuition

Social, cultural and sports events and activities within the Basque Country and western Pyrenees (https://tourism.euskadi.eus/en/).

Administrative support : Social Security coverage/ Help for Housing / Scientific Resident card and help for visa

# Postdoctoral duration : 11 months(1)

# Start date : the 1st of September 2020

#Location : Institut Universitaire de Technologie - Anglet (France)

# Remuneration (2)

Gross monthly income (before taxes) : up to 2900 €

Net monthly income : up to 2300 €

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(1) This postdoctoral position should be understood as a step towards a career oportunity in the University of Pau. As a consequence, an important outcome should be the awarding of submissions of structuring projects to Pau University (cf. https://e2s-uppa.eu/en/calls-for-projects/calls-schedule-for-2019-2020.html) and/or national and international project calls.

(2) In order to better understand the requirements of the recommander system for both students and lecturers, the selected candidate will have the opportunity of delivering IT lectures and classes at Bayonne Institute of Technology or associated centres, and also participating in distance-teaching existing programmes. This activity will constitute a potential source of additional income.