Student Casual - Chat Bot Developer (Digital Education Sat Nav Project) – Digital Education – Grade 6 – 906423

Position Details: 

School or Department: Digital Education, Libraries and Learning Resources

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Grade/Band: Grade 6

Hourly rate: £16.56 per hour plus holiday entitlement

Casual contract from: 31/03/2025 - 29/06/2025

Advert closing date: 14th March 2025, 23:59pm

Number of positions available: 1

 

Please note that this vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. We advise you to submit your application promptly.

 

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university.  We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate.  We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site.  On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

 

Background

The Digital Education Team is a department within libraries and learning resources that assist teaching staff across the university to provide cutting-edge and inclusive teaching with the use of digital technology, with the objective of enhancing the student learning experience.

 

Role Summary

The IT student intern will play an integral role in the creation of a generative AI chatbot intended to be used to support academic staff access digital tools support.

Using your knowledge and experience of coding you will be asked to develop and train the AI model under the guidance of the Digital Education project team and a representative from IT innovation. You will need to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the AI model and conduct an iterative process to develop the model into its most effective format based on the feedback of academic beta testers.

This is a unique opportunity for those with an interest in the development of AI solutions to be involved in the creation of a tool that will have a lasting impact on the University.

 

Main Duties

Chat bot development

1. Utilising Microsoft Azure AI studio to develop a distinct chat bot that can be used by academics to access support for digital tools.

2. Using one of the Microsoft Azure recognise coding languages (Python, Java, Net, JavaScript) to write and debug code for the chatbot, ensuring it is efficient and well-documented.

3. Gathering and cleaning datasets required for training the chatbot, ensuring data quality and relevance.

4. Assisting in training machine learning models, running experiments, and evaluating model performance using various metrics.

5. Implementing and testing new algorithms or improvements to existing ones to enhance the chatbot’s capabilities.

6. Participating in conducting user testing sessions, collecting feedback, and making necessary adjustments to improve user experience.

7. Creating and updating technical documentation, including user guides, API documentation, and development notes.

 

General

1. Working closely with other team members, including IT innovation representatives, Digital Education Developers and Senior Developers, and Heads of Digital Education, to ensure smooth project progress.

2. Providing technical support and troubleshooting issues that arise during the development and deployment phases.

3. You will be responsible for ordering tasks within your workload and can refer to the project lead if required. You will co-ordinate with other team members to meet overall aim of the project.

4. Undertaking such other duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work on the project.

5. Supporting equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

 

Person Specification

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications and Experience

•             Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree (or higher) in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related field.

•             Proficiency in programming languages such as Python.

•             Basic understanding of machine learning concepts and algorithms.

•             Skills in data collection, pre-processing, and analysis.

•             Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to troubleshoot issues and optimize algorithms.

•             Ability to clearly document processes and results.

•             Effective communication skills for collaborating with team members and presenting findings.

•             Experience working in a team environment, contributing to group projects, and collaborating with peers.

•             A proactive attitude and eagerness to learn new technologies and methodologies.

•             Ability to communicate clearly both orally and in writing.

 

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications and Experience

•             Experience with training and evaluating machine learning models.

•             Experience in working in Microsoft Azure AI Studio.

•             Ability to liaise with a range of staff and academic colleagues in order to support the beta testing process.

 

For any informal queries, please contact Gemma Westwood (g.a.westwood@bham.ac.uk)

 

View our staff values and behaviours here

 

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.

The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time. If your application is successful and your course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g.  PGT, PGR or PhD student), you and your supervisor must formally agree vacation periods if this role exceeds 20 hours per week. In addition to this, please be aware if you are an International student you will be required to apply to the Registry for the appropriate Authorised Absence. 

You are only eligible to apply to this role if you are a current University of Birmingham student. If you are not a University of Birmingham student your application will not be considered.

To work you will need to carry out a right to work check. These checks will need to be completed prior to work commencing.