43,000 students and 7,750 employees in teaching, research and administration, all working together to shape perspectives for the future – that is the University of Münster. Embedded in the vibrant atmosphere of Münster with its high standard of living, the University’s diverse research profile and attractive study programmes draw students and researchers throughout Germany and from around the world.
The University and State Library (ULB) Münster is both the central library of the University of Münster and the state library for the state of Westphalia. It is one of the largest academic libraries in Germany. The ULB Münster offers a comprehensive portfolio of academic-related services for researchers, teachers and students, the further development of which is characterized by major dynamic developments associated with the current digital transformation processes occurring in academia. The Service Center for Digital Humanities (SCDH), located at the ULB Münster, supports researchers at the University of Münster in the field of Digital Humanities (DH) with numerous services.

The SCDH is looking to fill a position to support the "PRODATPHIL: Science and Logic - eine programmierbare Datensammlung und ein digitaler Überblick zur Logik und Wissenschaftstheorie im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert" project (headed by Dr. Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter) at the earliest possible date as a

Research Assistant in the context of DH with focus on corpus linguistics (salary level E 13 TV-L, 100%)

we are offering a fixed-term full-time position (100%) until 30 June 2027 with the option of extension or permanent termination.

Your tasks:

• Analysis of (multilingual) textual data (corpora) using computational linguistic methods (e.g. NER, relative frequencies, dispersion, collocation, dimension reduction (PCA), word embeddings, automatic enrichment)
• Evaluation and setup of databases
• Data cleansing and normalization
• Design and development of visual and statistical analysis methods
• Documentation of data models and development

Our expectations:
We are looking for a committed personality with a self-reliant, solution-oriented working style, very good conceptual skills and a strong ability to work in a team. The successful candidate will also characterized by flexibility as well as good communication skills and meet the following profile:

• hold a relevant higher education degree at Master’s level (M.Sc. or diploma) in computer science with proven relevance (via credentials/certificates) to the (digital) humanities or a related discipline or a relevant higher education degree at Master’s level (M.A. or Magister) in a humanities discipline represented in the of the University of Münster (protestant theology, catholic theology, educational and social sciences, history/philosophy and philology) with proven knowledge of computer science (credentials/certificates)
• proven experience in a programming language and relevant libraries or software systems: Xtechnologies (e.g. XSLT, saxon), Python (e.g. scrapy, spacy), Javascript (e.g. jsonld.js) (references/certificates)
• a strong capacity for analysis and abstraction
• willingness to familiarize yourself with a wide range of specialist areas in the humanities - communication skills for the presentation of natural language processing methods and for bridging technical jargon
• proven experience in the independent planning and execution of the above-mentioned tasks (credentials/certificates)
• proven connection to the digital humanities (credentials/certificates)
• good knowledge of German and English (level B1) or the willingness to acquire these during the first year of employment

Also desirable are:

• knowledge of Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
• knowledge of digital editing (TEI)
• knowledge of semantic web technologies (e.g. SPARQL) and ontologies (e.g. FRBRoo)
• experience with data analysis tools (e.g. openRefine) and methods (e.g. regular expressions)
• willingness to familiarize yourself with LLM-based methods for these purposes

Advantages for you:

• Appreciation, commitment, openness and respect - these are values that are important to us.
• With a large number of different working time models, we enable you to work flexibly - even from home.
• Whether through nursing care or childcare - our Family Service Office offers you concrete support options to help you balance your private and professional life.
• As an educational institution, your individual, tailor-made training and continuing education is not only important to us, but a matter close to our hearts.
• From Aikido to Zumba - our sports and health offers from A to Z ensure your work-life balance.
• You benefit from numerous public service benefits such as an attractive company pension plan (VBL), a special annual payment and a job that is hardly dependent on economic fluctuations

The University of Münster strongly supports equal opportunity and diversity. We welcome all applicants regardless of sex, nationality, ethnic or social background, religion or worldview, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. We are committed to creating family-friendly working conditions. Part-time options are generally available.

We actively encourage applications by women. Women with equivalent qualifications and academic achievements will be preferentially considered unless these are outweighed by reasons which necessitate the selection of another candidate.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr Jan Horstmann (0251-83-25297, ).

Are you interested?

Please apply by 2025-05-30 using our online application form.

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Reference number: 2025_04_11