Know it Wall bags £10,000 prize and is looking for more students to join the project

28 September 2016

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Know it Wall (KiW), a public engagement website, based at UCL, that aims to popularise research on a broad range of fascinating disciplines, was one of the big winners of Jisc's Summer of Student Innovation competition.

KiW has been awarded £10,000 to develop their website in collaboration with Jisc, the UK's higher education not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions. The KiW team, who were one of seven student winners, will also get first-hand experience of creative design, research, entrepreneurship and project management.

The aim of the competition is to get students to solve big problems in the education sector that they have experienced themselves. Following a four-day Jisc-run 'design sprint' based on a technique developed by Google, KiW went head to head to impress the judges in a Dragon's Den-style pitch with their website for the intellectually curious.

Miguel F. Dos Santos, UCL PhD student and project manager at KiW, said: "Winning Jisc's student ideas competition means a lot to us. We've never been part of a competition where staff and mentors were so accommodating, supportive and helpful, being able to provide us with valuable advice across a wide range of areas.

"Besides, winning this competition - with all that it entails - means that, in practice, Know it Wall is one step closer to achieving the goal of becoming the go-to place on the web for public engagement across all academic disciplines."

Vacancies for students

As a result of having won Jisc's competition, KiW is looking to expand all its teams and has a number of new vacancies for students. All the vacancies are voluntary positions (no one at KiW receives a salary).

Editing team

Editors: These roles involve editing texts written by academics to make sure they are accessible and engaging for a general (non-academic) audience.

Audio production team

Audio producers: The roles require having the production skills necessary to create audio-documentaries (including voice processing/cleanup, music and SFX sourcing/arranging, and mixing) and working well with feedback within a team. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application.

Narrators: The roles involve narrating audio- and video-documentaries. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application. Both female and male narrators are encouraged to apply.

N.B. KiW also welcomes anyone wishing to be both a narrator and audio producer.

Filmmaking team

Camera operators: The roles require prior knowledge of cameras, lenses, sound and lighting as well the ability to offer creative visual solutions whilst working within a team. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application.

Production assistant: This is a role for someone with a high degree of self-motivation. The individual will be sourcing locations and organising details such as equipment rental prior to the shoot. They will be working closely with a variety of members in the team. Some experience and an understanding of camera and sound equipment is required.

Archive footage researchers: These are researching roles for those who enjoy searching for archive footage that is relevant to the specific film project as well as ensuring copyright is cleared for the editors.

Film editors: The roles involve assembling raw footage according to previously discussed storyboards and in collaboration with the director. Fluency in a variety of editing programmes, as well as a sensitivity for working with sound and image, is essential. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application.

Sound operator/editor: This is a role for someone passionate about sound and film. They will be responsible for assisting the camera operator with recording sound on set as well as providing the film editors with a variety of soundtracks during the process of editing. Knowledge of voice processing/cleanup, music and SFX sourcing/arranging, and mixing is essential. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application.

Colourists/designers: These are roles for those who enjoy perfecting the final look of the film. KiW is looking for those keen on designing title sequences, logos as well as colouring the film in post-production. Previous experience is required and links to recent work, or a portfolio, must be included in the application.

Marketing team

Marketing officers: The roles involve promoting KiW on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, setting up an Instagram account and developing a coherent marketing strategy.

Web design and programming team

Designers (including UX designers): These roles involve designing new features that will appear on the website, with a focus on UX through user testing. These features range from improving UX on the website (for example, a feature to navigate easily between episodes) to designing how users can interact with our episodes through annotations. Including a link to recent work, or a portfolio, in the application is desirable but not required. Programming skills are useful but not at all necessary.

Programmers: The roles involve coding up features following design specifications. These features range from improving the UX on the website to working on annotation software. The tools KiW uses include Flask (Python), DigitalOcean, jQuery, Bootstrap, and annotator.js. KiW also plans to use software by Hypothes.is that would allow users to annotate third party content through a browser extension, as well as work on data visualisation (possibly using a library like D3). The codebase for KiW can be found on Github. In short, applicants should enjoy writing in Python and Javascript.

Those interested in any of these vacancies should e-mail Miguel F. Dos Santos, specifying the role/s they are applying for, attaching a CV and, if the role so requires, links to recent work or a portfolio.