Details
1093242
University of Edinburgh
09/06/2025
3 Months
35 hrs/week, worked between 9-5, Monday - Friday
Not Applicable
Pay
£12.67
£2.29
Description
Role
The University of Edinburgh’s Information Services Group (ISG) invites applications from undergraduate students interested in working this summer as an Information and Data Literacy Intern (Wikimedia). The key purpose of this role is to assist with gathering evidence and writing a bid for the National Heritage Lottery Fund, to support the development of a ‘golden copy’ of the Accused Witches in Scotland dataset. This will be based on underlying data from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft and the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft map data. You will help develop a sustainable plan, which will allow data to be updated and enhanced.
Within this role, you will gain practical experience in writing a bid for fundraising, and developing technical prototypes for verifying data accuracy. The skills you will develop by completing this internship include stakeholder management, data analysis, and data visualisation. You will join the Wikimedian in Residence service team, who are responsible for facilitating a sustainable relationship between the University and Wikimedia UK, through improved open knowledge exchange. Their work aligns with the University of Edinburgh's Digital Skills Framework, providing support with institutional commitments such as open knowledge and data, digital and data skills, information literacy, and equality, diversity and inclusion.
You can expect to start work on the 9th June 2025 and work until the 29th August 2025. You will work 35 hours per week (Monday to Friday) in a hybrid working pattern split between working from home (commutable distance from Edinburgh), and in Argyle House. You will be paid £12.67 per hour, plus £2.29 per hour holiday pay. Payment is one month in arrears, meaning your first payment date (should this position start when expected) will be 28th July 2025.
For more information on what to expect as an ISG Summer Intern and to hear from previous interns, please see our ISG Student Employment website.
Duties and responsibilities
- Preparing evidence for, and assist with writing a National Heritage Lottery Fund bid, to raise funds for developing and preserving a ‘golden copy’ of the Scottish witches dataset;
- Designing a sustainable plan, to allowing data to be updated and enhanced, whilst developing technical prototypes for verifying the accuracy in the existing dataset;
- Considering the benefits of using AI on the available dataset, to provide analysis that has not been possible before;
- Supporting the teaching of Data Science, through raising awareness of how linked open data can support teaching, learning and research;
- Engaging with stakeholders to gather insights, promoting and advocating the use of Wikimedia and open data throughout the University, whilst building on previous interns’ work;
- Writing educational blog posts, whilst creating media content and presenting the data, explaining how it was used in the past and how it can be used more widely by community members.
Skills and experience
Essential criteria:
- A current University of Edinburgh undergraduate student (you must be a matriculated student for the duration of your employment). Internships are open to all undergraduate students, except those in their final year of study;
- Based in the UK for the duration of the work, within commutable distance of Edinburgh, and able to work on campus (we cannot accommodate individuals working overseas due to tax and legal implications), and able to attend a Right to Work Check in person if needed;
- Demonstrable excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex information simply and effectively;
- Proven understanding of how to analyse and visualize data, for example data analysis tasks completed in your studies;
- Evidence of excellent organisational and time-management skills, with decision-making ability;
- Demonstrable experience with web-based programming languages, such as PHP, JavaScript or Python;
- Proven interest in the Scottish witch trials;
- Demonstrable interest in fundraising and bid writing.
- Evidence of a creative ability to devise engaging social media posts (such as blog posts and tweets), or media;
- Demonstrable interest in Wikipedia, and related open knowledge or open data services and platforms;
- Proven experience in web editing and/or developing, using other programming languages and JavaScript libraries, such as React.JS, Nuxt.JS, JavaScript, PHP or R;
- Evidence of an interest in AI, with an understanding of the opportunities and risks of its use.
Location
Hybrid, split between working from home (commutable distance from Edinburgh) and in Argyle House, 3 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9DR.
Benefits
- The full range of benefits as a Summer Intern is available on our 2025 Summer Internships webpage;
- Being part of a welcoming community of over 50 ISG Summer Interns with opportunities to network, whilst working in a supportive and nurturing environment with a strong emphasis on work/life balance;
- A broad programme of training and development opportunities, run by experts across a range of fields;
- Opportunity to participate in the prestigious Edinburgh Award for Work Experience.
Additional information
Please apply below by uploading an up-to-date CV and cover letter (our system cannot accept PDFs) clearly stating how you meet the criteria above. To have the best chance of being offered an interview, we encourage you to view our two-page Application Guidance document and attend one of our short, online internship overview sessions, bookable via the 2025 Summer Internships webpage.
We ask that you carefully consider which internships best suit your interests, skills, and career goals, and apply for a maximum of 3 ISG internships. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, such as Widening Participation students.
To view all our internships on offer this summer, please see our Unitemps Adverts page.
Interviews for this internship are likely to be held on the week commencing the 21st April 2025, and are expected to be in person.
The closing date for this advert is 23:59 on Sunday 23rd March. If you encounter any issues when applying, please e-mail unitemps@ed.ac.uk well in advance of the deadline, as we will only respond within office hours (9-5, Monday to Friday). Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.