The Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Justice at the U of MN Law School is hiring a "Sentencing Law and Policy Program Area Webmaster" primarily for the "creation and maintenance of an on-line repository of sentencing reform materials, with particular emphasis on materials from the states that have adopted sentencing guidelines." There would be some other website-type work on the side, but the bulk of the job is design and creation of the repository. It's a full-time position, funded for 3-5 years, so it could be a great opportunity for someone looking for a chance to build out their experience and resume on a significant public information management project, but not necessarily a place to plan to retire.
The job listing can be found here:
http://employment.umn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=115251
(This is not necessarily a Drupal-specific job, but it could be depending on the skills and suggestions of the person hired. The jobs board here is restricted to Drupal jobs, so I'm posting this instead as a general discussion.)
I talked with Prof. Frase, who is directing the project, when he was preparing the job description, to provide some guidance on the technical considerations of their project. Based on my conversation with him, I can provide a bit more context beyond what is mentioned in the official job description. Sentencing guidelines are a rather messy hodgepodge of rules scattered among states and hidden away in various locations that researchers such as Frase have spent years studying. The researchers have stored and cataloged a mass of information in their own minds as a result of their studies, and they need technical help getting that information and its relationships out into a format that others can benefit from. They also want this repository of information to grow and adapt as new information on the topic becomes available. Ideally, the repository should be able to organize and catalog the information in a variety of ways, depending on how one wants to look at it, but also provide for a general text search capability so that one can search for information outside of any established categorization or taxonomy scheme. There is also the added challenge that the repository may consist of both documents stored locally and links to resources online elsewhere, which would make indexing for searchability difficult.
It sounds like a great project for someone who likes a bit of a challenge when it comes to information management, but also someone who is service-oriented and enjoys creating tools to help others navigate through challenging collections of information.
The institute is not committed to a particular solution or technology, but we did discuss the impacts of going with services provided by the U, such as Drupal, which would allow them to focus more resources on the application itself, rather than maintaining the infrastructure that supports it. My impression of Drupal is that it likely is a viable solution for their needs, and thus why I'm sharing the job listing with various local Drupal lists. As a job candidate (especially if your skills are primarily in Drupal), you'd want to be prepared to discuss both your own skills and Drupal's capabilities relative to the project. (But be sure to avoid Drupal-specific jargon!)
This particular job and project are funded and managed fully by the institute and its grants. It is independent from the Law School Technology department, where I work, but there could be opportunities to collaborate with us as we work on our own migration of our websites to Drupal.
Dale Trexel
Web Manager
U of MN Law School
