Now Hiring
(Please note that at the present time we are not able to hire additional Research Assistants as we have had more demand than we have work. If the situation changes in the future, we will update this page. Thank you for your interest - BB)
Given the alarming circumstances surrounding academic work for graduate students and contract faculty in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the research team behind the What Were Comics? project is offering a limited number of contracts for research assistants. The work can be completed remotely, of course.
Before we proceed any further let us be honest: this is not the most exciting work that our project has to offer. It is the non-mentally taxing work of counting panels and, later, words in our corpus. That said, the work can be done from home and is an ideal opportunity to be paid for research work while sitting on a couch while socially isolating.
What is the work?: We are hoping to find four or five research assistants to do manual hand counts of comic book panels and, later, comic book words (in captions and word balloons). The RAs will have access to PDFs of our corpus material through a shared Dropbox folder and will be asked to label the panels on the PDFs (see example below). In our experience, this is most efficiently performed on an iPad with an Apple Pencil and a PDF editor like GoodNotes, although other options would work. Please note that we are not able to provide any computer hardware or software subscriptions. So that means you have to have the tools to do the work at hand. I know this isn’t ideal but it’s what we can offer at this time.
When can I start?: We are ready to set you up immediately and continue until the work is complete. RAs could work full or part-time and can invoice us weekly. The total number of hours will depend on the number of RAs, but we have currently budgeted approximately 3,000 hours for this work. Those hours are co-related with work completion goals. In other words, depending on how many hours you sign up for, we will assign you a work load level which we will check against your invoices.
Who are your priority hires?: We are particularly hoping to fund graduate students or precariously/non employed recent graduates who are experiencing financial hardship due to COVID 19. As this research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, preference will be given to Canadian citizens and landed residents of Canada, but we are willing and able to hire RAs from any location.
How much are you paying?: We are able to offer a standard rate of $22 Canadian per hour for this work. Unfortunately, during the crisis and the resulting shock to global oil prices, the Canadian dollar has recently declined against major world currencies. Please check to determine the exchange in your own currency, but today the rate would be $15.17 USD per hour. We wish we could offer more. Also, you will have to complete the University of Calgary’s Electronic Transfer Form, and it includes your bank information (https://www.ucalgary.ca/finance/files/finance/scm-eft-form.pdf). Once you submit an invoice and we check it against your submitted completed work, we have to fill out an Outside Vendor Request, and the university will direct deposit the money into your bank account. While this is normally a routine process, given the number of University of Calgary employees working remotely it will take weeks before money shows up in your bank account. I should also note that if your government has a withholding tax agreement with Canada, the money will be withheld and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Money is nice, but how about recognition?: It has been - and continues - to be our policy that our RAs are our collaborators and that the corpus is also theirs to develop. If you have ideas for your own scholarship based on this work – lay it on us, we’d love to expand the knowledge and would love to collaborate with you more fully on this project.
Ok, my life long dream has always been to label the panels in randomly selected issues of Our Army At War, how do I sign up?: Click HERE to fill out an application form
I have a question!: Feel free to contact me at beaty@ucalgary.ca
Clean hands, clear heads, open hearts.