Online Content Categorization for Consumer Health Startup
Posted October 27, 2020
Job Description:
Gathering and organizing authoritative digital information on various health topics for use by everyday consumers.
Our work is inspired by the Medical Library Association’s Encyclopedic Guide to Searching and Finding Health Information on the Web (2004). By pre-organizing information along similar principles (and using our simple categorizing methods), you will be helping to realize the MLA’s original vision of helping consumers find trustworthy information. But we take this further: an “AI-lite” platform that lets consumers can find exactly what they want without having to “know how to search”, and from all the best sources.
The work is part-time (10 to 20 hours per week), using your own computer, done on your schedule, and at your convenience. We work from a “virtual team” model, so you choose your location or preferred hours – there is no office to report to, but your trainers and supervisors will be in close contact online whenever you need them. You will be an “independent contractor”,
which means you will receive a Form 1099 to file with your own tax returns each year. (Please note: this also means that, as a small startup, we cannot offer health insurance or similar benefits of full-time employment.)
This work is also “learn by doing”. We believe that no one else is doing what we are doing, so there is no expectation of prior experience, just an interest in the subject matter.
The first phase is to help build the language model for our “AI-lite” platform, using tools researched and developed by our team. The point-and-click web interface guides you through each step to help edit our “network of concepts” so that our language model gets smarter and smarter with each edit. (In the process, you can expect to learn a lot about computational
linguistics.) This phase should last several months.
The next phase entails identifying, quoting, and citing content relevant to common questions that consumers have about health and wellness issues. The result will be a database of “top content” that is far easier for consumers to use than traditional search engines.
Last year, we successfully recruited 7 librarians who like the work, and who look forward to more! They will be happy to tell you about it.
Requirements:
We are looking for motivated current and future digital librarians with an interest in healthcare and wellness, and who enjoy the fundamentals of library science skills: organizing, categorizing, and cross-referencing information to make it easier to find. Your competence in English (including American slang) is important as well.
We approach this from a consumer – not medical professional – point of view. You will be dealing with common (and quite varied) medical topics, so learning about them, and their vocabularies, as you work will be important. We also have “non-medical” topics (such as parenting) to work on, so your ability to understand everyday consumers will be equally important.
NOT REQUIRED: Expertise in scientific or medical terminologies; any prior technical experience (except the ability to use a web browser to work with data).
About the company:
Care Commons has been designed from the beginning to be a “virtual” organization. We are a small Boston-based startup on a big mission: to transform how consumers access health and wellness resources, including professional help when they need it. Our motto is “One Healthy World”.
Our core team members are in various geographies in both the U.S. and Europe, and have strong backgrounds in public health, computational linguistics, related technologies, and the consumer health space. We believe that – for health and wellness – the Web is broken, and we are looking for talented people to help us fix it and realize an important opportunity.
Your skills described above will be central to achieving this. We anticipate being able to offer long-term professional opportunities and career growth to those who show promise in this work.
Next steps:
Please send an email to our dedicated job list address below, and include some information about your current academic status (graduate student, alumnus/a, or other).
Feel free to add work-related information you think might be helpful, such as your interest in this kind of work, your current job, or (not required) a c.v. or resumé. Note that your email will not be treated as your entire “job application”, and that summary information is fine.
Our co-founders will set up a time to speak with you (by phone / video call) to provide you with detailed background on the company, the work, and your compensation. We will respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.
We look forward to hearing from you!