Position Details
Academic Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £35,880 to £45,163 with potential progression once in post to £47,874
Grade: 7
Full Time, Permanent
Closing date: 20th February 2025
Our offer to you
People are at the heart of what we are and do.
The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.
We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.
We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.
Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University, and depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high-quality subsidised day nurseries.
The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.
Background
The UK Higher Education sector is changing in response to the shifts in the capacity, availability and opportunity offered by an ever-advancing range of digital technologies. The expectations of students and staff are changing continually; Technology-Integrated Learning is now an integral part of the overall student taught experience of their education.
To meet its ambitions to be a place of transformative education, the University supports staff in all aspects of their teaching through departments based within our Libraries and Learning Resources division, in Academic Services. The Head of Digital Education post sits within the Digital Education Team, represented by a ‘Head of Digital Education’ for each of our 5 colleges in our Edgbaston campus.
Role Summary
Reporting to the College Head of Digital Education, the post holder will be a member of the College Digital Education Team and a member of the wider Digital Education Department represented in the five main Colleges within the University.
The post holder will utilise their passion for learning and teaching working as part of a multidisciplinary digital education team in addressing the University’s strategic ambition to expand its portfolio and develop its digital education capability through targeted investment and more effective use of existing resources.
This post will play a leading role in delivering the College’s Digital Learning Strategy. This will involve providing expert guidance and leading on the collaboration in the design of pedagogically proven blended and online learning. The post holder will lead on the collaboration of the design and scripting of high-quality video and other digital material and activities, and to enable the repurposing of this material between courses.
They will provide effective, evidence-based knowledge and expertise working closely with academic and professional services colleagues to encourage new growth opportunities and diversification of the College’s learning resources portfolio.
With a “future-facing” outlook, the post holder will recommend the art of the possible in digital education leading on contribution to community networks that identify emerging best practice. The role will promote understanding and collaboration between Digital Education and the College.
Main Duties
1. The role will be working both independently and alongside other members of the Digital Education Team in the creation of online courses in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Canvas to include the use of relevant digital education practices, working in conjunction with academics and administrators within the College to make the best use of Canvas and other relevant tools.
2. Creation of learning objects and course content (with input from subject staff).
3. Point of contact for 2nd line support for VLE users within the College.
4. Facilitate bespoke training programmes and workshops for digital education within the institution.
5. Lead on and contribute to activities and projects aligned to the broader goals and vision of the wider Digital Education team.
6. Project Management and facilitation for digital education within the College.
7. Liaise with content development specialists (internal or 3rd party) to design high quality, innovative learning objects and activities to be used within college courses.
8. To undertake such other duties as may be required from time to time to further the work of digital education in the institution.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
Essential:
1. Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) or relevant technical qualification and considerable relevant experience. Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of more demanding roles will be required demonstrating the conceptual understanding required.
2. Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day-to-day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.
3. In-depth and up to date specialist knowledge and understanding of pedagogic and academic practice, and digital learning design as applied to higher education.
4. Well-developed expertise and detailed knowledge of how Virtual Learning Environments (such as Canvas) and other associated systems can be used to support learning and teaching.
5. Ability to quickly become a product specialist for new digital education systems.
6. Experience of developing and facilitating specialist face to face and remote training, ideally in the use of learning technologies.
7. Experience of advising academic staff or senior stakeholders with authority, ideally in the use of learning technologies in a blended learning environment.
8. Provide professional and specialist advice and foster positive working relationships with a range of stakeholders and colleagues to enable effective collaborative working.
9. Demonstrate a diplomatic attitude with the ability to prioritise, negotiate and use own judgement.
10. Excellent communication skills.
11. Able to work independently, accurately and to deadline within a team environment.
12. Skills and experience to understand, conceptualise and interpret the requirements of staff and students.
13. Experience of overseeing projects from conception through to successful completion.
14. Ability to work effectively in cross functional teams.
15. Responsibility of coordinating, creating and maintaining high quality online learning materials.
16. Evaluates technical area. Continually monitors its effectiveness and recommends improvements.
17. Need to be able to respond to changing priorities and differing situations.
18. Develops the technical capability of others amongst immediate team and across the university more widely.
Desirable:
1. Ability to line-manage and develop professional staff.
2. Good understanding and experience of web technologies such as HTML, CSS and Javascript within a VLE environment and working with APIs and LTIs.
3. Media skills (able to film & edit using Premier Pro, Final Cut or similar) for professional finish.
4. Content development skills (able to create straightforward content in authoring packages such as Storyline).
5. Experience of working with virtual learning environments, ideally with some Canvas experience or similar and with using APIs, Chrome Extensions and similar frameworks.
Core competencies/transferable skills
Working at this level you will be able to develop and successfully demonstrate the core competencies/transferable skills outlined in each of the areas shown below. As appropriate for the level, our Birmingham Professionals will take ownership for getting things done. You will be expected to be flexible as required in supporting your department and wider University.
Dimensions
Roles at this level will require in-depth specialist technical/specialist/IT expertise. Role holders may have supervisory responsibility for a technical service or team, where the primary focus will be on planning, overseeing and reviewing the work of the team and/or will operate as individual technical, specialist or IT experts either supporting service delivery or contributing directly to local project implementation or problem solving through the provision of specialist support activity.
Planning and Organising
The role manages projects and task and finish workstreams which may vary in length from short term (2 months) to longer term (typically 1 year). They need to forward plan, create project delivery plans, evaluate and review progress, reporting to internal and possibly external stakeholders, and manage self and as appropriate others to deliver project outcomes.
Informal enquiries to Puiyin Wong, email: p.y.wong@bham.ac.uk
View our staff values and behaviours here
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.
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