The OER, Graphic Design, and Digital Publishing Specialist supports the work of the Open Education Initiative which is committed to collaborative work resulting in adoption, adaptation, creation and public sharing of peer-reviewed faculty-authored course materials that are publicly released under open licenses. The specialist works with the Assistant Director of Open Education, Virginia Tech authors, and other team members to ideate, design, develop, adapt, and publish open educational resources and related ancillary learning resources in a variety of formats. With a focus on cohesive design, usability (including accessibility and user experience), and open-licensing of to-be-published resources, the specialist evaluates existing manuscripts, explores applications of alternative technologies, designs original graphical elements to convey complex data and concepts, consults with authors, identifies, uses, and creates openly-licensed elements, implements accessibility strategies, and typesets undergraduate and graduate-level text/mathematical/and figure-intensive manuscripts in Pressbooks or other publishing software. The specialist also contributes to regular project management conversations, informal program and process evaluations, suggestions for improvements, and collaborates with the team in goal setting and implementation.
This position will work with technologies such as Spreadsheets, Pressbooks, H5P, Tableau, TablePress, Adobe Acrobat DC, MSWord, GoogleOffice Suite, Microsoft Teams, PDF remediation software, LaTeX, mathematics conversion software, in-house project management tools, and other software to support projects and develop publishable manuscripts.
– Ability to identify potential copyright and open licensing issues in digital and print content
– Experience in designing and producing visually-cohesive data and/or concept-rich college-level learning resources including but not limited to long-form textbooks
– Demonstrated success in establishing and building collaborative working relationships with people from a diversity of backgrounds, disciplines, and perspectives
– Strong interpersonal and communication skills
– Demonstrated ability to work effectively independently and within a collaborative team environment
– Demonstrated problem-solving skills and the ability to effectively troubleshoot technical issues in digital publishing
– Excellent time management and ability to successfully handle multiple priorities
– Demonstrated ability to handle multiple complex projects simultaneously, to set priorities, and to meet deadlines
– Experience in library publishing
– Exceptional proficiency in Pressbooks and in coaching others to use Pressbooks and features within (CSS, TablePress, image sizing etc.)
– Exceptional proficiency with spreadsheets
– Experience developing or improving project tracking, communication, and team productivity tools
– Extensive experience with designing technical and information-rich figures for learning resources
– Experience typesetting mathematics with LaTeX and/or MathML
– Extensive expertise in finding, creating, sharing, and attributing Creative Commons’ licensed works
– Effective management of student peer-review meetings and processes
– Experience processing honoraria and other payments
– Experience planning and supporting in-person and online events, symposia, and workshops
– Human subjects (CITES) research certified
-The successful candidate will be required to have a criminal conviction check.
-Remote work is an option for the right employee.
Quick Link: https://careers.
Employee Category: Full-time Staff- Payband 3-$42,000-$44,000 dependent on qualifications and experience
Department: Library
Work Location: Blacksburg, VA
Review Date: 7/24/23