February 19, 2021
Open Educational Resources & Scholarly Communication Lead
- George Mason University
- Fairfax VA
George Mason University Libraries is seeking a dynamic, innovative, and service-oriented individual to join a team of educators and service providers supporting George Mason faculty, researchers, students, and staff with needs related to Open Educational Resources (OER), Copyright, Fair Use, Open Licensing, and other scholarly communication matters. George Mason University has a strong institutional commitment to the achievement of excellence and diversity among its faculty and staff, and strongly encourages candidates to apply who will enrich Mason’s academic and culturally inclusive environment.
About the Position:
Reporting to the Director, Mason Publishing Group/George Mason University Press, the Open Educational Resources & Scholarly Communication Lead will collaborate with colleagues in Mason Publishing, within the Libraries more broadly, and across the university to support the adoption and creation of open and affordable course content. The incumbent also provides guidance and compliance assistance on copyright and fair use issues related to OER, as well as copyright use in classroom teaching and technology, online courses, Mason Publishing supported journals, and university press publications. In the Scholarly Communications role, the incumbent leads the Libraries’ educational program and outreach activities to promote open access scholarly dissemination, provides expert guidance to faculty and students wishing to pursue open access venues for their research and publication projects, and consults and advises on intellectual property issues and copyright generally in the publishing process.
The Mason Publishing Group (http://publishing.gmu.edu/) unites the George Mason University Libraries’ digital publishing activities with the George Mason University Press to form a set of publishing services for the university.
Responsibilities:
- Serves as a Library and campus resource on issues related to Open Educational Resources (OER) and affordable course content, and conducts outreach and educational programming on these topics;
- Provides assistance for Mason Publishing’s efforts in preparing and publishing Open Textbooks and other OER;
- Serves as the university’s primary resource on fair use, open licensing, and other copyright issues, and liaises with Office of University Counsel in managing more complex intellectual property matters;
- Fulfills the function of front-line copyright compliance officer for the university;
- Assists faculty, staff and students to understand copyright issues regarding their research and publications;
- Actively provides guidance and support to instructional faculty on appropriate application of fair use and educational uses of copyrighted material in face-to-face, as well as online educational contexts;
- Administers and promotes the Libraries’ open access publishing fund, and helps to educate faculty, students, and library staff about open access publishing issues.
Required Qualifications:
- ALA-accredited Master’s degree in Library or Information Science (or, an equivalent certified foreign degree) OR an Advanced degree in a related field such as publishing, English, communications, journalism, or social sciences;
- Significant demonstrated experience in several interrelated areas encompassing the responsibilities of this position, including: copyright educational compliance; scholarly publishing; scholarly communication; outreach and engagement, or editorial;
- Strong computer skills in desktop and database applications;
- Strong analytical and organizational skills as well as effective interpersonal, collegial and communication skills (both oral and written);
- Experience in and a record of accomplishments in publishing or scholarly communication environment;
- Experience developing outreach materials and services, such as publications, training materials, workshops, conferences, and other tools relevant to scholarly communication;
- Ability to set and adjust priorities and work flows in a dynamic and changing environment and accept new challenges to realize departmental and library goals.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Three or more years of professional-level experience in functional areas falling within the scope of this position;
- Familiarity with trends and best practices in open education and the intersection with scholarly communications;
- Experience in education or instructional design; knowledge of current and emerging trends in OER for higher education;
- Fluency with XML, HTML, command line scripting, etc.; and
- Facility with Adobe InDesign or publishing platforms and software.
Appointment and Benefits:
Twelve-month professional faculty appointment, with or without librarian rank, dependent upon academic qualifications; health plan options and paid life insurance; several retirement plans, including TIAA–CREF; 24 vacation days and 12 paid holidays; and tuition waiver for self.
The George Mason University library system, comprised of a large central library and four other distinctive libraries, is located on three campuses in the Northern Virginia-metropolitan Washington, D.C., region. One of Virginia’s leading academic research libraries, the Mason Libraries continues to gain steadily in national stature as it undergoes extensive transformation in all areas that are key to a 21st century research library—innovative technologies and services, expert library faculty and skilled staff members, growing collections, publishing, modern facilities, and transformational partnerships. Visit us at library.gmu.edu for more information.
For full consideration apply by 03/08/2021