Resources

December 9, 2019

Digital Publication Coordinator

• University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press)
• Vancouver, BC

Digital Publication Coordinator
The University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press)
Vancouver, BC

Job Summary

The University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press) seeks a Digital Publication Coordinator whose skills and approaches will advance our commitment to digital publishing for multiple forms of expression.

The Digital Publication Coordinator’s work will strengthen RavenSpace, a ground-breaking publishing platform for media-rich, networked, interactive books in Indigenous studies. Combining open-source database and publishing platforms, RavenSpace offers a suite of tools for linking data and analyses to digital content from around the world and for interacting in culturally sensitive ways with heritage materials. It serves as a powerful interactive and collaborative site of knowledge exchange between Indigenous scholars, communities, and a diversity of audiences.

The Digital Publication Coordinator will provide digital publication coordination to teams performing core responsibilities within the RavenSpace publishing system. The position provides support to the Principal Investigator (PI) in ensuring the overall progress of core activities; acts as a pivot between the PI, the platform developers, the book production team, the marketing staff, and external partners and vendors; and coordinates the technology-based activities related to the maintenance, research, and implementation and testing of the digital production platform system.

Because this position will participate in the documentation and assessment of existing workflows and the development of the future roadmap, strong analytical and communication skills are critical.

Work Performed

Publication, Coordination, and Communication

– Works closely with teams to clarify work objectives, encourage productive discussions between platform and book development teams, address and resolve communication issues, actively solicit various and possibly divergent points of view, and strengthen cross-team collaboration.
– Coordinates with teams to manage the overall priorities and schedule of activities for platform maintenance and research, integrating and tracking milestones and dependencies across streams of activities, and supporting the teams in the analysis of the system’s capabilities.
– Participates in and confers with the PI and the teams to ensure that the platform maintenance and development function effectively in support of the book production activities and are within scope and budget.
– Plans and coordinates production of new media assets.
– Researches, identifies, and, on approval from the PI, hires vendors, defining the scope and detail of the work and budget and assures the quality and delivery of the services or goods.
– Confirms that permissions are secured and provides support and advice on permissions and metadata.
– Consults with teams across technical ability and subject matter expertise to solicit status updates and ensures that teams are provided with project information such as documentation, meeting minutes, and updated project overviews and schedules.
– Ensures that documentation of systems and workflows are produced, updated, and subjected to quality assurance.
– Draws from team updates and conversations to evaluate implementation options, identify risks and benefits, assess complexity, etc., and presents recommendations to the PI for further discussion and follow-up action, as required.

Administration and Liaison

– Works closely with the PI to monitor budget expenditures and assist with reporting and grant applications.
– Consults with RavenSpace leadership to solicit, understand, and capture relevant information to prepare project management documentation.
– Regularly informs and presents project progress, results, insights, and recommendations to the PI and publisher
– Organizes meetings of the Publishing Advisory Board, author workshops, and user-testing sessions, and assists the marketing staff in organizing events such as launches.
– Organizes team meetings and vendor consultation meetings, and provides facilitation and coordination as needed to ensure the smooth flow of communication across cross-functional teams.
– Generates, assists with, and updates documentation of the workflows and systems.
– Acts as a liaison between RavenSpace teams and other UBC Press departments.

Qualifications

– Two year diploma in Journalism or Publishing or related digital production field.
– Minimum of two years’ experience or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
– Experience in publishing, digital projects, library and information sciences, or the equivalent combination of education and experience preferred.
– Demonstrated facility with, and knowledge of, digital infrastructures and a good understanding of information technology/systems
– Successful experience and abilities in project management
– Excellent computer skills in word processing, spreadsheet programs, and software for shared files or team collaboration (e.g., GoogleDocs, Asana)
– Unusually strong written and oral communication skills
– An analytical approach to problem solving
– Proven abilities in project management
– Experience in developing collaborative and productive relationships with a wide range of cross-functional team members and stakeholders
– Ability to work with and supervise contract staff and vendors
– Excellent time management, organization, presentation, and prioritization skills
– Superior attention to detail and ability to manage small project activities such as event and meeting coordination
– Understanding of scholarly communication issues
– Evidence of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in a higher education setting.
– Excellent analytical abilities, particularly in using data and reports to inform recommendations for application implementation decisions and program improvements to larger product support team.
– Demonstrated effective communication and interpersonal skills. Demonstrated ability to communicate technical information to technical and non-technical personnel at various levels in the organization.

Preferred
– Familiarity with Indigenous intellectual property and cultural heritage rights
– Functional knowledge of XML and open source content management platforms such as Omeka, Scalar, and DSpace.
Demonstrated experience or competency in one or more areas of professional practice in scholarly publishing and repository management.

Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

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December 2, 2019

Publishing Systems Developer

• California Digital Library
• Oakland, CA

Reporting to the Senior Product Manager, Publishing, this position will work collaboratively with senior developers as well as product and service managers to build and maintain innovative open access (and mostly open source) scholarly publishing infrastructure. Key among these platforms are eScholarship (UC’s open access publishing and institutional repository platform) and integrated submission management systems used by researchers and editors to produce and publish original academic journals and to make previously published works available to the world.

You will:

• develop new features
• respond to bug reports
• manage regular maintenance
• work collaboratively on new iterations of existing platforms
• evaluate and implement new open source solutions
• build connections between platforms
• participate in both intra- and cross-team pair programming projects

You have:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information management or science, or a related field or an equivalent combination of education and 5 or more years of experience in information technology which includes writing programs in languages such as Python, Ruby, and Javascript in a production environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience with: 1)  UNIX OS and shell scripting; 2) database design and relational databases (for example SQL, MySql, Postgress);  and 3) web-based applications.
• Demonstrated working knowledge of web protocols and server-side programming as well as with web frameworks (such as Django/Rails/Express), and UI presentation tools such as React.
• Demonstrated knowledge of user interface design, prototyping and web applications.
• Demonstrated knowledge of unit and regression testing.
• Excellent interpersonal skills as demonstrated by the ability to interact with others in a consistently positive and professional manner, exercising discretion and tact.
• Excellent oral communications skills, which demonstrate the ability to effectively convey and explain information, liaise with vendors and tactfully deal with diverse people, situations and ideas.
• Excellent written communications skills, which demonstrate the ability to draft clear, concise specifications, documentation and reports.
• Strong analytical skills as demonstrated by the ability to draw conclusions in a logical, systematic way.
• Demonstrated ability to plan assignments and monitor performance according to priorities, thereby regularly meeting established deadlines.
• Demonstrated ability to perform competently under pressure, handling interruptions and changes without losing productivity.

Compensation and benefits:

• Health Care, Dental, Vision
• Vacation
• Sick Leave
• UC Retirement System, 403(b), 457
• Academic work environment / 40 hour work week

Our organization

The California Digital Library (CDL) is a collaborative effort of the ten campuses of the University of California. As a UC systemwide library, CDL provides services to and on behalf of the UC system in partnership with the UC campus libraries. As a globally-connected digital library, CDL occupies a unique position between the local UC campuses and the global digital library infrastructure. The primary user base for CDL services and programs includes UC faculty, students, and library staff. The CDL is a unit within the UC Office of the President, has a staff of 70+ and is located in downtown Oakland.

The CDL’s Publishing & Special Collections group develops and maintains production services that enable robust access to unique digital assets from the University of California (UC) and beyond. Through the development of advanced technologies and creative partnerships, we provide the UC scholarly community with innovative open access publication and distribution opportunities and aggregate world-class digital collections from libraries, archives, and museums throughout the State of California, serving an array of end users including researchers, scholars, students, and the general public.

CDL welcomes and encourages diversity and seeks applications and nominations from individuals from underrepresented groups. CDL seeks to recruit and retain a diverse workforce as a reflection of our commitment to serve the people of California, to maintain the excellence of the University of California, and to offer our students richly varied disciplines, perspectives, and ways of knowing and learning.

NOTE: While the HR system currently shows this position as closing Monday, December 9, CDL is submitting a request to have that extended to January 6, 2020.

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November 16, 2019

Next Gen Library Publishing Project Manager

• California Digital Library
• Oakland, CA

California Digital Library and partner institutions – Educopia, Strategies for Open Science (Stratos), Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Longleaf Services, and LYRASIS – are embarking on a 2.5 year, grant-funded “Next Generation Library Publishing” project to improve open-source scholarly publishing infrastructure and position library publishers to offer compelling publication tools and services to the academic community. CDL is taking the lead in managing this project and is hiring a part-time project manager to perform this function. If you are self-motivated and eager to be involved in an ambitious project with the potential to change the scholarly communication landscape for the better, this is the job for you!

The project manager for this effort will: support the project by applying standard project management concepts, frameworks, and methods to ensure the timely delivery of project deliverables within a highly distributed project team comprised of six partner organizations; create and maintain a project work plan that indicates deliverables, responsibilities, timelines, and progress; meet regularly with each partner organization and help organize and attend collaborative project meetings to establish near and long-term deliverables, track progress on monthly work plan goals, and realign or reprioritize work as needed; meet regularly with project PIs to discuss progress, resourcing and timeline feasibility; and create quarterly progress reports for the larger stakeholder community.

This position is a 2.5 year contract appointment hired at 50% FTE, including a range of employee benefits. Applicants from outside the Bay Area who wish to work remotely will be considered.

The University of California is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer with a strong institutional commitment to the achievement of excellence and diversity among its faculty and staff. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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November 6, 2019

Open Publishing Production Assistant

• Penn State University Libraries
• University Park, PA

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October 11, 2019

Director, Mason Publishing Group

• George Mason University
• Fairfax, VA

The George Mason University Libraries seeks to fill the position of the Director, Mason Publishing Group. 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.

Responsibilities:
This Director position leads the University Libraries’ Mason Publishing Group, a unit which includes the George Mason University Press and Mason Publishing imprints, Open Educational Resources program, open access e-journals, Copyright Support, and various other Scholarly Communications activities. Incumbent provides leadership in planning, acquisition of content and projects, scholarly and editorial oversight, business management, contract administration, staffing, marketing and outreach, and external relations.

The position operationally reports to the Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Systems, and programmatically functions under the purview of the Dean of Libraries and University Librarian.

Duties:

1.           Develops and sustains Open Access and market-focused digital publishing initiatives;

2.           Integrates a GMU Press program with Library-based publishing initiatives, including the Mason Publishing imprint initiatives;

3.           Serves as the lead advocate for the GMU Press across the university and externally;

4.           Manages an integrated program of existing and planned publishing services, including:

·      Institutional repository (Mason Archival Repository Services),

·      E-journals and conference proceedings publishing and hosting,

·      E-book publishing/production,

·      Data publication,

·      Open Educational Resources (OERs), and

·      Two publishing imprints (GMU Press and Mason Publishing), including their print and digital components;

5.           Collaborates with the Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center in support of faculty and student projects, including scholarly dissemination activities as appropriate;

6.           Oversees the University’s Copyright Compliance policies and attendant responsibilities;

7.           Oversees the coordination of Scholarly Communication activities of University Libraries and programmatic outreach to Mason’s faculty and students;

8.           Develops sustainable publishing and more broadly scholarly communication/dissemination partnerships across the university;

9.           Manages the multifaceted business aspects of the publishing program, including Profit & Loss forecasts (P&L), author agreements, contract administration, and production operations and workflows, and fiscal matters;

10.        Supervises two (2) full time professional faculty positions, one (1) Classified Staff, and (as allocated annually) graduate professional assistants; and

11.        Performs other related professional duties within University Libraries and/or university as requested.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required:

·      Graduate degree in a relevant discipline;

·      Demonstrated successful managerial and administrative experience in publishing generally, and e-publishing, in particular;

·      Knowledge of current practices and trends in academic publishing, Open Educational Resources, scholarly communications, open-access, data publishing and copyright;

·      Ability to create and monitor budgets;

·      Demonstrated experience in acquisitions, P&L, writing and executing author agreements, contract administration and publishing operations/workflows excellent writing, speaking and interpersonal skills; and

·      Ability to build collaborative and mutually beneficial working relationships with people of varying backgrounds.

Preferred:

·      Five years of increasingly responsible experience in the academic publishing sector.

Appointment/Benefits/Salary:
12-month professional faculty appointment without rank; health plan options and paid life insurance; several retirement plans, including TIAA-CREF; 24 vacation days and 12 paid holidays; tuition waiver for self.

Salary is commensurate with education and experience, and not less than $82,500/year.

To apply:

All applications for this position (FA730z) MUST be submitted online at George Mason’s employment page (https://jobs.gmu.edu/). Applicants must submit letter of application, resume, and the names, addresses (including e-mail) and phone numbers of three current references. Questions should be directed to Renee Prokop (rprokop@gmu.edu), Human Resources Coordinator, Office of the Dean of Libraries. Review of applications will begin on November 5, 2019.

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.

 

George Mason University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, committed to promoting inclusion and equity in its community. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or veteran status, or any characteristic protected by law.

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