User:MartinPoulter/Education staff
This is a draft job description for a part-time post, to work on a 0.4 FTE or 0.2 FTE basis. The idea is that there should be multiple people with this role, in different parts of the country, working physically apart from the office but reporting to a trustee or trusted volunteer who is taking the lead on education outreach.
Some universities may offer secondments, but the addition of overheads will usually make these posts prohibitively expensive for Wikimedia UK, so the charity should seek to employ directly.
The role involves co-ordinating with office staff, especially the Events Organiser and Communications Officer. It also involves regular communication with education-related staff in the Wikimedia Foundation and in other Wikimedia Chapters, attending international conferences and meetings as necessary.
The first posts should be focused on Higher Education, but in the longer term the goal is to have staff dedicated to secondary education as well.
- Aim
To promote co-working between the UK education sector and the Wikimedia projects, to the benefit of both in creating challenging education experiences and improving the knowledge that is freely and openly available to the world.
- Requirements
- Understanding of and commitment to the objectives and values of Wikimedia UK.
- Understanding of the context of higher education in the UK, especially with regard to teaching practice and the demands facing teaching staff.
- Understanding of the Open Educational Resources movement: its global context, the features of an Open Educational Resource and the issues around moving to open practices in education.
- Excellent communication skills across the widest range of media. This job will involve meetings or presentations with anyone involved in universities, whether teaching staff, students or senior management, across widely differing institutional and subject cultures. It will involve reporting in plain English to non-experts, in oral and written formats
- Experience of teaching, academic librarianship, learning design or a similar role in the sector.
- Key Responsibilities
- Pro-actively build relationships with institutions of higher education but contacting staff and students through professional networks, events and by acting as a visible contact point.
- Present at existing events and conferences, whether subject-focused events run by scholarly societies, teaching-focused interdisciplinary events or departmental seminars.
- Arrange events (with support of the Events Manager and volunteer trainers) for awareness raising, training, and sharing of experience among educators and support staff.
- Support and evaluate Campus Ambassadors and liaise with the staff who are using them to promote the best possible outcome.
- Co-ordinate with the office and the other education staff to manage contact data related to education outreach, making responsible and effective use of it.
- Write briefings, case studies or articles for submission to a variety of sector publications.
- Build relations with non-traditional learning communities (peer-to-peer university, wikieducator and similar) and ensure that Wikimedia UK is visible to those communities.
- Act as a contact and source of support for student societies.
- Evaluate continuously, according to criteria agreed with the office. Prepare reports for the office and board about activity and outcomes.
- Ensure that our UK education outreach activities are adequately reported on the relevant wikis (e.g. Wikipedia or Wikiversity for courses that we are supporting; Wikimedia UK Events calendar for events)
- Benefits
- Staff pension (6% employer pension contribution)
- Discretionary annual leave equivalent to pro rata proportion of 25 days
- Travel expenses for visits to the office and to institutions