| Provide leadership in researching and developing new educational technologies in residential, online and hybrid programs. Work closely with academic departments, support staff, partners, and technology providers to evaluate, test, and implement building blocks for new and existing course delivery platforms, develop and extend course authoring tools, maintain documentation and provide technology training and support. Develop metrics and collect data to evaluate learning experience, ensure quality, and implement continuous improvements. Job responsibilities include the following: Support Blended and Technology-Enhanced Learning: - Work with faculty to analyze learning objectives and anticipated student backgrounds and design digital content for in-classroom and online delivery.
- Select appropriate technologies to implement and integrate digital content with a learning management system.
- Identify solutions to increase interactivity of digital content, get faculty feedback, and implement selected solutions for on-campus, online, and blended courses.
- Streamline administrative processes related to registering and enrolling students, providing faculty and students with access to course technologies, grading, gathering and presenting credentials/badges, etc.
- Assist faculty in converting faculty-provided content, including multimedia content, online learning and group collaboration activities, assessments, etc. into online modules.
- Deploy and support course components as part of BU/MET learning environment, including existing and prospective course management systems and virtual laboratories. Program/configure the necessary interfaces to integrate multiple systems.
- Develop faculty and student help and support tools to facilitate learning and operating learning management and video collaboration systems; maintain continuous contact with faculty and staff to gather requirements and anticipate future needs.
Develop hands-on laboratories an interactive in-course exercises to simulate corresponding industry workflows: - Design software architecture to support presentation of laboratory materials, student interactions, grading and feedback.
- Determine optimal in-house or cloud deployment options.
- Configure Linux or Windows operating systems for best performance and security.
- Configure firewalls, proxy servers, application servers, database servers.
- Perform functional decomposition and design, implement and support front-end and back-end software modules.
- Develop backup solutions to avoid learning process interruptions for in-classroom and online 7- days-per-week scenarios.
- Monitor utilization, availability and performance, select and configure monitoring tools.
- Troubleshoot problems and implement solutions for minimal interruptions.
- Work with faculty to define laboratory skill profiles and develop a connection with available Internet career services to link lab skills with job opportunities.
- Train and support team members and student employees as required.
Maintain and extend content authoring and delivery infrastructure and tools: - Gather requirements, research, recommend, test and participate in deployment of content development tools.
- Integrate content development tools with course delivery infrastructure and other BU and MET systems and services. When user configurable integration options are not available, design and implement software adapters using LTI, OAuth, REST API and other appropriate technologies.
- Research and develop online systems to support practical skills development and automated assessment. When vendor-supported technology is not available, design and develop system prototypes to collect student and faculty feedback and determine next steps.
- Configure/extend functionality of content development tools to support best learning practices. When appropriate, add custom-built software or hardware modules.
- Build pilot systems and operating environments as necessary to maintain working knowledge and provide expert opinion on the latest advances in educational technologies, including course management systems, content development suits, test workbenches, etc.
Analyze and improve learning experience: - Organize and ensure continuous course monitoring and timely support for students and faculty when using online course modules and delivery systems to provide uninterrupted learning experience.
- Analyze feedback from faculty, students, content developers and support staff to improve reliability and performance of online course components, content authoring tools, and delivery systems.
- Demonstrate initiative and develop expertise to select, evaluate, configure and support educational technologies used in residential, online, and hybrid programs. Maintain technical documentation and provide training as necessary.
- Identify technical problems with access to course materials and supported technology infrastructure, take ownership for immediate corrective actions, and oversee problem resolutions.
Monitor and evaluate the latest advances in academic technologies and practices: - Conduct research of technology platforms and best educational practices at leading Universities.
- When appropriate, install in-house new system instances and/or deploy cloud-based services to test and understand their potential for teaching and learning, including systems and services initially developed for other industries, such as Git, Amazon Alexa, etc.
- Monitor the latest advances in technologies related to major MET academic programs and explore opportunities to incorporate them into program curricula.
- Participate in industry conferences and workgroups; use internal BU and MET events and demonstrations to promote and increase adoption of new teaching and learning approaches, tools, and services.
Organizational: - Train and oversee a team of graduate assistants and part-time employees to cost-effectively deliver services as described above.
- Develop processes and procedures related to test and deploy new technologies.
- Maintain and publish current documentation and instructions, both for internal and customer use.
- Assist other BU and MET teams in solving technology-related challenges as appropriate.
|
