How to Apply
A cover letter and resume are important submissions for the hiring team to get a sense of your experience. In the cover letter, in two pages or less, please let us know how this role aligns with your career aspirations and skill set. Submit both a cover letter and resume as one file (because of system limitations).
What You'll Do
The Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) at the University of Michigan is seeking a qualified Course Operations Specialist Senior to lead the development, implementation, and management of support for cohorted online learning experiences. This work involves understanding the learning needs of multiple cohort audiences, preparing online learning environments and course content for cohorts of learners, providing technical and operational support for learners and stakeholders, and collaborating with internal team members to improve implementation processes and workflows. This position will also maintain a portion of CAI's open learning portfolio. This position reports to the Course Operations Lead.
Mission Statement
We believe all individuals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and have the right to work in a professional atmosphere that promotes mutual respect and a safe space for collaboration. Any concerns shared with Individuals with Reporting Obligations in the Center for Academic Innovation will be reported to the Equity, Civil Rights, & Title IX Office to be reviewed and addressed, and the Center for Academic Innovation encourages reporting of any forms of harassment including sexual and gender-based harassment.
Who We Are
About the Center for Academic Innovation
Through curricular innovation, tools for student success and equity, and educational research and analytics, the University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation is building the future of education. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere.
About Online Learning at CAI
The Online Learning group within CAI consists of five teams that collaborate with others across the Center and University to design and develop online learning experiences that support the future of education for a global community. We work with faculty and academic unit leaders to envision how they can expand reach and impact, advance innovative teaching, and support greater access and lifelong learning through the design and development of integrated online learning experiences. Our teams focus on the following areas:
- Strategic sourcing of new opportunities for online learning;
- Developing internal and external partnerships that promote engagement with learning experiences;
- Providing program management services throughout degree program development and operations;
- Supporting end-to-end design and development of online learning experiences, including design management, learning experience design, and iteration of learning experiences after they have launched;
- Supporting learners' success and engagement in live courses and programs. For more information, please visit our website: Center for Academic Innovation
Responsibilities*
Cohort Experience Management
- Lead the development and implementation of partner cohort learner support.
- Coordinate with the Partnership Development team to identify appropriate course customization, access and reporting needs of partners.
- Coordinate with Course Operation Specialists assigned to courses being offered as a private cohort regarding partner needs.
- Support development of enhanced learner experiences for partners' private cohorts.
- Provide support for partnership facilitators.
- Investigate, resolve, and monitor learner and technical issues.
- Monitor and facilitate discussion forum activities, and in-course learner communications, of multiple cohort sessions.
- Develop resources aimed at fostering productive online learner engagement and learning communities (e.g., a discussion forum toolkit for course teams) at scale.
- Deliver timely status reports related to ongoing learner concerns to the Partnership Development team.
- Contribute to the development of cohort and learner performance reviews and partner reports by collecting and synthesizing information.
- Recommend and develop course improvements to ensure courses remain relevant to partner needs.
- Develop processes to capture contextual information around learner interaction and experience in cohort experiences to inform learner support strategy at scale.
- Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of learner support and recommend improvements.
Course Management and Maintenance:
- Stay up to date on the status of a subset of courses within the Center's portfolio of online learning experiences.
- Administer assigned courses to ensure appropriate support for learners and faculty.
- Identify the need for and lead the development, quality review, and implementation of course updates
- Continuously maintain in-depth knowledge of rapidly-evolving key learning platforms (e.g. Coursera, Canvas, edX).
- Provide timely consultation, implementation, and course-building support across teams, throughout the entire lifecycle of a course.
Continuous Improvement:
- Solicit, support, and manage course iteration projects with faculty and design team members.
- Provide faculty partners with periodic updates on the performance of courses and learners.
- Respond to faculty partner inquiries about the status or performance of their courses.
- Collaborate with faculty partners to update courses and resolve issues on learning platforms.
- Guide faculty partners through the course iteration planning and implementation process.
Operational Management, Leadership, and Supervision:
- Deliver timely and relevant status updates related to ongoing concerns related to course operations to learners, team members, and other stakeholders.
- Lead, refine and socialize team processes.
- Collaborate with external platform support teams to investigate and resolve learner and technical issues.
- Share insight from our learner engagement and support models with the global online learning professional community through documentation and conference presentations.
- Share insights with cross-functional team members with regard to building and improving learning experiences and workflow processes.
- Manage and supervise part-time staff in courses and/or student fellows.
- Manage and supervise Course Operations Intermediate team members, as assigned.
- Support recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of new staff members within the Course Operations team.
Required Qualifications*
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor's degree
- 3+ years of organizational learning management or online course operations experience, or equivalent combination of experience in online professional learning development, educational technology, and instructional design
- Experience managing enterprise-level implementations of Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Coursera, Canvas, edX or other educational platforms.
- Experience managing datasets and records in different formats, such as CSV, spreadsheets, JSON, and database tables
- Enthusiasm for technology enhanced learning in the context of a public residential research university
- Demonstrated organizational, interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills
- Ability to manage workload under time constraints and conflicting demands
- Ability to work well in a multicultural and collaborative environment
- Strong commitment to customer success, problem solving, teamwork and the ability to act independently
- Demonstrated experience with work productivity tools (e.g., Google G Suite, Microsoft Office, etc.) and project management tools (e.g., TDX and Asana)
Modes of Work
Positions that are eligible for hybrid or mobile/remote work mode are at the discretion of the hiring department. Work agreements are reviewed annually at a minimum and are subject to change at any time, and for any reason, throughout the course of employment. Learn more about the work modes.
Additional Information
The general salary range for this position is $72,000 - $82,000. Candidates can expect to be paid a competitive and equitable salary. Factors used to determine salary include education level, experience, knowledge and skills for the position and internal equity within the unit. All candidates are encouraged to discuss salary questions to honor alignment and transparency throughout the recruiting process.
Please Note: This is a 5 year term limited position with the possibility of renewal depending on funding.
Candidates must have legal authorization to work in the United States.
The mode of work for this position is Hybrid. The work requirements for this position allow both onsite and offsite work and you will have an expected regular and recurring onsite presence. On occasion, you may be required and must be available to work onsite more frequently if necessitated by our center's policy and domain leadership or by your job requirements.
The salary for this position will be based upon the selected candidate's education and experience.
Excellent benefits are available, for details, see http://benefits.umich.edu/
Background Screening
The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Application Deadline
Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. The review and selection process may begin as early as the eighth day after posting. This opening may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.
Decision Making Process
Applications will be reviewed as received throughout the posting period and continue until the position is filled.
U-M EEO Statement
The University of Michigan is an equal employment opportunity employer.