Head, Data and Open Scholarship (Hybrid Opportunity)

About UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth's flagship campus, is a nationally ranked public research university offering a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts and offers a rich cultural environment in a bucolic setting close to major urban centers. In addition, the University is part of the Five Colleges (including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College), which adds to the intellectual energy of the region.

 

Job Summary

The Head of Data & Open Scholarship leads a dynamic and evolving team to develop and deliver forward-thinking and campus-aligned programming, resources, and services to support researchers across the research and data lifecycles; scaffold scalable education and outreach programming and support for students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty; and coordinate project support for innovative work in the realms of digital scholarship, research data, and scholarly publishing. The incumbent will achieve these goals through collaboration with the Associate Dean for Data, Digital Strategies and other units in the division. They will assist University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers in meeting the requirements of funding agencies and publishers and will prioritize the development of strong, collaborative relationships with library subject specialists across multiple disciplines and with relevant units across campus. The incumbent will manage a small team of specialists focused on data management, digital scholarship and digital humanities projects, copyright and information policy, open educational resources, open scholarship/scholarly publishing, research impact, and spatial data and GIS.

The position is responsible for leading, managing, innovating, goal setting, outreach, and assessing all functions of the department in partnership with other departments within the division of Data, Digital Strategies, and Scholarly Communication and across the Libraries. The Head of Data & Open Scholarship serves a critical role in ensuring the Libraries are poised to meet the research and student success goals outlined in the University's strategic plan.

 

Essential Functions

• Provides vision and direction for the Libraries’ Data & Open Scholarship department, working across all disciplines, including strengthening and promoting existing services and developing new services.
• In collaboration with the unit coordinators, assigns, supervises, and evaluates the work of the Data & Open Scholarship team, and provides mentorship for team members.
• Aligns departmental planning, priorities, goals, and services with the strategic initiatives of the Libraries and the University.
• Makes qualitative and quantitative data-driven decisions and reports on departmental progress regularly.
• Participates in division and library-wide assessment initiatives.
• Keeps apprised of key issues and trends in information and data literacy, research data management and curation, open access, open educational resources, digital scholarship, scholarly communication, copyright and information policy, digital humanities, data visualization, research impact, academic libraries, and higher education, and regularly incorporates this knowledge into planning and sharing of information with library colleagues and campus partners as relevant.
• Serves on internal and external committees as assigned; may be asked to represent the Libraries on campus committees, Five College Committees, Boston Library Consortium Committees, and/or at other selected professional meetings and conferences. 
• Participates in professional development and continuing education activities, including service in professional and scholarly associations, and presenting and publishing on work-related topics.
• Works a flexible schedule, which includes some evening, weekend, and holiday hours.
• Performs other related duties as assigned or required to meet the goals of the department, Libraries, and University.

 

Other Functions

• Perform related duties as assigned or required to meet Department, Executive Area and University goals and objectives. Provide backup in the area of building oversight and some HR functions as needed.
• Serve on internal library committees as needed.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

 

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience, Certifications, Licensure)

• Graduate degree in librarianship (from a program accredited by the American Library Association), or combination of an advan