Assessment Associate
New York, NY
https://recruiting.ultipro.com/ITH1000ITHAK/JobBoard/5fe90ad4-9e26-490b-9c45-6c9669d4dcd0/OpportunityDetail?opportunityId=2df99319-80a5-4102-8873-e820b2645ca0
At ITHAKA, we think nothing is better than knowing we are having a positive impact on the world. We impact the lives of millions of people and thousands of institutions every day both in groundbreaking ways and in small ways that mean a lot.
Our Organization
As a not-for-profit organization, we care deeply about our mission. We work with leaders in the global higher education community to advance and preserve knowledge and to improve teaching and learning through the use of digital technologies. We also help colleges and universities develop strategies that will broaden access to higher education while reducing the cost and improving student outcomes. We are passionate about the value of education and are driven to help our universities, colleges, and high schools become better, more affordable, and more effective, and to reach beyond these traditional walls to support learners everywhere.
In two decades, we have launched some of the most transformative and widely used services in higher education: JSTOR, Portico, and Ithaka S+R. In addition, ITHAKA recently entered into a strategic alliance with Artstor and furthers a number of Artstor’s initiatives. Our 300+ employees work closely with our user communities, day in and day out, to build and continuously improve upon these services, and to identify new opportunities to expand access to knowledge and learning. As a successful, growing organization in a demanding and dynamic environment, we challenge ourselves to retain an entrepreneurial spirit that pursues and embraces change.
ITHAKA is headquartered in New York, New York with additional offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Princeton, New Jersey and provides legal oversight and services for, Artstor, also located in New York, New York. We also manage a subsidiary, Ithaka International, LLC. to expand our impact globally.
Ithaka S+R
Universities, colleges, and other organizations are not known for their ability to turn on a dime, and yet their impact on our societies and ability to remain highly relevant over centuries is unparalleled. We want these organizations to thrive, particularly in light of emerging technologies and opportunities. Our work at Ithaka S+R – offering research and strategic consulting – has been instrumental in helping leaders in education know what is coming next, learn from rigorous and well-designed research rather than hype, and adapt to new realities and opportunities. As a society, we all sense how technology is changing the way we work, teach, and learn. Ithaka S+R is dedicated to ensuring that we manage those changes in ways that help more people learn what they need to know to lead more productive and rewarding lives. We work with places like the Association of American University Presses, Harvard University Library, the Association of Art Museum Directors, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the University System of Maryland. Ithaka S+R’s work is organized into two areas, our Educational Transformation program and our Library and Scholarly Communication program.
This opening is within the Library and Scholarly Communications program. Team members in our Library and Scholarly Communication program conduct and publish major research projects and consult with academic libraries, scholarly publishers, learned societies, and museums. We help these organizations better support scholarship, instruction, and student success by empowering them to gather and to effectively utilize evidence that supports good strategic decision-making about direction and service offerings. We also do independent research and publishing in two areas: strategy and leadership for the academic library and other academic support services (including organizational structure, talent management and employee diversity, budgeting, and cross-institutional collaborations); and scholarly publishing and content provision and access (including collections, preservation, and discovery). Our team has methodological expertise in survey research, ethnography and other qualitative methods, and administrative data-gathering.
The Role
As Ithaka S+R’s Assessment Associate, you will take responsibility for the day-to- day operation of a variety of survey projects and products. You will work directly with libraries and universities to field surveys that provide valuable evidence to inform their strategies and the services they provide to students and faculty members. As part of a project team for a given research project, you will field surveys that provide valued information about faculty attitudes and practices and the leadership and strategic directions of major institutions. Also, you will support market research and advisory projects for academic libraries, scholarly publishers, and learned societies. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to survey research that drives innovation in higher education.
Our organization and this role will provide you with an opportunity few other organizations can offer including:
- You will field surveys that have direct impact on individual academic institutions, publishers, content platforms, and scholarly societies.
- You will field surveys that provide unique insight to and generate rich discourse about academia and academic libraries.
- We are a small and collegial team with strong methodological expertise and deep community engagement, so you will have the opportunity to develop your survey and research skills while learning about the policy issues and strategic dilemmas that higher education institutions face today.
- You will gain international experience, as our program runs projects regularly in countries outside the US, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
You will work from our New York City office as part of a team that possesses deep survey research and ethnographic expertise. You will report to our program director for libraries and scholarly communication and work closely with our researchers.
Specific Objectives and Responsibilities
The Assessment Associate will take day-to-day responsibility for fielding our surveys, communicating effectively with outside participants and working closely with other members of our team. To be successful, you must bring an unrelenting attention to detail even in the face of deadlines and multiple concurrent projects, to ensure that surveys are run perfectly for our clients and our community.
The primary responsibilities of the Assessment Associate are:
- Program and modify survey questionnaires into the Ithaka S+R survey platform (currently Qualtrics)
- Acquire and manage contact lists, ensure their quality, and deploy survey communications
- Open, monitor, and close surveys on the survey platform
- Prepare reports, datasets, crosstabs, and other outputs from the survey platform and other reporting and analytical tools
- Coordinate college and university surveys with institutional contacts, including onboarding and approval support, and coordinating with colleagues regarding training and customization
- Provide frontline support for our survey platform, including liaison with the platform provider and internal partners on operational issues, providing training and support to internal platform users; and evaluation of survey platform usage and options.
- Maintain documentation for survey questionnaires and associated protocols
- Strictly maintain participant confidentiality and data privacy
- Provide additional support to Ithaka S+R projects as assigned, which may include conducting desk research, coordinating IRB processes, interview scheduling, and note-taking
Challenges You’ll Overcome
Our surveys program has a number of components and is growing. Demand for your contributions will be punctuated over time, and you will need to focus acutely during busy periods. Surveys must be run at a level of exceptional quality for our clients and our community. We make regular changes as needed to our questionnaires, our survey platform, and our reporting templates and tools, so you will need to be prepared to participate in and adapt to these changes.
Skills, Experience, and Characteristics
We encourage candidates with diverse backgrounds and interests to apply for this position. Individuals with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a quantitative social science who may eventually wish to consider matriculating in a PhD program may find this position to be especially interesting, as may librarians with assessment interests. Anyone who meets the following requirements is encouraged to apply:
- Bachelor’s degree
- 1-2 years of related work experience
- An acute attention to detail and absolute commitment to accuracy, quality, and excellence
- Superior interpersonal skills, including excellent telephone, e-mail, and conversation manner
- Demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex projects concurrently
- Comfort working with quantitative data and ideally some experience with its analysis
In addition, these characteristics will be valued in your candidacy and should be emphasized in your application:
- Experience using web-based survey platforms, such as Qualtrics
- Experience working in or with academic libraries
- Experience collaborating with others to execute a research project.
- Expertise in email marketing approaches, especially for the academic community
- Experience supporting an IRB submission process and/or coordinating other types of institutional approvals for research on faculty members and/or students
- Current human subjects (social/behavioral science) research certification or training (for example, certified through CITI or a college or university IRB); and/or
- Basic familiarity with programming in HTML/CSS and/or Javascript
Work for us
Come join our team of talented and dedicated people with great ideas who want to make the world a smarter place. Individuals will be rewarded with excellent career development and a fantastic benefits package that includes:
- Choice of two medical plans, one at no cost to the employee
- Employer paid dental, vision, life insurance, and employee assistance programs
- Employer contributed retirement and much, much more
How to apply:
Interested candidates can submit their resume, a detailed cover letter, and salary requirements to:
https://recruiting.ultipro.com/ITH1000ITHAK/JobBoard/5fe90ad4-9e26-490b-9c45-6c9669d4dcd0/OpportunityDetail?opportunityId=2df99319-80a5-4102-8873-e820b2645ca0
ITHAKA is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.