DRAFT WORKING DOCUMENT
FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES
The MIT Open CourseWare program is a large-scale, web-based electronic publishing initiative. Its goals are 1) to make continuously-updated materials for virtually all MIT courses easily available to MIT faculty for use in the MIT curriculum and 2) to provide free, searchable, coherent access to these materials for educators, students, and individual learners around the world. OCW embraces the full spectrum of lecture notes, problem sets, syllabi, reading lists, simulations, etc.—the core teaching materials that are used in MIT classes. All of this will be available in standards-based formats to anyone with access to the Internet. OCW is firmly at the heart of the MIT educational mission and the spirit behind it is thoroughly consistent with MIT’s history and culture.
The Publication Production Director oversees the creation and maintenance of course web sites for the roughly
2,000 courses at MIT. The Director manages the complete cycle of production workflow: Collecting and assembling course materials from MIT faculty, converting the materials to OCW formats, indexing and tagging materials to facilitate end-user search and subject-matter linkage, and electronically publishing the materials internally within MIT and externally to the world. The production life cycle also includes periodic updating and renewal of OCW materials, and may include “live” updates during semesters when a course is in session. The
Director is responsible for the presentation image of OCW and oversees the design of templates for the different kinds of materials and course formats.
The Publication Production Director supervises the work of Faculty Liaisons, who work directly with MIT faculty to compile and edit their teaching materials and represent OCW to them; a team of web builders who perform the formatting and web-posting functions, and a web designer. Overall, the Director is accountable for timeliness and quality for this high-visibility MIT project.
Specific duties and responsibilities
1
•
Manage publication production effort and workflow, including web page creation and maintenance.
- Supervise the work of all web site production resources, including internal OCW employees, consultants, and outside service providers.
- Serve as interface between MIT OCW management team and the production resources.
- Ensure that web sites conform to design templates and technical specifications.
- Design, implement, and manage quality assurance testing procedures, ensuring that:
> All content has been included and placed in correct categories.
> All site pages conform to template specifications.
> All links work.
> All site pages have been reviewed and are error-free.
- Manage schedule to facilitate on-time turnaround, testing, and delivery of web site updates.
- Manage production of both internal and external sites.
- Coordinate timely updating and support for live course sites during semesters they are in use, as well as ongoing support and maintenance of web site archives.
- Work with Technology Director and Evaluation Specialist to plan and direct testing of web site performance and load testing within all web browsers and operating systems for both internal and external sites.
- Establish procedures for content-error reporting, tracking, and fixing.
- Direct the use of version control software throughout the site creation process to track previous versions, and to ensure that all pages are correct and fully tested before release.
1
The duties and responsibilities listed are representative of the kinds of tasks and levels of work difficulty required, but are not intended to limit or in any way modify the right of any supervisor to assign, direct, and control the work of employees under his or her supervision. The use of a particular expression or illustration describing duties shall not be held to exclude other duties not mentioned that are of a similar kind or which may be concomitant or ancillary to any of the duties listed.
Job Descr: Publication Production Director 6/3/02

- Create and manage documentation of production processes.
- Monitor all publication production processes and overall workflow, and report regularly on production throughput and efficiency to OCW management and other constituencies.
•
Manage relationships with MIT faculty authors and other contributors and facilitate their participation in
OCW.
- Supervise team of Faculty Liaisons, who work with faculty members to help them make their materials
OCW-ready. Note: Faculty members themselves have primary responsibility for developing original materials for their courses. Faculty are further responsible for: Ensuring the correctness of materials and adherence to highest academic standards; ensuring that their materials within the OCW environment accurately reflect the content and pedagogy of the course; and endorsing the online materials by agreeing to have their names associated with it.
- With faculty participation, ensure that materials are reasonably complete and comprehensive, including syllabi, lecture notes, practice problems, cases, reading lists, assignments, demonstration materials, simulations, and other educational materials associated with a given course.
•
Coordinate with the Rights Clearance Specialist to ensure that required permissions are obtained for copyrighted materials republished in OCW.
•
Oversee design and presentation “look and feel” of OCW templates and materials.
- Supervise the work of graphics and web design resources (may include internal OCW staff, contractors, outside service providers).
- Contribute technology-informed advice to discussions about web design.
•
Supervise the work of the following OCW team members:
- Faculty Liaisons: Collect course materials from, and serve as OCW interface with, MIT faculty
(approximately 5 – 10 staff).
- Web Site Builders: Build course sites from content collected by Faculty Liaisons using OCWapproved templates and formats (approximately 3 – 5 resources, including OCW staff, contractors, outside service providers).
Qualifications
•
Significant knowledge, background, and hands-on experience with
- Electronic publishing production environment and processes.
- Technologies pertaining to web site creation and maintenance.
- Management of web or software production teams.
•
Well-organized, committed, accurate, thorough, and punctual, with meticulous attention to detail.
•
Proven ability to manage to schedule and budget in a complex and dynamic environment.
•
Practical working knowledge and experience in the technical areas of:
- Web site development tools.
- HTML code and image formatting for web use.
- Common web browsers on Windows, Macintosh, and Unix platforms.
- File conversion technologies (PDF, HTML, LaTeX, common graphics).
- Standard Microsoft Office applications.
•
Familiarity with project management concepts and the use of project management software tools.
•
Experience supervising others. Includes: motivating staff and helping them to understand their job functions and how they fit into the larger picture; setting goals for, and evaluating, job performance; holding staff accountable for quality and timeliness in accomplishing tasks; helping staff achieve personal and professional growth.
Job Descr: Publication Production Director 6/3/02

•
Broad knowledge of instructional/educational technologies, distance learning, and related applications in the higher education environment is highly desirable.
•
Experience in an academic/higher education setting and working with faculty is highly desirable.
•
Experience managing outside service providers and assuring high service levels.
•
Good consulting, facilitating, and leadership skills; ability to lead or follow with equal ease.
•
Ability to understand and develop productive work relationships with faculty, MIT departments, and outside vendors; ability to influence and to resolve conflicts with a win/win attitude.
•
Ability to communicate project needs and negotiate with internal and external constituencies to ensure quality and timeliness in meeting OCW goals.
•
Excellent oral and written communications skills at all levels, including senior management, faculty, academic support staff, engineering and technical staff, collaborators of all kinds.
•
Must accept personal responsibility for task fulfillment and job performance; must be self-motivating, professional, comfortable with ambiguity in a diverse organization.
•
Ability to communicate OCW goals and motivate others to support their accomplishment and the success of OCW.
•
Education: Bachelor’s Degree or higher.
Job Descr: Publication Production Director 6/3/02