Program Director, Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER)

OE Global is seeking a passionate, experienced open education leader to join our team to advance the field of open education at community and technical colleges across North America. The program director will manage the daily operations of the Community College Consortium for OER, otherwise known as CCCOER. The Program Director will liaise with multiple internal and external stakeholders of OE Global, working with members to develop and lead the next phase of open education innovation. They will closely coordinate with the OE Global Co-Executive Directors and the CCCOER Executive Council to support community engagement, communications, long-term planning, and fiscal sustainability. 

The position is a full-time remote position reporting to the Executive Directors of Open Education Global. The position and application details are below.

If you have any questions regarding this position, please email jobs@oeglobal.org. Please note: applications will only be accepted via the form linked below.


Position Description

Position:  Program Director, Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER)

Location: Remote. This is a virtual position, but preference is for someone based in North America, given the primarily regional focus of the membership. You will mainly work remotely – at OEGlobal, we value teamwork and a consensus-oriented approach. Access to a computer with reliable and secure internet connectivity is essential.

Closing date: The closing date for applications is August 21, 2023. However, we will be screening candidates and scheduling interviews with short-listed candidates on a rolling basis. Accordingly, we encourage you to apply early.

Term: This is a full-time position to join the OE Global staff. The selected candidate will report directly to the Co-Executive Directors of OE Global.

Salary: Salary is commensurate with experience. The selected candidate will be responsible for maintaining a suitable home office for remote work.

The CCCOER Director

  • Has overall managerial responsibility for the CCCOER regional node.
  • Facilitates and communicates a clear vision to funders, members, staff, and the open education community.
  • Generates support and enthusiasm for the CCCOER program to OE Global members, postsecondary institutions, library consortiums, and government agencies focused on open education.
  • Develops a timeline of short- and long-term goals for growing and maintaining the advocacy and professional development work of CCCOER.
  • Promotes and supports CCCOER by participating in stakeholder meetings, events, conference presentations, and webinars, including funder communications and development.
  • Develops and implements a plan to measure strategic plan goal attainment and maintain momentum. 
  • Contributes to OE Global’s overall membership growth, retention, and engagement strategies.
  • Communicates program successes and promotes the successes of members’ open education initiatives. 

Essential Functions:

  • Leadership and Community Building: Engage staff and Executive Council in the growth and delivery of the CCCOER member programs — act as the spokesperson, communicating program successes internally and externally at North America and international events. Develop new and maintain existing partnerships and strategic relationships with organizations, donors, and state and provincial governments.
  • Operations: Develop and execute operational strategies that support CCCOER’s and OE Global’s strategic plans and membership needs. Oversee the efficient and effective operation of CCCOER to realize organizational objectives, including budget development and management. Ensure member input and satisfaction through regular communications, including online and in-person meetings. Provide regular input to OE Global Co-Executive Directors and staff on developments and needs specific to community colleges, and provide input to and help manage overall OE Global’s membership processes, including membership management, offerings, and programs.
  • Programming and Services: Lead the planning, implementation, and evaluation of CCCOER programs to strengthen its mission and network, including the monthly webinar series, community email list, member-only activities, and other contractual obligations. Highlight the impact of open education at community colleges through communications on websites, social media,  and traditional media outlets. Assist with planning and implementation of OE Global programming.
  • Business Planning and Fundraising: Identify potential open education collaboration opportunities through cultivating strategic and mutually beneficial relationships with foundations, donors, corporations, and other partners. In collaboration with the OE Global Co-Executive Directors, develop and execute a fundraising plan to offer strategic program offerings and services.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Education, Curriculum Design, Communications, Information Science, Library Science, or any academic discipline. 
  • Experience in building and managing diverse teams.
  • Demonstrated experience with open education, open educational resources, and related topics. 
  • Experience with web-based publishing and social media.
  • Experience tracking and measuring outcomes. 
  • Experience in managing data collection, analysis, and sharing for making and communicating data-informed decisions. 
  • Experience managing complex projects, including people management, budgeting, report writing, etc..
  • Demonstrated track record of successfully working and managing a team remotely.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

  • Has experience analyzing community needs and synthesizing resources to support the community; experience communicating with various stakeholders. 
  • Has the willingness and ability to work collaboratively and cooperatively with others; participates and fosters teamwork; promotes cooperation and commitment within a team to achieve goals and deliverables. 
  • Makes timely, informed decisions that consider the facts, goals, constraints, and risks; ability to use professional judgment in complex situations; effectively and appropriately deals with/adapts to change; demonstrates critical, creative, and reflective thinking. 
  • Takes responsibility for own performance by setting clear goals and balancing critical job requirements through task management, results orientation, and problem-solving skills. 
  • Adheres to high standards of integrity and honesty. 
  • Values open-mindedness, inclusion, multicultural perspective, and multiple ways of knowing, thinking, and being. Helps create a work environment that embraces and appreciates diversity. 
  • Communicates effectively and collaboratively with staff and leadership; applies effective written and oral communication techniques to convey clear and timely messages; builds constructive working relationships characterized by a high level of acceptance, cooperation, and mutual respect. 
  • Adapts to changing business needs, conditions, and work responsibilities; responds to change with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn new ways to accomplish work activities and objectives. 
  • Utilizes excellent time management and problem-solving techniques, and use of professional judgment in complex situations; demonstrates strong project management skills.

Desired Qualifications

  • Master’s degree in Education, Curriculum Design, Communications, Information Science, Public Administration, or any academic discipline. 
  • Experience in a higher education environment, preferably at community or technical colleges in North America.
  • Two years of work experience with open education and open content issues.
  • Knowledge and understanding of U.S. and international intellectual property and copyright laws. 
  • Training or experience in instructional design principles.

How to Apply

Deadline: August 21, 2023

Open Education Global is committed to diversity and multiculturalism, and we welcome applications from all who meet the requirements. Studies have shown that people marginalized by racism and/or sexism are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every listed qualification. If you are unsure if you meet the listed requirements but believe you can perform the job as described, we encourage you to apply.

About Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER)

The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) drives awareness and adoption of open educational policies, practices, and resources to close equity gaps, particularly for traditionally underserved students. CCCOER membership represents 104 colleges across 37 states and provinces of North America. CCCOER is a regional node of Open Education Global. Visit the CCCOER website to find out more. 

About Open Education Global

Open Education Global is a member-based, global non-profit supporting the development and use of open education to empower learners worldwide. We envision a world where everyone, everywhere, has access to the high-quality education and training they desire; where education is seen as an essential, shared, and collaborative social good; and where open educational practices facilitate access, equity, and opportunity. For more information, please visit the OE Global website.

OEG Voices – Latest Podcasts

OE Global Voices

Welcome to the home of podcasts produced by Open Education Global. These shows bring you insight and connection to the application of open education practices from around the world. Listen at podcast.oeglobal.org

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OE Global Voices
OEG Voices 079: Significant Impact OER Award Winner Confident Supervisors
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OEG Voices 079: Significant Impact OER Award Winner Confident Supervisors

We continue to catch up on highlighting last year’s Open Education Awards for Excellence. In this episode we hear from five of the 31 authors of chapters in Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers which was recognized with a 2024 Significant Impact OE Award. The significant of this resource was not only its filling a gap of open education resources (OERs) for supporting graduate supervisors but also for its focus on smaller universities and universities in less developed countries with limited access to resources and support for this topic.

While this podcast was recorded back in October of last year, featuring this work now is appropriate as the process for nominations for the 2025 will begin in the next few months. The team’s pride in their award was reflected in the update of the OER’s cover image added shortly before we went into the recording studio.

Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers

And what we were really looking for was to provide supervisory practice information to very much be a get up and find what you need to know to supervise, maybe in five minutes, with somebody who you’ve got an issue with, or work with a supervisor who perhaps you wanted to invite onto the team, but you’re not sure how to make that happen.

So each of the chapters begins with, three sort of, or three to five points saying, “why would you read this chapter? Whatcha gonna find out?”, a little video that just introduces the author and tells you a little bit about it, an introduction, some crunchy content, and then each chapter finishes off with some resources…. different sorts of things all aimed at helping supervisors, supervisor developers, and leaders of supervision within universities and within research centers to be able to build these collaborative cultures where supervisors feel supported, feel enabled, and build capacity to create the next generation of researchers.

Confident Supervisors Editor Susan Gasson

This conversation was coordinated by project lead and editor Susan Gasson and we were joined from authors/editors of Confident Supervisors from several Australian universities.

In the podcast recording studio with clockwise from top left, Susan Gasson. Claire Ovaska, jill Blacker, and Alan McAlpine. Not pictured but part of the conversation was Santosh Jatrana.

In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.

In this episode, hosted by Alan Levine from Open Education Global, we dive into the “Confident Supervisors” project, a significant OER (Open Educational Resource) recognized with an Open Education Award for Excellence in 2024. The project brings together a diverse team who created an open access book aimed at empowering higher degree research (HDR) supervisors with practical tools and strategies to support international and non-English speaking students.

We kick off with insights from several key contributors:

  • Susan Gasson shares her journey and inspiration behind the book, emphasizing the collaboration and global impact it has achieved.
  • Jill Blacker highlights her editorial experience and collaboration efforts.
  • Santosh Jatrana discusses the challenges and solutions for supervising international students, particularly from non-English speaking backgrounds.
  • Alan McAlpine offers insights on career support for HDR students, stressing the importance of providing effective career advice.
  • Claire Ovasca provides an overview of the open access movement and the library’s support in the project’s success.

The episode also explores future plans for a second volume that will address diversity, equity, and the use of different methodologies. The team discusses the impact of making such high-quality educational content freely accessible, showcasing a spirit of openness and collaboration.

This episode encapsulates the spirit of sharing knowledge, enhancing supervisory practices, and fostering a more inclusive and supportive academic environment globally. Tune in to hear the team’s passion and dedication towards making HDR education more accessible and impactful for everyone involved.

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 79

So how can we best up skill supervisors to have conversations that are beyond their own experience? … we’ll give advice, all well-meaning and all very well, but not necessarily something that is overly helpful or opens up the options for that student that’s sitting in front of them.

So the chapter provides some tools and helping them to help the student think and be empowered to take control of their own destiny. And not necessarily to get into that advice giving type model, but more how to ask questions that give the students choice, that empower the student to go and find out more information, to empower the student to actually think about what’s the right decision for them.

And in doing that we create far more useful educated people back out into society. Whether that be within the academy or outside the academy, it doesn’t really matter. But these are students, are individuals that we are educating to a really high level. So that’s really what motivated me to get involved.

Alan McAlpine

It just makes total sense for me to make such a fantastic resource well known and well received. And so looking at our metrics, I can confidently say that we are getting users from those countries that we were hoping to reach. We have strong use in Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, India. And believe it or not, America and the United Kingdom are also strong users.

So we just cannot assume that every university in, what is supposedly a first world country, has the resourcing to support their supervisors, to support their HDR students.

Claire Ovaska

Working with Abbe, Susan and the rest of the team to develop style guides and to connect with the authors. to connect with people that I hadn’t worked with before and broaden my own network ,that way was really helpful. Developing some tools we had a very big spreadsheet which was the heart of everything we did and everything was tracked in that spreadsheet.

So it’s a little bit old school, but it really was the thing that kept us all on track. We could really see where everything was at, and it allowed us to stick to our schedule, building slippage time, and meet our really idealistic goal of getting it done by the end of last year, and we were able to do that.

Jill Blacker

We hope this conversation not only inspired you to review Confident Supervisors: Creating Independent Researchers but also to start tihnking about OER you have co-created or put to use in your own open education efforts that shoul;d be considered for a 2025 Open Education Award for Excellence. Stay tuned to the OE Awards web site to learn when nominations open.


Our open licensed music for this episode is a track calledConfidence by 1st Contact shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

Finally, this was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast, part of the Descript platform for AI enabled transcribing and editing audio in text– this has greatly enhanced our ability to produce our showsWe have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descriptbut our posts remain human authored except where indicated otherwise.