Skills Development Consultant

About QCIF 

The Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) is a non-profit organisation that provides cutting-edge digital infrastructure capabilities for research and innovation across Queensland and Australia. QCIF draws investment from its Members, the Queensland Government, and the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program. We are an NCRIS node for the Australian BioCommons (Bioplatforms Australia), and the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and its Nectar Research Cloud.

Our purpose    

To provide cutting-edge digital research infrastructure to our Members.

Our vision    

To be the digital research partner of choice for our Members and collaborators.

Our mission    

To accelerate research excellence and societal impact through our Members by:

Provisioning cutting-edge digital research infrastructure capabilities and enterprise solutions

Upskilling current and future researchers and innovators

Catalysing collaboration within Queensland and across Australia.

Our values

Excellence — we stand by the quality and integrity of our contributions to research

Collaboration — we believe teams are best placed to tackle the grand challenges that confront society

Entrepreneurial — we do not wait for opportunities to come to us; we make things happen.

About QCIF’s Skills Development   

As data science rapidly becomes a core skill in an ever-increasing range of research projects and disciplines, QCIF Skills Development supports researchers of all levels of experience to take advantage of digital research infrastructure capabilities across software tools, methods and computing.

​We provide high-contact researcher guidance and upskilling through a network of on-site data science and research computing specialists, an extensive program of short practical training workshops, and by fostering communities of practitioners.

QCIF Skills Development provides training, coaching, and other support activities to researchers, students, and professional staff to our Member universities and partners.

https://www.qcif.edu.au/services/skills-development

Increasingly, QCIF looks to also support innovation in all industries by providing upskilling opportunities, especially aligned with the ubiquitous need for adoption of AI for commercial competitiveness in the market.

About the Role 

The Skills Development Consultant is responsible for providing digital skills training and consultation to QCIF’s clients and learners, supporting the National Research Infrastructure (NRI) community across higher education, industry and community groups.

This role requires a working knowledge of digital research infrastructure capabilities and an awareness of emerging skills requirements, such as applied AI/ML to research datasets. The role also requires the incumbent to have highly developed teaching skills, including the ability to develop and evaluate course content, set learning outcomes and assessments, best practice teaching methods, and high-quality communication and consultation skills.

The Skills Development Consultant will work closely with the Executive Manager, Skills Development and the Skills Development Coordinator, training partners, and a core team of eResearch instructors to ensure the successful delivery of QCIF’s training courses and promote the QCIF curriculum to national and international audiences.

From time-to-time, the incumbent’s time and effort will be directed in focus of externally funded programs.

Key responsibilities 

Curriculum development

• Collaborate with the Executive Manager, Skills Development and the Skills Development Coordinator, to develop course offerings that are responsive to client needs and emergent trends in the research and industrial sectors.

Training and consultation

• Deliver training seminars from QCIF’s course catalogue and develop new training seminars that are responsive to market needs.
• Create or update course content, manage training seminars, communicate with registered participants, and answer prospective participant queries.
• Provide a consultation service to QCIF’s non-member clients, as the first point of contact for researchers wishing to access QCIF’s expertise and services.

Marketing and promotion

• Work with the Manager, Engagement and Outreach to develop strategies to promote training seminars effectively and attract new participants.

Evaluation and feedback

• Collate and analyse feedback from seminar participants to assess the effectiveness of seminars.
• Provide recommendations for improvements and implement changes based on feedback and evaluation results.

Relationship management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, members, and stakeholders.

Record keeping and reporting

• Maintain accurate records of seminars, participant information, and feedback.
• Prepare and present reports on seminar outcomes, participant satisfaction, and areas for improvement to management.

About you 

Essential qualifications and experience 

• Tertiary qualification equivalent to a postgraduate degree in Education and/or Computer Science; or an equivalent combination of relevant experience and/or education/training.
• Demonstrated understanding of current trends in digital research training, preferably in a higher education or equivalent research-intensive environment.
• Experience in program coordination and event management and a demonstrated ability to teach researchers, with proven positive learning outcomes.
• Strong interpersonal skills, including coordination and consultation skills, and the ability to build constructive relationships with stakeholders.
• Proven organisational skills and ability to prioritise own workload and to use sound judgment, managing competing demands and delivering high quality outcomes.
• Highly developed computer skills in an intensive research training environment, and high-level proficiency using Learning Management Systems and the MSOffice suite.

Desirable qualifications and experience  

• Carpentries Instructor training or equivalent teacher/education training.
• Demonstrated coordination of a research-intensive training program, either in a higher education setting or an industry/government training environment.

Organisational Relationships 

The Skills Development Consultant is a member of QCIF’s Skills Development team and reports to the Executive Manager, Skills Development.

Location 

The role will work from the QCIF offices at one of our Member universities, with a Brisbane location preferred. Flexible working arrangements may be negotiated.

Details about QCIF can be found here http://qcif.edu.au

How to apply?   

Please provide a:

• Cover letter addressing the essential and desirable qualifications and experience
• Current CV that includes at least two Referees

Please note we are assessing applications on a rolling basis and may make an appointment prior to the closing date. If you are interested in the role, we encourage you to apply early.