Position Summary

School of Government Services, Inc. assists faculty and staff at the UNC School of Government in carrying out its important mission: to improve the lives of North Carolinians by engaging in practical scholarship that helps public officials and citizens understand and improve state and local government. It is a nonprofit corporation and an official associated entity of the School of Government at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As the largest university-based local government training, advisory, and research organization in the United States, the UNC School of Government offers up to 200 courses, webinars, and specialized conferences for more than 12,000 public officials each year. The activities of School of Government Services include assisting the School with or carrying out research, consulting, advising, trainings and educational workshops and seminars, and other services and projects.

The Information Technology (IT) Division supports the information technology needs of faculty and staff by collaborating to identify innovative ways to extend the School’s mission. Dedicated to high-quality, thoughtful solutions, the IT team works with faculty and staff to make information and learning experiences accessible and engaging for the School’s clients. Daily operations of the IT Division include service and support, research and development, consultation and guidance, as well as infrastructure and system maintenance.

The Instructional Designer will work with a team to prototype, design, and develop high-quality online learning experiences for educational programs at UNC School of Government. Working closely with world-class faculty and staff at the School of Government, this position will design online learning activities, create online courses and programs, consult on instructional design, and collaborate on innovative uses of education technology in higher education.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:

Consulting and Design

• Collaborate, consult, and assist instructors with their online learning design needs, including integrating online modules in face-to-face courses, creating hybrid or fully online courses, designing online programs, and solving other technical or design challenges for education.
• Design prototypes of online learning activities that help learners apply what they are learning and achieve learning goals, such as interactive lessons, learning assessments, practice or reflective exercises, engagement with peers or the instructor, or other activities based on specified requirements, pedagogical best practices, and user-friendly design.

• Offer support to faculty, staff and learners during any stage of the learning process.

Project Management and Course Design

• Manage projects: build consensus on learning design decisions with faculty and team member’s expertise; facilitate and update course development workflows; ensure instructional integrity with quality assurance checks; maintain project timelines; coordinate efforts between the different roles of a project team.
• Work with instructors or other subject matter experts to draft and edit learning content, including scripts, storyboards, slides for video lessons, learning assessments, assignment instructions and rubrics, discussion prompts, and copywriting.
• Carry out quality assurance reviews of course content and sites, identifying and fixing errors, ensuring content is accurate, accessible, and professionally produced.
• Build out organized and user-friendly learning experiences using the School of Government’s online course platforms (e.g., Sakai, Canvas, WordPress) and learning technologies.
• Test learning experiences and provide instructors with concise, actionable recommendations (including learning design prototypes) on how to improve the user experience.
• Monitor online courses as they are piloted (e.g., reviewing learners’ feedback in survey responses or discussion forums), as well as help identify and resolve problems that occur while the project is active.

Faculty Development and Other Duties

• At the direction of team leadership, create and facilitate trainings, workshops, templates, and design guides that help faculty develop skills in online course design and teaching.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)

Required: A bachelor's degree with additional experience sufficient to effectively design, build, test, and implement online education offerings.

Preferred: A bachelor’s or master’s degree in instructional design, education, learning sciences, education technology, or information science.

Experience

Required: At least two years’ work experience in either teaching, instructional design, user experience design, online education, education technology, or a related field. Have excellent communication and customer service skills. Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and help clients achieve their goals. Detail-oriented, highly organized, and capable of taking initiative in projects with minimal oversight.

Preferred: Three or more years of experience designing learning experiences for online or hybrid professional education programs.

Other preferred experience includes: using design thinking in developing products or solutions; working knowledge of Canvas, Sakai, and/or other online course platforms or learning management systems; proficiency with motion graphics or video production software and tools; demonstrated initiative in identifying and solving challenges and improving current work processes.