Head Archivist

Posted to IASSIST on: 2016-01-29

Employer: The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute, Qatar University

Employer URL: http://sesri.qu.edu.qa/

Description

The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI; http://sesri.qu.edu.qa/) invites applications for a full-time Archivist position to lead its Archiving Unit which is located at Qatar University in Doha, Qatar.  The Archivist will work closely with Principal Investigators and SESRI research staff on the processing, cleaning, documentation, dissemination, preservation, and support of datasets collected by SESRI, monitor use of SESRI data, evaluate adherence to SESRI dissemination and restricted data policies, and support and encourage use of datasets by the SESRI user community.Specially, the Archivist will have the following responsibilities:

• Lead SESRI’s Archiving Unit, including oversight of data and documentation processing staff.

• Maintain a close and detailed understanding of research projects and programs at SESRI

• Evaluate and recommend policies and procedures for processing, documentation, archiving, dissemination, and storage and documentation formats

• Receive datasets and documentation in various storage formats, and convert those storage formats to the ones used by SESRI for processing, dissemination, and archiving;

• Share responsibility for the protection of human subjects (respondents) by removing identifying information from datasets and storing it in a separate location; identifying other sets of variables that pose a risk to respondent identification, or are otherwise sensitive or restricted and acting accordingly, in compliance with SESRI policy and in coordination with SESRI leadership

• Process final questionnaires for release to the public on the website

• Process and clean datasets, including but not limited to checking for outliers, skip pattern errors, duplicate records, unusual or unexpected research results, non-response bias, weighting problems, interviewer misconduct, data collection problems, and methodological issues, and then working closely with Principal Investigators and research staff members to suggest and implement strategies to correct for identified errors; creating derivative, summary, and identification variables; and merging additional data sources to the dataset as necessary

• Develop codebooks in close coordination with the Principal Investigator, including metadata, study descriptions, study design information, sponsor and other credits, citation formats, methodological reports, research notes, data use instructions, help files, summary tables, processing notes, error reports, bibliographical references, and information about the included variables (names, variable labels, variable descriptions, question text, code values and labels, missing data indicators, distributions, and skip patterns, among other items)

• Develop and maintain a public website-based data and documentation archive and related dissemination tools; work with the Communications Coordinator to develop, design and maintain the archive website and communication tools (including social media and email lists); prepare help files and documentation for the website; and specify features and work with Information Technology staff members on developing customized dissemination tools or evaluating and implementing existing software packages and tools as appropriate

• Maintain a secure restricted data archive; receive and process paperwork and applications for access for limited, controlled access to restricted variables; and prepare datasets and procedures for access to approved restricted data requests; and monitor and audit restricted data use, all in compliance with SESRI policy and procedures and in coordination with SESRI leadership

• Make presentations about the SESRI data archive, promote the availability of and use of SESRI data products, identify new potential SESRI dataset user communities, manage and grow existing user communities, and provide and act on input to increase the quality and activity level of the SESRI user community and its data use

• Answer and route questions from the user community about data use, documentation, and basic analysis support, and follow-up on the verification of error reports and resulting errata postings and corrections, calling on Principal Investigators and other SESRI staff members as necessary for assistance

• Monitor and be familiar with the content of presentations and publications using SESRI data in order to: maintain a bibliography and internal library of such uses; ensure adherence to dissemination, citation, and data use policies; identify possible errors or difficulties with datasets; identify trends in dataset use and areas for improvement in cleaning, documentation, and dissemination practices.

• Stay familiar with current trends in archiving and dissemination, in order to anticipate and identity new tools and procedures that will be of benefit to the processing, use and preservation of SESRI data and documentation products

• Provide regular reports to the Head of Research and SESRI leadership about usage and download statistics, the size and activity of the user community, new bibliographical entries, and trends in the use of datasets in the SESRI archive

• Bachelor degree or Masters degree (preferred)

• 3 or more years of related experience; proficiency with statistical packages such as SAS, SPSS, STATA, and R

• Knowledge and experience in dataset processing and documentation

• Familiarity with the survey research process

• Ability to merge and manipulate complex datasets.

• Applicants should be organized and have excellent attention to detail, a strong customer service and team orientation, and excellent interpersonal, written and oral communication skills.

Archived on: 2016-02-04