Computing and Information Services
Grade 5: – £22,847 to £26,341 per annum
Fixed Term – Full Time
Contract Duration: 18 months
Contracted Hours per Week: 35
Closing Date: 11-Apr-2022, 6:59:00 AM
Job Family: Business Process and People Services
OUR CHARACTERISTICS: We are a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, in a unique and historic setting.
OUR VALUES: We are inspiring, challenging, innovative, responsible and enabling.
Durham University
Durham University is one of the world’s top universities with strengths across the Arts and Humanities, Business, Sciences and Social Sciences. We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people’s lives. The University sits in a beautiful historic city where it shares ownership of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Durham Cathedral, the greatest Romanesque building in Western Europe. A collegiate University, Durham recruits outstanding students from across the world and offers an unmatched wider student experience. Durham University seeks to promote and maintain an inclusive and supportive environment for work and study that assists all members of our University community to reach their full potential. Diversity brings strength and we welcome applications from across the international, national and regional communities that we work with and serve.
It is expected that all staff within the University:
- Contribute to our learning culture by engaging in mentoring, training and coaching.
- Positively contribute to fostering a collegial environment; as well as demonstrating commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.
- Have due regard to Health and Safety requirements appropriate to grade and role.
Family key attributes
Roles in this family provide a comprehensive service and deliver the efficient administration and governance of the University.
Overall family purpose
- Deliver direct and indirect services to stakeholders.
- Provide advice and answer queries as part of an enquiry-desk/help-desk function.
- Respond to and manage requests for information and resources.
- Deliver services to meet regulatory requirements and procedures.
- Plan and deliver a joined-up approach to University business and people services.
- Align business processes and services to meet operational and strategic policy objectives.
- Deliver business processes to ensure effective management, governance and the economic viability of the University.
- Encourage, collaborate and participate in the development of productive cross-institution relationships and working.
- Provide excellent professional services that meet strategic and operational goals and business needs.
- Carry out monitoring, analysis, development and planning to design new services and service updates for continuous improvement whilst meeting changes in regulations.
- Engage with specialist professionals, consultants, and suppliers to exchange knowledge and facilitate partnership working.
- Work collaboratively and network across the University with staff in other families to ensure a smooth, timely and high-quality delivery of service.
- Align and deliver programmes and activities to meet operational and strategic objectives to enhance the stakeholder experience.
- Engage and encourage participation with external professionals, schools, alumni and donors.
Link to key strategic plan
- An economically sustainable approach to delivering Professional Services across the University;
- A joined-up approach to University professional services, regardless of location or line management;
- A culture and practice of continuous improvement;
- Design services that meet business need;
- A stakeholder-focused orientation, offering satisfying careers to all staff;
- Support and facilitate programmes that offer intellectual challenge, cohesiveness and a strong sense of progression;
- Ensure that an increasingly diverse workforce is treated equally, fairly and with respect, and that all staff are demonstrably valued and actively engaged.
The Department and role purpose
The Computing and Information Services (CIS) has an annual operational budget in the order of £10m, multi-million pound programmes of change within year, and approximately 140 staff who are predominately based at the Durham University campus. The Senior Leadership Team report directly to the Chief Information Officer with the following portfolios: Strategy and Change; Operations; and Information Systems. CIS provide academic, teaching and administrative services across the organisation that underpin the day-to-day activities of the whole organisation.
Recent infrastructure improvements include investment in a new network backbone, including new cable runs throughout the city to all of the Universities core buildings, new scalable user facing storage, and a new hosting environment. Corresponding business led investment also continues to be made with a new Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning suite, investment in research administration, and maximising the breadth of opportunities available to the University through Office365, alongside numerous other important initiatives.
CIS is a friendly, but demanding department, where much is expected and can be achieved by competent, self-motivated individuals who are demonstrable in their team work ability.
The key responsibility of this role is to provide support for the Oracle Cloud Phase 2 project; ensuring all project administration activities are robustly managed.
The role covers a diverse range of activities to support the smooth running of the Oracle Cloud Phase 2 project, specifically to:
- Liaise with stakeholders in timetabling project activities.
- Report on the progress of activities.
- Engage with Finance, CIS and wider stakeholders to drive an effective and well-utilised community of support.
- Support the project team with delivery and project administration.
- Support the delivery team in maintaining the health of the Oracle Cloud Phase 2 project.
Core responsibilities:
- Act as a more knowledgeable team member without responsibility for team members.
- Plan and organise own workload with or without involvement with project work streams.
- Resolve queries and requests for information and advice and escalate more specialist and complex queries or issues to more experienced team members.
- Respond to stakeholder needs to deliver and shape an excellent stakeholder experience.
- Apply theory and practice, from academic and professional development and previous knowledge within a service team.
- Contribute to collaborative decision making within the team regarding service provision to deliver an excellent stakeholder experience in accordance with policy and procedures.
- Build relationships across the organisation and/or externally with colleagues and stakeholders to encourage participation and engagement and the appropriate dissemination of knowledge and skills.
- Work collaboratively across the organisation and/or externally with colleagues and stakeholders to deliver a service.
- Provide guidance and advice to resolve problems and queries for a broad range of service users.
- Collaborate with team members to implement service alterations.
- Organise and schedule resources, activities and events.
- Identify priorities and monitor processes and activities to ensure success.
- Provide more in-depth independent research and analysis activities within the role.
- Analyse work activities to ensure the effective and efficient use of capital and consumable equipment and resources.
- Provide demonstrations and instruction to others outside the team.
- Support the capture of business requirements from users and work with colleagues to translate these into recommendations for future service provision.
- Liaise with contacts and participate in networks and communities internally and possibly externally, contributing to effective collaborative working.
- Advise others and make recommendations into work processes and procedures for consideration by senior management to improve services.
Role responsibilities:
- Deliver support services to ensure the effective and efficient running of business processes and systems.
- Monitor and evaluate service delivery to ensure compliance with regulatory and professional procedures and standards.
- Collaborate with colleagues across professional and administrative areas to ensure seamless project and service provision.
- Work with stakeholders and the project team to ensure timely project delivery.
- Support the project manager to complete in-depth health checks of the Oracle project
- Provide training to team members on data handling and recording.
- Monitor data accuracy checks to identify anomalies and ensure the integrity of data and information.
- Update data and information on systems and media for recording, storing, communicating and informing service users and team members.
- Work with internal and external partners to deliver cross-functional administrative, business and financial work streams.
- Work with internal and external partners to deliver cross-functional services and activities.
- Analyse data and statistics and provide reports for higher level decision makers.
- Accurately record information and data and disseminate within internal networks including committees.
- Contribute to the development and implementation of policy and procedures within own area of working.
- Prepare written reports for consideration by management where required.
- Any other reasonable duties.
Additonal Information
Internal secondments will be considered.
Recruiting to this post
In order to be considered for interview, candidates must evidence each of the essential criteria required for the role in the person specification above.
In some cases, the recruiting panel may also consider the desirable criteria, so we recommend you evidence all criteria in your application.
Please note that some criteria will only be considered at interview stage.
How to apply
We prefer to receive applications online. Please note that in submitting your application Durham University will be processing your data. We would ask you to consider the relevant University Privacy Statement https://www.dur.ac.uk/ig/dp/privacy/pnjobapplicants/ which provides information on the collation, storing and use of data.
What you are required to submit
- A CV;
- A covering letter which details your experience, strengths and potential in the requirements set out above;
- Examples within a word document of how you satisfy each essential criteria within the personal specification section of the job description. Please ensure you give detailed examples of how you meet each criteria and bullet point your answers.
Please ensure that you submit all documentation listed above or your application cannot proceed to the next stage.
Contact details:
For further information please contact:
Jackie Wright, Senior Project Manager (CIS PMO) [email protected]
Angela Williams, Head Of Financial Management Information [email protected]
Liam Glasper, Senior Category Manager [email protected]
At Durham University, our aim is to create an open and inclusive environment where everyone can reach their full potential and believe our staff should reflect the diversity of the global community in which we work. We welcome and encourage applications from members of groups who are under-represented in our work force including people with disabilities, women and black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. We will notify you on the status of your application at various points throughout the selection process, via automated emails from our e-recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folder periodically to ensure you receive all emails Person specification – skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience required Essential Criteria
- Excellent oral and written communication skills and the ability to develop effective working relationships, both internally and externally.
- Proven IT skills, including use of Microsoft Office.
- Five GCSE’s at least Grade C or level four (or equivalent) including English Language and Mathematics (or equivalent experience).
- Evidence of personal development to maintain skills.
- Post-16 qualification or equivalent experience.
- Relevant administrative experience in a busy office environment.
- Demonstrable ability to proactively work with team members to ensure the delivery of high quality services.
- Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines without compromising on quality.
- Demonstrable ability to provide advice and guidance to a range of customers and colleagues.
- Ability to solve problems as part of a team and resolve issues, plan solutions and make pragmatic decisions.
- Ability to effectively network and exchange advice and information for development purposes.
Desirable Criteria
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint and Teams.
DBS Requirement: Not Applicable.
