Skills Ontology and Learning Recognition Director

Skills Ontology and Learning Recognition Director

Office of Registrar

Exempt, Contingent II, Full Time, Pay Grade 4.2

Job location: Stateside Remote

This role is funded through a grant from The Gates Foundation . The grant lasts 2 years and funding for this role is tied to that grant. In addition, this role will be responsible for the execution and delivery of grant project initiatives, working collaboratively with cross-functional teams to align these projects with the university's broader strategic goals.

The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) seeks a Skills Ontology and Learning Recognition Director to serve as the content and academic-methodology leader for a multi-institution learning-recognition initiative focused on transparent, faculty-governed academic credit recommendations. This role provides strategic leadership for UMGC's skills-to-credit framework while overseeing the project structures needed to advance deliverables, governance, and institutional adoption.

This role works closely with Academic Affairs, Sponsored Programs, and technical project staff to define UMGC's skills ontology, translation methodology, and faculty-engaged review model for learning recognition. The Director serves as UMGC's senior authority on academic defensibility, explainability, quality assurance, and policy alignment for the initiative.

Strategic Skills Translation & Ontology Leadership

• Set the strategic direction for UMGC's skills ontology, translation framework, and skills-to-credit methodology, including standards for transparent, faculty-governed, and explainable recommendations.
• Lead evaluation and institutional adoption of external taxonomies, standards, and mapping approaches relevant to learning recognition.
• Define the academic-methodology framework for crosswalks, evidence use, and review traceability so translation methods are transparent, academically sound, auditable, and reusable.

Project Leadership & Cross-Functional Oversight

• Provide executive oversight of project plans, deliverables, milestones, and dependencies across academic, technical, and partner workstreams.
• Review progress, resolve escalated barriers, and make prioritization decisions in coordination with project leadership and institutional stakeholders.
• Direct the Project Lead's day-to-day coordination work and approve major implementation, sequencing, and resourcing decisions affecting project delivery.

Faculty, SME & Governance Leadership

• Lead faculty-engagement strategy for methodology review, academic quality assurance, and governance decisions related to learning recognition.
• Partner with Academic Affairs and subject matter experts on standards for credit recommendation, PLA alignment, accreditation expectations, and faculty review workflows.
• Establish expectations for AI-assisted recommendation explainability, review traceability, and academic defensibility within governance and quality-control processes.

External Partnerships & Ecosystem Strategy

• Represent UMGC in partner planning sessions, shared architecture discussions, interoperability and standards conversations, and multi-institution coordination activities.
• Contribute thought leadership on reusable skills-to-credit approaches, data models, standards mappings, and field-facing dissemination outputs.
• Align UMGC's project contributions with broader ecosystem opportunities, partnership commitments, and implementation pilots.

Supervision, Reporting & Resource Stewardship

• Supervise the Project Lead, provide performance feedback, and ensure effective delegation across project operations and documentation activities.
• Oversee reporting inputs, budget planning, staffing decisions, and resource allocation in partnership with Sponsored Programs and institutional leadership.
• Review internal status updates, toolkit/reporting materials, and external reporting outputs for accuracy, completeness, and strategic alignment.

Risk, Policy & Quality Assurance

• Monitor key project risks, policy implications, accreditation expectations, and implementation dependencies that could affect delivery, governance, or academic acceptance.
• Approve mitigation strategies related to scope, timelines, staffing, compliance, AI quality assurance, and academic quality controls.
• Ensure project activities align with institutional policy, accreditation expectations, academic standards, and grant requirements.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in higher education, education, learning sciences, workforce development, assessment, instructional design, public policy, or a related field strongly preferred.
• Minimum 7-10 years of progressively responsible experience in higher education, prior learning assessment, learning recognition, academic affairs, workforce-aligned education, competency-based education, or a related field.
• Demonstrated expertise designing and governing methodologies that translate workforce, military, or other non-traditional learning into faculty-reviewable academic credit, competencies, or learning outcomes.
• Deep familiarity with skills taxonomies, competency frameworks, credentials, and related standards; ability to interpret and align external taxonomies or ecosystem standards within an academic framework.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives that involve faculty governance, academic affairs, technical partners, and external stakeholders; ability to balance methodological leadership with project oversight.
• Experience supervising professional staff and providing strategic direction across planning, implementation, quality assurance, risk management, and decision-making in environments shaped by institutional policy, accreditation expectations, and externally funded requirements.
• Strong written, verbal, and facilitation skills, including experience producing executive reports, governance materials, methodology documentation, and presentations for institutional and external audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree or significant additional experience in higher education, learning sciences, assessment, workforce development, or a closely related field.
• Experience with military learning evaluation, workforce-aligned learning recognition, or credit recommendation frameworks in higher education.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted evaluation or recommendation tools, including explainability, traceability, quality assurance, and governance considerations.
• Experience contributing to interoperability, learner record, digital credential, or skills data standards efforts.
• Prior experience with a foundation-funded, grant-funded, or multi-institution initiative involving external partners, consortia, or ecosystem pilots.

All submissions should include a cover letter and resume.