Quality Assurance & Enhancement Specialist

Purpose of Position:

The Quality and Institutional Effectiveness (QIE) Office is responsible for promoting continuous quality improvement and effectiveness across NCI at programme, module and institutional levels through policies, procedures, and quality-related processes and innovations. The QIE Office supports NCI’s academic schools and centres to ensure that NCI’s programmes remain relevant, responsive to student and other stakeholder needs, and aligned with internal and external quality requirements, benchmarks and standards. The office also supports professional support service departments to ensure that their services continue to meet high-quality standards expected by NCI.

Founded in 1951, the National College of Ireland (NCI) is a not-for-profit third level education institution with charitable status. The Mission of the College is to change lives through education. Located in Dublin’s International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), the College offers over 100 full-time, part-time and flexible learning undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the disciplines of business, computing, education, and psychology, which are validated by Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) and also hold professional and statutory accreditations from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD); the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI); the Teaching Council, the Qualifications Advisory Board (QAB) and others.

NCI actively participates in Government-funded initiatives such as Springboard and ICT Skillnet and has successful partnerships with Industry Consortia to deliver national apprenticeship programmes.

Reporting to:

Director of Quality and Institutional Effectiveness

Key Relationships:

External to NCI:

• Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)
• Professional, Regulatory and Statutory Bodies (PRSBs)

Internal to NCI:

• Director of Quality and Institutional Effectiveness
• Registrar
• Executive Group Members
• Deans, Vice-Deans, Director of the Centre for Education and Lifelong Learning (CELL)
• (Academic) Programme Directors
• Heads of Professional Services departments
• (Administrative) Programme Coordinators

Key Responsibilities: 

• Support the Director to draft, monitor, evaluate and refresh NCI’s Quality Assurance and Enhancement policies and procedures;
  
• Provide QA advice and guidance and document-management support to Programme Directors, Programme teams and senior School/academic centre leadership teams during QQI and/or Professional Body processes of programme review and revalidation/re-accreditation;
• Implement QA processes, tools and systems across the College at module, programme, school and departmental unit levels;
• Provide secretariat support for designated academic governance and/or management groups and committees, as assigned by the Director of QIE and/or the Registrar, from time to time;
• Provide excellent administrative support for the activities of the QIE office, ranging from event organisation; documentation management; financial invoicing and payments processing to systems administration – both of internal NCI curriculum systems and external QQI/other accreditation body online data portals;
• Support the Director to draft qualitative discussion papers and reports on Quality Assurance and Enhancement topics, working with other departments and with Schools and Centres, and present these, as needed, to various NCI groups and committees;
• Maintain, and share with colleagues, an up to date knowledge of evolving QAE strategy, policy and practice at national, European and international levels
• Train, and supervise staff at more junior grades, as required by the Director.

Key Requirements: 

• An honour’s bachelor’s degree/equivalent qualification(s); 
• A minimum of four years’ experience working in Irish higher education in a professional support capacity, ideally in the area of Quality Assurance and/or Enhancement;
• Relevant and demonstrable experience of administration in a complex and fast-paced Higher Education environment, related to the delivery of academic programmes and quality assurance and/or enhancement activities in that context;
• A demonstrable understanding of the Irish Higher Education landscape and the role of Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI), in particular, and its strategies, QA policies and guidelines;
• Proven experience of drafting policy and drafting reports and discussion papers for Committees and Boards;
• Proven experience of and expertise in using online systems for document management and other information-processing; maintaining accuracy and integrity in data management processes (qualitative and quantitative) and applying data governance controls;
• A postgraduate qualification would be an advantage;
• Proven ability to build trust and effective partnerships and collaborate with a range of colleagues internally and externally;
• Demonstrated ability to meet fixed internal and external submission requirements and deadlines and to work under pressure of such deadlines;
• Experience in providing analysis and reports to inform decision-making at a programme, school and/or institutional level.

Contract:

Permanent:

Salary: 

Senior Specialist/Supervisory Band (€41,412 – 62,121)

Annual Leave: 

24 Days per annum pro rata

Hours:

Full time

To Apply:

Please apply with a CV and cover letter both in PDF format ONLY, quoting reference number: NCI 1013 to: recruitment-cdolan@ncirl.ie by 5:00 pm, 3rd April 2024.

Informal queries can be addressed to Patricia Maguire, Director of Quality and Institutional Effectiveness, by emailing patricia.maguire@ncirl.ie

Note: The functions and responsibilities assigned to QAE Specialist are based on the current stated role and objectives of the College. These functions and responsibilities may alter in line with any change in the role and objectives of the College.

The successful applicant will be subject to Garda Vetting and must not have any convictions under the Sex Offenders Act 2001.

The Importance of Confidentiality

We would like to assure you that protecting confidentiality is our number one priority. You can expect that all enquires, applications and all aspects of the proceedings are treated as strictly confidential and are not disclosed to anyone, outside those directly involved in that aspect of the process.

Candidates' Obligations

In submitting a completed Curriculum Vitae and supporting documentation, candidates are declaring:

• That all the particulars furnished in their application are true and correct without omission and that they are aware of the qualifications and particulars for this position.
• That to the best of their knowledge that there is nothing in relation to their conduct, character or personal background of any nature that would adversely affect the position of trust in which they would be placed by virtue of this appointment.
• Their irrevocable consent to NCI making such enquiries as deemed necessary in respect of their suitability for the post in respect of which their application is made.
• Their acceptance and confirmation of the entitlement of NCI, as appropriate to, reject their application, or to terminate their employment (in the event of a contract of employment having been entered into on foot of this competition) if they have omitted to furnish NCI with any information relevant to their application or their continued employment or where they have made any false statement or misrepresentation relevant to this application or their continuing employment with the College. #

Candidates should note that they may be required to submit documentary evidence in support of any particulars given by them in their application for the post.

Data Protection Acts 1988 to 2018 and the Freedom of Information Acts 1997 to 2014 as amended

Data collected for the purposes of recruitment activities

NCI conducts recruitment processes to fill vacancies within the college. When applying for these competitions applicants are asked to submit a range of documents, e.g., a completed application form, CV and/or a personal statement or cover letter. For the purposes of recruitment activities, we will not collect any personal data that we do not need to assess your candidature for a role with us.

Legal Basis for Processing

NCI ’s legal basis for the processing of this data is a combination of individual consent, contractual necessity and legal obligations.

Withdrawal of Consent

Applicants can withdraw their consent for the processing of their personal data at any time by notifying the College. It is important to note that withdrawal of consent prior to the completion of the process will be considered as a withdrawal of the application.

What we do with your data

People who are directly employed by NCI and are based in Ireland process all the personal data collected for both recruitment and HR purposes.

Shortlisting

HR draft up the shortlisting documents and provide the initial screening to determine if a person meets the essential criteria of the competition. A shortlisting panel is generally made up of two senior grade staff members from the relevant department for which the role is being recruited.

Sharing of your data

Where you have been successfully shortlisted for a post, each interview panel member will be furnished with a copy of the relevant information of those who will be attending interview in order that they can review applications in advance of the interview process. All such information will be returned to NCI and shredded following the competition process. Some of the interview panel will be external interviewers, who are not employees of NCI but are engaged for the purpose and are strictly subject to the rules and policies of the College.

Access

Applicants can request and receive access to their data at any time and can request and receive a copy of this data, in electronic/transferable format.

Erasure

Applicants can request the data held be erased. In this case, the application for a position is considered withdrawn.

Rectification

Applicants can have any incorrect information corrected.

Objection / Withdraw

Applications can object to this information being processed and/or can request to withdraw from the application process

Complain

Applicants can make a complaint to our internal Information Governance and Data Protection Officer

NCI Information Governance and Data Protection Officer

National College of Ireland, Mayor Street, IFSC, Dublin 1

Tel (Direct): + 353 1 4498 523 ; Tel (Reception): + 353 1 4498 500

And/or make a complaint to the relevant authority

Data Protection Commission, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28

Tel: +353 (0) 761 104 800

National College of Ireland is an equal opportunities employer and is a Member of the Athena SWAN Charter. NCI is committed to serving our diverse community and welcomes applications from underrepresented groups.