Job offered: International Consultancy Moodle Specialist

Type: Part-time
Location: Home based

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

The UN Women Training Centre (TC) in Santo Domingo is dedicated to supporting the UN and other stakeholders to realize commitments to gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s rights through transformative training and learning. The gender capacity-development programmes range from basic and introductory levels to specialized and advanced levels for diverse audiences with different backgrounds. In terms of capacity-development strategies and techniques, the TC makes maximum use of on-line training techniques, paying special attention to e-learning courses and an active learning approach.

Toward this end, the Training Centre launched the UN Women Training Centre eLearning Campus in September 2014.

The eLearning Campus is an online learning platform based on Moodle that allows interactive, experiential, innovative and collaborative learning on gender equality and women’s empowerment. It is the foundation upon which the UN Women Training Centre can effectively function by hosting training courses, products and tools in addition to enhancing the availability, accessibility, outreach and usage of training resources on UN Women priority areas. The eLearning Campus also supports monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on results of the Training Centre and facilitates coordination with partners globally and regionally to ensure quality and effectiveness of the Training Centre’s training services and products.

To manage all of these functions, the Training Centre has developed principles and guidelines for Training for Gender Equality (TfGE), including a manual on Training for Gender Equality and guidelines for the management of the eLearning Campus.

Objectives

The objective of this consultancy is to ensure the further development, enhancement and smooth management of the eLearning Campus. The required PHP Moodle developer will support current Moodle deployments, add new features and keep the platform up to date. The developer will also be responsible for platform backups and security updates.

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience consulting with internal work groups, conceptualizing and developing creative solutions. The post requires an excellent work ethic demonstrated by: a strong desire to learn, a commitment to quality, a take-charge attitude, flexibility to adapt to a wide range of business environments, versatility to adapt their communication style to a wide range of personalities, determination, ability to commit to and follow through on deliverables, the ability to stand up for their own ideas while taking direction from others, a positive, optimistic outlook, and the ability to contribute to a fast-paced, non-political working environment.

In this regard, the consultant is expected to assist in the management and improvement of the e-Learning Campus, and ensure the smooth and correct functioning of online courses within the framework of the Training Centre TfGE principles and guidelines.

 

Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the eLearning/Communications Analyst and in coordination with the IT Assistant, the consultant will:

Take ownership of select high-profile, mission critical tools and services.

Design, develop and maintain best-in-class user experience resulting in compelling end-user engagement.

Enhance and develop additional LMS features and functionalities to meet the needs of users around the world.

Installation and maintenance of Moodle.

Ensure that all custom code, architecture deployment and system integration details are sufficiently documented to eliminate risk of single point of failure.

Support the development, packaging and implementation of online training courses and materials, including application of new technologies to the development of online courses and materials in collaboration with UN Women staff and webmasters.

Provide pedagogical and technical assistance to on-line tutors in coordination with the IT assistant and the course manager.

Support the monitoring and evaluation of courses and tools, by implementing TC Evaluation tools and processes; following up and maintaining the Training Centre Evaluation Database and support the development of course and eLearning Campus evaluation reports and as necessary.

Review and modify as needed the eLearning Campus to ensure it responds to TC approaches, including improvement of texts and sections.

Support the Training Centre in improvements to the eLearning Campus, including migration of the Training for Gender Equality Community of Practice.

Contribute to strengthening capacity of TC staff in the development, packaging and implementation of online courses and support the Training Centre with a smooth handover of services to the IT Assistant and the eLearning/Communications Analyst.

Duration of services

 

The consultancy will begin on 1 October 2016 and end on 30 September 2017, encompassing a part time, 1 year period.

5.       Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles

Integrity:

  • Demonstrate the values of United Nations and UN Women, act without consideration of personal gain, resist undue political pressure in decision-making, no abuse of power or authority, stand by decisions in the organization’s interest, and take action in cases of unprofessional or unethical behavior.

Professionalism:

  • Show pride in work and achievements, demonstrate professional competence and mastery of subject matter, conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments and achieving results, motivated by professional rather than personal concerns, show persistence when faced with challenges, and remain calm in stressful situations.

Respect for Diversity:

  • Work effectively with people from all backgrounds, treat all people with dignity and respect, treat men and women equally, show respect for and understand diverse opinions by examining own biases and behaviors to avoid stereotypical responses, and do not discriminate against any individual or group.

Core Competencies

Ethics and Values:

  • Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

  • Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

  • Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Working in Teams:

  • Building and promoting effective teams.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

  • Creating an emotionally intelligent organization.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

  • Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting standards.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

  • Fair and transparent decision-making; calculated risk-taking.

Client Orientation:

  • Monitor ongoing developments inside and outside the client's environment to keep them informed and anticipate problems;
  • Meet timeline for delivery of products or services to clients.
  • Meticulous attention to detail and a can-do attitude.

Planning and Organizing:

  • Ability to plan own work and manage conflicting priorities;
  • Ability to develop clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies;
  • Identifies priority activities and assignments and adjusts priorities as required;

Technological Awareness:

Good knowledge of Learning Management System (LMS) and Contents Management System (CMS);

Extensive hands-on experience of supporting and developing web based applications in PHP and various frameworks.

  • Ability to manage and implement front end/server side infrastructure including but not limited to web markup (e.g. HTML5 and CSS3), AJAX, JavaScript and PHP.
  • MySQL and writing complex SQL queries.
  • Deep technical understanding of the Moodle LMS platform. Experience developing custom modules for the platforms is desired.
  • Linux system administration and tools experience (grep, cron, ssh, scp, vi). Comfortable working at the command line.
  • Experience designing and building highly scalable, redundant, distributed architectures for deployment of enterprise applications.
  • Optimizing code and queries; methodical, organized and structured approach to writing code and problem solving.
  • Experience with supporting technologies, including but not limited to version control systems (Git / SVN), continuous integration, and configuration management.
  • Responsive/accessible web design.
  • BSCS/IS/IT or equivalent required. Advanced degree is a plus.
  • Familiar with Articulate Storyline 2.

Functional Competencies

  • Excellent writing skills;
  • Receptiveness to feedback and flexibility for incorporating revisions;
  • Ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
  • Ability to work remotely. 

 

Required Skills and Experience

 

Education:

Masters or equivalent in Information technology, Educational Technology, E-Learning, Education, Communications or other related field.

Experience:

  • Three to five years of experience in the design and management of e-Learning materials and courses, management of eLearning and knowledge platforms, and developing or assisting in the delivery of on-line distance learning courses.
  • Relevant experience in gender and development is highly desirable.
  • Experience in training for gender equality is highly desirable.
  • Experience with UN System is an asset.

Language Requirements:


Working proficiency in English is required. Knowledge of Spanish or French is an asset.

To Apply please go to: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=68215 or go to the UNDP jobs site and search for the title of this announcement.

Deadline to apply is september 12th, 2016.



Entry added by UN Women Training Centre UNWTC - 23 Aug 2016
Last updated - 23 Aug 2016