IT Specialist-Programming

Program  Background

The Government of Lebanon, with support from the international community, is implementing the Reaching All Children with Education (RACE) initiative. First launched in 2013, RACE seeks to improve access to formal education for 460,000 Syrian refugee children and underprivileged Lebanese children in the country. Efforts under this new phase of RACE 2 are expected to minimize the short and medium-term costs of displacement for refugee families while strengthening the long-term capacity of the Lebanese education system to prepare children for life and work once regional stability returns. MEHE, with the support of CERD, is responsible for implementing the S2R2 program.

Program  Objectives

The Program Development Objective is to promote equitable access, enhance the quality of learning, and strengthen the systems in Lebanon’s education sector in response to the protracted refugee crisis. The key results are as follows:

Increase in the proportion of school-aged Lebanese and non-Lebanese children (3–18) enrolled in formal education;

Increase in the proportion of students passing their grades, and transitioning to the next; and

Improvement in MEHE’s capacity to review, evaluate, and update Program implementation

Tasks and Responsibilities
 

Under the S2R2 program, the Center for Educational Research and Development (CERD)

is looking for an IT Specialist-Programming.

The IT Specialist-Developer ‘s mission is to maintain CERD’s technical unit. In particular, he/she will be responsible for:

1. Provide capacity building for CERD staff on IT topics.
2. Ensure that the software for the On-line Courses is in perfect operation and maintenance for TMS (Training Management system).
3. Provide technical recommendation and support on setting up the user interface and user rights.
4. Adding plug-ins to Moodle LMS platform.
5. Developing new features and enhancing existing programs at CERD.
6. Continuing hosting and maintenance of the site, which would include applying security patches, clearing out log files, enlarging disk space before it runs out, sorting out security certificates and fixing bugs in the code.
7. Support in Assisting in enhancing data collection and reporting platforms.
8. Support CERD staff and build their skills and confidence to deliver the S2R2 related deliverables as well as their day-to-day duties.
9. Optimize the platforms for low bandwidth users.
10. Develop open APIs onto our membership CASE (Centralized Administration for Statistics in Education) database.
11. Coordinate with the website developer and CERD focal point platforms.
12. Understands learning concepts and can suggest and apply best practices within the organization.
13. Develop and maintain dashboards using power BI tools and CERD views into Learning Programs activity.
14. Perform other tasks related to the program objectives as assigned by the CERD President or S2R2 Steering committee.
15.  Any other tasks as needed.

    Deliverables
     

16. Report on data Governance framework implementation and Integration of CERD database with SIMS
17. Analytical dashboards using Power BI tools
18. Report on the improvements in the CERD’s platforms: For example authentication, external services integration, UX/UI interface improvement, etc.
19. Report on applications maintenance and enhancement: TMS – Moodle – DLP – Dspace – E-Books
20. Report on developed APIs and data openness 
21. Development of new applications and mobile app.

Enhancing existing programs at CERD and developing new features

Reporting

All reports should be submitted to S2R2 Steering Committee and the Technical Unit according to the scheduled time frame, and dates will be communicated based on the contract signature date.
CERD will provide templates for the required reports – to be submitted in English and Arabic – if needed. 
CERD owns property rights of all reports
 

Previous Experience

1.  Hands-on experience in installing software.

2.  Having at least three years’ work experienced in the field of IT as a website designer/developer and must have strong skills in HTML5, CSS3, JS, jQuery, PHP, .Net and web API (web programming)

3.  Excellent knowledge of MySQL and writing complex SQL queries.

4. Excellent knowledge of Power BI tools.

5. Knowledge in LMS: administration, hosting services, integrator and course developing, Interactive Web Designing.

6. Supporting platform plugins, API integrations, and customizations.

7. Develop Hybrid and Native Mobile Applications for Phones and Tablets (Android & IOS) based on the specification.

Qualification Skills

1. Research, analysis, and problem-solving.

  E-learning and online experience is a plus.

2. Ability to write detailed scientific reports and documentation that include diagrams and charts.

3. Experience in Business Process automation and Workflows.

Languages

1.   Excellent written and oral communication skills in both English and Arabic.

2.   French is a Plus.

Behavioural Skills

1.   Strong communication skills

2.   Good organizational skills

3.   Good time management