The Knowledge Futures Group, in association with ASAPBbio and the Open and Reproducible Research Group (TU Graz), is hiring a full-time Technical Program Manager on a 6-month contract to help us launch and manage the first phase of the Doc Maps program, a community-endorsed framework for representing research object-level review/editorial processes in a machine-readable, interoperable, and extensible format. We’re looking for someone with strong project management skills, a background in academic publishing, and at least a basic technical understanding of data representation formats like JSON, XML, and JATS. You’ll get to work with leaders in the academic publishing space and make significant contributions to the direction of a nascent but well resourced effort to produce machine-readable metadata describing review processes. We will pay competitively, let you work from wherever you want, and take you and your ideas seriously. Join us!
The Knowledge Futures Group, founded as a partnership between the MIT Press and the MIT Media Lab, is a not-for-profit consortium that builds technology for the production, curation, and preservation of knowledge in service of the public good.
The program, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is a multi-phase effort to create, adopt and implement Doc Maps, a common framework for representing object-level editorial processes in a way that is interoperable, extensible, and machine-readable. The first phase of the program will consist of convening a Technical Committee composed of parties interested in modeling object-level editorial processes to develop the framework, solicit community feedback, and publish implementation guidelines. Future phases of the program beyond the initial 6-month period may involve developing tools to aggregate and surface Doc Maps for a variety of use-cases.
Lead the setup and manage the ongoing convening of the Doc Maps Technical Committee using the Delphi method.
Working with the committee, draft the initial version of the Doc Maps framework and prepare it for publication.
Develop and execute on a strategy to circulate the draft for community feedback, potentially including virtual convenings.
In consultation with teammates at the KFG and other partners, develop and publish implementation guides for vendors interested in implementing Doc Maps.
Coordinate the drafting of a report describing Doc Maps phase 1 and laying out a potential future roadmap.
Identify opportunities and problems based on user feedback and work with the product team to design features to address
You have experience managing technical projects consisting of groups of diverse stakeholders across both functions (i.e. editorial, engineering) and industries (i.e. publishers, technology providers).
You’re comfortable producing clear, concise, and complete technical frameworks and documentation from wide-ranging discussions.
You have a solid grounding in academic publishing, especially in preprint systems and reviews.
You have at least a basic understanding of how metadata is represented in machine-readable formats, or have a technical background in other areas related to publishing writ large and are interested in learning about machine-readability and interoperability.
You want to work on a team that respects your ideas about the future of academic publishing.
You want to work on projects that make academic publishing more open, accessible, and useful to researchers and humanity as a whole.
Work with a distributed team: even before the crisis, our team was setup for distributed-first work, with an emphasis on tooling, cultural practices, and behaviors that make long-term remote work sustainable.
Enjoy industry-standard perks: unlimited PTO with a yearly minimum, your own computer of choice, a nice and shiny office in Kendall Square brimming with snacks – or, the ability to work fully remote with a team that prioritizes remote participation.
Contribute to our larger mission at the Knowledge Futures Group: we’re building a future where the infrastructure to create and access knowledge is controlled by people who serve the public interest, starting with core projects like PubPub and The Underlay. As a KFG team member, you’ll be able to contribute to those efforts as well, and we’ll support any ambitions you might have to publish in our journal, the Commonplace, and beyond.
If you’re interested, please send us an email with a resume or CV and brief cover letter and we’ll be in touch!
We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds with diverse skillsets. If you have significant personal experience or engagement with low-income communities, international communities, or fields and languages that are underrepresented in academia, scholarly publishing, or open data, we strongly encourage you to apply. This job description is intended to be a guidepost, not a checklist. If you feel like you could do a great job in this role, even if you don’t exactly meet every qualification, please consider applying.