The Registrar’s Office (RO) is involved in all aspects of academic life, including undergraduate student marketing and recruitment, admissions, enrolment, examinations, development and application of academic policies, and convocation. As a result of its mandate, the RO stewards a significant volume of data that is critical to the success of the University and its stakeholders. This data includes student records as well as prospective students, applicants and applications, financial aid and awards, academic policies, scheduling and classrooms.

The Associate Director, Data Analytics and Development (AD, DAD) in the RO leads a team of data analysts and developers who create and continuously improve the necessary solutions, models, and projections to ensure that various strategic issues and priorities are critically examined and that the planning activities are grounded in sound and reliable evidence.

The AD, DAD is seen as an expert resource for RO data and is accountable for working with RO leaders and campus stakeholders (especially Institutional Analysis and Planning/IAP, Information Systems and Technology/IST, and the Faculties) to develop and support a data strategy and support data governance for student data across campus. The AD, DAD and their team ensure understanding and appropriate use of the breadth of RO data for decision-making, strategic enrolment management, and strategic planning across campus. The incumbent will develop and maintain analytics and data dashboards to address core business objectives and monitor enrolment and usage trends.

The AD, DAD also ensures the design, implementation, and ongoing enhancement and support of technical development solutions and best practices within the RO to support efficiency and continuous improvement. In this capacity, the AD, DAD and their team will work with RO stakeholders and leverage the expertise of the Business Systems Analysis team as well as campus Continuous Improvement and Change Management resources.

Data Analysis and Reporting Leadership

• Provide data and analytic leadership by development and continual enhancements of a reliable business model for RO for all data analytics and reporting needs
• Ensure analysis of data using best practice methodologies and consistent definitions to support evidence-based decision making and to identify trends
• Lead the presenting of data analytics in an efficient and easily understandable way to a wide variety of audiences and users, using various reporting formats and web technologies
• Ensure adherence to privacy and security policies, as well as established data governance protocols
• Researching new tools, systems, and practices to recommend ongoing improvements in data analytics
• Lead the translation of data into information for all reports and dashboards
• Provide leadership or co-leadership on specific data analytics and research projects, as required
• Lead the creation of reporting dashboards, in consultation with RO leaders:
  • Developing metrics and monitoring of key business outcomes for RO
  • Ensuring alignment and reporting for the University strategic plan
  • Developing metrics and monitoring to effectively support data-informed decision making and fostering a strategic enrolment management culture by leveraging real time integrations with systems and visualization tools
• Contribute to the development of strategic and operational plans in RO Systems and the RO

Data Warehousing and Infrastructure Development

• Work with IST on the design, implementation, and ongoing enhancement of data infrastructure necessary to collect, store, report and analyze data and trends
• Develop the necessary models and projections to support strategic planning
• Development of data models, data definitions and reporting methodologies
• Ensure the team acquires, develops, and maintains knowledge of best practices and tools needed for data acquisition, transformation, maintenance, and analysis

Development and Digital Infrastructure Leadership

• Leads the Developer(s) in ensuring stakeholders’ requirements are designed, implemented, supported and maintained while guaranteeing best practices are followed
• Ensure software development lifecycle best practices for coding, documentation and quality assurance of any solution provided
• Leads creation and ongoing support of infrastructure for application development, production work and databases
• Liaise with IST development and infrastructure teams in the planning and execution of University wide projects
• Lead a consistent approach for all documentation, training and change management for all development and technical change management activities

Client and Stakeholder Relationships and Support

• Guide the team in building positive, productive, and collaborative relationships within RO and across the University
• Create and implement a process on what and how data is used including who has access to the data and ensuring privacy of information legislation is followed
• Ensure an understanding of the importance and impact of data presented by developing a comprehensive understanding of RO processes and expected outcomes to inform key performance metrics
• Ensure development solutions to meet stakeholders' needs can be implemented, supported, maintained while guaranteeing that best practices are followed
• Act as a consultant to ensure that various strategic issues and priorities are critically examined
• The incumbent is accountable for the custodianship of data within the portfolio including:
  • Ensuring the data has integrity for what it is being used for
  • Ensuring privacy rules are followed
  • Providing a documented understanding of data ensuring accurate interpretation
  • Ensuring the appropriate application of the data by establishing appropriate review and approval processes

Team Leadership

• Provide overall leadership to the organization by personally championing the data and development goals
• Participate in the creation of RO Systems goals and objectives
• Manage a small team of analysts, developers and coop students ensuring:
  • Effective team dynamics
  • Formal (performance appraisal) and informal feedback and coaching to team members
  • Staff development plans are established
• Model a constructive and critical approach to investigation and analysis
• Mentor a positive and collaborative orientation among staff and colleagues

• Bachelor’s degree in mathematics, Computer Science, Statistics or equivalent education and experience
• 3 years of progressively responsible leadership and/or management experience, including staff performance management and development, demonstrating strong managerial and leadership acumen and skills
• 3 to 5 years of progressively responsible experience performing duties related to development, data/statistical methods, applications, research and data analysis and reporting
• Demonstrated experience in creating business metrics at the organization unit
• Demonstrated experience in leading development practice of both enterprise technology and custom solutions
• Demonstrated ability to build collaborative relationships across large complex organizations
• Broad understanding of customization development of enterprise technology (including CRM), CMS (Drupal) and other software development (HTML, PHP, MySQL/MSSQL, CSS, JavaScript)
• Broad understanding of analytical methodologies and statistical analysis
• Demonstrated facilitation and presentation skills and the ability to build consensus and demonstrate diplomacy
• Strategic-planning proficiency, with evidence of critical-thinking and analytical skills to
• enable the assessment of opportunities and contributions to change management
• Excellent relationship management skills and strong communication skills ensure that insights are shared effectively
• Critical thinking skills and a natural curiosity to understand data relationships
• Comfortable with predictive as well as descriptive analyses and narratives
• Knowledge of a wide array of technical disciplines, including statistics, visual analytics, modeling
• Demonstrated project management skills

The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is co-ordinated within our Office of Indigenous Relations.

The University values the diverse and intersectional identities of its students, faculty, and staff. The University regards equity and diversity as an integral part of academic excellence and is committed to accessibility for all employees. The University of Waterloo seeks applicants who embrace our values of equity, anti-racism and inclusion.  As such, we encourage applications from candidates who have been historically disadvantaged and marginalized, including applicants who identify as First Nations, Métis and/or Inuk (Inuit), Black, racialized, a person with a disability, women and/or 2SLGBTQ+.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

The University of Waterloo is committed to accessibility for persons with disabilities. If you have any application, interview, or workplace accommodation requests, please contact Human Resources at hrhelp@uwaterloo.ca  or 519-888-4567, ext. 45935.