RESEARCH ANALYST

at  Georgian College

RESEARCH ANALYST(Job Number: 09-25)
Department: Institutional Research and Strategic Insights
Campus: Barrie
Classification: Support Staff
Posting Date: January 23, 2025
Hourly Pay Range: $42.56 (start rate) - $49.34 (4-year rate)
Hours per week: 37.5 hours per week
Status: Contract (Appendix D)

• Leads, organizes, designs, coordinates and delivers a wide range of corporate research activities and projects in support of institutional planning, effectiveness, assessment, evaluation and decision-making. The Research Analyst communicates and collaborates with internal and external stakeholders to understand and operationalize their research needs to develop work plans, as well as negotiate roles, timelines and approaches
• Applies an advanced knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methodology to recommend the most appropriate approach in conducting complex institutional research studies
• Performs all phases of research, assessment and evaluation, including problem definition; study design; data and information collection; and dissemination/presentation of findings accurately and professionally. Projects may include analysing opportunities for new academic programs, business opportunities; or services; evaluating the quality of existing programs and services; assessing student engagement and performance; as well as analysing data and writing reports for college-wide projects/accountability requirements and other projects to identify, promote and advise on areas of strategic opportunities that position Georgian and its students for success. Projects may include internal research and data projects (labour market projections, faculty needs research, etc). as well as external projects (economic impact study, community well-being study, commuter study, etc.)
• Provides guidance and subject matter expertise to other areas of the college by delivering research advice, insight, recommendations and direction for research initiatives
• Manages multiple research projects at any given time (research may involve hundreds of participants), prioritizes tasks and adheres to schedules and deadlines. Coordinates research projects, documents process, applies project management principles and practices, and communicates and engages effectively with various stakeholders and clients to successfully complete projects in a timely manner
• Designing and developing interactive dashboards with appropriate and effective data visualizations
• Provides expert guidance to internal and external researchers with regards to Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans achieved through course completion/certification
• Supports the Institutional Research Strategy, senior management, and college working groups and committees, with meaningful and actionable intelligence for decision-making using their highly developed research and analytical expertise. Projects and studies may include student retention, progression and success; academic pathways and learning modalities; student/learner analytics and engagement; labour market analysis and projections; college service and program assessments; as well as analysis pertaining to specific student population analysis (Indigenous students; International students; mature learners, part-time students, etc.)
• Designs survey research projects, develops and implements survey instruments, and analyses data for a wide range of activities and initiatives including new academic program development opportunities; academic program renewal; student retention and success; organizational effectiveness, etc. The project may also require the incumbent to conduct competitive peer analysis, complete literature reviews as well as investigate labour market, industry and sector trends
• Identifies appropriate analysis to perform and acquires required data from various databases in a variety of formats. The incumbent creates, maintains and manages various data sets, including downloads and extracts from external databases (OCAS, Lightcast Analyst, government Open Data, etc.) as well as data from internal sources The incumbent joins different datasets using aggregate and computational functions to transform data for complex analysis ensuring that data has been cleaned, verified and validated as well as organized it into the most appropriate format to meet the research needs
• Utilizes specialized software (Cognos, Power BI, R, Power BI, etc.) to access, format and analyse raw data as well as use appropriate data visualization techniques to disseminate and present the findings and recommendations in a user-friendly manner with effective data visualizations
• Uses descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, cross tabs, percentages as well as more advanced statistical analysis, such as correlation, t-tests and regression to produce reports for clients using statistical software (i.e. SPSS, SAS, R, etc.). The incumbent critically reviews output and identifies cause of any discrepancies and resolves as necessary
• Contributes to the knowledge base of the IR department with regards to external information (i.e. political, social, demographic, economic data and trends); new analytical software and tools; relevant communications, recent releases (i.e. population projections, census data, labour market information, etc.) to support college working groups and committees, senior management and the Board of Governors with actionable intelligence for planning and decision-making purposes
• Effectively communicates research findings through written reports and presentations maintaining objectivity and professionalis