Technical Information Specialist

Description

Position Title: Technical Information Specialist, Life Cycle Assessment

Series/Grade: GS-1412-13

Location: Fully Remote

Link to Announcement: https://www.usajobs.gov/job/710198700

Description

This position is located in the National Agricultural Library (NAL), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The NAL is a central resource for agricultural information and is one of five national libraries in the United States.  NAL also serves as the Library of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  NAL advances access to global information for agriculture by connecting customers to information through technology.  It houses one of the world’s largest and most accessible agricultural information collections, serves as the nexus for a national network of state land-grant and U.S. Department of Agriculture field libraries and serves as the U.S. center for international agriculture information system.

 NAL supports making USDA research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable (FAIR). NAL provides value-added data management and curation services, which prepare data for publishing and re-use. NAL subject and information specialists provide expert services and tools for making scientific research data FAIR.

This position resides in the Scientific Data Management Branch (SDMB) of the Knowledge Services Division, which is primarily responsible for gathering and maintaining customer/business requirements for NAL data services and products, managing stakeholder relationships, and providing informatics and subject expertise to internal and external customers. Knowledge and experience with best practices for information management and publishing, workflow management, and requirements gathering are critical.

The successful candidate will lead and operate the Federal Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Commons data repository and website (www.lcacommons.gov). This requires managing and operating the LCA Commons data publication workflow and business aspects of application maintenance and deployment. NAL has worked closely with the LCA research community to develop a knowledge management platform which applies git-style data management, version control, and publishing principles to building, maintaining, and publishing industrial process and supply chain models.

The position requires collaboration with internal and external technology managers and our customers/partners to operate the current implementation and evolve the application as new requirements surface. Working with partners/customers and stakeholders to help them use the application and understand LCA Commons data requirements is a key requirement of the position. NAL has begun a major update to the application in which new functionality and workflows will require policy and documentation updates and on-going maintenance. The updated version of the application will provide data storage and public access via GitHub code repositories. Expertise with GitHub is critical.

Major Duties

Provide informatics expertise related to scientific metadata, metadata standards, and their implementation in information management and transfer services; stays current with state of the art.

Provide leadership for LCA Commons products and services; responsible for team culture; continuous improvement of team business processes and practices; internal and external stakeholder engagement and communication; and team alignment with vision, strategy and goals.

Responsible for LCA Commons product and service delivery; specific project planning and execution; defining incremental quality requirements; and key performance indicators for services.

Collaborates with partners/customers to maintain, operate, and evolve LCA Commons data curation and publication application and website. Works with partners/customers to maintain and develop data standards and workflows.

Provides outreach and guidance on using LCA Commons application to new partners/customers.