Should the successful applicant be a Unifor Unit 1 bargaining unit member, who meets the eligibility conditions of Article 19.02 of the Unifor Unit 1 Collective Agreement, then the Limited Term Assignment will be defined as a Career Growth Opportunity in accordance with Article 19 of the Unifor Local 5555 Unit 1 Collective Agreement.
Established in 2000, the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) is a national research infrastructure for leading edge research and training in the quantitative social and population health sciences, creating social, economic, health and environmental benefits for Canadians. The Network supports a partnership between Canadian universities and Statistics Canada. Its mission is to enable quantitative researchers to address vital questions; train the next generation of highly qualified personnel in social and population health sciences; and contribute to evidence-based policy and decision-making by facilitating access to confidential microdata supported by state-of-the-art computing facilities. There are four key strategic pillars set out in the current CRDCN Strategic Plan (2024-29): data; community and capabilities; evidence-informed decision-making; and research ecosystem.
This national facility is run by a central management team based at McMaster University as the host institution. It is led by the Executive Director who reports to a national Board and at McMaster to the Vice President Research, who also serves on the Board. CRDCN is a distributed network, currently comprising 33 physical Research Data Centres (RDCs) based in Collaborating Institutions, each led by an Academic Director, whose roles and responsibilities are overseen by CRDCN. The CRDCN currently serves over 2,000 researchers and trainees in all 10 provinces.
CRDCN is primarily funded by federal and provincial government agencies—namely Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ)—as well as Statistics Canada and 33 Collaborating Institutions. The total budget from these and other funding sources in the current funding term is $80M (2023-2029). CRDCN is one of only 17 CFI Major Science Initiatives. CRDCN also manages additional CFI funding ($10M) to build an advanced research computing platform, which will centralize physical and remote data access to all RDCs via two Compute Canada data centres located at the University of Waterloo and Simon Fraser University. CRDCN’s central management team will take on new responsibilities to operate and maintain this advanced research computing platform upon completion of its build.
This position is funded by a grant from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada under the National Data Spaces Pilot. The CRDCN project involves developing a SSCAN (Social Sciences CANada Data Space) to support a wide range of data needs for researchers in Canada working with sensitive social sciences data.
Job Summary:
The Lead Architect acts as a primary technical and consulting resource to University Technology Services and various University departments and units with respect to the information technology architecture, planning, and implementation of information technology systems. Supports the University's academic and administration departments by acting in a functional capacity in all phases of the Project Life Cycle for medium to large projects. Continuously gains an understanding of the University's operations and processes and how systems are used in support of those operations. Provides supervision to a team of Architects and Systems Integration Specialists. Develops information technology architecture standards and best practices for use across the University.
Purpose and Key Functions:
• Manage work assignments of internal staff and schedule and monitor adherence to procedures, protocols, and standards.
• Act as an on-site project manager responsible for managing projects from inception to completion.
• Plan and establish project framework and identify project milestones to ensure the project is completed according to project specifications and within specified timelines.
• Design, develop, establish, and evaluate technical specifications for a variety of highly complex University systems.
• Complete feasibility studies and cost benefit analyses and translate technical architecture into business value terms.
• Provide ongoing technical direction to Architects and Systems Integration Specialists within the team and periodically to other technical staff assigned to relevant projects.
• Coach and mentor junior staff in order to ensure a highly motivated and technically competent team.
• Evaluate work product to ensure adherence to established functional and operational specifications.
• Accountable for the clarification, rationalization and documentation of project requests.
• Approve production migrations according to project involvement.
• Develop and lead information technology architecture training.
• Develop and manage information technology architecture policies, procedures and best practices and communicate to all staff.
• Participate in the development of capital project charters and cost justifications.
• Responsible for integration and release management of information technology architecture solutions.
• Facilitate large group information technology architecture development planning sessions.
• Ensure appropriate information technology subject matter expert participation in information technology architecture projects.
• Utilize the appropriate control tools to coordinate projects according to Project Management Office methodologies.
• Develop success criteria and risk assessments for projects and changes.
• Develop, implement, and document best practices to align with departmental and University strategies and processes.
• Work independently with users to define concepts.
• Drive and challenge business units on their assumptions of how they will successfully execute their information technology architecture plans.
• Collaborate with developers and subject matter experts to establish the technical vision and analyze tradeoffs between usability and performance needs.
• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguish user requests from the underlying true needs.
• Conduct gap analyses.
• Ensure that projects meet specified functionality and technical requirements.
• Perform advanced levels of analysis, problem solving and research skills to formulate information technology architecture solutions to complex business needs.
• Work with project stakeholders to understand project scope and create test documents.
• Manage all phases of technical functional testing including, but not limited to, system, integration, acceptance, regression, and performance.
• Document system functionality, particularly related to new enhancements.
• Develop and maintain information technology process flow, methodology, and control documentation.
• Assist with the development of project proposals and estimates.
• Elicit requirements using interviews, document analysis, requirement workshops, surveys, site visits, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, and task and workflow analysis.
• Analyze information needs and functional requirements and deliver architecture artifacts such as technology roadmaps, technical architecture, design, system integration, test plans and test cases.
• Take ownership of architectural issues by identifying underlying problems, analyzing potential solutions and implementing system resolutions, including workarounds.
• Provide Level III post implementation support to users regarding technical issues.
• Work with the development team to determine technical approaches and technical risks for project testing.
• Develop requirement specifications according to standard templates, using natural language.
• Identify and manage defects identified during all phases of a project.
• Review test cases created by testing team members to ensure that the test cases adequately define the business processes.
• Resolve architectural problems in the test, production implementation, and post-implementation phases in coordination with other technical and business groups.
• Review systems, processes, and information and provide recommendations to supervisor.
• Serve as the conduit between the Project Management Office and technical teams through which requirements flow.
• Liaise between the application, technology and support teams.
• Communicate project, issue, and system status to others.
• Communicate testing results to other stakeholders.
• Facilitate effective dialog between technical staff.
• Interact with and exchange information with colleagues.
• Prepare and review recommendations and other project initiation documents.
• Prepare and review end user and operations documentation, training materials, and timelines.
• Maintain information technology architecture process flow, methodology, and control documentation.
• Lead the Information Technology Architecture Review Board.
• Work with others to prioritize and schedule issues resolution.
• Plan, schedule, and monitor own work within short time horizons.
• Organize individual time, work and resources to accomplish objectives in the most effective and efficient way.
• Understand and use appropriate methods, tools, and applications to complete work tasks.
• Demonstrate a rational and organized approach to work and identify development opportunities.
• Absorb technical information when it is presented systematically and apply it effectively.
• Use measurement methods to monitor progress toward goal attainment, tenaciously working to meet or exceed those goals, while deriving satisfaction from the process of goal achievement and continuous improvement.
• Ensure that the internal and external customer perspective is a driving force behind decisions and activities.
• Follow service practices that meet customers’ and University needs.
• Interact with others in a way that gives them confidence in one’s intentions and those of the University.
• Work collaboratively with others to achieve departmental and institutional goals. Actively participate as a member of a team to move the team toward the completion of goals.
• Perform a range of varied work activities in a variety of structured environments.
• Successfully engage in multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Apply and enforce department change control policies and procedures.
• Acquire and maintain a basic understanding of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing principles.
• Read and understand complex Business Process Diagrams and develop basic (Level II) models.
• Read and understand a complex project plan and develop simple project plans.
• Remain current with relevant development and project methodologies.
• Remain current with security policies and procedures and work with System Administrators to implement security changes.
• Remain current with the different levels of testing and develop simple use cases and test scripts.
Supervision:
Supervise and direct the activities of 1 to 4 continuing employees.
Requirements:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business, or a related field of study.
Requires 6 years of relevant experience, including one year of supervisory experience.
Assets:
The following assets are desirable:
- Master's degree in one of the following: Information Science; Information Systems; Information Studies; Library and Information Science (MLIS); Computer Science or a related area.
- Deep technical systems expertise
- Active research profile with publications and conference presentations
- Experience designing systems for data management, archiving, or similar
- Understanding of scholarly data lifecycle, RDM and FAIR practices
- Familiarity with metadata standards and their encoding
- Familiarity with requirements around sensitive data
Additional Information
Focus of this position:
The Lead Architect will be responsible for leading the design of a digital repository and trusted research environment for sensitive research data to serve the pan-Canadian communities of social sciences researchers.
Reporting to the Director of IT at CRDCN, the Lead Architect will:
- Take a research-based approach to the system design, exploring contemporary best practice in repositories for sensitive data, articulating the state of the art with an eye to future developments, and consulting with like projects internationally
- Working closely to understand the multiple project requirements with the SSCAN project team, especially the Data and Policy Lead and the Metadata and Curation Lead, determine options for the system’s architecture to meet a variety of storage and access needs and a range of security levels for different datasets and depositors
- Seek out quotes and monitor cost profiles for the components of the system, motivated by cost constraint in line with public sector funding
- Architect a detailed solution for the chosen option that combines robust cybersecurity and privacy protections with authentication and authorization solutions, high-performance data storage, curation, search and retrieval technologies, and comprehensive disaster recovery strategies
- Research and implement full compliance with relevant data governance frameworks
- Ensure that the solution supports FAIR data management practices and aligns with the CARE and TRUST principles, with a preference for Open Source solutions
- Align the architecture with the requirements of the CoreTrustSeal, considering how long term preservation could be incorporated into the repository, with an eye to eventual certification
- Liaise with other groups in the National Data Spaces pilot to exchange approaches and best practices and align decisions where possible
Ensure alignment/interoperability/incorporation of a range of services and national planning by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, including the use of persistent identifiers, data management planning templates, the creation of the Canadian Research Data Platform, etc.
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