Application Open:
Full-Time
Job Focus:
The Associate Head of Student Information Systems at MBZUAI provides senior functional leadership and institutional ownership of the University’s Student Information System (Banner SaaS), the central academic and operational system of record. This role leads to the end-to-end functional vision, design, implementation, governance, and continuous evolution of Banner, ensuring that Registrar’s Office (RO) policies, academic regulations, research-based program structures, and operational processes are accurately translated into system functionality and adopted effectively across the University. Acting as the primary interface between academic and administrative stakeholders, the Registrar’s Office, IT, and system vendors, the Associate Head ensures that SIS integrations, data structures, and workflows support institutional scale, academic integrity, regulatory compliance, and long-term sustainability, while driving change management, training, and continuous improvement beyond go-live in a research-intensive university environment.
Key Responsibilities:
Implementation & Delivery
- Lead and deliver SIS Banner SaaS workstreams from configuration through go-live and beyond, acting as the institutional functional lead and product owner from the academic and business perspective.
- Own delivery milestones, dependencies, risks, and cutover readiness, ensuring system decisions support current operations and future academic and research growth.
- Ensure Banner configuration supports complex research-based academic models, including thesis-driven programs, supervisor structures, non-standard progression pathways, and funding-linked enrollment requirements.
Process & Policy Enablement
- Translate academic regulations, governance decisions, and Registrar’s Office policies into scalable system logic, ensuring Banner enforces policy while preserving academic flexibility and innovation.
- Map, standardize, and continuously optimize end-to-end academic lifecycle processes, including registration, add/drop, withdrawals, grading, academic standing, progression, graduation, records management, and scholarship eligibility.
- Define and institutionalize standard operating procedures, internal controls, and maker-checker mechanisms that ensure auditability, consistency, and institutional trust in academic data.
Testing & Readiness
- Lead business-driven user acceptance testing (UAT) to validate that Banner accurately reflects academic rules, research pathways, and student outcomes before becoming the official system of record.
- Design comprehensive test scenarios, datasets, and validation checkpoints that protect the integrity of grades, academic standing, graduation eligibility, and official transcripts.
- Oversee post-release stabilization, defect triage, and validation cycles to mitigate institutional, academic, and regulatory risk.
Training & Change Management
- Design and deliver a university-wide functional training and change enablement strategy, ensuring faculty, advisors, administrators, and student-facing teams understand how academic decisions translate into system outcomes.
- Develop role-based training materials, reference guides, and train-the-trainer programs that promote distributed ownership rather than dependence on the Registrar’s Office.
- Lead structured communications on system and process changes, clarifying impacts, timelines, and mitigation strategies for high-impact academic and research-related changes.
- Be accountable for designing, publishing, and continuously improving online learning resources that support faculty and student adoption of Banner, ensuring materials remain current with system releases, policy updates, and process changes
Data, Reporting & Compliance
- Define and govern academic data standards and business rules within the SIS, in close collaboration with Institutional Research, to ensure consistency, integrity, and reliability of downstream reporting and analytics.
- Partner with Institutional Research and senior leadership to deliver trusted academic and research-relevant dashboards, statutory submissions, and regulatory reports (e.g., CHEDS/MoE).
- Ensure consistency and alignment between operational SIS data, research analytics, funding models, and external reporting requirements.
Integrations & Cross-Function Coordination
- Serve as the academic business authority for Banner’s integration ecosystem, ensuring coherent end-to-end academic processes across SIS, LMS, ERP/Finance, CRM, Identity Management, and research-support systems.
- Collaborate with IT to validate enterprise workflows, define ownership boundaries, and prevent data fragmentation or duplication across platforms.
- Implement and manage service-level expectations, handoff protocols, and escalation pathways across academic, research, and operational units, operating under the Registrar’s delegated authority.
Operations & Continuous Improvement
- Establish and manage a structured institutional intake process for Banner enhancements and academic process improvements, prioritizing initiatives that deliver academic value, scalability, and service quality.
- Monitor system adoption, service KPIs, academic compliance indicators, and data quality metrics, leading continuous improvement cycles that evolve Banner from a transactional system into a strategic academic platform.
- Anticipate future academic and research requirements and proactively shape the Banner roadmap to support institutional growth.
Governance & Vendor Interface
- Represent the Registrar’s Office and broader academic community in institutional governance forums, contributing decision briefs, risk assessments, and strategic recommendations.
- Act as the primary academic business counterpart to SIS vendors, ensuring MBZUAI’s research-driven academic model is accurately understood, protected, and reflected in system solutions.
- Advise senior leadership on system-related academic risks, trade-offs, and long-term implications.
Other duties:
- Carry out all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.
Academic Qualifications:
- A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration or other relevant discipline.
- A postgraduate degree will be preferable.
Professional Experience:
Essential:
- At least 6-10 years in student systems/registrar operations or higher-ed business systems, with hands-on process ownership.
- Demonstrated experience leading SIS implementations or major upgrades from the business side (preferably Ellucian Banner or similar).
- Strong business analysis, documentation, and UAT leadership; proven ability to convert policy into system behavior.
- Excellent communication, facilitation, and training skills with non-technical audiences.
- Solid project delivery skills (planning, risk/issue management, cutover readiness, change management).
- Familiarity with SIS (preferably Banner) modules (Registration, Student Records, Curriculum, Degree Audit), LMS/SIS integrations, and finance touchpoints.
Preferred:
- Awareness of integration concepts (e.g., APIs/Ethos) and reporting practices.
- Experience successfully working in the UAE.
