We are seeking an organised and customer-focused Programme Administrator to join our team. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys delivering high-quality administrative support, coordinating student and academic activities, managing programme operations, and ensuring an excellent experience for students throughout their academic journey.
The position is set to commence 1 September 2026 and will be from 37.5 hours per week for 12 weeks (with a pay rate of £18.80 per hour + holiday pay).
Main Duties:
A) Student support and enquiries:
- Act as the first point of contact for prospective and on-course students
- Ensure an excellent level of service provision by promptly managing enquiries, providing accurate and tailored advice, dealing with concerns knowledgably and professionally. The post-holder will manage enquiries about the course and its structure from prospective students until the point at which a decision is made on their application by the Admissions Panel. The post-holder will support on-course students from the point at which their contracts are returned to the University through to graduation and beyond.
- Provide course information to students in a timely manner. This will include reviewing and updating programme-specific elements of the Course Handbook and Programme CANVAS site, creating student induction packs, and disseminating up-to-date information to students.
- Effective liaison with the School’s Programme Coordinator and Education Manager to ensure that all sources of course information are made available in the ways required by University policy and through the School’s student information and communication channels.
- Ensuring that information on courses, including timetabling, course outlines and enrolment procedures for options, is disseminated to students clearly, accurately, and in a timely manner
- Communicating student deadlines and circulating necessary reminders
- Managing the administration of student supervision arrangements
Supporting the process for gathering and collating student feedback, including by sending, monitoring and analysing termly surveys with review oversight from the Programme Coordinator
- Providing administrative support to students and the Course Director in promoting and facilitating student immersions/ secondments/ placements/ overseas fieldwork/ university visits and/or exchanges.
- Liaising with the Language Centre, academic and administrative colleagues to support Language Centre priority students as required.
- Assist with PBI monitoring (points based immigration relating to student visas)
B) Supporting the Programme’s academic staff to help oversee operational and administrative aspects of the Programme:
- Supporting admissions activity within the Programme, providing access for assessors to applications and monitoring the selection process to the point that final decisions are communicated to the OSGA Admissions Team
- Assisting the Programme admissions assessors in completion of scholarship nominations for the Clarendon, ESRC another ad-hoc funding opportunities and submission to the OSGA Admissions Team
- Liaising closely with the OSGA Admissions Team as required to address queries as they arise
- Liaising closely with the Course Director / DPhil Director in the planning of the Programme’s student induction and communicating plans and relevant information to the incoming cohort
- Providing administrative support to the Course Director / DPhil Director for Course planning, including communication with lecturers
- Coordinating the drafting of Programme timetables and managing associated room bookings
- Keeping a record of supervisory arrangements and liaising with supervisors from time to time
- Liaising with both academic and administrative colleagues in OSGA and other departments to maintain accurate records of available option courses
- Provide events support for regular/reoccurring Programme events in support of teaching and other core Programme activities. This may include arranging for appropriate IT support, requesting event risk assessments, managing room bookings, organising catering, support for visa, travel, and accommodation bookings as required.
- Assisting with the maintenance of the programme CANVAS site in consultation with the CANVAS team in IT Services as appropriate and updating ORLO reading lists after consultation with the Course Director and/or specific course convenors. Signposting academic colleagues to appropriate training for these systems so they can maintain their course related content including reading lists.
- Liaising closely with colleagues within the School and across the collegiate University on all Programme relevant matters (for example, fieldwork risk assessments, travel insurance, and pre-checking before sending research ethics approvals)
- Servicing School and Programme Committees as required including GAS Management and Teaching Committee and GJCC
- Working with the Programme Coordinator and Connected Communications Team to support accurate programme marketing and communications and the creation and development of Programme promotional materials as required.
C) Facilitating Examinations and Assessments including:
- Coordinating and managing the course options process and ensuring that students are correctly registered with the Academic Records Office
- Effectively managing the administration of formative and summative assignments, using Outlook, Inspera, and Turnitin (as required) and to assess submitted work for plagiarism as appropriate
- Liaising with conveners and External Examiners re paper setting
- Formatting papers/assessments
- Setting up exams in Inspera (checking candidate entry including those from other Departments, uploading questions, communicating deadlines and submissions instructions)
- Sending detailed instructions to candidates on submission rules and using Inspera
- Downloading submissions and disseminating these to markers
- Tracking and following up on late and non-submissions
- Assisting the internal examiner with collating marks
- Formatting and sending out submission feedback
- Providing statistical data for internal examiner’s report
- Maintaining and updating the Examiner Appointments and Payments (EAP) portal with
- examiner and assessor nominations and payments
- Sending marks and Mitigating Circumstances Notices to Examiners (MCE) to central
- OSGA board
- Process non-welfare related applications for dispensations to Education Committee
- Submitting MCE outcomes, marks, and final degree outcomes via eVision for
- publication to students once approved by the OSGA Exam Board.
- Updating/writing exam Conventions
- Updating/writing exam Regulations
Selection Criteria:
- Experience of postgraduate academic administration and/or evidence of professional administrative skills in a Higher Education Environment.
- Good levels of numeracy and experience of monitoring budgets.
- Evidence of good computer literacy including familiarity with entire Microsoft Office suite and a sound working knowledge of Virtual Learning Environments e.g. CANVAS.
- Ability to pay attention to detail and produce high quality, accurate work.
- Excellent organisational and time management skills and evidence of successfully prioritising competing demands in a busy working environment.
- Ability to work independently, with minimum supervision, and a willingness to resolve situations, as well as knowing when to escalate and delegate issues to others.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate confidently with a diverse range of people through a variety of media.
- Ability to clearly and accurately communicate complex processes and procedures.
- Strong interpersonal and team skills with ability to proactively work with a physically dispersed team.
- Ability to relate to a wide range of people including students from a diverse range of backgrounds.
- Working tactfully and discreetly when dealing with material of a confidential or sensitive nature.
- Willingness to complete relevant training, both externally funded and/or provided by the University of Oxford including visa/immigration training in order to facilitate staff and other visits from overseas.
Vacancy ID: 23877
Please be aware that all candidates need to be able to start work immediately and must be able to work on site if required to do so.
Further information can about the Temporary Staffing Service can be found on our website https://www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/temporary-staffing-service