<ITC Asia Project Manager and Translation Specialist>

Department:

Psychology

Effective Date:

January 1, 2009

Grade:

USG 9

35 hr/wk

Reports to:

Senior Project manager and Faculty Investigators

General Accountability

The ITC Asia Project Manager and Translation Specialist is accountable to the Senior Project Manager and the Faculty Investigators who work on the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC). The incumbent has two main areas of responsibility: 1) working with ITC investigator teams, including graduate students, to manage the University of Waterloo work in ITC Survey projects in Thailand, Malaysia, China, South Korea, and potentially in other countries where ITC Project is conducting surveys, and 2) participating as a member of the Cultural Translation Team which is conducting research and developing cultural translation protocols for use in the ITC Project.

Nature and Scope

The Organization

The ITC Project is an international collaboration of over 70 tobacco control researchers across 17 countries whose mission is to evaluate the behavioural and psychosocial impact of national-level tobacco control policies of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first-ever international treaty on health, which is currently in its implementation phase. The ITC Project consists of a set of parallel annual cohort surveys of large, probability samples of smokers in 17 countries so far: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, China, Mexico, Uruguay, France, New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Germany, with other countries in preparation. The resulting ITC database consists of data collected over time from these countries, and is substantial in size and complexity.

Our funding sources include the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health (U.S.), Cancer Research UK, National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the International Development Research Centre, and the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, as well as other governmental and foundation sources throughout the 17 ITC countries. Investigators and staff at UW work in partnership with their counterparts in the other countries to plan, conduct, and disseminate research.

The staff for the ITC Project at UW are housed in the Department of Psychology and in the Population Health Research Group (PHR) in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. PHR has close ties with the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation (CBRPE) funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Canada. PHR is also an active partner in the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and the Program Training and Consultation Centre of the Ontario Tobacco Strategy.

The ITC Project at UW is directed by Dr. Geoffrey T. Fong (Department of Psychology), who is also the Chief Principal Investigator of the overall ITC Project. The Data Management Centre is directed by Dr. Mary Thompson (Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science). Additional leadership and support is provided by other faculty members and staff, including a Senior Project Manager, Survey Project Managers, Data Analysts, Computer Programmers and Data Managers, Administrative Assistants, and graduate and undergraduate student Research Assistants.

Outside of the University of Waterloo, leadership and support is provided by Dr. Ron Borland of Cancer Council Victoria and the University of Melbourne, Australia; Dr. Buppha Sirirassamee from the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Thailand; Dr. Maizurah Omar of the National Poison Centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia; Dr. Jiang Yuan form Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China; and Dr. Hong Gwan Seo of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

The ITC Southeast Asia Survey (Thailand and Malaysia) has conducted three face-to-face survey waves between 2005 and 2008 and plans to launch Wave 4 in 2009. China has conducted two face-to-face survey waves and will launch Wave 3 in 2009. South Korea conducted a telephone survey in 2005 and launched Wave 2 in October 2008.

The ITC Project is in the midst of significant growth. Funding for the entire ITC Project is anticipated to continue to increase significantly, with a concomitant increase in personnel. Equally important is that the profile of our work has been increasing and will continue to increase.

Requirements of the Position

The position requires:

Master’s degree or above in Cultural Translation or Linguistics, or Master’s degree in another relevant field with a diploma or certificate in Cultural Translation or Linguistics.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Experience communicating with international colleagues is required.
Excellent decision-making, organization, and time management skills.
Experience in managing complex projects. Experience in managing a complex research project is desireable.
Scientific research experience including creating presentations for scientific meetings, participating in writing scientific papers and grant proposals, and conducting research in the area of cognitive interviewing.
Some international travel for consulting or conferences may be required.

Statistical Data

As mentioned above, the ITC Project is an international collaboration of over 70 tobacco control researchers across 17 countries, and is continually growing. University of Waterloo personnel involved in the project currently include: 7 faculty members, 13 full-time staff, 6 part-time staff, 6 graduate students and 1 postdoctoral fellow. Present annual funding exceeds 1.5 million dollars and is expected to increase in 2009, with a concomitant increase in personnel.

Specific Accountabilities

1. Overall preparation and management of the ITC Surveys in China, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and other ITC countries when required, including:

Creation and/or revision of surveys, training manuals, consent letters, and other materials for each survey wave. When required, the ITC Asia Project Manager could be involved in the development of surveys in other ITC countries.
Organization of teleconferences with country teams, ensuring meeting notes are prepared and distributed.
Contribute to the writing of technical reports (non-statistical sections of the report) in collaboration with the Data Management Centre (DMC), for each survey wave.
Lead the preparation of the national report of each ITC Asia country, in collaboration with the DMC and ITC country team.
Prepare ethics review applications for each survey wave for timely submission to the UW Office of Research Ethics and respond to recommended changes.
Liaise with ITC Asia country teams regarding ethics clearance, data sharing agreements, and other administrative issues, when required.
Work with the DMC and ITC countries on data quality and management issues.
Document and monitor the survey progress of each wave using the dotProject software system, a project management software package that has been developed and tailored for the use of the ITC Project team.
Participate in the preparation of funder Progress Reports in accordance with the requirements of the granting organization and of the UW Office of Research.
Participate in Project Manager and ITC-DMC weekly meetings and in other relevant ITC activities and initiatives as required.

2. Participation as a co-investigator on the Cultural Translation Team, assessing the validity of cross-cultural comparisons of ITC data, including:

Assist in creation of the pretesting and post hoc assessment of ITC Survey questions using a protocol that includes behavioral coding and cognitive interview.
Collaborate on the analysis and writing of scientific papers related to cognitive interviewing studies.
Assist in the creation of translation and translation checking protocols for all ITC countries that conduct surveys in languages other than English.