Academics today face an array of challenges to their enthusiasm, including teaching students from diverse backgrounds with wavering levels of engagement with their studies. Furthermore, reform to the tertiary education sector has seen the corporatisation of universities with management increasingly measuring academic outcomes in respect of both…

Quantitative methods and secondary data informed by critical realism and a feminist standpoint provide a contemporary snapshot of academic gender ratios in Australian universities, along with historical data, for the entire population of interest. The study is set in the context of the well-researched, worldwide gendered nature of higher education…

Disciplines have emerged as an alternative administrative structure to departments or schools in Australian universities. We presently investigate the pattern of discipline use and by way of case study examine a role for distributed leadership in discipline management. Over forty per cent of Australian universities currently employ disciplines,…

Research on teaching and learning in the Hong Kong higher education context is the basis for exploration of how on-campus teachers and students view their educational experience. Contrary to stereotypes, teachers reveal themselves as highly student-centered, helping and guiding their students while carefully orchestrating the learning experience…

A discussion of the philosophy of open learning in higher education, particularly in the Australian context, looks at a variety of issues, including societal pressures to redirect higher education, the teaching role of faculty, student-centered curricula, lifelong learning, need for new student assessment strategies, and student attitudes toward…

Examines models of academic work in terms of the concepts of "residual, dominant, and emergent" discourses and practices, and in light of changing roles of universities, particularly in Australia. Models discussed include those viewing the academic as bureaucratic professional, market professional who defines his own work but produces for the…

The history of research in Australian higher education gives insight into fundamental tension about the role of research and the university's role in society. It is concluded that each university will have to choose what it is good at, and researchers should be faculty who have a demonstrated research talent. (MSE)

The trend toward unionization of Australia's public university faculty and the redefinition of academic work according to market forces are examined. It is concluded that there are substantial contradictions in subjecting public sector employment to private sector modes of work organization, reward systems, and management models that must be…

The status of Australian law and policy concerning college faculty's intellectual property rights is examined briefly. A number of recent occurrences, some reflecting trends and some discrete events, are used to illustrate the legal and cultural circumstances that frame the discussion about intellectual property and academics. (MSE)

Effects of recent changes in Australian higher education on everyday academic work are examined, including changed emphases in teaching, research, administration, and public service and new demands associated with allocation of time, self-regulation, fragmentation of work into more discrete tasks, greater uniformity of effort, recruitment…

Surveys of 100 Australian college and university faculty in 1987 and again in 1992, after implementation of new higher education policies, found decreased levels of faculty satisfaction with their work (substance and conditions), their students, and their administrations. Unsatisfactory levels of stress and tension at work were also found. (MSE)

It is argued that university faculty, in their involvement with students, have the most direct impact on educational quality, and that impingement on their autonomy leads to reactive curriculum design, decreased motivation, and skewed values concerning research and publication. Australian university administrators are called on to use available…

A survey of 112 higher education institutions in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Flanders (Belgium) sought information about governance and decision-making structures, including the involvement of faculty, administrators, and governing councils at different levels; areas in which these actors participate…

Graduate student journals of research projects and their supervision are suggested as a means of structuring the supervisory process, making it more accountable, and facilitating students' successful completion of their academic and research tasks. However, the method also requires skill in successful thesis production on the supervisor's part.…

The problem of inadequate supervision of graduate-level academic work and research projects is examined, focusing on the lack of understanding of the supervisory role and disciplinary differences in research degree expectations. The concept of research supervisor as mentor is discussed, drawing on recent literature. Some efforts to train…