In the literature, student self-assessment as a practice and as a goal in higher education is generally emphasized for academics. This paper reports a study that investigates what academics emphasize in their experiences of student self-assessment. The investigation focused on the different ways academics described their understanding and practise of self-assessment. A phenomenographic approach was used to research and identify a set of progressive variations of academics' ways of experiencing student self-assessment. Altogether, 16 academics from a variety of disciplines and programs of study in three Australian universities participated in the investigation. The consequent research findings describe five qualitatively different conceptions that depict how academics understand and use student self-assessment. These findings are subsequently discussed in terms of the potential for academics to understand and use student self-assessment to enhance students' self-assessment ability, to further students' lifelong learning and to empower, rather than discipline, students. (Contains 1 table.)