In this article the author discusses public reaction generated by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. He argues that it is not simply that the methodologies adopted by the main rankers -- Times Higher Education (THE), QS and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University -- are diverse and open to the usual interpretation, but there…

Commonwealth funding formulae have caused Australian universities to become obsessed with maximising external research funding. Considerable pressure is applied to faculties, departments and scholars to apply for funding, and relative success in attracting it is given excessive weight in evaluating research performance. This may be productive in…

A discussion of concerns about quality in higher education focuses on the use of performance indicators as measures of quality. Great care is advised in the use of performance indicators because available indicators are not sufficiently substantive in relation to higher education's goals, processes, and outcomes. (MSE)

It is argued that university policies and procedures concerning assurance of quality education are framed with little regard for significant differences among disciplines, and that some common approaches to assuring academic quality impinge on some aspects of research, undergraduate teaching, and graduate work. Focus is on England and Australia.…

It is argued that despite the current view of college teaching as a discrete set of skills, good teaching is more complex and involves understanding the specific contexts in which teaching occurs, and how teachers understand and communicate concepts to a changing student population. Portfolio-based peer assessment of college teachers is…

Australian efforts to assess the usefulness of performance indicators (PI) for evaluating higher education are chronicled. It is suggested that key issues must be resolved before PI can be fully embraced. These include aspects of data gathering and analysis, purpose for using PI, quality of data, and adequacy of indicators. (MSE)