By Ian Dobson (NTEU National Office). In 2008, the University of Melbourne rolled out its restructured undergraduate degree program offerings. Rather than offering a multitude of faculty-specific degrees, the University started to offer a limited number of generalist degrees that serve as developmental pathways to specialist masters programs as well as stand-alone employment preparation. While the other ‘Melbourne Model’ degrees in arts, science, commerce and biomedicine primarily aligned with their cognate faculty, one degree, the Bachelor of Environments, was taught across four faculties. More...

By Ian Dobson (NTEU National Office). Earlier work inspired by a body of literature raised important questions about the workings of the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) and its predecessor the Research Assessment Framework (RAE), and noted the possible adverse outcomes of such processes. This paper builds on this by examining the findings of a small survey of social science academics. The survey identified concerns about the validity of the REF as a proxy for quality, and the role it has had in shaping patterns of research behaviour. More...

By Ian Dobson (NTEU National Office). This paper brings together recent statistics relating to the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education. A number of key statistical realities relating to their enrolment into, retention during, and completion of, their university courses are depicted. Foremost among these realities is that despite initiatives over recent years to redress their under-representation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ participation in higher education remains significantly below the population parity rate. More...

By Ian Dobson (NTEU National Office). Many researchers have investigated the appropriateness of pay for outperformance, (also called ‘merit-based pay’ and ‘performance-based pay’) for academics, but a review of this body of work shows that the voice of academics themselves is largely absent. This article is a contribution to addressing this gap, summarising the views of a sample of academics at one Australian university about the promises and problems of outperformance pay. More...