By Ian Dobson. My thoughts are anthropological, environmental, and geographical in that my family and I find ourselves in new cultural, geographical, and academic surrounds. I have recently moved with partner and 26-month-old daughter to rural New South Wales to take up a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship at a regional university. More...

By Ian Dobson. When a committee needs to rank applications, it is worthwhile having committee members independently rank the applications and then starting the committee’s discussion with the medians of the ranks. More...

By Ian Dobson. Australian universities are increasingly resorting to the use of journal metrics such as impact factors and ranking lists in appraisal and promotion processes, and are starting to set quantitative ‘performance expectations’ which make use of such journal-based metrics. More...

By Ian Dobson. Safety management systems in Australian higher education organisations are under-researched. Limited workplace safety information can be found in the various reports on university human resources benchmarking programs, and typically they show only descriptive statistics. More...

By Ian Dobson. Intrinsic motivation is considered the dominant factor in the motivation of adult students in continuing postgraduate education. However, the strength of an intrinsic motivation to learn does not explain the phenomenon of dropout where the student withdraws and does not return or where the student withdraws and then recommences their postgraduate research studies. More...

By Ian Dobson. With globalising transnational corporate law firms, high rates of depression among law students and lawyers, and a changing role for lawyers in the world of dispute resolution, academics and professional bodies have been doing some soul searching. They are pondering just what is required in a law degree to train future lawyers adequately. More...

By Ian Dobson. In Arts Nation 2015, the Australia Council documented the current landscape of artistic endeavour in Australia, acknowledging that there are still gaps that need to be filled to build a greater public understanding of the arts in Australia. The contribution of Australian universities to the arts is one such lacuna. More...

By Ian Dobson. This paper explores human resource management practices in the university sector with a specific focus on talent pools and talent management more generally. The paper defines talent management in the context of the university sector and then explores its interdependence with organisational strategy, the metrics used to measure academic performance and current day-to-day management practices. More...

By Ian Dobson. Massive growth in the numbers of fee-paying international students and an increasing private sector role are two of the most salient features of Australian higher education in the past quarter century. Both these trends were evident in a little known partnership, involving a public regional university and a private entrepreneur, which had its origins in 1993. More...