Australia's New Accountability Tool

By Andrew Trounson for The Australian. An Australian version of the European Union's university profiling tool, U-Map, could be in place within six months as part of a bid to reduce public and institutional obsession with research-biased rankings, while highlighting areas such as teaching.
But the tool will shine a spotlight on universities' vulnerabilities, too, including areas of poor research performance. Unlike the EU's U-Map project, which is dependent on the willingness of universities to participate and supply information, the Australian version will be based on publicly available data and include all universities, whether they like it or not.
Advocates hope it will encourage universities to be proud of their strengths and break the hold that research intensive universities have on prestige. But some fear its profiling will justify further concentration of research funds in a small number of institutions, including the elite Group of Eight. Read more...