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Academic administration and service workloads in Australian universities

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 06:45 authored by John KennyJohn Kenny, Fluck, A
This paper addresses the important and linked questions of how to manage academic performance and workload effectively. It highlights the need in a modern, corporatised university to consider the nature of academic work and optimal ways to develop workload allocation and performance management processes. This paper complements two previous papers on time associated with teaching and research components of academic work by exploring service/administration workloads. Data were collected from 665 academics with recent administration experience through a nation-wide survey in 2016 and 2018. The data were analysed to understand the median annual work hours for a range of internal and external service activities, and for a range of formal administrative roles. The analysis showed a further categorisation of academic service into operational and strategic activities. Together, the three papers underpin holistic academic workload model development using empirical annual hour allocations from a large and representative national sample of academics. This article provides an essential basis for any future consideration of performance assessment based on output measures such as research expectations, impact or quality.

History

Publication title

Australian Universities' Review

Volume

61

Pagination

21-30

ISSN

0818-8068

Department/School

Faculty of Education

Publisher

National Tertiary Education Union

Place of publication

Australia

Rights statement

Copyright © 2019 The National Tertiary Education Union

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Management, resources and leadership; Policies and development