New website not quite the face universities want to show

The federal government’s new MyUniversity website has created a face for the Australian higher education and conveyed it to the world. Trouble is, it’s not an accurate reflection, says the sector. Universities Australia (UA) could give only “cautious support” when tertiary education minister Senator Chris Evans launched the site yesterday. Chief executive Belinda Robinson said MyUniversity was riddled with erroneous information and data that lacked the context prospective students needed — especially international students. “People around the world are going to be looking to this web site not just in terms of making choices between universities, but in considering their choice to study in Australia at all,” Robinson told CR. “It really is incumbent on that web site to be the best and the most accurate it can possibly be.” Specifically, UA is concerned about the accuracy of comparative information on attrition rates and staff-to-student ratios at the nation’s 39 universities. The peak body also says course mapping and searchability functions are lacking, too. “It doesn’t really tell students anything about the quality of the classroom experience that they can reasonably expect,” said Robinson. She warned students and their parents that MyUniversity was not a one-stop shop and encouraged them to seek deeper information directly from institutions. The Gillard Government had committed to launching the $1.5 million MyUniversity site, which follows the controversial yet popular MySchool sister platform, by January. The site was built within Senator Evans’ department with data collected through the Higher Education Information Management System, including information on fees, courses, scholarships, student services, cut-off scores, and student satisfaction and graduation destination surveys. The government has touted MyUniversity as a way to ensure accountability in the new demand-driven system. But the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which has levelled some of the harshest criticism of the site by saying it provides little more than league tables, disputes the claim. “I don’t really see the need for a site like this; I don’t think it adds to the capacity of the people to make informed choices, nor is it a way of addressing the issue of quality in higher education,” NTEU president Jeannie Rae told CR. “There are multiple ways that we try to assure the quality of higher education, the most important ones are by the quality of the teaching and learning programs… So arguing that it is part of a quality assurance measure is not really convincing.” The National Union of Students (NUS) said it supported the introduction of as much information for students as possible, especially in an independent form that went beyond universities peddling their brands. “We would not want data that’s being displayed on a government website to have been tweaked by universities to paint the best picture of the degree they offer,” said NUS president Donherra Walmsley. “We think it’s very important that all data is collected in a uniform way, so it’s a clear and accurate picture of what students can expect if they choose to attend that university.” She said the NUS would like the next iteration of MyUniversity to break down general versus academic staff to give students a much better idea of class size, and to specify whether the campus services listed were run by students or the university. “Students have a right to know whether they will be enrolling at a campus with a culture of student-run student life and student services,” Walmsley said. While it’s not clear that a neutral authority such as MyUniversity is something universities ever wanted, it’s certainly something they will have to live with it for at least the near future. “I think it’s unfortunate that it’s gone ahead with the problems that it does have still afflicting it,” said the UA’s Robinson. “Nevertheless, the government has committed to working with us to ensure those problems are addressed as quickly as possible and [has said] it will be subject to ongoing review and continual improvement.” The Group of Eight declined to comment about MyUniversity. The site can be accessed at myuniversity.gov.au.