….er….yeah, of course this is what universities are doing. Did you think it would be any other way? Universities have finite (and shrinking) resources. We have to be strategic in how we allocate those resources and as ERA is one of the way in which we are assessed, it is natural to direct resources to where we will get the most bang for our buck.
The real question is whether this is a good or a bad thing ….
Humans are organisms well adapted to taking the easiest pathway to an end point. Given the development of a metric, it WILL be used. The caveats of those who develop the metric will be lost, the metric will trump narrative…. there are some amazingly flawed metrics that are used to assess academics often designed by those with extremely limited experience as a functional research and teaching academic. That’s just what humans do. My suggestion is to analyze the metric VERY carefully, argue its weaknesses (if it has any) quantitatively, and hope that those who look good by the current metric don’t become its apologists!
The next step (and the foot has already risen) are the KPIs.
If the ERA has any purpose at all, other than simply to grow a surveillance bureaucracy, then surely it must be to identify national areas of research strength. Who are the most likely users of this information? Most probably they are graduate students, who are looking for the best place to study their speciality.
And here is precisely where the current ERA fails. There are some examples in the 2012 data, in which a research group has gained a 5 – putting it on a par with the greatest researchers in the World – but further analysis shows that the research “group” is a single individual with a high publication rate. In some instances, that supposedly 5-ranked research “group” cannot even offer an undergraduate teaching programme in its research speciality, and certainly has no capacity to mentor an aspiring Research Higher-Degree Student.
So if we are to continue with the ERA, and have it mean anything, we have two choices: Either abandon the research “groups”, and instead opt for an individual ranking (as New Zealand already does); Or else demand that no research group is eligible for ERA assessment unless it can demonstrate that it teaches the undergraduate canon in its speciality and that it has a proven track-record in Research Higher-Degree student supervision.
Performance measurement manipulation (PMM) has been around for many years in securing images and funding resource by research and educational institutions, particularly at university level. A lot of research on critical accounting point to this issue. And such a trend becomes worse when a university categorises “the level” an individual academic performance and direct academics using KMP. What New Zealand does may be useful to be adopted.
….er….yeah, of course this is what universities are doing. Did you think it would be any other way? Universities have finite (and shrinking) resources. We have to be strategic in how we allocate those resources and as ERA is one of the way in which we are assessed, it is natural to direct resources to where we will get the most bang for our buck.
The real question is whether this is a good or a bad thing ….
Humans are organisms well adapted to taking the easiest pathway to an end point. Given the development of a metric, it WILL be used. The caveats of those who develop the metric will be lost, the metric will trump narrative…. there are some amazingly flawed metrics that are used to assess academics often designed by those with extremely limited experience as a functional research and teaching academic. That’s just what humans do. My suggestion is to analyze the metric VERY carefully, argue its weaknesses (if it has any) quantitatively, and hope that those who look good by the current metric don’t become its apologists!
The next step (and the foot has already risen) are the KPIs.
ERA was always a waste of time and money.
If the ERA has any purpose at all, other than simply to grow a surveillance bureaucracy, then surely it must be to identify national areas of research strength. Who are the most likely users of this information? Most probably they are graduate students, who are looking for the best place to study their speciality.
And here is precisely where the current ERA fails. There are some examples in the 2012 data, in which a research group has gained a 5 – putting it on a par with the greatest researchers in the World – but further analysis shows that the research “group” is a single individual with a high publication rate. In some instances, that supposedly 5-ranked research “group” cannot even offer an undergraduate teaching programme in its research speciality, and certainly has no capacity to mentor an aspiring Research Higher-Degree Student.
So if we are to continue with the ERA, and have it mean anything, we have two choices: Either abandon the research “groups”, and instead opt for an individual ranking (as New Zealand already does); Or else demand that no research group is eligible for ERA assessment unless it can demonstrate that it teaches the undergraduate canon in its speciality and that it has a proven track-record in Research Higher-Degree student supervision.
Performance measurement manipulation (PMM) has been around for many years in securing images and funding resource by research and educational institutions, particularly at university level. A lot of research on critical accounting point to this issue. And such a trend becomes worse when a university categorises “the level” an individual academic performance and direct academics using KMP. What New Zealand does may be useful to be adopted.