Producing ‘industry‐ready’ doctorates: Australian Cooperative Research Centre approaches to doctoral education

How the experience of science‐based Ph.D. students working in or funded by Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) compares with their peers in regular university science‐based departments is the key focus of this article. CRC doctoral programmes that integrate industry needs with professional development offer an alternative to traditional research training, emphasizing producing ‘industry‐ready’ graduates with a broader educational experience linked to the needs of research users. The overall experience of both groups, their attitudes to collaboration with industry and where their studies are leading them are analysed. Of particular interest is whether CRC‐related Ph.D. students have more positive attitudes towards their training, towards industry and research and development (R&D) partnerships with industry than those outside CRCs and to what extent both favour the idea of careers in industry. Findings, based on a survey of Ph.D. students in two Australian research‐intensive universities, indicate that the CRC research training experience has much to commend it. This suggests that in reforming doctoral education programmes, universities would do well to further examine the effectiveness of aspects of this alternative.     

Quality Assessment with National Institutional Rankings and Performance Funding: The Australian Experiment, 1993–1995

This paper provides a case-study of the Australian quality assurance or quality assessment program which ran for three years from 1993 to 1995. The program was somewhat unusual among recent experiments with quality assurance in OECD countries in that, while it was based on annual academic audits of participating institutions, it also included publication of detailed annual reports on each institution, national rankings of institutions, and performance funding with additional funds coming from a special additional government allocation. In each of the first two years of the program, the most highly rated universities received an amount of additional funding equal to three per cent of their annual government operating grant.     

Overview of the Reliable Information Access Workshop

The Reliable Information Access (RIA) Workshop was held in the summer of 2003, with a goal of improved understanding of information retrieval systems, in particular with regard to the variability of retrieval performance across topics. The workshop ran massive cross-system failure analysis on 45 of the TREC topics and also performed cross-system experiments on pseudo-relevance feedback. This paper presents an overview of that workshop, along with some preliminary conclusions from these experiments. Even if this workshop was held 6 years ago, the issues of improving system performance across all topics is still critical to the field and this paper, along with the others in this issue, are the first widely published full papers for the workshop.     

A tentative return to experience in researching learning at work

This paper explores possibilities for more democratic approaches to researching learning in and through everyday workplace practices. This links with a concern with who is able to speak in representations of learning at work, what is able to be spoken about and how knowing, learning and experience are inscribed in theories of workplace learning. I propose that Rancière’s notion of ‘the distribution of the sensible’, which draws attention to an aesthetic dimension of experience, knowledge and politics, provides a useful way of exploring learning in and through everyday workplace practices. The approach points to the possibility of knowledge without hierarchies and a shift from a knowledge – ignorance binary. An understanding of experience as aesthetic enables accounts of learning which counter the story of destiny in literature on learning in and through everyday practice. It also points to a very different way of doing academic research. The presupposition of equality is the point of departure in this approach and the purpose of research is the verification of equality (rather than the verification of oppression). The paper makes a significant contribution to literature on learning in and through everyday workplace practices by disrupting a prevailing view that knowledge is necessarily tied to identity.     

Darlington and the 'invention' of the chromosome

Cyril Dean Darlington (1903-1981) has been forgotten by historians, but was in his day, the leading cytologist of the premolecular era. Of humble and inconspicuous beginnings, Darlington started his career as an unpaid volunteer worker under the aging William Bateson. Working in almost total isolation and with no scientific guidance, he boldly deduced the laws of chromosome behaviour, making cytology relevant once again both to genetics and to evolutionary theory. This process did not proceed smoothly, for both Darlington's method, and cross-disciplinary approach made the reception of his novel ideas difficult. This article examines Darlington's contribution to the premolecular understanding of Life, and the reasons why it was so difficult to accept.     

Darwin’s Really Dangerous Idea

Science & Education -     

Academics and their work under dawkins: A study of five NSW universities

This paper reports views of academic staff from five Australian institutions of higher education on a number of issues relating to teaching and research and changes affecting their work since the introduction of the unified national system. While most academics are satisfied with their jobs, staff morale is given a low rating. Academics cite a number of limitations experienced in carrying out their research and teaching. The academic work week is just under 50 hours, but there are clear differences between the established and newer universities in the apportioning of time to research and teaching related activities. This pattern is repeated in the publication record, grant success and perceived pressure to upgrade professional qualifications. The data suggest that the newer universities feel under pressure to emulate the structure and organisation of the traditional “elite” universities rather than seeking a legitimate niche for their particular type of operations within the unified national system. This means that for some years they will find considerable difficulty competing with traditional universities using the standard measures of research performance.     

Australian social scientists and transition to a more commercial university environment

Australian social scientists generally are highly critical of Commonwealth Government higher education policy and funding levels, and the new commercial, entrepreneurial and managerial university environment. They are frustrated with increased workloads, higher degrees of regulation and reporting requirements, incompetence of university management and often deteriorating social relations within academic departments. At the same time, many social scientists have proved to be remarkably adaptable, showing high degrees of interest in and commitment to their teaching and research, impressive levels of research productivity and substantial involvement in providing policy advice to government and in commercial activities, including recruiting fee‐paying domestic and international students, consultancies and attracting external research funds. Many work effectively with colleagues or in research teams, and often publish jointly with colleagues from their own and other institutions. Despite strong research links with government agencies, respondents report that their research is primarily driven by intrinsic interest and to generate inputs to teaching, rather than by utilitarian motives.