The University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne has published a coordinated set of documents which set out its strategic plan, operational plan for 1999 and a statement of its formal accountability structure. These documents define the University’s approach to quality assurance and improvement which are core components to its planning, reporting and evaluation cycles.

This Quality Assurance and Improvement Plan is based on these published documents, copies of which are available on request.

Mission and vision

The mission of the University of Melbourne is:

To make the University of Melbourne one of the finest universities in the world

The vision on which planning, quality assurance and accountability are focussed is:

of a University of Melbourne international in character and focus, and world class in the staff and students it attracts, the research and scholarship it produces and the academic standards to which it adheres; a university adding immense intellectual, cultural and professional energy to the City of Melbourne, and serving Victoria and Australia by performing and being acknowledged as one of the finest universities in the world.

Guiding values

The University of Melbourne is committed to:

• maintaining the highest international standards of ethics and quality in research, teaching and administration;
• advancing the intellectual, cultural, economic and social welfare of Melbourne, Victoria and Australia;
• working with other international universities to enrich intellectual discourse, educational quality and research activity in the international community;
• defending the academic freedom of all staff and students to engage in rational inquiry and public discourse without fear or favour; and

• creating a diverse, harmonious scholarly community committed to equity and merit as the fundamental principles through which staff and students are encouraged and assisted to realise their full potential.

Strategic plan

Quality assurance and enhancement are central to and shaped by the University’s strategic planning process. The University’s strategic plan is subject to detailed annual review with a revised plan approved by the Academic Board and the Council.

The updated strategic plan, Perspective 1998, sets the framework for the achievement of the vision at all levels of the University. Perspective 1998 sets out a strategic audit of the major challenges resulting from the external environment and an appraisal of the institutional realities which crystallise the ambitious program necessary for the University to realise its vision in the Melbourne Agenda.

The Melbourne Agenda recognises that:

• there are no ‘wealthy’ universities in Australia;

• to remain internationally competitive, Australia needs at least one world-class university;

and commits Melbourne to becoming a great national and international University, specifically by taking up the challenge:

• to position itself as a superb campus-based research and teaching university that simultaneously offers its students and staff all the benefits of operating through advanced educational technologies and methodologies;

• to embrace new international paradigms of the kind envisaged in Universitas 21, with its goals of genuinely international accreditation and quality assurance; and

• through the establishment of Melbourne University Private Limited and by other means to pioneer new ways of financing the University of Melbourne, and to create in Parkville a greater Melbourne higher education precinct.

Perspective 1998 sets out seven goals which direct and inform the University’s strategic and operational planning. These are:

Quality people: To strengthen Melbourne as a preferred destination and a supportive workplace for outstanding staff and students from Australia and around the world.

Quality research: To advance the reputation and performance of Melbourne as a major international research university, and to strengthen its role as a centre of advanced research training.

Quality teaching and learning: To create and maintain a teaching and learning environment offering undergraduate and postgraduate education of the highest quality.

Internationalisation: To promote internationalisation as a profoundly formative agenda throughout the University and to position Melbourne internationally as one of the leading universities in the world.

Quality management: To achieve continuous quality improvement in the academic and executive management and administration of the University.

Quality infrastructure: To invest aesthetic value, amenity and high levels of functional utility into the University’s buildings and campuses, and to equip and maintain all University facilities so as to promote academic enterprise of the highest international standards.

Resourcing quality: To provide the University with a resource base enabling it to be internationally competitive at the highest level.

Quality assurance and improvement

The quality assurance and improvement processes within the University focus on the achievement of strategies established for each of these goals. The planning process recognises that achievement of the Melbourne Agenda is a longer term goal which drives the priorities set for day-to-day operational management at all levels in the University. This is achieved through an annual operational plan which takes into account the external circumstances likely to impact on the operation of the University and the achievement of the longer term goals, and identifies priorities for the immediate planning period. The key priorities for 1998 were:

1. Internationalisation

2. Enhancing research performance

3. Transforming teaching and learning

4. Diversifying the funding base

Underpinning the strategic and operational planning processes is the University’s accountability structure, Ensuring Accountability, which sets out the annual cycle of planning, reporting and evaluation. The cycle contains the essential elements of the University’s quality assurance program:

• annual reporting of performance against plans to the University Council;

• annual updating of the strategic and operational plans in light of performance;

• strategic review of budget divisions through the annual performance review;

• development of plan-driven, incentive-based budgeting which is linked to performance against targets specified in the operational plan;

• the establishment of contestable targets and accountability for their achievement;

• comprehensive annual program of feedback and evaluation from major stakeholders consisting of:

— quality of teaching student feedback surveys;

— quality of student support surveys;

— staff surveys of quality of University management and administration;

— research student surveys of quality of supervision and academic resources;

— survey of Melbourne graduates at two and five years after graduation;

— survey of employers’ perceptions of Melbourne graduates.

Through the accountability structure, these quality assurance and improvement activities both inform and are informed by the strategic and operational plans that guide the attainment of the Melbourne Agenda.

Performance against plan

Within the space permitted, the University is able to report on performance against only a small selection of the targets set to achieve the strategies identified in its strategic plan. This report is structured around the four priority areas identified in the University’s 1998 operational plan.

Goal: To position the University of Melbourne internationally as a world class university

Outcome: Melbourne was rated as one of Asia’s top three universities in both 1997 and 1998 for its academic standing in a survey of university chief executives in the Asia region as reported in Asiaweek magazine.

Strategies: Attracting national and international students of exceptional ability; promoting staff and student interaction with other leading universities, irrespective of their location internationally.

• Melbourne has been the first choice for more than 68 percent of the top 2.5 percent of Victorian Certificate of Education applicants for the past three years.

• University of choice for 57 of the 60 ‘top ten’ Victorian Certificate of Education students between 1993 and 1997.

• Through the Melbourne national scholarships program, increasing numbers of ‘top ten’ interstate students relocate to Melbourne to enrol in the University.

• Around 300 Melbourne Abroad scholarships were available in 1998 to enable students to study at an overseas institution as part of their award course studies. Study Abroad and exchange student enrolments for first semester 1998 were more than 50 per cent higher than in 1997.

Strategy: Maintaining curricula that are relevant, sensitive and accessible to students from culturally diverse backgrounds, and prepare graduates to live and work effectively within the international community.

• Establishment of the Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies to strengthen the University’s focus on Asia and internationalisation.

• Promulgation of a University-wide cultural diversity policy which commits the University to a culture in which all students and staff share an appreciation of cultural diversity in outlook, values and understanding.

Strategy: Promoting inter-operability with kindred universities through quality benchmarking and participation in international consortia.

Outcome: The University takes a leading role in Universitas 21, an international network of 17 major research-intensive universities, in which the members have agreed to undertake a range of developmental projects including: international quality assurance; student mobility; and flexible learning.

Goal: To secure major advances in research output and in the national and international funding of research and research training at the University

Strategies: In evaluating research performance; placing increasing emphasis on the international benchmarking of research quality and output against the performance of first-rank international research universities; using Melbourne Research Scholarships to increase research enrolments.

• In terms of research performance, Melbourne is ranked as Australia’s leading university in both the amount of income earned from national competitive research grants and the international citation rankings of its research publications (based on Institute for Scientific Information data for the years 1993 to 1997):

*Direct comparison for competitive grants income between the ANU and the other universities is not possible

• Over the five years from 1994 to 1999, the number of new Melbourne research scholarships available for high-achieving students to undertake research degrees at Melbourne has increased from 80 to 230.

Goal: To transform teaching and learning in the University through the systematic, innovative application of multimedia and related educational technologies to the ways students learn, and to curriculum design, development and delivery

To strengthen the University as a meritocratic institution offering high quality, campus-based educational programs and support facilities to qualified students irrespective of socio-economic circumstances or other disadvantages

• Overall performance in all faculties for the question, this subject was well taught, in the student evaluation of teaching surveys has averaged 3.5 (five-point scale with 5 as the highest score) or higher in each semester over the past four years.
• Outcomes for the University’s 1998 student survey of the quality of the support services again showed high levels of satisfaction (five point scale in which 5.0 is the highest score) as shown in the table below.

• Melbourne received national recognition for excellence in its international student support services with the win of an Australian Award for University Teaching in 1998.

Strategy: Providing every student with consistent, ready and cost-efficient access to adequate computing, including access to the Internet.

• All enrolled students are able to access the Internet from home through agreements between the University and Internet service providers.
• All students are eligible to access an e-mail address. By November 1998, almost 19 000 undergraduate students had taken advantage of this opportunity.
• Campus computer facilities available on a 24 hours, seven days per week basis.

Strategy: Providing ‘seed’ funding for the costs of innovation and development in teaching and learning, and encouraging all departments to make educational resources available through the Internet

• The University has provided more than $8.0m over three years, through its multimedia and educational technologies grants, to assist in the transformation of undergraduate teaching and learning in the University.

Strategy: Increasing the emphasis on access for qualified students from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially through special admissions programs and Melbourne scholarships.

• More than 300 students selected and enrolled in 1998 through the University’s Targeted Access Program and Mature Age Bridging Scheme which give recognition to groups otherwise under-represented within the University’s undergraduate population.
• Since 1997, around 70 University-funded Melbourne rural and access scholarships have been awarded to students from equity groups which are under-represented in higher education. These are additional to the Commonwealth merit-based equity scholarships.
• An extensive review of the University’s Koori student support services has led to the appointment of a Director for a new Centre for Indigenous Education and the establishment of a Chair to be filled by an Indigenous Australian.
• In 1999, facilities for Indigenous students will be relocated to a strategic position on the main Parkville campus.

Goal: A major reduction in the dependence of the University on public funding

Outcome: Success of the 1997 enterprise agreement enabled the University to achieve significant increases in fee-based revenues, reward staff with significant salary increases and avoid quality-diminishing rounds of funding and staffing cuts.

Strategies: A major expansion of fee-based programs for overseas students; maintenance and, where possible, expansion of postgraduate coursework programs for domestic students; restructuring and expansion of the Melbourne scholarships program to service fee-based enrolments.

• Growth in aggregate fee-based student load of more than 100 per cent over a four year period as follows:

• In 1998, international student enrolments have increased by 32 per cent.
• Some 160 outstanding undergraduate students, spread across all faculties, chose to enrol in a fee-based place linked to a Melbourne scholarship offering significant benefits over a HECS-based place.

Strategy: Consideration of partial privatisation options including the proposal to establish an educational, research and consultancy enterprise.

Outcomes: Melbourne University Private was formally established in 1998, consisting initially of the School of Multimedia and Information Technology and the School of Energy and the Environment. The private university will have a high level of inter-operability with and reliance on the University of Melbourne for accreditation of its academic programs and for quality assurance.

Attributes of the Melbourne graduate

Defining the objectives of an undergraduate education

The University of Melbourne is a research-intensive university that attaches the very highest priority to undergraduate education and seeks to stimulate, nurture and develop graduates of the finest international calibre.

The University seeks to pursue this educational mission by attracting outstanding students, nationally and internationally, and providing them with:

• formal teaching programs of the highest international quality;
• a learning environment enriched by an intensive research culture;
• world-class teaching and learning facilities, and
• a vibrant intellectual life in a stimulating campus community.

The University expects its graduates to be educated, informed, cultured people, able to contribute effectively to their communities wherever in the world they choose to live and work. It recognises that such people should have the following qualities:

• profound respect for truth and intellectual integrity, and for the ethics of scholarship;
• highly developed cognitive and analytical skills;
• capacity for independent critical thought, rational inquiry and self-directed learning;
• intellectual curiosity and creativity, including understanding of the philosophical and methodological bases of research activity;
• openness to new ideas and unconventional critiques of received wisdom;
• extensive knowledge of a particular discipline or professional area, including relevant professional knowledge and skills, and informed respect for the principles, disciplines, values and ethics of a chosen profession;
• ability and self-confidence to handle complex ideas and concepts, both lucidly and in writing;
• awareness of advanced communications technologies and modalities, sound working skills in the application of computer systems and software, and receptiveness to the expanding opportunities of the ‘information revolution’;
• international awareness and openness to the world based on understanding and appreciation of social and cultural diversity and respect for individual human rights and dignity;
• leadership capacity, including an individual willingness to engage in constructive public discourse, to take on social and civic responsibilities and to speak out against prejudice, injustice and the abuse of power.

• Employment and further education outcomes for Melbourne graduates are obtained through the national Graduate Destinations Survey of all graduates which is conducted annually around six months after completion of study.
• Outcomes over the past three years for Melbourne graduates are as follows:

• The 1997 unemployment rates for Melbourne graduates are lower than those for graduates of other Victorian and other Australian universities as follows:

The university experience

Melbourne conducts annual surveys of graduates at two years and five years after completion of study as part of its accountability structure. The survey collects feedback from the graduates on current employment and their views of the extent to which the University helped them to develop specific knowledge and skills.

The four cohorts surveyed in 1997 rated the statement on overall university experience as shown below (five point scale in which 5.0 is the highest).

Employer perceptions

A 1997 survey of employers of graduates of the University conducted by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research shows that Melbourne graduates demonstrate to a high degree the range of knowledge and analytical, communication and general work skills valued in the workplace.

The table below shows the performance of Melbourne graduates on three key measures. Scores obtained by Melbourne graduates (on a five-point scale) suggest that they are regarded more highly on average than graduates of other universities.

Course Experience Questionnaire

The information on outcomes for the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is provided at the request of the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. The University agrees with those responsible for the conduct of the CEQ that its best use is in comparing outcomes achieved within institutions rather than for making comparisons between institutions.

The data below shows the percentage of respondents who indicated that they ‘agreed’ or ‘disagreed’ (on a five point scale) with the statement in respect of three key items.

Contact

Mr Ian Marshman, Vic-Principal (Administration)

Tel: (03) 9344 6121

Fax: (03) 9347 0071

Email: i.marshman@vpa.unimelb.edu.au

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