The Productivity of Australian Academics in Education

Abstract

The recent push towards ‘quality assurance’ classifies universities into six bands based on quality of research, teaching, community service, and processes to improve quality. This paper argues that the individual, rather than university and department, is the appropriate unit of analysis to make statements about quality. This conjecture is illustrated by using one criterion, productivity of publications in Australia by academics in education, as an index. The productivity of 2048 academics in education across the 32 universities with departments of education were matched with the 45 000 entries in the Australian Education Index. The individual highly productive academic had the most critical impact on overall productivity and it is suggested that the correct unit of analysis for quality assurance is more appropriately the individual and not the department or university.