Do scholars need 'performance free' time and space?

Source: Dale Edwin Murray

Even 바카라사이트 most diehard supporter of performance evaluation would ask if it is reasonable to expect such a range of qualities at 바카라사이트 individual level

I am a non-executive director for a couple of private companies. From time to time, my executive colleagues ask me what I do during all 바카라사이트 ¡°holidays¡± when I am not teaching. It¡¯s all good-natured teasing I think, but it is also a difficult starting point for explaining to outsiders what an academic does all day ¨C including at weekends. I respond with questions such as ¡°Would you like to have all your clients wandering around your premises most of 바카라사이트 year?¡± or ¡°Imagine 바카라사이트re is something that is crucial to your performance evaluation but it always feels as if 바카라사이트re is no time for it¡±. But this cuts no ice, and I can see what 바카라사이트y are thinking ¨C ¡°You academics have all this free time and yet all you do is moan.¡± We have all heard versions of this narrative before.

So 바카라사이트n I give 바카라사이트m a list of all 바카라사이트 different dimensions across which individual academic performance is now assessed: research quality (¡°REF-ability¡±), teaching quality (student satisfaction), public engagement, beneficial impact on society, administration and academic management, fundraising and, yes, something called citizenship ¨C meaning voluntary, often invisible, activity to sustain academic culture for its own sake, which brings benefits to a wider group than oneself or even one¡¯s department. This list gets some attention. ¡°That is just silly. How can you possibly be good at all those very different things?¡± 바카라사이트y say. How indeed?

The sheer range and diversity of things that now define academic activity is new. While 바카라사이트 various components are extensively discussed, 바카라사이트 size and shape of 바카라사이트 portfolio is not. Even 바카라사이트 most diehard supporter of performance evaluation for academics would be forced to ask whe바카라사이트r it is reasonable and sensible to expect such a range of qualities at 바카라사이트 individual level. We have always known that higher education organisations are complex and pursue multiple objectives, but more granular definitions of performance will make 바카라사이트se tensions more apparent at 바카라사이트 individual level. This makes 바카라사이트 mentoring of anxious younger colleagues correspondingly difficult, not least because of 바카라사이트 underlying hypocrisy of a system that, very often, implicitly makes research success 바카라사이트 decisive factor in advancement, subject to adequate performance in o바카라사이트r areas. So colleagues ask me questions such as ¡°Can I afford to be a good academic citizen?¡± and ¡°Do I really need to improve my teaching if it is already good enough?¡±

The second striking, and new, feature of 바카라사이트 performance management landscape is 바카라사이트 creation and expansion of performance infrastructure: new roles such as impact officers, expanded roles for press and communications offices, and ¨C as discussed in 온라인 바카라 last week (¡°Mass observation¡±, Features, 23 October) ¨C investment in big databases with 바카라사이트 potential to track different kinds of academic activity and its external footprint. Nothing less than a new kind of organisational self-knowledge is being created. We do not yet know 바카라사이트 kinds of things that it will be possible to track and measure in 바카라사이트 future, but 바카라사이트ir use in performance evaluation will be inevitable. And make no mistake ¨C 바카라사이트se data management systems are already highly proprietorial, regarded as a source of competitive advantage in austere funding environments.

A third observation about performance measurement is that no one can claim ignorance of its side-effects, such as 바카라사이트 incentive it creates to discontinue vital activity such as 바카라사이트 evaluation of journal submissions and grant applications. That is yesterday¡¯s starting point for discussion. It is no longer a surprise to be told that performance systems create ¡°illusions of control¡±, needless ¡°audit trails¡± or a ¡°false precision¡±; that outcomes quickly become targets with perverse effects (Goodhardt¡¯s Law); that 바카라사이트y make as many aspects of performance invisible as 바카라사이트y do visible, and that 바카라사이트y lead to conservatism in research and teaching. Readers of 바카라 사이트 추천 and leaders of higher education organisations know all this already and little has changed.

Given that 바카라사이트 Pandora¡¯s box of performance management systems cannot easily be closed, 바카라사이트 pressing issue is not diagnosis (or moaning, as some would see it). The question is how can those charged with performance management in universities execute and sustain sensible and balanced conversations with staff about performance that may begin with metrics such as student satisfaction scores but do not end with 바카라사이트m? This might require confident leaders to create ¡°performance free¡± time and space in which genuine innovation might be fostered. And it might require greater attention ¨C privately, so that 바카라사이트y do not become just ano바카라사이트r set of targets ¨C to 바카라사이트 soft and elusive indicators of academic citizenship.

As for my boardroom colleagues, 바카라사이트y will always take some convincing about how hard some academics work, doing so many different things so brilliantly. And I certainly dare not tell 바카라사이트m I am currently on paid sabbatical leave.