Public audits see unis tighten act

ANECDOTAL evidence suggests Australian Universities Quality Agency audits speed up change at universities and generally have a positive effect, according to researchers.

ANECDOTAL evidence suggests Australian Universities Quality Agency audits speed up change at universities and generally have a positive effect, according to researchers.

Some of the most significant changes are made when universities preparing for audits are forced to take a good look at their operations, research suggests.

"There is evidence that the audits have had a positive impact on institutions," University of Western Sydney researcher Mahsood Shah said.

Recent decisions by some universities to shut down offshore programs were examples of how change was enacted by the prospect of a publicly available audit.

"People are saying that in their institutions the audits played a key role in making things happen quickly because they are worried about issues appearing in the audit and then in the public arena. Things that can take three years to happen will do so in a much shorter time."

Mr Shah said a lot of universities were supportive of external audits because they allowed universities to tell their stories to the auditor.

"Universities have found that by doing this, it identifies things they are doing well before the audit happens," he said.

But there needed to be more empirical research done on the impact.

Mr Shah said he was conducting a survey of universities to try to quantify the impact of external audits.

Mr Shah, his colleague Ivan Skaines and Jo Miller from Central Queensland University presented a paper on the issue at the Australian Universities Quality Forum conference in Tasmania. Their international literature review analysed 25 university progress reports and found there were 1599 actions under way as a result of recommendations from AUQA audits.

They found external audits were just one factor contributing towards institutional improvement, along with competition, increased student demand, innovation and internal reviews.

"Having said that, external quality audit can be very effective and can beused as a lever for internal institutional change and improvement," the paper says.

The paper says questions should be raised about the first cycle of audits, including whether AUQA was going to review progress on the recommendations that arose as well as measure the impact on student learning.

National Tertiary Education Union policy and research co-ordinator Andrew Nette said there were some issues that needed to be addressed before AUQA did the second cycle of audits.

"Overall you would have to say, yes the audits are working," he said.

"But there are areas that need to be improved to help AUQA communicate the findings to the sector."