Abstract:
How can we foster and nurture the development of a true "learning organisation" (Trowler, 1998) and still meet both internal and external deadlines for AQF compliance? The publication of the Australian Qualifications Framework in 2011 coincided with planned, but significant changes to how our university manages, develops and delivers higher degrees by research. The confluence of these two significant change projects foregrounded latent issues regarding change management, change fatigue and resistance in our stakeholders. On the one hand, the AQF provided those of us leading the change project with a useful tool, or lever, to use, but it was precisely its power (and hegemony) which made us start to examine carefully the ways in which the School of Graduate Research (SGR) positioned itself in relation to the external quality assurance measures. As Morley (2003) notes "...quality is a political technology functioning as a regime and relay of power."(vii). Precisely what power did the players in the quality assurance space have? On the surface it appeared as though the SGR, as enforcer and auditor, held significant power over the stakeholder Schools who delivered the programs. But Trowler's concept of the "underlife of organisations" (152), gave us a way in to thinking about how our organisation works. As Trowler puts it "[a] developed understanding of the underlife of higher education can highlight more clearly the ways in which action is implicit in structure, how structures are perceived, socially constructed and responded to in variegated ways. The ideologies, beliefs, assumptions, values, principles, tastes and the taken-for-granted recurrent behaviours stemming from them which comprise culture are not easily disposable." (152)
This presentation will detail the process of how this institution used the AQF as a catalyst for significant changes to curriculum and delivery models and, in the process, altered its HDR landscape. By detailing the process by which these changes occurred and offering an analysis of the potential pitfalls associated with significant change in a large and complex organisation like a university, we will contribute to the growing area of research on the implications of mandated quality assurance in higher education in Australia and offer advice to other institutions facing similar change management processes.
This presentation will detail the process of how this institution used the AQF as a catalyst for significant changes to curriculum and delivery models and, in the process, altered its HDR landscape. By detailing the process by which these changes occurred and offering an analysis of the potential pitfalls associated with significant change in a large and complex organisation like a university, we will contribute to the growing area of research on the implications of mandated quality assurance in higher education in Australia and offer advice to other institutions facing similar change management processes.