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"Academic work"
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Expatriate academic staff in the United Arab Emirates: the nature of their work experiences in higher education institutions
As many countries expand their higher education systems, they must attract, support, and retain qualified academic staff. This paper focuses on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a case study of a nation drawing on large numbers of mostly expatriate faculty working in short-term academic appointments. The paper begins by considering the national context within which expatriate faculty work in the UAE. Then, using a published conceptual framework highlighting key elements of academic work, the paper examines defining aspects of the work experience of expatriate faculty in the UAE, including work expectations (teaching, research, and service); equity (compensation, incentives, and benefits); autonomy, academic freedom, and flexibility; collegiality and institutional involvement; and professional growth. The discussion considers the implications of these elements of academic work for the satisfaction, motivation, and institutional commitment of the expatriate faculty members. The sample of 29 expatriate faculty studied is drawn from the population of full-time instructors at three public and three semi-public institutions in the UAE who teach in education or media, humanities and social sciences, science or engineering, and business or economics. The discussion of findings highlights satisfactions and concerns, as well as the relationship of work experiences with organizational commitment. The nature of academic work in many countries is shifting toward temporary and short-term contract-based appointments. Thus, analysis of the experiences of expatriate academic staff working within the UAE, where the majority of faculty members are in short-term positions, raises issues relevant to those in other countries where the nonpermanent academic workforce is increasing. Additionally, issues considered are of interest to those who study the academic career and the factors shaping it.
Journal Article
Life at the academic coalface: validation of a holistic academic workload estimation tool
This paper reports on research exploring the academic workload and performance practices of Australian universities. This research has identified a suite of activities associated with teaching, research and service, each with an associated time value (allocation). This led to the development of the academic workload estimation tool (AWET). In 2020, to validate the findings, we contacted academics willing to participate further and conducted interviews. We used the AWET to estimate workload for each individual for the previous year and compared it to the workload allocated according to their institutional workload model. Discrepancies were then discussed to ascertain to what extent the AWET was able to capture their work. In general, the participants thought the AWET provided a more realistic estimate of their actual work and highlighted how much is underestimated or unaccounted for by the workload models used within their institutions. It also showed how academic performance policies, focussed primarily on research output, disadvantaged many individuals because they ignored or minimised many scholarly, teaching and service-related tasks inherent in the academic role. Overall, the findings showed the AWET was a useful tool to discuss academic work and assisted them to better capture the complexity and extent of what they did. We offer the AWET as a validated approach for academics to estimate their workload in a holistic and transparent manner. We suggest its implementation institution-wide, along with an aligned performance policy, will facilitate negotiation of reasonable performance expectations. This will rebuild trust in the processes and improve a university’s effectiveness.
Journal Article
The effects of non-academic work experience on external interaction and research performance
We ask whether academic employees with non-academic work experience differ from their colleagues with respect to interaction with external stakeholders and research performance. We use a science and technical human capital perspective and address the question through an analysis of 4400 survey responses from academic employees in Norwegian universities and colleges. Non-academic work experience is common in all academic fields; it characterises more than half of the tenured academic staff members in Norway. Our analysis indicates that, in general, external interaction is positively influenced by non-academic work experience, in line with prior research. Contrary to expectations, we find few signs of a trade-off or a “punishment” effect of non-academic work experience on scientific productivity. Non-academic work experience is neither significantly related to publication productivity nor share of publications in highly ranked journals, but there are important differences based on the type of previous work experience.
Journal Article
Recasting the academic workforce
This article analyses academic work and the academic workforce in the context of current dynamics and likely futures. It discusses the significance of academic work, reviews workforce characteristics, and analyses tensions and pressures. Prevailing conceptualisations, it is argued, do not reflect the current situation in which the profession finds itself, and would provide a very shaky foundation on which to build the future workforce. There is an overarching need for a fresh conceptualisation of academic work that is authentic and feasible and suggestions are offered of what this might look like. A number of strategies are proposed how such a recasting might be implemented. The paper works from Australian research, and make suggestions for other systems.
Journal Article
The open book : stories of academic life and writing, or, where we know things
\"The Open Book' is a radical genre blend: it is an experimental co-memoir exploring the role of writing in academia. It contains stories about life without censoring and without distinguishing between traditional work/life domains and academic/non-academic ways of writing. This is done through discussions of conferences, research collaborations, supervision, taboo pleasures of 'fun' writing projects, the temptations of other work, and the everyday life encounters and experiences that stimulate academic thought and writing. Some of the main characters you will meet are researchers, their colleagues and students, sons and daughters, mothers and grandmothers, husbands (past and present), supervisors, pets, old and new friends, and creatures from myths and dreams. Some of the settings include kitchens, fireplaces, couches, gardens, universities, cars, and trains. These characters and places are all there to help examine what the above elements of an ordinary human life might mean 'in' research and 'for' research. Thus, it becomes possible for you as a reader to recognize the stories as both truly human and genuinely academic. This is the first book in a series of publications and projects from the Open Writing Community: a collaboration of academics from different disciplines and countries that seeks to push the boundaries of how we understand and practice academic work and writing.\"--Cover, page 4.
Book
The Exploitation of Academic Work: Women in Teaching at Swedish Universities
This study concerns some of the implications of the increasing commodification of the higher education sector. It tries to highlight how higher education institutions have developed in the late 2000s through the reform path that was introduced to transform programmes and employees into marketable products. New forms of governance that change institutional contexts and concrete practices accompany this change. Based on interviews with a group of female academic lecturers and teachers, we look in particular at how the work structure is organized and practised at Swedish universities. The results illustrate a greater division of labour and a fragmentation of academic work that can be explained by recent developments. More specifically, it appears as if female academics in teaching-intensive departments do work that serves the interests of others (often men), foremost in areas and practices such as research.
Journal Article