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This systematic review examines academic literature published between 2012 and 2022 on micro-credential research and practices in higher education. A deductive analysis of empirical evidence from the 29 included articles offers insights into awareness, benefits, challenges, effectiveness, and factors influencing effectiveness of micro-credentials in the sector. The results suggest that there are potential benefits for including micro-credentials in higher education. The findings also highlight that micro-credentials are not a micro task for students to complete or for higher education providers to successfully implement. Micro-credentials in higher education, however, are still at the early stage of development, and further research is required to evaluate their viability and effectiveness in the long term. The review carries implications for micro-credential research and practices.

League tables that rank universities may use reputational measures, performance measures, or both. Each type of measure has strengths and weaknesses. In this paper, we rank disciplines in Australian universities both by reputation, using an international survey of senior academics, and with actual performance measures. We then compare the two types of measures to see how closely they match. The criterion we use for both sets of measures is "international academic standing". We find a high correlation between the survey results and the various measures of research performance. We also find a correlation between the quality of student intake and the survey rankings, but the satisfaction levels of recent graduates do not correlate well with the rankings by academics. We then construct an overall measure of performance, which gives very similar rankings to the survey results, especially for the top-ranked institutions.

Globalisation has meant an increased demand from students, employers, and academics for indicators of the international academic standing of universities. In this paper we examine the broad methodological issues involved in measuring international academic standing and apply our conclusions to data for 38 Australian universities. Determinants of the international academic standing of universities are grouped into six broad categories: standing of academic staff, quality of undergraduate intake, quality of undergraduate programs, quality of graduate programs, resources, and peer opinion. The relative importance of each of these attributes is ascertained though a worldwide survey of university presidents, rectors and vice-chancellors plus Australian deans, thus reducing the need for subjective weighting by the researchers. The empirical findings are used to weight quantitative performance data for Australian universities and the results compared with two other recent worldwide rankings of universities.

Over 20 years ago, the first university rankings entered public attention in the United States. Since then, there have been numerous other efforts to rank or rate universities or university departments. University report cards have become both popular with the public and increasingly important for academic institutions. A detailed examination of 10 report cards from around the world, which evaluate and focus on either undergraduate choice or overall standing, finds that the various schemes share broad principles and approaches but differ considerably in details. Many of these variations are attributable to differences in aims, higher education systems and cultures, and the availability and reliability of data.