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Occupational stress has increased in higher education academic staff over several decades, and this has been particularly acute in Australia and New Zealand. This scoping review sought to understand the causes and impacts of occupational stress among Australian and New Zealand academics. Eight EBSCO databases were searched for key terms: academic and occupational stress and Australia and New Zealand. Twenty relevant papers were sourced, from which five common themes were extracted: (i) balancing an academic workload, (ii) casualisation of the workforce, (iii) the managerialism phenomenon, (iv) transition from field of practice to academia, and (v) academic and other staff. Further research in the Australian and New Zealand context is required to identify the nature of specific stressors and how these impact health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While satisfaction, engagement and retention of academics has been widely discussed, there is less acknowledgement that a university must first convince high-quality academic talent of the benefits of joining their institution. This paper sought to identify the key factors that influence early-career and aspiring academics to choose employment with a university. Fifty early-career academics or PhD scholars aspiring to academic careers gave their perspectives on this critical issue. The key findings point to five key factors that enhance the attractiveness of universities in the eyes of this next generation of talent, including reputation, organisational culture, role characteristics, career development and growth, and physical characteristics. We argue that universities, regardless of size, location or ranking, must strive to differentiate themselves and their offerings and focus on some key messages when recruiting academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the experiences of academics who take on temporary, middle management roles within a university faculty. Individuals with titles such as Associate or Sub Dean, Head of Department or Programme Director were interviewed but, for the purposes of this paper, we will refer to all of these as Associate Deans. We are aware that these titles may mean different things in different higher education institutions and even in different departments, faculties or countries. We purposely focus on individuals working below the level of Dean and look at both their motivations for, and experiences of, taking on a management role whilst at the same time retaining some level of research and teaching responsibility as an academic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To illuminate barriers to collaboration, this study examines who participates in cross-boundary scholarly collaboration most often and which types of boundary crossing (disciplinary, institutional, role) are engaged in most often. The data of this study came from an interdisciplinary consortium with five partner institutions, including one Historically Black College and University (HBCU). The core disciplines involved in the consortium are life sciences, computer science and math and engineering. Through statistical analysis, we determined that members of the consortium engaged more in interdisciplinary research than inter-institutional research. Participation in all boundary crossing collaborations was greater at the HBCU and students and postdocs were less likely than academics to cross-institutional boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes to governance and funding of universities have placed increasing importance on teaching quality. Curriculum development is central to teaching quality. Yet, as research has shown, it is rarely given priority in university departments. We sought to identify key barriers and facilitators of curriculum development in four professionally accredited master’s level degree programmes within the University of Melbourne, Australia. Our work progresses existing knowledge of curriculum development in three ways: (a) we provide a contemporary assessment of barriers and facilitators, (b) we gauge the views of administrative staff involved in curriculum development and find that they identify important process-oriented means for improvement and (c) we identify the facilitative role professional accreditation plays in curriculum development. A key barrier to curriculum development was found to be the existence of cumbersome, inflexible and lengthy administrative processes. However, we identify means by which these can be addressed, including the revision of long lead times for data provision required by the federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore Israeli academics' perceptions of the introduction of educational markets and, particularly, their attitudes towards academics' roles and responsibilities in the new marketing-led university, as well as to obtain a greater understanding of their actual patterns of involvement in the marketing of their institutions. Based on open-structured interviews with 15 academics, the study revealed that academics display contradictory standpoints: several believe academics should play some role in open days and related promotion activities, while others resist any kind of academics' involvement. Most, however, consider quality teaching and fruitful research as an academic's major contribution to the marketing of the higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]