Effects from audit culture and neoliberalism on university teaching: an autoethnographic perspective

ABSTRACT

Spanish university culture revolves mainly around the evaluation of professionals on the basis of the amount of work published in high-impact journals (weight assessments). The paper is shaped as an autoethnography, focusing mainly on the author’s life at university. Data collection and analysis set off from 2011, during the lecturer’s first year of working at university. The research aims principally at reflecting upon the highly demanding processes undergone by a lecturer, which might have a negative impact on other personal and professional domains. However, we also seek to show the weaknesses of the accreditation system as well as to consider the need to design a system that is able to put the emphasis back on the value of real academic work.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• novice lecturer
• university assessment and accreditation
• assessment policies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013-14/world-ranking/methodology (Accessed September 21, 2016])