Evaluating Melbourne University's Effectiveness: Criteria And Perspectives Essay.

On the face of it, this question cannot be answered in a meaningful way - the answer depends on the criteria you use to evaluate effectiveness. And, the choice of criteria places boundaries around the concept of effectiveness and gives it specific meaning.
For this assignment, we would like you to think about an organisation that you have a significant interaction with. It may be your workplace, the University, a hospital or other service provider. Provide a response to the following questions:

What is the purpose of the organisation? What is the scope of its operations?
From your perspective, what criteria would use to evaluate the effectiveness of this organisation? Justify your selection of the criteria.
Now consider the criteria that two other stakeholder groups of the organisation might use of evaluate its effectiveness. Stakeholder groups may include the owners, employees, customers, creditors, community, suppliers or the Government.
What do you conclude from this this analysis of effectiveness from the perspective of different stakeholders? What are the implications for the development of a coherent approach to organisational effectiveness?
Detailed instructions
A reflective piece should be a personal response to new information, which is shaped by your own experiences. Reflective thinking involves the processing of information, where thinking and learning takes place. It involves considering how and why you think the way you do, and an examination of your beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions that form the foundations of your understanding. In your reflective essay, you can discuss:

your perceptions of the term 'effectiveness'
experiences, ideas and observations that you have had in response to the ideas explored in the subject
what you found confusing, interesting, difficult or inspiring, and why
unanswered questions
comparisons and connections between what you are learning and your experiences or preconceptions .

Purpose of the organization and scope of its operation

Effectiveness is the capability of anything to produce the desired and expected results. It can also be considered as the degree to which objectives are achieved in an organization while solving the targeted problems. Effectiveness in a somewhat informal language means, doing the right thing to produce the correct results. Albekov et al. (2017) clarifies that when something is deemed effective, it has an intended, expected outcome and provides the same vivid impression as expected

Melbourne University is a public research University located in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The main campus of the university is found in Parkville. Several of its colleges are located within the greater Victoria region. The university apart from being located in Melbourne receives students from all over the world. Being a world over university, the university participates in various activities that include sports and cultural programs.

Academically, the university has several faculties. Precisely, there are eleven academic units. In recent rankings conducted by Rankings (2016), the Melbourne University was ranked 32nd in the world university ranking. This is after the general considerations of all the corporates that the university takes part in. The University can take pride in various leaders that have since graduated from the institutions. Four Australian prime ministers and five governors-general.

Being a center of higher education Melbourne University cannot take pride in the University ranks and leader graduand to measure its effectiveness; there have to be other ways. According to Shapiro et al., (2017), The principal way to measure the effectiveness of a University is to consider how it balances institutional goals while generating knowledge. It, therefore, means that university obligations, should not only produce graduates, who are ready for employment but ones who through research can help solve emerging global problems. The university should be effective if any of its research centres has recently produced a research finding that is helping to resolve any global issue. Biesta (2015), statement adds to that by acknowledging that research must not be limited to solving a global problem but can extend to discoveries, criticism of existing theory and others on the same line.

These two methods are one of the best in measuring Melbourne University effectiveness because it covers all the primary functions of the University. According to Professor Erick Thomas, president, of the Universities UK. All universities should be measured on two roles. The academic educational establishment and generators of knowledge and technology. As educational establishments Universities should produce well-rounded individuals, who are self-directed, independent and confident. Prinsen et al, (2014) gives the role of these individuals by suggesting that they should help the society through civic leadership and civic duties. As knowledge generators, they are in existence to help generate new knowledge as research institutions. They can through research change paradigms, develop theories and aid the society from any new challenges.

Having established the standard measure of university effectiveness, backed up by information from a University professor, we can efficiently measure the effectiveness of Melbourne University in Australia and globally. 

Criteria and perspective of evaluating of effectiveness

Melbourne University has a setup program that ensures individuals are all round when they get out of the institution. This is the main test of effectiveness by the Australian government. They measure the number of useful graduates released into the market by the University. The strategy by the government has since proven effective in Melbourne University.  The University can take pride in producing world leaders. Their approach involves a three tailored eight-month rotation across a range of professional services that assist the student in finding out what makes the student thrive the most. This is followed by mentoring programs that bring and yield the best out of the students. It is believed that leadership induction and lunches mentor and accelerate professional and personal developments in the students. An added advantage, the program expands the student’s networks while they interact with fellow peers of the already graduated cohorts. This program is compulsory for all the Melbourne students. However, the students are first encouraged to apply and work across many professional services.

The described program is working well for the University making it effective in producing intended graduates. Apart from just civic leadership, the University can take pride in developing individuals for technical and professional skills. Several employees of world-class companies went through the same program. Human resources managers, finance managers, marketing experts, procurement officers and many more responsible skills came from Melbourne University. The result, therefore, proves the effectiveness of Melbourne as world class University since it does what precisely the society expects of it.

However much the University takes pride in producing the best business individuals. Michalos (2017) evaluates the participation of Melbourne in sporting activities, that are less catered for. There is not so much to be said about individuals who have done well in sporting activities and can trace their roots from Melbourne. The only known sport that participants of the university have taken part in locally and internationally is cycling sport. The university even has a cycling sports society. From this perspective, it is accurate to report that the university isn’t effective in producing sports oriented talents. They invest so much in other academic’s work overlooking sports and arts. Although the university has arts and music faculties they don’t produce that skill quite often; therefore, they are not effective in that sense Melbourne University as a knowledge generator

Melbourne University is very effective as a knowledge generator through research. The university spends a very high financial amount in research. The universities research expenditure is second only to that of the commonwealth scientific and industrial research organization. Considering that the latter institution is a pure research institution it is accurate to record that the university is the world highest investor in research. In the year 2010, the University spent $813 million on research. The highest amount ever recorded.

The same has reflected in the results. The university newly launched NSI research project. The university under digital ethics health for data was able to produce next-generation seeds. They created eight new generations’ seeds from research. Batterbury and Toscano, (2018) provided this is as a proof of how the university is effective in generating knowledge.

Based on the effectiveness approach chosen to proof effectiveness. Melbourne University is the most recent to earn an international postgraduate scholarship as an appreciation from the federal government. This shows the advantage of using a coherent approach in testing for effectiveness.  Marzetta, Larsson, Yang and Ngo (2016) recognizes that this award was given to honour the universities effort in producing recent and helpful research in the field of digital health  

In conclusion, it is accurate to give Melbourne an 80 % effectiveness result. It balances its strategies with the expected results. 

References 

Albekov, A., Romanova, T., Vovchenko, N. and Epifanova, T., 2017. Study of factors which facilitate increase of effectiveness of university education, International Journal of Educational Management.

Batterbury, S.P. and Toscano, M. 2018. Seeking justice through Interdisciplinary environmental education at postgraduate level: Lessons from Melbourne, Australia. Revista Internacional de Educación para la Justicia Social (RIEJS).

Biesta, G.J. 2015. Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Routledge.

Marzetta, T.L., Larsson, E.G., Yang, H. and Ngo, H.Q. 2016. Fundamentals of massive MIMO. Cambridge University Press.

Michalos, A.C.2017. Education, happiness and wellbeing. In Connecting the Quality of Life Theory to Health, Well-being and Education (pp. 277-299). Springer, Cham.

Prinsen, C.A., Vohra, S., Rose, M.R., King-Jones, S., Ishaque, S., Bhaloo, Z., Adams, D. and Terwee, C.B. 2014. Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative: protocol for an international Delphi study to achieve consensus on how to select outcome measurement instruments for outcomes included in a ‘core outcome set’. Trials, 15(1), p.247.

RANKINGS, C. 2016. McMASTER RANKINGS. Center for World University Rankings (CWUR)-The Top.

Shapiro, D., Dundar, A., Huie, F., Wakhungu, P.K., Yuan, X., Nathan, A. and Hwang, Y. 2017. Tracking transfer: Measures of effectiveness in helping community college students to complete bachelor’s degrees. Signature Report, (13).