Introduction
The concept of accountability has always been figured in higher education if only for the fact that – despite notions of the ivory tower, knowledge for its own sake, and academic freedom (all suggesting academia does not need to account for its activities) – academics and their institutions through time have had relationships with various stakeholders in which “answerability” continuously played a role. Such answerability relates to universities accounting for – in the traditional sense of the word – public money spent but also to academics explaining, in their professional work, how they set up their research, which methods they used and why, and explaining to what extent their results are valid, reliable, and generalizable. What is relatively new is that the notion of accountability is much more explicit on stakeholders’ agendas than in the past and that it appears that the balance between accountability and autonomy tilts quite often toward an overemphasis on accounting...
Keywords
- Performance-based Funding
- Largest Higher Education System
- External Quality Assurance
- Indirect Sanctions
- Estermann
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Alexander, F. King. 2000. The changing face of accountability. Monitoring and assessing institutional performance in higher education. Journal of Higher Education 71 (4): 411–431.
Behn, Richard D. 2003. Why measure performance? Different purposes require different measures. Public Administration Review 63 (5): 586–606.
Boer, De, Ben Jongbloed Harry, Paul Benneworth, Leon Cremonini, Renze Kolster, Andrea Kottmann, Katharina Lemmens-Krug, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2015. Performance-based funding and performance agreements in fourteen higher education systems. Enschede: CHEPS, University of Twente.
Bovens, Mark. 2007. Analysing and assessing accountability: A conceptual framework. European Law Journal 13 (4): 447–468.
Burke, Joseph C., ed. 2004. Achieving accountability in higher education. Balancing public, academic and market demands. San Francisco: Wiley.
Estermann, Thomas, Terhi Nokkala, and Monica Steinel. 2011. University autonomy in Europe II. The scorecard. Brussels: EUA.
Hoecht, Andrea. 2006. Quality assurance in UK higher education: Issues of trust, control, professional autonomy and accountability. Higher Education 51: 541–563.
King, Roger. 2015. Institutional autonomy and accountability. In The Palgrave international handbook of higher education policy and governance, ed. Jeroen Huisman, Harry de Boer, David D. Dill, and Manuel Souto-Otero, 485–505. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Murphy, Mark. 2009. Bureaucracy and its limits: Accountability and rationality in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 30 (6): 683–695.
Neave, Guy, and Frans A. van Vught, eds. 1991. Prometheus bound. The changing relationship between government and higher education in Western Europe. Oxford: Pergamon.
Power, Michael. 1997. The audit society. Rituals of verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rezende, Marcelo. 2010. The effects of accountability on higher education. Economics of Education Review 29: 842–856.
Romzek, Barbara S. 2000. Dynamics of public sector accountability in an era of reform. International Review of Administrative Sciences 66 (1): 21–44.
Shin, Jung Cheol. 2010. Impacts of performance-based accountability on institutional performance in the U.S. Higher Education 60: 47–68.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1997. ‘Improving ratings’: Audit in the British university system. European Review 5: 305–321.
Trow, Martin. 1996. Trust, markets and accountability in higher education: A comparative perspective. Higher Education Policy 9 (4): 309–324.
Volkwein, J. Fredericks, and David A. Tandberg. 2008. Measuring up: Examining the connections among state structural characteristics, regulatory practices, and performance. Research in Higher Education 49: 180–197.
Williams, James, and Lee Harvey. 2015. Quality assurance in higher education. In The Palgrave international handbook of higher education policy and governance, ed. Jeroen Huisman, Harry de Boer, David D. Dill, and Manuel Souto-Otero, 506–525. Basinstoke: Palgrave.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Huisman, J. (2018). Accountability in Higher Education. In: Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_156-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_156-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education