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Using technology to improve performance.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a tool for improving performance by comparing the University's performance or standards, or both, with those of its peers. It can be about broad University-wide issues or specific matters affecting only one area; it can be strategic (addressing priority issues) or cyclical (addressing a number of areas on a regular basis) or ad hoc (taking advantage of an opportunity). Benchmarking projects can be as simple as doing a desktop survey of relevant websites or may involve a formal request for information and/or an agreement with another institution.
Essentially, benchmarking attempts to answer the following questions:
- How do the standards we have set ourselves compare to our peers?
- How does our performance measure against the outcomes of national and comparator institutions?
- How can we adapt good practice examples from other institutions to our own organisation?
TEQSA's guidance note on benchmarking defines benchmarking as a structured, collaborative, learning process for comparing practices, processes and performance outcomes.
Through benchmarking we can identify gaps, seek fresh approaches to bring about improvements, set goals, and discover new ideas for achieving our core assessment objectives of both certifying and enhancing learning.