Interim Analyses of Commendations & Recommendations in Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) Audit Reports

Abstract

This paper provides an interim thematic analysis of 220 Commendations and 372 Recommendations issued in first 17 publicly released Audit Reports issued by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) as well as in the unpublished trial Audit Report on the University of New South Wales. Ten distinct macro themes are identified (e.g., International, Quality Assurance, Research, Teaching & Learning), each of which is subdivided into several micro-level themes. In a separate analysis, a range of organisational actions implicated in AUQA Recommendations is thematically extracted and summarised. Quantitative count statistic summaries of emergent themes, coupled with a Leximancer text-mining concept map, permit some preliminary conclusions to be drawn about what AUQA tends to focus on in its audits of Australian universities.