MGT5MPT: Reflective Essay on Effectiveness of Sydney & Melbourne

This essay reflects on the effectiveness of the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne, examining their purposes, scopes, and the criteria used to evaluate their success. It considers stakeholder perspectives, including students, staff, faculty, administrators, creditors, and policymakers, emphasizing accountability and continuous improvement as key factors. The essay also discusses the importance of hiring top scholars and faculties, formalizing strategic processes, and maintaining strong stakeholder relationships to enhance university effectiveness. Ultimately, the essay concludes that Sydney University is more effective based on international rankings, research institutions, student enrollment, and academic achievements, while acknowledging both universities' commitment to improvement. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

Running head: Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne University
Student’s name
University Name
Author note

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Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
Introduction
The University of Melbourne is situated in Melbourne, Australia. The university was
founded in the year 1853. It is the second oldest university in Australia. The university has been
ranked 32nd globally in the year 2017-18 (Poynter and Rasmussen 2017). It comprises of 11
academic units and is associated with other institutes and research centers. The University of
Sydney is considered as the world’s leading university. It was founded in the year 1820. The
university has ranked top 10 in the world (Davis et al. 2016). The purpose of this essay is to
reflect on the effectiveness of Sydney University and Melbourne University.
Discussion
The purpose of Sydney University is to serve the student community with experience,
learning, teaching and providing them research facilities which is their main focus. The
university aims to create a future for the students and instill in them excellence, insights and
innovative approach. The university offers to its student new and innovative modes of teaching,
the university has many video conference rooms with advanced technology zoom. It has future
teaching spaces. It includes functionality that reduces the role of the lecturer. It enables the
students to be an integral part of problem based and group learning, it also enables sharing the
content with the students within the campus and beyond (Davis et al. 2016). The purpose of
Melbourne University is to enable the students to be the future global leaders through creation,
innovation, dissemination of business, theoretical and practical knowledge. The university aims
to evaluate and influence business activities to provide the students best possible service and
secure positive outcomes to the stakeholders and society as a whole. The university has a wider

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Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
scope for its students as it offers unique space for thinking, technical advice, training and
development that positively contributes towards excellence. Moreover, it offers students
internship and research project opportunities (Poynter and Rasmussen 2017).
In my opinion, the criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the university are firstly, the
objectives of the university. I think the consistency of the programs initiated by the university,
the mission; vision and priorities of the academic plans are the criteria to measure the
effectiveness of the organization. The second most important criteria to evaluate the
effectiveness is to considered the appropriateness of the resources for the undergraduate
programs, such as evidence of the adequate faculty members and staff to attain the goals and
objectives of the programs (Rossi, Lipsey and Henry 2018). I consider the evidence of the size
of class, and the appropriateness of the learning objectives. I also think that the qualification, the
scholarly record, honor and awards, proportion of the classes, commitment of the faculties and
students while measuring the effectiveness of the organization. Moreover, I think that the
evidence of the appropriate teaching methods and effective assessment in achieving the learning
objectives of the programs is important criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the university.
The competency of the faculty, the quality of scholarship, library resources, information
technology and access of the laboratory resources, are some other criteria to evaluate the
effectiveness of the university (Biggs 2014).
The major stakeholders of the university are students, staff, faculty and administrators.
From the stakeholder point of view, the criteria for effective management are the level of
selection procedures, the extent to which the universities maintain their standards, level of
motivation of the students, feedback from the faculty members and the administration, research
and support of knowledge generation. The stakeholders believe in formative improvement and

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Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
accountability of the university. The internal stakeholders of the university that is the faculty,
staff, students use the university data to change the educational practices and focus on
documenting the level of institutional effectiveness (Darling Hammond 2013). The external
stakeholders of the university that is the creditors, policymaker believes accountability, and
continuous improvement as the criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the university.
Accountability and improvement is considered to be the most important criteria as it signals the
important educational goals and influence action to improve the learning and teaching in the
university (Posavac 2015).
From the analysis of the effectiveness criteria of university from the perspective of
different stakeholders I can conclude that accountability and continuous improvement of the
university, serves an important criteria as it motivates actions to improve the functions of the
university. Accountability stimulates improvement in the organization. From the perspective of
the stakeholders and the above analysis I further concluded that a balance of compliance and the
universities motive and desire to improve is more appropriate and promising along with the
student’s learning outcomes (Rossi, Lipsey and Henry 2018). These enable the institution to
enhance and entail the distinct value. The selection and placement procedure of the students,
constant improvement of the educational processes, programs and practices, researching and
effective evaluation is assessed on the criteria of knowledge gathered by the students and
accountability; these are highly considered by the stakeholder to evaluate the effectiveness of the
university.
In my opinion, the implication for the development of a coherent approach towards
effectiveness of the university is the need to hire the best scholar and faculties (McCaffery 2018).
Personally I believe that hiring the best professors will influence the effectiveness of the

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Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
organization. The human resource department of the universities requires hiring the best
professors and the staff. I also think that formalizing the strategic process of the universities,
further, by analyzing the strengths in education and maintaining good relation with the
stakeholders will help to achieve the objectives of the universities. Both the selected university
has international ranking, hence, the universities must take initiates to maintain and hold its
position and improve further (Posavac 2015). Internationalization has improved and inspired the
strategy. In the globalized environment, the institutions must develop an international plan to
enhance the effectiveness of the institutions.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above analysis I conclude that Sydney University is more effective
than Melbourne University, as it has a better ranking and is in a higher position than Melbourne
University internationally. Moreover, Sydney University has more research institutions and
partner universities than Melbourne University. The university provides extracurricular
activities, and has comparatively more students enrolled in the institution than Melbourne
University. The academic staff is higher than Melbourne University. Sydney University has more
honors and achievements as compared to Melbourne University. However, both the universities
is accountable and strives to continually improve and expand.

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Effectiveness of Sydney and Melbourne university
References
Biggs, J., 2014. Constructive alignment in university teaching. HERDSA Review of higher
education, 1(5), pp.5-22
Chen, F., Lui, A.M. and Martinelli, S.M., 2017. A systematic review of the effectiveness of
flipped classrooms in medical education. Medical education, 51(6), pp.585-597.
Darling-Hammond, L., 2013. Getting teacher evaluation right: What really matters for
effectiveness and improvement. Teachers College Press.
Davis, J., Tango, W.J., Booth, A.J., Brummelaar, T.T., Minard, R.A. and Owens, S.M., 2016.
The Sydney University Stellar Interferometer—I. The instrument. Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 303(4), pp.773-782.
McCaffery, P., 2018. The higher education manager's handbook: effective leadership and
management in universities and colleges. Routledge.
Posavac, E.J., 2015. Program evaluation: Methods and case studies. Routledge.
Poynter, J.R. and Rasmussen, C., 2017. A place apart: The University of Melbourne: Decades of
challenge. Melbourne University Publish.
Rossi, P.H., Lipsey, M.W. and Henry, G.T., 2018. Evaluation: A systematic approach. Sage
publications.