Panel topic: Research Assessment and Australasian Software Engineering

Panelists:

Professor John Grundy, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia (Chair)

Dr Neville Churcher, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Professor Rachel Cardell-Oliver , University of Western Australia, Australia

Professor Paul Bailes, University of Queensland, Australia

Research assessment as become a hot topic around the world. Many countries now run a variety of assessment exercises and New Zealand and Australia are no exception, with the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) and Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) both having run in 2012 and results have been released December 2012 (ERA) and April 2013 (PBRF). Both are vastly different in approach and have varying degrees of meaning, both reputational and fiscal.

How did Software Engineering fare in both assessments? How did it compare to Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Information Systems, Science and Business?

What are the implications of the outcomes for our Departments and discipline? What can we do to improve quality rankings for Software Engineering (and related disciplines)? Or should we ignore them??

The panelists will briefly review ERA and PBRF processes and outcomes, will discuss implications at their own institutions and more generally. They will float issues and ideas for debate at ASWEC 2013.