Monday, 29 August 2016

The 2017 Good University Guide (GUG) has been redesigned to focus specifically on the undergraduate experience, meaning all research and postgraduate related indicators have been removed from the methodology. The Guide now reports on indicators across three categories, as outlined below.

Graduate outcomes

UWA remained the top ranked university in Australia for the median salary of graduates ($63,000), and scored 69% for graduate employment.

University characteristics

Of the five university characteristics measured, three results remained the same for UWA: student demand (based on mean ATAR ), social equity (proportion of low socioeconomic and disadvantaged students) and student to staff ratio.

UWA increased from three to four stars for student retention and dropped from three stars to two stars for staff qualification (proportion of academic staff holding a masters or doctoral degree).  The difference between UWA’s data for these two indicators was very small and it is likely the change in star rating was as a result of other universities moving rank around us.

There has been no change to how star ratings are assigned to universities in this category. Stars are assigned based on ranked position rather than data. For example, even though all universities may have scores within 5% of each other, the bottom 20% of these universities still receive a one star rating, even though their score is highly competitive with those with five stars.

Student experience

Data for this category is now obtained from the Student Experience Survey (previously the Course Experience Questionnaire) and due to this change we cannot compare results from 2016.

This year the Guide also adopts a different methodology for presenting star ratings in this category. Five stars are still assigned to the top 20% of universities based on rank. These are the only universities have their star rating displayed. All universities now have their scores presented alongside each indicator, allowing students to determine for themselves what constitutes a good university, beyond the five star rating.

UWA is outside the top 20% in this category, with an overall satisfaction score of 75% and teaching quality score of 76%.

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