Transforming academic work: Communities of practice in Australian universities

This article explores the model of communities of practice as an alternative to the competitive, corporatised model of universities prescribed in current Australian federal government policies and described in the document Universities: Backing Australia's Future (2003) and associated papers. The article argues that the federal government's policies, which include the proposal to create niche Australian universities, with specific purposes such as teaching-only, will reduce intra-institutional plurality and interdisciplinary activities. This represents a significant shift for most Australian tertiary institutions which have, over the past two decades, invested significant resources addressing disparate agendas of an increasing range of stakeholders. The current policies, with their emphasis on individualism and competition, have been criticised as demonstrating a poor understanding of academic work (Murray and Dollery 2005). The authors concur with this criticism and suggest that intra-institutional plurality, which may be reduced by the proposed changes, is more conducive to creative academic work. We argue that a government-regulated environment will limit the opportunity for collaborative and scholarly ways of doing academic work, such as the natural formation of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991). The article suggests that the communities of practice model can offer a transformative approach to the organisation of academic work, by recognising and building on diversity, promoting collaboration and encouraging interdisciplinary research.