Developing University Governance Indicators and their Weighting System Using a Modified Delphi Method

The need to measure and benchmark university governance practices at institutional level has been growing, yet there is a lack of a comprehensive, weighted indicator system to facilitate the process. The paper discusses the development of university governance indicators and their weighting system using a three-round Delphi method. Discussions, a questionnaire, and interviews were used in Round 1 to 3, respectively, to collect experts’ opinions to construct the indicator list and indicator weights, and to shed light on the divergence of expert judgements on some aspects. Non-parametric statistical techniques were applied to analyse the survey data. Ninety-one indicators grouped in five dimensions of university governance, namely Management and Direction, Participation, Accountability, Autonomy and Transparency, were proposed and rated in terms of their importance. The preliminary results show relatively high levels of importance for all of the proposed indicators, thus none was excluded. The weighting of the indicators and factors vary remarkably. Among the five dimensions, Participation is found to be the least important; experts’ consensus is found to be low in Participation and Transparency. The study results also provide important implications to researchers and practitioners in university governance.