Productive Education

I read a piece the other day on the use of productivity measures for academic staff. The measures were all about output quantity (presumably with the proviso that papers wouldn’t be published if they didn’t meet quality criteria). However what matters is not quantity of output or quality of output but the impact of that output - how is thinking or practice changed as a result. This is difficult to measure as truly innovative and original ideas could take years to achieve their full impact. But attempting to judge it - even subjectively - might be a better measure than simply counting it.


Productivity measures can be quite difficult to establish in certain contexts but we should be as creative with our measures as we are with our productivity improvements. 

An even more bizzarre suggestion

I am quite used to seeing strange suggestions for improving personal productivity - often tied to an app someone is trying to sell me.  But the one I saw the other day 'takes the biscuit'.

It is based on the fact that some people think they are more productive working from a coffee shop rather than working from home (fewer - or at least different - distractions).

(Of course whether they really are more productive is probably debatable to say the least.)

A new app - Coffitivity - plays you the ambient sounds of a coffee shop for those occasions when you can't actually get there. It comes with a range of coffee shop sounds and claims to boost your creativity.

I haven't used it - so I won't pass judgement ... except to say this is the weirdest productivity app I have heard of so far ... unless you know better, of course.

Does technology harm or help productivity?

Silly question, isn't it?

Well no. If you could monitor what your staff are 'working' on all the time, you would find that many book holidays, contact their medical practitioner, look for theatre schedules - and so on ... all in your time.

They work more productively on task perhaps but the time they gain they treat as their own.

I am not suggesting you put sophisticated monitoring software on their PCs - they would only use their phones...  but that you recognise these unintended consequences of introducing technology.

The same is true of other technologies - what we expect to gain we often do ... but we might lose other elements to the technology - and the net gain might be less than we expect. When you do the sums, factor in unintended negative consequences. If the sums still work, go ahead.  if the negative consequences don't arise - you get a premium!