Since the late 1980s, research on post-industrialized economies shows that the boundary between work and family is increasingly becoming blurred. The continuing evolution of e-technology allows work for some to be done anywhere, anytime. This article examines the degree to which e-technology has transferred work into the home lives of academics and how this has affected their work/life balance. Drawing on a study in an Australian university of academics with young children, we utilise the terms 'work extensification' and 'work intensification' to explore whether these new technologies are a blessing or a curse in their work lives. At the same time we describe the deteriorating working conditions for Australian academics whose work has intensified and extended into their private lives with longer working hours in a speeded up environment. Our findings revealed the use of metaphors such as invasion and intrusion of e-technologies into academics' homes and their need to establish boundaries to separate work and family life. Most felt that having e-technologies at home was of benefit to their work but they came at a cost to their family life-delivering a blessing and a curse.

In 1995-97, a research team interviewed a cross-section of staff in two Australian public universities about the sacri ces they had to make to pursue their careers. This article discusses the responses of the staff who participated in this study. It uses Coser's concept of the 'greedy institution' to describe the hold which universities have over their staff and details the range of personal and professional sacri ces which staff made in order to be part of their university culture. Comparisons are drawn between male and female staff, academic and general staff, and the two universities which participated in this study. It is concluded that the overall impact of current economistic and neoliberal discourses are such as to minimise differences on each of these scores and produce a certain uniformity of response across site, gender and occupational status. The article suggests that this apparent uniformity is the product of a peak masculinist discourse used mainly by those in the more powerful positions in these institutions, which acts to disenfranchise all those who do not operate within its restricted and restrictive boundaries.You talk about sacri ces. Show us the wooden cross. (University X, JAC4, female academic)

This article discusses the impact of accountability on higher education policies in Europe and the United States. We describe how the accountability movement relates to other policy trends in higher education, providing empirical data on how accountability was implemented and how academics and managers in four universities perceived these policies. We close the article with a reflection on the observed shift from professional to political accountability that uses 'soft' mechanisms that seem to offer little change in the quality of education in these countries.

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The supervision journey is often a bumpy one. Students and supervisors should welcome making it smoother. This study investigated how the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and a more collaborative pedagogy could improve supervision. We interviewed eight supervisors and nine students in two Australian universities to explore the current use of ICT and its integration with supervision pedagogy. Recent literature demonstrated new forms of supervision pedagogy emerging that embraced the idea of creating communities, involving greater connectedness, collaboration and more intense relationships. Not all studies found movement away from the traditional form of supervision dyads. The students and supervisors in our study used email, mobile phones, Skype and Dropbox; some used social media like Twitter. Students reported their supervisors were competent in using ICT, sometimes initiating the uptake of new technologies. Overall, they identified the need for an increased use of ICT and its integration with supervision pedagogy.