Best practices and challenges in monitoring progress towards gender equality: The case of an online university

Abstract

A central task of gender equality units at universities is to promote the availability of sex-disaggregated data on the composition and functioning of universities. Such data are essential to identify gender gaps and to determine which actions should be taken to address gender inequalities across university sectors (academic staff, administrative staff, students, etc.). The production of these data must be supported by a number of indicators which aim to incorporate a ‘gender lens’ in the measurement of the institutional processes occurring at universities. This presentation describes a set of gender indicators developed at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya for evaluating the success of gender interventions in three key areas: 1) Staff (composition, salary, parental leaves, etc.); 2) Academic performance (student enrollment, achievement, and dropout, etc.); and 3) Research outcomes (publications, research projects, and research team composition). It is argued that these indicators are crucial for monitoring institutional gender-related changes over time, as well as for promoting the social accountability of universities.