Brian Gavriloff, The Journal
The clinical sciences building at the University of Alberta.

A communications gaffe has landed the University of Alberta near the bottom of a study of public accountability at Canada's universities.

The U of A finished 35th out of 41 universities in the annual study conducted by the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.

Since 1998, Wilfrid Laurier researchers have asked universities across the country to provide them with publicly accessible information such as audited financial statements, annual reports, performance targets, and mission statements. The information is then analyzed using 26 criteria that measures its depth, quality, and clarity.

The results are supposed to show how accountable the institutions are to the taxpayers in their individual provinces. It also shows students what they get for their tuition money.

Prof. Morton Nelson, who heads the study, said a letter was sent to the president of every Canadian university requesting the information. The U of A, however, only responded with a voice-mail message from someone in the office of the vice-president of finance.

"They said all the information we were asking for was on their Web site," Nelson said Friday. "So my colleague went into their Web site and spent about an hour mucking around and never did find their audited financial statements. And that's one of the reasons they scored so low this year."

U of A provost Doug Owram questioned the legitimacy of the study. Owram said a relatively inexperienced staff member responded to the Wilfrid Laurier researchers and attempted to give them the quickest possible answer.

Owram said that any serious academic researcher would have made another request in an attempt to get the best information "rather than in a sense punishing us for not giving them the information in the form that they would have liked.

"In a way it distorts the accuracy of their study."

Owram noted that several universities which did not respond to the information request were not ranked.

He also noted that the information they requested is readily available on the U of A's Web site. A Journal reporter found the university's audited financial statement in a matter of seconds by following two links.

The U of A scored 22.3 out of 100. The top-ranked university, McMaster in Hamilton, garnered 64.5. Queens finished second with 64.2 and the University of Calgary was third with 51.3.

Last year, the U of A provided the information and finished fifth.

"That might indicate to (the Wilfrid Laurier researchers) some problem in their methodology rather than our accountability," Owram said.

Students' union president Chris Samuel said that whenever he sought information from the university "they have always been very forthcoming. They sometimes provided the information in a less than timely manner but for the most part every information request we made has been dealt with."

The university last year experienced serious problems with its accounting caused by a major problem with its main computer system. The new system was more than $14 million over budget but was plagued by glitches.

Edmonton Journal

From Y2K Discussion archives:

U of A promises to find answers for computer woes

-- Anonymous, August 25, 2001