The once collaborative university rankings of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the Times Higher Education have now gone their separate ways, and views on the THE’s new rankings are mixed, reports a Chronicle of Higher Education article, “‘Times Higher Education’ Releases New rankings, but Will They Appease Skeptics?“
Times Higher Education criticizes the old collaborative methodology by claiming that too much weight was given to school reputation, based on less than 4,000 survey responses. THE’s new methodology is reported to utilize more hard facts and be more evidence-based, as opposed to relying too heavily on subjective measures such as reputation.
There are five “broad performance categories” in the World University Rankings of Times Higher Education: research influence, measured in citations (32.5%), research, measured by volume, income, and reputation (30%), teaching (30%), internationalization, measured by student and staff ratios (5%), and knowledge transfer and innovation, measured by industry income (2.5%).
Many are skeptical of the new rankings’ so-called objectivity—how can you objectively, not to mention effectively, measure teaching excellence?
According to another Chronicle article on the subject, the introduction of the quantitative, objective rankings is not just seen in Times Higher Education’s rankings, but in QS’s new rankings and the U.S. News rankings as well. (By the way, QS and U.S. News will be partnering up for the upcoming U.S. News ranking report.)
The Chronicle’s criticism of THE’s new methodology is mainly that it turns the rankings into a sort of contest. David Glenn, author of The Chronicle article, “Perverse-Incentives Watch: ‘Times Higher Education’ Edition,” calls it “the THE game,” urging readers to consider the following steps institutions can now take (note Glenn’s sarcasm) to boost their rankings:
Tell your faculty members to move heaven and earth to increase their citation counts. Tell (or wink and nudge) your faculty members to cite one another’s research. Citation numbers count for 32.5 percent of a university’s overall THE score.
Hire more postdocs. The number of postgraduate researchers counts for 6 percent of a university’s overall score.
Graduate more Ph.D.’s and/or produce fewer undergraduates. The Ph.D.-to-undergraduate ratio counts for 2.25 percent of a university’s overall score.
Have a high ratio of international to domestic students. That figure counts for 2 percent of a university’s overall score.
Glenn closes his critique by stating, “None of those steps seems outrageous on its face. But in each one, you can see the potential for distortions and unintended consequences.”
And now…finally…the rankings!
Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings
Top 10 Universities Worldwide
1. Harvard University
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4. Stanford University
5. Princeton University
6. University of Cambridge
6. University of Oxford
8. University of California Berkeley
9. Imperial College London
10. Yale University
Top 10 Universities in North America
1. Harvard University
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4. Stanford University
5. Princeton University
6. University of California Berkeley
7. Yale University
8. University of California Los Angeles
9. University of Chicago
10. Johns Hopkins University
Top 10 Universities Worldwide
1. University of Cambridge
2. Harvard University
3. Yale University
4. UCL (University College London)
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6. University of Oxford
7. Imperial College London
8. University of Chicago
9. California Institute of Technology
10. Princeton University
View either of the two sites for more information about their ranking methodologies.
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Read the full article: New World University Rankings Divided
