2. Some observations
Rankings have proliferated since 2003
17 global rankings in the IREG Inventory
Plus business, subject, regional etc
Already out of date
Largely ignored in 2003, now intense public concern
3. Ranking Realities: the ranking
community
Diverse and complex
IREG International Inventory has 45 rankings
Since publication new rankings from Russia, Kazakhstan,
Iran
4. Ranking realities; the media
THE
QS
Shanghai Rankings
US News Best Global Universities
CWUR, Nature Index, Webometrics, Nature Index, Reuters, Emerging/Trendence, Round Rankings, National Taiwan University, URAP,
Scimago etc etc etc
5. Media coverage highly selective
Compare the THE world rankings and Round University
Rankings
Similar methodology
But RUR includes more indicators
RUR has sensible weighting
Compare Babol Noshirvani University of Iran in the two
rankings
THE top 400, 1st Iran, 1st for normalised citations
RUR 615, 7th in Iran, 59th for citations
6. continued
BUT compare the public response to the rankings
Google search
THE – over 1 million plus
RUR – 62,000
THE reported in the national press, praised by university
heads
RUR covered in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe
7. Rankings hierarchy
1. THE
2. QS
3. Shanghai
4. US News Best Global Universities
5. Research based rankings by universities or research
centres
6. Web based rankings
8. continued
Yesterday’s sessions – Raghu and Cesar referred to THE
and QS
Exceptions – URAP in Malaysia, Webometrics in Africa
Does this hierarchy have anything to do with quality of
any kind?
Reliability, validity, consistency, transparency?
Or does it reflect the interests of the current elites of
higher education?
9. Collusion between media,
universities and rankers
Errors and defects of rankings are (mostly) quietly
ignored
We don’t see (much) criticism of THE for bizarre citation
results, QS for emphasis on surveys
Rankers provide useful data, but also headlines for the
public, scapegoats and heroes for the media
10. continued
Narratives for universities – doomsday is coming unless
we get more money and more international students,
British universities are in danger because of Brexit
11. Forget about rankings?
Can we just forget about rankings?
We would just revert to the pre-Rankings days and have
informal rankings
12. Criticism of rankings
From periphery, blogs and social media
Often anonymous
Less well known institutions
Technical criticism in journal articles
University leaders -- We are unique, rankings do not
measure what matters
What is missing is criticism that is not anti-ranking in
principle and is comprehensible to specialists
13. What should be done?
More rankings by universities
More informed and independent criticism of rankings
Separate ranking, auditing, journalism, advertising
