More on Latin American rankings

More details on Latin America from the QS rankings

A post from some time ago noted the new found enthusiasm in Latin America for rankings. This has been borne out by the publication in 2011 and now 2012 of a specific Latin american league table by QS.

The introduction to the table notes that

QS University Rankings: Latin America was published for the first time in 2011, this generated a huge amount of interest, both within the region and further afield.

This is perhaps unsurprising: Latin America is a hugely dynamic, fast-growing continent, that has recently identified higher education as key to its development, yet in global rankings it has mostly been conspicuous by its absence.

…

As in 2011, the rankings adopt the principles of the QS World University Rankings, augmented with measures of particular regional application.

Academic and employer reputation surveys remain the backbone of our approach, in combination with data on research productivity and citations, student/faculty ratio, the proportion of staff with a PhD, and web presence.

It is an exciting period for Latin American universities, with the growth in scientific research, increased for higher education, increased student mobility and the rise of private universities all accelerating the pace of change.

This year’s rankings help further our understanding of the comparative performance of universities throughout the region.

They also shine a light on pockets of development that have previously been beyond the scope of international rankings.

So the top 20 from QS is as set out below (full details can be found here). And whilst the top institution here, the Universidade de São Paulo, is ranked at 139 in the world in the latest QS table the general trend seems to be an upward one.

1 Universidade de São Paulo – Brazil

2 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile – Chile

3 Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) – Brazil

4 Universidad de Chile – Chile

5 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) – Mexico

6 Universidad de los Andes – Colombia

7 Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) – Mexico

8 Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – Brazil

9 Universidad de Concepción – Chile

10 Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH) – Chile

11 Universidad de Buenos Aires – Argentina

12 Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Colombia

13 Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – Brazil

14 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Do Sul (UFRGS) – Brazil

15 Universidade Federal de São Paulo – Brazil

16 Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) – Mexico

17 Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” (UNESP) – Brazil

18 Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro – Brazil

19 Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) – Mexico

20 Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina Santa María de los Buenos Aires – UCA – Argentina

Giving league tables a bad name

This kind of thing really shouldn’t be given any airtime

Yes, sad to say it is the ‘University Drinking League’. Fortunately it does not deserve to be taken at all seriously given that it is simply self-reported consumption by students.

Being the responsible folks that we are we would never stoop to making lazy generalisations, so you can decide whether or not you’re surprised to find Queen’s University Belfast sitting top of the pile – with each student drinking a headache-inducing 27.3 units per week.

The uni in second place – Heriot-Watt – also came second in this year’s University Sex League, suggesting that its students have found more than a couple of ways to keep out the cold during the harsh Scottish winter.

The top three is rounded off with Bath Spa (who came in 4th place in the 2011 drinking league), whilst at the other end of the table we find Wolverhampton, Glasgow and Robert Gorden Uni propping things up – with the latter having an average of just 11 units per student per week.

Average units drunk per student per week
1	Queen’s University Belfast	27.3
2	Heriot-Watt University	26.3
3	Bath Spa University	26.3
4	University of Hull	26.1
5	Sheffield Hallam University	24.5
6	University of Strathclyde	24.3
7	University of Wales Institute, Cardiff	23.9
8	Nottingham Trent University	23.8
9	University College London	23.1
10	University of Manchester	22.7
11	Swansea University	22.7
12	University of Aberdeen	22.5
13	University of Leeds	22.3
14	University of Edinburgh	22.1
15	Manchester Metropolitan University	21.6
16	Bangor University	21.5
17	University of Liverpool	20.8
18	University of Glamorgan	20.7
19	University of Plymouth	20.6
20	University of York	20.5

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, from the same source we have the ‘University Sex League 2012 where self-reporting is likely to be even less reliable than with alcohol consumption:

After the University of Glamorgan topped the list last year, the Welsh domination of the bedroom continues as Bangor University find themselves in pole position with 8.31 sexual partners per student. Llongyfarchiadau! (That’s Welsh for ‘congrats’, by the way.)

The former table-toppers have slipped to 15th, whilst their neighbours Aberystwyth Uni find themselves in the top five for the second consecutive year.

At the other end of the spectrum it would seem that The Only Way is No-Sex, with The University of Essex propping up the rest of the table with just 1.15 sexual partners per student.

 

 

Rank	University	Average number of sexual partners since starting uni*
1	Bangor University	8.31
2	Heriot-Watt University	5.8
3	University of Plymouth	5.75
4	Liverpool John Moores University	5.48
5	Aberystwyth University	5.34
6	Manchester Metropolitan University	5.31
7	Brunel University	5.22
8	Aston University	5.19
9	Sheffield Hallam University	4.89
10	Teesside University	4.86
11	University of Wolverhampton	4.86
12	Swansea University	4.75
13	Newcastle University	4.72
14	Edge Hill University	4.7
15	University of Glamorgan	4.67
16	University of Huddersfield	4.66
17	University of Cambridge	4.62
18	University of Exeter	4.59
19	University of Portsmouth	4.53
20	University of Wales Institute, Cardiff	4.52

No doubt the Guardian, Times, THE and QS will be reconsidering their criteria with some urgency…

African Universities and the Global Rankings

Should African universities be concerned with the global league tables?

Inside Higher Ed has a really good piece on African universities and the impact of the international rankings. Essentially the challenge for Africa is that the global league tables use metrics which simply don’t favour the continent’s institutions:

Any observer of higher education in Africa would immediately realize that African universities, with the exception of a handful, stand no chance of appearing under the THE Rankings; or for that matter under other global university rankings such that the Shanghai Jiao Tong Ranking or the QS World University Rankings, which equally use criteria with a heavy bias on research, publications in international refereed journals and citations. African universities have to cope with huge student enrolment with limited financial and physical resources. They are short of academic staff, a large proportion of whom do not have a PhD. Not surprisingly, their research output and performance in postgraduate education are poor. It is clear that in the rankings race, they are playing on a non-level field.

But the more pertinent question is: should African universities attempt to be globally ranked? I believe not. It would be not only a waste of resources but also inappropriate. The priority for African universities at the moment should be to provide the skilled manpower required for their country’s development; to undertake research to solve the myriad problems facing Africa and to communicate their findings to the stakeholders in the most appropriate form, not necessarily through publications in international journals; and to engage with their community to meet the Millennium Development Goals and the Education For All targets. These do not fit the criteria for global rankings. They do, however, need assistance to improve the quality of their teaching provision, their research output and their service to the community. Their aim, and that of their government, should be that they be quality assured, not globally ranked.

Notwithstanding the recent success in the THE rankings of the University of Cape Town’s Medical Faculty (as reported in Business Day Live), this advice seems to me to be eminently sensible. Rather than chasing the rankings, where they will always be at a disadvantage, African universities should focus on delivering their regional and national missions in teaching, research and knowledge transfer. Improvements will happen over time and, hopefully, with support from universities in other parts of the world which will ultimately mean that institutions in Africa will be able to compete on the global stage. But chasing the rankings is not the way to go.

The Three World University League Tables of 2012/13

World University League Tables 2012/13

Following the publication of the THE world university rankings, we can put the three world league tables together, and in particular the UK placings, in a handy reference guide. They all offer their own unique take on world university placings.

Here they all are:

The Times Higher World University Rankings, including UK results.

QS World Rankings 2012 also with UK results.

Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings and UK placings too.

…all your world league table needs in one handy location.

One fascinating quirk of the world versus UK tables which demonstrates why caution is needed at all times when dealing with such data is that the University of Edinburgh appears higher in the world rankings in both the QS and Times Higher tables than it does in the recent domestic Sunday Times ranking (where it is 39th). Different indicators being used but it really does raise questions about the Sunday Times methodology.

2012/13 QS World University Rankings

Latest QS world league table is out

A preview of the 2012/13 QS World University Rankings from John O’Leary, makes clear the impact that the league tables have. Not just on institutions but also on governments:

The rankings, which will be published on September 11, are intended primarily to guide international students, their parents and advisors in their choice of university. This year, there will be 700 institutions to compare on six different measures, with additional faculty-specific rankings to illustrate particular strengths.

But QS rankings are also used by governments from Denmark and Germany to Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Japan to evaluate the standing of their own and other countries’ universities. Positions are used in funding allocations, promotional material and even immigration decisions.

The German and Japanese governments have both used QS ranking positions as one of their performance measures in research budgeting. Thailand is one of a growing number of countries to use the rankings to shortlist the universities chosen for additional funding to help them compete internationally.

In the UK, the Browne Report on student fees used QS rankings to illustrate the high standing of the country’s universities. A Government-funded advertising campaign coinciding with the Olympic Games in London to promote the UK as a tourist or business destination also quoted the rankings.

Full details of the rankings can be found at the QS website. A summary of the world top 10 follows where we find a swap at the top as MIT replaces Cambridge at No 1 and four UK universities remain in the top 10:

Global top ten

2012	2011	Institution
1	3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2	1	University of Cambridge
3	2	Harvard University
4	7	UCL (University College London)
5	5	University of Oxford
6	6	Imperial College London
7	4	Yale University
8	8	University of Chicago
9	13	Princeton University
10	12	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

 

The UK also has 18 universities in the top 100:

Top UK universities

2	1	University of Cambridge	GB
4	7	UCL (University College London)	GB
5	5	University of Oxford	GB
6	6	Imperial College London	GB
21	20	University of Edinburgh	GB
26	27	King’s College London (KCL)	GB
28	30	University of Bristol	GB
32	29	The University of Manchester	GB
54	59	University of Glasgow	GB
58	50	The University of Warwick	GB
66	72	The University of Sheffield	GB
69	64	London School of Economics and Political Science	GB
72	74	The University of Nottingham	GB
73	75	University of Southampton	GB
77	67	University of Birmingham	GB
92	95	Durham University	GB
93	97	University of St Andrews	GB
94	93	University of Leeds	GB

 

QS World subject ranking – UK universities

New QS world rankings by subject

The Guardian has a summary of UK universities’ performance in the latest QS subject rankings and it looks like Oxford comes out top

Institution name	Highest rank	Subject
University of Oxford	1	Geography
		History
		Philosophy
University of Cambridge	1	English Language and Literature
London Business School	3	Accountancy and Finance
London School of Economics	3	Politics and International Studies
Imperial College London	6	Pharmacy and Pharmacology
University of Edinburgh	7	Linguistics
University of Manchester	11	Geography
Durham University	12	Geography
University College London	12	Psychology
King’s College London	16	Pharmacy and Pharmacology
University of St Andrews	16	Philosophy
Institute of Education	17	Education
University of Nottingham	21=	Pharmacy and Pharmacology
University of Warwick	21	English Language and Literature
University of Bristol	22	Geography
Lancaster University	24=	Environmental Science
University of York	27	English Language and Literature

On the face of it this looks like a fairly creditable performance in a limited range of subjects. The full subject ranks are available here.

European Union university ranking plan: the sector holds its breath

Latest news on the most eagerly awaited league table

A post just over a year ago noted the development of a new EU ranking method. Now University World News carries a piece about the European Union defying criticism of its university ranking plan. Speaking at a rankings event in April Jordi Curell, director of lifelong learning, higher education and international affairs, did accept that not everyone was wildly enthisastic about the U-Multirank non-league table. But he did attempt to defend the idea:

“Rankings which are carefully thought out are the only transparency tools which can give a comparative picture of higher education institutions at a national, European and global level,” he told the symposium.

In March the UK House of Lords’ European Union committee called the initiative a waste of money. Its report argued that U-Multirank brought nothing new to a market already crowded by other international ranking systems, such as those developed by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Times Higher Education magazine and QS.

But Brussels plans to plough ahead regardless.

Earlier this year the Commission announced that it would spend €4 million (US$5.2 million) testing its new ranking method and invited HEIs to tender for the work with the results due at the end of next year.

Curell told the symposium that generally, a reluctance to support rankings had evolved. But while they might not reflect the full diversity of reality, rankings shape the perception of that reality.

He advised representatives of higher education institutions present at the event to try to influence how rankings develop rather than opposing the trend.

This final point is a good one: universities do have to engage with the rankings. Although you don’t have to express support for them in order to do so. However, I’m still not clear why U-Multirank, a league table which will not be a league table, is necessary. We’ll have to wait and see.

Pride & Prejudices: Problems with National & International League Tables

Presentation from AUA Conference 2012

Thank you to all who attended this session on 3 April 2012

As promised, here is the presentation:

 

 

As mentioned at the presentation, this will be the last time I deliver this session at AUA conference. I’ve done it too many times but the main reason is that my co-presenter, Tony Rich, is no longer able to join me. Tony is seriously unwell and I would encourage everyone  to sponsor Jonathan Nicholls, Registrary at Cambridge University, who is running the London Marathon to raise funds for Bristol University’s cancer research fund.

See Jonathan’s Just Giving page for details.

Latin American universities get ranking

League tables breaking new ground

An earlier post noted the emergence of league tables in Latin America.

The Economist recently addressed this issue noting the emergence in particular of Brazil:

The São Paulo state universities that are pulling ahead of the pack are doing so with the help of generous state funding, which allows them to scoop up the region’s best researchers. They are also specialising. Brazil is emerging as what Demos, a British think-tank, describes as a “natural knowledge economy”: one that boosts the value of its plentiful commodities by the application of technology, such as making biofuels from sugar cane. That in turn makes it possible to gather a critical mass of researchers in one place.

The Economist also commented on the first ranking of Latin American universities to be published, by QS, and raised a few questions about its methodology:

QS relies much more heavily than the other ranking organisations on measures of reputation, which allows it to move swiftly into new regions. However, that carries the disadvantage of potentially over-rating large institutions, especially those whose names include countries or capital cities, such as the University of Buenos Aires or the National Autonomous University of Mexico. They have hundreds of thousands of students apiece and sound like you must have heard of them, even if you have not. Still, a start has now been made on opening the region’s universities to greater scrutiny. That can only help them to improve.

The QS rankings can be found here. The Top 10 is as follows:

1 Universidade de São Paulo Brazil
2 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Chile
3 Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) Brazil
4 Universidad de Chile Chile
5 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Mexico
6 Universidad de los Andes Colombia
7 Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) Mexico
8 Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina
9 Universidad Nacional de Colombia Colombia
10 Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Brazil

So, it’s a start and no doubt there will be much more to follow in due course as higher education in Latin America really takes off. And in this context it’s also worth noting the recent joint mission to Brazil by the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham, as reported here in the THE.

The Three World University League Tables of 2011/12

World University League Tables 2011/12

An earlier post provided links to all of the recently published UK league tables. Now, following the publication of the THE world university rankings, we can put the three world league tables together, and in particular the UK placings, in a handy reference guide.

Here they all are:

The Times Higher World University Rankings, including UK results.

QS World Rankings 2011 UK results

Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings

All your world league table needs in one handy location. Do handle with care though.

QS World University Rankings 2011 – UK Results

QS World University Rankings 2011 – Results for UK universities

The UK presence in the QS top 100 for 2011 is largely unchanged although there is some jockeying for position in the top 10 where Cambridge is ranked first for a second consecutive year ahead of Harvard, MIT and Yale and Oxford moves up to fifth ahead of Imperial, while UCL drops from fourth to seventh. UK institutions do tend to do rather well in this table though, probably because of the significant score derived from a reputational survey (where age counts for a lot). There are 37 UK universities in the top 300, second only to the US. Despite Cambridge’s table-topping performance, US institutions continue to dominate, taking 20 of the top 50 places and accounting for 70 of the top 300.

Six indicators are used in the ranking:
40% Academic reputation from a global survey
10% Employer reputation from a global survey
20% Citations per faculty from SciVerse Scopus
20% Faculty student Ratio
5% Proportion of international students
5% Proportion of international staff

2011 ranking of UK universities (2010 in brackets)

1  (1 )University of Cambridge

5  (6) University of Oxford

6  (7) Imperial College London

7  (4)  UCL

20  (22)  University of Edinburgh

27  (21) King’s College London (KCL)

29  (30) The University of Manchester

30  (27) University of Bristol

50  (53)  The University of Warwick

59 (77)  University of Glasgow

64 (80) LSE

67 (59) University of Birmingham

72 (69) The University of Sheffield

74 (73) The University of Nottingham

75 (81) University of Southampton

93 (85) University of Leeds

95 (92) Durham University

96 (88) University of York

97 (95) University of St Andrews

Full details at QS World University Rankings Results website.

2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 10 and UK placings

2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 10 and UK placings

The rankings have been published and are available at the ARWU site I believe but there seem to be problems with access at time of writing. Am therefore going with second hand accounts of the positions (which I hope are accurate).

As last year though there are no surprises and very little movement in the top 10 with Harvard retaining the number 1 spot for the fifth successive year (last year’s position in brackets):

1 Harvard University (1)

2 Stanford University (3)

3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (4)

4 University of California, Berkeley (2)

5 University of Cambridge (5)

6 California Institute of Technology (6)

7 Princeton University (7)

8 Columbia University (8)

9 University of Chicago (9)

10 University of Oxford (10)

The Times Higher (which clearly has managed to access the ARWU site) has the UK’s top performers (ie in the Top 100) as follows (last year’s position in brackets):

5 Cambridge (5)

10 Oxford (10)

20 University College London (21)

24 Imperial College London (26)

38 University of Manchester (44)

53 University of Edinburgh (54)

68 King’s College London (63)

70 University of Bristol (66)

85 University of Nottingham (84)

97 University of Sheffield (88)

So, very little change at all to report apart from Birmingham dropping out of the top 100. Perhaps there will be more excitement with the Times Higher and QS tables.

Pride and Prejudices: Problems with National and International League Tables

Presentation from AUA Conference 2011

Thank you to all who attended this session on 19 April 2011

As promised, here is the presentation:

Ranking in Latin America

New Latin American league tables emerging

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a league table developments in a number of Latin American nations:

The growing influence of university rankings has reached Latin America, with governments, news media, and private researchers drawing up domestic versions that they say are important for the institutions and students alike.

Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru each have at least one national ranking. Some were first published in recent months, and all use different approaches to evaluate their higher-education institutions.

A few, such as in Chile, are produced by news-media companies. Others, as in Colombia, were carried out by independent researchers. And some, like Brazil, are not so much rankings as government-sanctioned ratings.

Whatever their origin, they all serve a purpose that goes beyond boasting or one-upmanship, experts say. The rankings put pressure on lagging universities to up their game, and they give government officials, students, and parents a useful yardstick.

“Global rankings are very important. But there are close to 15,000 higher-education institutions in the world, and the global ranking deals with only 400, 500 of them,” says Kazimierz Bilanow, managing director of the Warsaw-based International Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence. “There are millions and millions of students who never think of going to Harvard. But they want to go to university and get an education, so they look at their own country. National rankings give them some guidance.”

The Brazil government rankings are intended to result in failing institutions being closed. The Colombian ranking uses a narrow range of indicators focusing on graduate student numbers, journals and recognised research staff numbers. Chile seems to have broader range of published indicators to draw on which are published by government including “courses most likely to lead to jobs, expected salaries on graduation, and space on campus per student”.

Whilst these national rankings seem to be having a local impact in some countries, it does seem that international developments are on the way with QS planning to introduce a new Latin American ranking. In time there will undoubtedly be more Latin American institutions in the global rankings too.

International world rankings – where do you stand? Going Global 2011 §2

International world rankings – where do you stand?

A belated note on one of the sessions at Going Global earlier this month. This session, on league tables, was for me most enjoyable session but sadly there really was insufficient time for debate. The outline looked good:

As with the economic shifts we have seen over the last decade, changes in education are happening at breathtaking speed. The growing differentiation in the higher education sector in terms of universities’ missions, international strategies, capacities and resources, confronts traditional ways of ‘ranking’ institutions. Contributions from Phil Baty, Times Higher Education world rankings, and John Molony from QS, will present the global trends and explain changes in their ranking methodologies to justify the role of the need for rankings.

This session is designed to take the debate beyond the methodologies, to reflect on concerns on the potential impact of rankings, in such a highly competitive higher education market. Who are the audiences: how are they interpreting the information and for what useful purpose? How seriously are rankings taken by the institutions and personnel on which they pronounce judgement?

Responses from Prof Dzulkifli and Prof Malcolm Grant will debate the impact of rankings from both the perspective of internationally focused university leaders and from an academic community that may well feel disenfranchised from the adulation and denigration associated with fluctuating league tables. Giving an alternative perspective, Dr Kevin Downing, will cite the benefits that can be derived from a University’s world-class standing and success, as reflected in these ranking exercises.

Phil Baty, Deputy Editor of Times Higher Education, spoke passionately in defence of rankings. Whilst acknowledging they were rather crude and had many faults, could never be really objective, don’t reflect the diversity of higher education across the globe, they are here to stay. Phil outlined the rationale for the shift from QS to  Thomson Reuters for its data provision and the ways in which he believed THE had behaved responsibly in relation to rankings. It was a spirited defence which included the now customary declaration “I am a ranker and I am proud!”. Fuller details of Phil’s comments were published in THE article (and he really does need some new puns).

Prof Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, Vice-Chancellor of the Universiti Sains Malaysia, also commented on the many faults of league tables, noting the problems with constructing the concept of quality, the risk of ignoring the complexity of the picture and the fact that rankings generally fail to recognize a holistic view of education. Moreover, they can lead to distortion of institutional priorities, fail to reflect the intangible benefits of HE and can leave the Impression of a linear relationship between the data and rankings.

John Molony, Vice-President, Strategic Planning and Marketing, Quacquarelli Symonds, joined Phil Baty (almost) in defending rankings, arguing that QS was already fulfilling a useful role with its focus on students, and particularly those with a propensity to be mobile students. Students want and need rankings, he argued and, when they work and are used properly, the rankings do provide helpful information. He argued that there will be 7m mobile students by 2020, all of whom would be making a massive investment and needed proper information to inform their decision making. Nevertheless, rankings do need to be handled with care, they do simplify and reduce whilst being open and transparent for users. Finally, he argued that rankings, require universities to be more open and can lead to innovation and new forms of evaluation.

Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost, University College London, sought to demolish league tables and succeeded, at least partially, identifying a number of major “fracture points” including:

• failure to cope with the diversity of the system and address atypical but excellent institutions such as the LSE
• the difficulty in picking the indicators make a university world class -  many are intangible and indicators can’t necessarily reflect the real values of an institution
• we can’t measure many things directly and therefore have to use proxies
• international league tables do have lots of data, but it is distorting and misleading
• comparisons compound the problem and can be of limited significance when higher education is so varied.
• there is a problem with the weighting of indicators and the preconceptions of what university is that this implies.

Damning stuff. He added that we needed to retain academic rigour and should not abandon skepticism when dealing with rankings. We should not sleepwalk into accepting a commercial version of higher education.

Dr Kevin downing, Senior Co-ordinator (Academic Planning and Quality Assurance), City University of Hong Kong, shared many of the reservations expressed by others, noting also that none of the tables took into account community roles nor did teaching enjoy proper coverage. Arguments in favour of rankings did exist including that they were better than the alternatives including  simple subjective judgement. Pragmatically, rankings are inevitable and we need to get used to it.

THE report is here and this and many of the sessions from the conference, including this one, can be seen on the Policy Review TV site.