Academic Ranking of World Universities

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1 Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ranking
2 The Times (of London) World University Ranking
3 Slovenian ranking
4 Webometrics ("Spanish") ranking
5 European Commission Ranking
6 Other Rankings
7 See also
- 7.1 External links

[edit] Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ranking

One of the most widely cited rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities was compiled by researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University aand includes major institutes of higher education ranked according to a formula that took into account alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10 percent), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20 percent), "highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories" (20 percent), articles published in Nature and Science (20 percent), the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (20 percent) and the size of the institution (10 percent). The results have been cited by The Economist magazine in ranking universities of the world [1]. Due to its relative objective methodology, the results have often been cited by The Economist magazine in ranking universities of the world [2]. However, the Shanghai rankings have also been criticized for placing too much emphasis on the Nobel prizewinners, as opposed to the broader impact of a university's scientific output. Arguably, this also has the effect of biasing the results towards the sciences for which a Nobel prize is awarded. There are three Nobel prizes for the sciences (chemistry, physics and medicine), one for the social sciences (economics), one for the arts (literature) and the Peace Prize. Universities with staff or alumni holding Fields medals for mathematics are also rewarded, but similar awards for achievement in the arts are not taken into account.

Because of its methodology the list ranks almost exclusively research universities and not liberal-arts colleges.

The ranking has been criticized by the Times of London, which compiles its own ranking (see next section). A paper published in the Romanian journal Ad Astra found that the results could not be reproduced using the ranking's stated methodology. The Shanghai group also refused to provide raw data in response to a request.<ref>R.V., Florian (2006). Irreproducibility of the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities, Ad Astra 5 (1).[3]</ref>

[edit] The Times (of London) World University Ranking

The Jiao Tong rankings were also criticized by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) of London, which also publishes an annual report about world rankings (see Times Higher Education World University Rankings for details).

In its 2004 report, it questioned why the Shanghai rankings count only Nobel prizes; why the universities where prizewinners studied, some at the turn of the century before last, were credited and why universities where winners carried out their research, often at least 20 years previously, were credited rather than the institution that now benefits from their presence.1 The report went on to further criticize the rankings for their emphasis on the sciences. Another paper [4] criticized the ranking for not being reproducible.

However, it is to be noted that THES ranking also faces severe criticisms. An Australian researcher castigates THES ranking because it arbitrarily put his very own Australian university far higher than it deserves.[5] Furthermore, there is a strong counter-argument to THES and others' criticism on SJTU ranking, which is claimed to place more emphasis on science. The argument is because even though there are more Nobel Prizes or awards in science, every university has an equal opportunity to win as many Nobel Prizes or awards in any fields, science and non-science. Thus, it is unfair to penalize science because the very purpose of the ranking is to measure both the breadth and the depth of a trully diverse university. A university that only focuses on certain areas then perhaps has not reached the level of diversity required to be qualified as a University. The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to establish a university that covers and excels in all fields. It takes time, resources and tremendous amount of energy. Thus, the ability of an academic body to reach that level has to be recognized. Weighting should not be an issue because the opportunity for each university to excel is equal in the sense that nobody can stop any university to excel if the very university chooses to do so.

[edit] Slovenian ranking

This study, conducted by the Jozef Stefan Institute is Slovenia, also provides a ranking for all world universities and can be accessed at: University Ranking by Institute Jozef Stefan, Slovenia. Unlike the Shanghai Jiao Tong study, the main criteria used includes the ratio between SCI and Scopus listed publication per ratio of staff. The report provides, however, downloadable Excel files, though which the user can select different criteria (such as the total number of publications, number of SCI publications only or the corresponding performance ratios).

[edit] Webometrics ("Spanish") ranking

This study was conducted by the Center of Documentation and Research of the Spanish Research Council in Madrid, Spain. It is available at: Webomatrics. Their methodology is based on the number of online publications and link citations for each institute, as reflected by the top internet search engines. Main focus is on the universities' commitment to web publishing and Open Access initiatives than to quality ranking.

One refinement of the Webometrics approach is the G-Factor methodology, which counts the number of links only from other university websites. The G-Factor is an indicator of the popularity or importance of each university's website from the combined perspectives of the creators of many other university websites. It is therefore a kind of extensive and objective peer review of a university through its website - in social network theory terminology, the G-Factor measures the 'nodality' of each university's website in the 'network' of university websites.

[edit] European Commission Ranking

The European Commission also weighed in on the issue, when it compiled a list of the 22 European universities which have the highest scientific impact (measured in terms of the impact factor of their scientific output). The list is available at: [6]. This ranking was compiled as part of the Third European Report on Science & Technology Indicators, prepared by the Directorate General for Science and Research of the European Commision in 2003 (updated 2004).

Being an official document of the European Union (office of the EU commisioner for science and technology), which took several years of specialist effort to compile, it can be regarded as a highly reliable source (the full report, containing almost 500 pages of statistics is available for download free from the EU website at: [7]). Unlike the other rankings, it only explicitely considers the top European institutions, but ample comparison statistics with the rest of the world are provided in the full report. In this ranking, the top 2 European universities are also Oxford and Cambridge, as in the Jiao Tong and Times ranking. This ranking, however, focuses only on the quality of the scientific research performed in an institution, as opposed to its size, quality of education or perceived prestige. Thus smaller, technical universities, such as TU Eindhoven (Netherlands) and TU Munich (Germany) closely follow Oxbridge. Furthermore, the report does not provide a direct comparison between these and US/world universities - although it does compute a scientific impact score, measured against the world average.

[edit] Other Rankings

Newsweek magazine has also recently conducted a ranking of The Top 100 Global Universitiesfor 2006. They evaluated universities on some of the measures used by Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Times Higher Education Survey. Fifty percent of the score came from equal parts of three measures used by Shanghai Jiatong: the number of highly-cited researchers in various academic fields, the number of articles published in Nature and Science, and the number of articles listed in the ISI Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities indices. Another 40 percent of the score came from equal parts of four measures used by the Times: the percentage of international faculty, the percentage of international students, citations per faculty member (using ISI data), and the ratio of faculty to students. The final 10 percent came from library holdings (number of volumes). (Taken from MSNBC's website)