Analyzing University Rankings
From my point of view, this year’s global university rankings have been propitious. First of all, AUB has made it into the “Top 300 in World QS University Rankings” for 2011/2012, moving up significantly from last year. Its rank is identical to that of Beiging Normal University and very close to that of well known institutions such as National University of Ireland, George Washington University, University of Newcastle, and University of Utah. This is an amazing achievement, considering the difficulties AUB is constantly bombarded with by virtue of its location in a particularly troubled part of the world. Secondly, Cambridge, which I have also become associated with, has once again established itself as the number one university in the world. Not only that, my Cambridge department/subject, Linguistics, ranks first globally, and my college, Trinity, has outdone all other Cambridge colleges (“First-Class Arts and Humanities Students Help Trinity to Top Place in Cambridge League Table”).
Since the QS world rankings have come to be regarded by many as the most reliable guide to university performance, it is important to understand what they mean and where they come from. Well, the letters Q and S stand for Quacquarelli (a Wharton MBA graduate who in 1990 founded a company specializing in education and study abroad) and Symonds, the British entrepreneur who partnered with him in 1998. Today, QS has hundreds of employees operating from offices in different parts of the world. QS methodology appears to be based on six indicators, with different weights: academic reputation (40%, from a global survey), employer reputation (10%, from a global survey), citations per faculty (20%, from SciVerse Scopus, a global database), faculty student ratio (20%), proportion of international students (5%), and proportion of international faculty (5%). In terms of sub-categories for academic reputation, the QS advisory board claims to have rejected financial criteria such as research income, focusing rather on the following: geographic/cultural diversity, unbiased approach to different subjects, contemporary relevance, reduced language bias, statistical validity, and resistance to data manipulation. As for the “employer reputation” indicator, it targets the reputation of university graduates among employers (focusing on quality) rather than the other way around. As part of this, employers are asked to list “up to ten domestic institutions they consider best for research” as well as “up to thirty international institutions they consider best for recruiting graduates”.
What has kept Cambridge at the top then, exactly? Its average of ratings across indicators: it is second globally on academic reputation, third on employer reputation, thirty eighth on citations per faculty, thirty second on faculty student ratio, thirty fourth on international faculty (with two gulf universities ranking first and second) and thirty eighth on international students. On average, it has scored better than Harvard, MIT and Oxford. For example, while Harvard ranks first on both academic and employer reputation, it is way behind on the last three indicators.
Back to AUB: Attempting to compare it with other universities in Lebanon on the QS web site, using the site’s search engine, can be mystifying. It produces only two hits for “Lebanon”: American University of Beirut and “Islamic University of Lebanon”. Where are the other Lebanese universities we are all familiar with? Could some of them appear among the top 700 to be released next week? That would definitely be something to explore.
Posted by May Mikati on 07 September 2011, 12:47 PM
From my point of view, this year’s global university rankings have been propitious. First of all, AUB has made it into the “Top 300 in World QS University Rankings” for 2011/2012, moving up significantly from last year. Its rank is identical to that of Beiging Normal University and very close to that of well known institutions such as National University of Ireland, George Washington University, University of Newcastle, and University of Utah. This is an amazing achievement, considering the difficulties AUB is constantly bombarded with by virtue of its location in a particularly troubled part of the world. Secondly, Cambridge, which I have also become associated with, has once again established itself as the number one university in the world. Not only that, my Cambridge department/subject, Linguistics, ranks first globally, and my college, Trinity, has outdone all other Cambridge colleges (“First-Class Arts and Humanities Students Help Trinity to Top Place in Cambridge League Table”).
Since the QS world rankings have come to be regarded by many as the most reliable guide to university performance, it is important to understand what they mean and where they come from. Well, the letters Q and S stand for Quacquarelli (a Wharton MBA graduate who in 1990 founded a company specializing in education and study abroad) and Symonds, the British entrepreneur who partnered with him in 1998. Today, QS has hundreds of employees operating from offices in different parts of the world. QS methodology appears to be based on six indicators, with different weights: academic reputation (40%, from a global survey), employer reputation (10%, from a global survey), citations per faculty (20%, from SciVerse Scopus, a global database), faculty student ratio (20%), proportion of international students (5%), and proportion of international faculty (5%). In terms of sub-categories for academic reputation, the QS advisory board claims to have rejected financial criteria such as research income, focusing rather on the following: geographic/cultural diversity, unbiased approach to different subjects, contemporary relevance, reduced language bias, statistical validity, and resistance to data manipulation. As for the “employer reputation” indicator, it targets the reputation of university graduates among employers (focusing on quality) rather than the other way around. As part of this, employers are asked to list “up to ten domestic institutions they consider best for research” as well as “up to thirty international institutions they consider best for recruiting graduates”.
What has kept Cambridge at the top then, exactly? Its average of ratings across indicators: it is second globally on academic reputation, third on employer reputation, thirty eighth on citations per faculty, thirty second on faculty student ratio, thirty fourth on international faculty (with two gulf universities ranking first and second) and thirty eighth on international students. On average, it has scored better than Harvard, MIT and Oxford. For example, while Harvard ranks first on both academic and employer reputation, it is way behind on the last three indicators.
Back to AUB: Attempting to compare it with other universities in Lebanon on the QS web site, using the site’s search engine, can be mystifying. It produces only two hits for “Lebanon”: American University of Beirut and “Islamic University of Lebanon”. Where are the other Lebanese universities we are all familiar with? Could some of them appear among the top 700 to be released next week? That would definitely be something to explore.
Posted by May Mikati on 07 September 2011, 12:47 PM
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