Correlational Relationships between Various International Rankings for Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

The task of the investigation was to study the interrelations of the results of university rankings presented by various ranking agencies. Data on the number of the participants in the World Rankings has been presented for the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities (WRWU), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), U-Multirank, Round University Ranking (RUR), the Moscow International Rating “Three University Missions”, SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR).The correlations have been studied by the methods of mathematical statistics for the results of the Moscow International Rating “Three University Missions” and the RUR, QS, THE, and the WRWU rankings; of the QS rankings with THE and the WRWU rankings, as well as for the two WRWU rankings published in January 2018 and July 2017. The linear regression formulas linking the positions of universities in different rankings have been obtained. The results of the Moscow International Rating “Three University Missions” moderately correlate with the results of the RUR rankings, the correlation with WRWU is low. The correlations for the QS ranking with THE and the WRWU rankings are moderate. Very high correlation has been detected only for the two WRWU rankings, which raises questions about the feasibility of conducting them with an interval of six months.