Fuzzy Tops is Ranking of Academic Programs’ Competitiveness

Abstract

Acknowledging the level of relevancy and competitiveness of academic programs is very important to education providers. This in return will benefit students enrolling in the programs. Measuring the level of relevancy and competitiveness of academic programs can be very subjective. In this paper, the application of a quantitative multi criteria decision making method known as Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is presented. The relevancy and competitiveness of eleven academic programs offered at the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam are ranked based on seven criteria using modified Fuzzy TOPSIS. The criteria used in ranking of the academic programs were gathered from a group of twelve decision makers which comprises of top management of the faculty and university understudied. Quantitative ranking process was done based on data provided by the education provider itself. The seven criteria used include percentage of Dean’s Award recipients, percentage of graduates with CGPA > 3.5, percentage of graduate employability, program popularity, percentage of students’ entrance CGPA > 3.0, optimum enrollment based on allocation of places offered and future job demand. The weights of the criteria are determined using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Modified Fuzzy TOPSIS are then used to rank the academic programs by incorporating the weights of criteria found. Future job demand and percentage of graduate employability are found to be the top two most important criteria used in the ranking process. Bachelor of Science (Hons) Statistics, Bachelor of Information Technology (Hons) Intelligent System Engineering and Bachelor of Science (Hons) Actuarial Science are found to be the top three most competitive programs offered by the institution. Consistency ratio test done indicated that the responses of decision makers are highly consistent thus reliable as reflected in the consistency ratio being < 0.1.