Abstract
BackgroundRanking of universities and institutions has attracted wide attention recently. Several systems have been proposed that attempt to rank academic institutions worldwide.MethodsWe review the two most publicly visible ranking systems, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' and the Times Higher Education Supplement 'World University Rankings' and also briefly review other ranking systems that use different criteria. We assess the construct validity for educational and research excellence and the measurement validity of each of the proposed ranking criteria, and try to identify generic challenges in international ranking of universities and institutions.ResultsNone of the reviewed criteria for international ranking seems to have very good construct validity for both educational and research excellence, and most don't have very good construct validity even for just one of these two aspects of excellence. Measurement error for many items is also considerable or is not possible to determine due to lack of publication of the relevant data and methodology details. The concordance between the 2006 rankings by Shanghai and Times is modest at best, with only 133 universities shared in their top 200 lists. The examination of the existing international ranking systems suggests that generic challenges include adjustment for institutional size, definition of institutions, implications of average measurements of excellence versus measurements of extremes, adjustments for scientific field, time frame of measurement and allocation of credit for excellence.ConclusionNaïve lists of international institutional rankings that do not address these fundamental challenges with transparent methods are misleading and should be abandoned. We make some suggestions on how focused and standardized evaluations of excellence could be improved and placed in proper context.
Highlights
Ranking of universities and institutions has attracted wide attention recently
Our appraisal focuses primary on the international ranking systems that have drawn the greatest attention on the web, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University [1] 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' and the Times Higher Education Supplement [2] 'World University Rankings'
We discuss issues of construct validity and measurement validity for each of the items that have been proposed as components of excellence in the ranking process. We use this information to make a list of the generic challenges that need to be met in international rankings of institutional excellence
Summary
Ranking of universities and institutions has attracted wide attention recently. Several systems have been proposed that attempt to rank academic institutions worldwide. Our appraisal focuses primary (but not exclusively) on the international ranking systems that have drawn the greatest attention on the web, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University [1] 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' and the Times Higher Education Supplement [2] 'World University Rankings' We focus on these two ranking systems because they already have a history of producing lists of institutions and they are very popular based on their appearance in web searches. We discuss issues of construct validity and measurement validity for each of the items that have been proposed as components of excellence in the ranking process We use this information to make a list of the generic challenges that need to be met in international rankings of institutional excellence
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