Quacquarelli Symonds Research Articles

Addressing the Resource-Based View: Determinants That Drive Chinese Universities to Offer MOOCs

This study involved 51 Chinese universities from the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Ranking 2021. With based the resource-based view (RBV) as a framework, it aimed to identify the determinants of human resource capital that were related to universities’ production of MOOCs. Three determinants were detected—size, lifelong learning, and proximity to the political centre. Both size and proximity to the political centre proved to be significant. The findings provide timely implications for university managers and suggest that the variety of management spaces be expanded to increase the portfolio of high-quality Chinese universities that facilitate the production of MOOCs. In addition, universities should increase their proximity awareness to remedy the disadvantages of uneven resource allocation due to geographical proximity.

Competitiveness, quality education and universities: the shift to the post-pandemic world

PurposeThis article aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between education for the labor market in the post-pandemic stage and the educational quality of universities, taking as a sample a group of Latin American countries and their main trading partners. Reference is made to the Global Competitiveness Report 2020 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) index, which evaluates the quality of universities.Design/methodology/approachCorrelations, clusters and T-tests were generated to test for significant differences, resulting in two blocks of countries being identified with statistically significant differences in educational efforts to prepare their citizens for the labor market and the quality of their universities.FindingsIt is concluded that there are examples of Latin American countries that, although they are emerging economies, are updating their educational systems at an accelerated pace to meet the needs demanded by the labor market, such as Chile and Argentina. In addition, there are some particular cases of Latin American QS universities that although they are not at a high level in their overall educational quality as a university, compared to North American and Asian universities, their graduates do show a high employability index. This means that in the graduate profile, these universities are also accelerating efforts to position them at a high level of preparedness to respond to the jobs and markets of tomorrow, just as the universities in developed economies do.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the sample size is a limitation of this work, since it is based on secondary information reported by the WEF (2020) and the QS World University Rankings (2021), it contributes value by analyzing specific cases. Despite its limitations, the study yields meaningful results that put the challenges of post-pandemic employment and the role that universities play in a comprehensible framework.Originality/valueThese results put special attention on the work of universities as a crucial entity to prepare citizens to develop the competencies needed for the post-pandemic labor market, especially in terms of critical thinking and digital skills. Human capital formation will drive the post-pandemic recovery process of leading countries and universities.

Heading Towards Sub-Discipline Rankings for Higher Education Institutions

Although the system for annual rankings of higher education institutions (HEIs) faces considerable criticism, these rankings are here to stay. Having become competent in assigning holistic ranking scores to HEIs, reputed ranking entities have now started focusing on subject-specific and regional rankings. However, in experts’ opinion, the process of assigning rankings should be more consistent, transparent, and representative. This study focuses on enhancing the credibility of the academic ranking process, by performing fine-grained assessment of the academic data pertaining to the computing discipline. The proposed assessment approach explores the data at the sub-discipline level, analyzing several ranking dimensions, including the research productivity, research impact, and research contribution of influential research scholars affiliated with renowned HEIs in the computing discipline. The analysis considers highly curated data published by three well-known international academic ranking entities, namely, Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), and Times Higher Education (THE), in 2018, 2019, and 2020, respectively. Researchers’ profiles are obtained from the Scopus repository, and the DBpedia repository is used to retrieve information about HEIs and their locations. For a stable comparison of the subject-specific academic rankings, the grand average rank measure is employed, whereas for finding the most influential researchers in computing, the ResRank measure is used. The sub-discipline-specific academic rankings provide more detailed insight into the academic rankings, thereby providing more robust decision support. This analysis, which focuses on the computing sub-discipline, is among the first few such efforts.

Board of Commissioners Educational Background And Sustainability Report Quality

Purpose: This research is aims to determine the relationship between the educational background of the board of commissioners on the quality of the sustainability report in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.Method: Sources of research data consist of the annual reports, sustainability reports, global reporting websites (GRI), and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Ranking. The sampling method used was side purposive, in order to obtain as many as companies that had met the criteria to be used as research samples for 5 (five) years, 2015-2019 which is 258 companies. This study uses a multiple regression model with a cluster by the firm from STATA 14 software to determine the direction and magnitude of the influence of independent variables on the dependent variable.Findings: This study found that the BOC educational background with undergraduate degree from reputable university showed a positive and significant relationship towards sustainability report quality. In contrast, educational background defined by level of education indicates insignificant effect towards sustainability report.Novelty: the role of BOC in Indonesia is to supervise the quality of the company's report, therefore those results indicate that top-level universities have a role to form character and concern for environmental problems.

An empirical model of university competitiveness and rankings: The effects of entrepreneurial behaviors and dynamic capabilities

Although competition between universities has become increasingly ferocious in the last decade, the impact of dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurial behaviors, in terms of innovativeness and proactiveness, on university competitiveness and rankings has rarely been investigated. It is hypothesized that entrepreneurial behaviors and dynamic capabilities enhance the competitive advantages of universities, thus enabling them to improve their rankings. Six hypotheses were tested on a sample of 240 universities from 13 countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. The relevant data were drawn from the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings and SciVal. The results indicate that entrepreneurial behaviors can exert a significant influence on the dynamic capabilities of a university, including those of sensing market exposure, seizing strategic collaboration opportunities, and reconfiguring knowledge generation. These dynamic capabilities, in turn, strengthen competitive advantages in domains such as reputation, human capital, and knowledge. This study contributes to the literature by integrating entrepreneurial behaviors and dynamic capabilities into a framework for university performance. The results should benefit academic administrators who wish to secure competitive advantages for their institutions and to boost their rankings.

What are universities pursuing? A review of the Quacquarelli Symonds world university rankings of Taiwanese universities (2021–2023)

This study evaluated world university rankings in Taiwan. Media reports and the literature on world university rankings have focused on rankings, particularly in Taiwan. This study conducted a document analysis of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings in Taiwan’s universities from 2021 to 2023, and explored two cases: National Taiwan University and Taipei Medical University, both of which are listed in the QS World University Rankings for sustainable development. First, the researchers analyzed the related topics of the world university rankings. Second, the researchers explored the position of Taiwan’s universities in relation to the top 500 universities in the QS World University Rankings from 2021 to 2023. Third, two case universities pursuing QS World University Rankings are discussed. Finally, this study found that both universities are improving their teaching, research, and internationalization based on the indicators of the QS World University Rankings and the development of school affairs. The universities employ international faculty, cooperate internationally on projects, developing cross-disciplinary research, strengthening innovation, and increasing internationalization and cooperation with research institutions, and attract foreign students for sustainable development. The findings may serve as a reference for improving QS World University Rankings and promote the sustainable development of Taiwan’s higher education system, and understand global competition among universities.

Cultural studies and university rankings: a case study of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS)

ABSTRACT We offer a Cultural Studies approach—a transdisciplinary field of study critically examining contemporary culture—to illuminate the roles of cultural producers and consumers in mediating the meaning of university rankings amidst a global media landscape. Using the case study of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and drawing on the concepts of a) meaning-making, b) cultural texts, and c) audiencing, we illuminate how QS, as a commercial ranker, aims to ‘fix’ meanings about quality and excellence in global higher education (HE) through its various outreach efforts. Based on a multi-method analysis of QS’ digital texts, specifically a YouTube video and a press release, we demonstrate how interactions between cultural producers and consumers complicate a ranker's efforts to fix and diffuse meanings about HE. We argue that a Cultural Studies approach helps us probe the meaning-making process underlying university rankings amid a digital media culture.

Evaluating the accessibility of higher education programs for deaf and hard of hearing students in the Arab countries

The opportunity to pursue higher education (HE) can greatly affect an individual's success in later life, but students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) face different challenges than their hearing peers when seeking a university degree. In addition, the acquisition of HE is more significant for this population as it can provide these learners with opportunities to develop skills that improve their ability to integrate into the overall hearing society. We investigated HE programs in the context of DHH students in Arab countries through mixed methods research that employed exploratory sequential design. The target Universities were eight of the top 10 Arab region universities, as ranked by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) for 2022. We examined documents and interviewed 12 administrators at the eight institutions. In addition, 34 faculty members at the universities participated in a survey designed to obtain their perceptions regarding existing provisions for DHH students. Our investigation found that some Arab universities have recently launched programs to support DHH students in higher education. However, while Hard-of-Hearing (HoH) students are admitted to most Arab universities in various academic disciplines on an equal basis with their hearing peers, deaf students are only admitted to a few universities, are limited in the majors they are permitted to consider, and their admission is only allowed under strict conditions. From administrators, we found Arab countries have established only moderate requirements for HE programs regarding admitting and accommodating the DHH. Accordingly, we propose a set of mechanisms to improve such programs for DHH students in Arab countries to advance the educational opportunities for this population and establish recommendations on how to improve deaf education overall.

ІНСТРУМЕНТИ ВИМІРЮВАННЯ ЯКОСТІ ОСВІТНЬОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ У КОНТЕКСТІ ЗА БЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ЇЇ ЕФЕКТИВНОСТІ В УМОВАХ ВОЄННОГО СТАНУ І ПІСЛЯВОЄННОГО ВІДНОВЛЕННЯ КРАЇНИ

Summary. This article the determined that there are various mechanisms for assessing the quality of educa-tional activity of higher education institutions: accredita-tion, framework and rating, but university ratings are the most optimal mechanism for measuring the quality of educational activity in the context of ensuring its effec-tiveness. The indicators for measuring the quality of edu-cational activity used in the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG), the European Teaching Rankings (THE Europe Teaching Rankings) were analyzed the Shanghai Aca-demic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking, ARWU), the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd) World University Rankings, QS), national rating "TОР-200". According to the criteria of dominance of objective or subjective and result or reputation components, the main international university rankings can be ranked in the following order: (Shanghai Ranking) – objective, result; THE World University Rankings – objective-subjective, result-reputational; QS World University Rankings –sub-jective-objective, reputation-resultative; reputational andadvertising.The use of this approach to ensure the quality of edu-cational activity will improve the reputation of national universities in the world educational space, and in the modern conditions of war and in the period of post-war reconstruction, it will provide an opportunity to update and update educational programs, increase the im-portance of universities as a leading component of the socio-economic recovery of the country.

Masters and Doctor of Philosophy admission prediction of Bangladeshi students into different classes of universities

Many Bangladeshi students intend to pursue higher studies abroad after completing their undergraduate degrees every year. Choosing a university for higher education is a challenging task for students. Especially, the students with average and lower academic credentials (undergraduate grades, English proficiency test scores, job, and research experiences) can hardly choose the universities that could match their profile. In this paper, we have analyzed some real unique data of Bangladeshi students who had been accepted admissions at different universities worldwide for higher studies. Finally, we have produced prediction models based on random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) techniques, which can predict appropriate universities of specific classes for students according to their past academic performances. Two separate models have been studied in this paper, one for Masters (MS)students and another for Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)students. According to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, the universities where the students got admitted have been divided into 9 classes for MS students and 8 classes for PhD students. Accuracy, precision, recall and F1-Score have been studied for the two machine learning algorithms. Numerical results show that both the algorithm DT and RF have the same accuracy of 89% for PhD student data and 86% for MS student data.

Doctoral research in education: a comparative study on Indian and international trends

PurposeIt is unfortunate yet true that in India, research starts and ends with a Ph.D. The steady decline in the quality of doctoral research has been an articulated concern among Indian academics at a time when research and innovation should be a priority. One of the feasible ways of resurrecting or reconstructing Indian research is to open up to examine contemporary international trends. Against this backdrop, the study aimed to make a comparative analysis of doctoral research in education in top-ranking international and top-ranking Indian universities.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a comparative education methodology, this paper examines 100 doctoral dissertations from the top 10 international universities as per Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking and 100 doctoral theses from the top 10 Indian universities following National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) submitted in the past decade. Four significant issues were investigated during the comparison – topic, procedure, presentation, and dissemination – based on the premeditated Research Quality Relevance Metrics (RQRM) designed by the authors for quality improvement of research.FindingsFindings revealed stark differences between two trends in all four domains. The top international universities focus on the contemporariness scattered across diverse issues while Indian studies continue to engage on a few archetypal conventional issues with dreary reiterations. The newness of thought is rare in Indian research, while the interdisciplinary mixing of methods and practices had been the hallmark of its international comportment. Practice orientation has been a unique research attribute found in the top 10 international universities. The methods applied have attempted to reduce the age-old gap between educational research and practice. Methodological innovativeness, structural orientation, readability, and dissemination of research were also exemplary in those international theses, whereas Indian theses are still reeling under orthodox surveys with hesitant reporting.Research limitations/implicationsThis study put an exclusive mirror in front of Indian doctoral research on its current state in respect of international standards. At the same time, it upholds a framework to promote research quality and impact. Dimensions of research quality relevance matrices and recommendations for effective doctoral research are two vibrant contributions to the intelligentsia in general for bringing Indian research out of its cocoon to make it internationally comparable.Originality/valueIt reports a study conducted by the researchers and the write-up is based on the empirical findings only.

Identifcation оf world Class universities: Destructive Pluralism

The article deals with the problem of identifying world-class universities (WCU) on the basis of information provided by various ranking systems. The relevance of the problem is due to the fact that in 2022 Russia was “cut off” from the world community, including the interruption of cooperation with leading international ranking universities, so the country risks losing the opportunity to self-check its successes and failures by generally recognized criteria. In this regard, the purpose of this article is hypothesis verifcation that the “friendly” ranking of ARWU base can serve as an effective substitute for the “unfriendly” QS ranking base. To test the formulated hypothesis, we used the previously developed algorithm for identifying WCU using statistical data from the fve Global University Rankings — Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) and National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU) — and two University Rankings by subject — QS and ARWU. Conducted calculations disproved the general hypothesis and revealed a fundamental inconsistency of results obtained on the basis of different rankings. In addition, by the example of the ARWU, a profound contradiction in the logic of compiling the GUR and the SRU was uncovered. That raises a broader question about adequacy of the concept of the WCU itself. To answer this question, we conducted a “humanitarian test” for the validity of modern WCU, which showed the presence of elementary illiteracy and lack of culture among graduates of advanced universities. Collected stylized examples allowed to establish that modern world market leaders’ universities do not pass the “humanitarian test”, and therefore the entire rating system cannot be considered a reliable basis for conclusions about the activities of universities. The question of replacing the term WCU with a less pretentious “product” category — practice-oriented universities — is being discussed.

SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT PUBLICATIONS OUTPUT OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

Globally, research publications output has become one of the yardsticks for ranking research institutions, universities, faculties, and departments. Notable bodies such as the Times Higher Education (THE), Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the Cybermetrics Lab collates and publishes world university rankings yearly. The rankings are a result of rigorous evaluation of university performance based on predefined criteria such as research outputs, student enrollment, and graduate employability amongst others. As a result, these rankings have been adopted by relevant government agencies and authorities as one of the ways of evaluating the performance of universities in their domain. As one of the fields of study generating the highest rate of employment opportunities around the world, this study is aimed at analyzing and visualizing research publications within the Engineering and the Built Environment faculties of South African universities. A quantitative method was utilized to analyze the bibliometric datasets extracted from Scopus. The datasets are research publications output from 2010 – 2020. The results revealed the trend, citations, document sources, most-cited, and co-occurring keywords of research publications. It is recommended that relevant stakeholders responsible for the management of the higher education sector implement policies that will improve the performance of universities in the country.

The Influence of Multidisciplinary Factor on the Technical Universities' Positions in International Rankings

Abstract : The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of world-class technical universities (TUs) ranks in the International Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking 2021. The top-100 of QS-2021 includes only one Russian TUs, and there are no TUs of large industrial countries such as India and Brazil. Many Russian TUs were founded in the 30s of the last century, were related to certain industry ministries and have retained their narrow orientation up to the present time. However, the manufacturing of modern high-tech products (aircraft, robotics, electronics, medical equipment etc.) requires engineers to have knowledge from various fields of science (multidisciplinarity), supported by profound int erd isc iplina ry r esea rches. In add it ion, multidisciplinary TUs provide the opportunity for students to change their specialty or adjust it during their undergraduate and graduate studies. The analysis showed that leading positions in international rankings are occupied by multidisciplinary research TUs that conduct training and interdisciplinary research at the intersection of various scientificactivities. This study can be useful not only for Russia, but also for the transformation of TUs in other countries. Keywords: multidisciplinary, technical university (TU) , en g i n e e r in g s p e c i a l t i e s , t r a i n i n g , transformation

SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT PUBLICATIONS OUTPUT OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

Globally, research publications output has become one of the yardsticks for ranking research institutions, universities, faculties, and departments. Notable bodies such as the Times Higher Education (THE), Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the Cybermetrics Lab collates and publishes world university rankings yearly. The rankings are a result of rigorous evaluation of university performance based on predefined criteria such as research outputs, student enrollment, and graduate employability amongst others. As a result, these rankings have been adopted by relevant government agencies and authorities as one of the ways of evaluating the performance of universities in their domain. As one of the fields of study generating the highest rate of employment opportunities around the world, this study is aimed at analyzing and visualizing research publications within the Engineering and the Built Environment faculties of South African universities. A quantitative method was utilized to analyze the bibliometric datasets extracted from Scopus. The datasets are research publications output from 2010 – 2020. The results revealed the trend, citations, document sources, most-cited, and co-occurring keywords of research publications. It is recommended that relevant stakeholders responsible for the management of the higher education sector implement policies that will improve the performance of universities in the country.

Dünyanın Önde Gelen Üniversitelerinde Muhasebe Eğitiminin İncelenmesi Ve Türkiye Üniversiteleri İle Karşılaştırılması

The main purpose of the present research is to examine the undergraduate and graduate accounting education courses given in the business administration programs at the top 100 universities in the world ranking published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) in terms of variables, including the course contents and course categories, and compare the education at these universities with the accounting education at Turkish universities. This comparison was made between the best universities in the world and the oldest universities, the best universities, foundation universities, and newly established universities in Turkey. Ten universities were selected for each university group determined in Turkey.The facts that the origins of the world’s best universities date back to very old times and that these universities are located in developed countries and curricula are practice-oriented are among the remarkable results of our study.

Implementation of TOPSIS Method to Compare the Libraries of Top-Ranking Universities Abroad and in India

This study was made for comparison of university libraries in India and abroad. Ten top-ranking universities by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) were considered for making a comparison from each category. The main objective of the study was to know whether the library plays any role to achieve top rank or not. Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was used for analyzing and for the TOPSIS method, 5 important criteria were considered, viz., total collection, total library staff, total budget, total working hours, and major divisions of the library. Important criteria were selected from University Grant Commission (UGC) and American Library Association (ALA). Initially, TOPSIS method was applied to university libraries abroad; next, to Indian university libraries and finally, both Indian and foreign university libraries were considered. Results represented that the library played a role in helping the parent university achieve a rank but not entirely. The University of Cambridge got the highest rank as per the study but in QS ranking MIT stood first.

Ranking and Performance of Indian Universities

ABSTRACT Almost every communication media made the news of three Indian institutions appearing in Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Rankings 2022 a headline, highlighting the importance of finding a place in the coveted ranking. Such rankings provide Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) a reason to pursue excellence in their operations. These rankings are also in the interests of the students and other stakeholders. National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), also known as India Ranking, was introduced in 2015 by the Ministry of Education, Government of India (erstwhile Ministry of Human Resource Department). NIRF outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. Rankings obtained in the India Ranking 2017-20 have been analyzed in this study to assess the comparative performance of the top 100 universities. Statistical tests of chi square and Friedman tests show that rankings have remained consistent within the range for the top-performing universities. But, other than the top universities, there exists stiff competition for each ranking place. Overall, statistical analysis shows that rankings obtained by universities are not identical.

Correlation between universities’ Altmetric Attention Scores and their performance scores in Nature Index, Leiden, Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds ranking systems

Objective: Altmetrics are claimed to measure the scientific, societal, educational, technological and economic impacts of science. They have some of these dimensions in common with university ranking and evaluating systems. Their results are, therefore, expected to be partially convergent with the systems’. Given the importance of the scientific and non-scientific impacts of science, this study investigated the correlations of universities’ altmetrics with their total and dimensional scores in Nature Index, Leiden, Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Methodology: Following a correlational design, it explored an available sample of the universities commonly ranked in the systems in 2017. The data were collected from online documents using checklists and analysed by the Spearman correlation. As Altmetric Attention Score (ASS) is efficient in that it integrates several indicators into a single one, it was used as the proxy of the universities’ social performance. Findings: The universities showed significant positive correlations between their ASSs and their performance scores on the total and dimensional levels, except for industry income in THE, with an insignificant correlation, and proportion of collaborative publication less than 100 km. in Leiden, with an inverse correlation. The correlations ranged from weak to marginally strong. Conclusion: The positive relationships between the universities’ performance and ASSs signified that there existed some similarities in what they measured. However, they were of weak-to-marginally strong powers, implying that the metrics differed in what they measured. The findings contribute to the existing knowledge by providing some evidence of convergence between university-level altmetrics and university performances in various dimensions.

Employability tautological trauma

PurposeThis paper explores the institutional and economic drivers of employability, as existing literature focuses on the individual and skills aspects, of employability. Tertiary institutions, possessing a strong academic reputation and standing amongst potential employers, will achieve high graduate employability, however when measured, this is not the case.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study builds on Santos' career boundary theory, recognising organisational boundaries; those related to the labour market, personal-aspects and finally, cultural boundaries (Santos, 2020). 37 Universities that provided their employability rate, within 12 months of graduation for 2020, are analysed. The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Ranking, measures drivers in terms of institutional reputation through survey responses, and partnerships with employers via research and placement data.FindingsThe regression explained 19% of the variation between the number of graduates being employed and the institutional and economic drivers. Universities in the same economic context, do not have the same number of employed students. Equally, those universities with the most favourable academic reputation, do not have the most employed student rate.Research limitations/implicationsOnly 37 universities provided all their employability data, thus, research with a larger sample will have to be conducted, but equally more needs to be done to establish why the smaller universities are unable to submit all the required data.Originality/valueAn exploratory understanding of the institutional and economic drivers of employability, is provided.