Times Higher Education World University Research Articles

Technology Meets Art: An Experimental Joint Course Between HKUST and CAA

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (Fig. 1) is a public research university with an engineering school that is consistently ranked among the top 30 in the world by Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings. Despite having such strong engineering capabilities, HKUST does not have an art school.

The Development Of A Monitoring System Of Higher Education Quality In Ukraine And Germany: Comparative Component

AbstractThe article reveals specific features of functioning systems of higher education quality monitoring at the present stage, taking into account national traditions, historical experience and mentality of the population. The article introduces a comparative analysis of monitoring actors at national, regional and local levels in two countries. The ratio of influence of the state administration in education sphere and of the independent public organizations (agencies) on the nature and quality of monitoring procedures has been estimated. The positions polarity of Ukrainian and German universities in world rankings (“Top 50” The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2010-2011/2014-2015); “Top 500” Academic Ranking of World Universities for 2010-2015) in form of statistical generalizations have been presented. A comparative analysis of approaches to assuring and monitoring the quality of higher education in Germany and Ukraine has been shown in the table. It demonstrates the conceptual and functional components of monitoring: the monitoring purpose, monitoring objects, levels and actors, public initiative, the priority of monitoring levels, the dominant principles, the general orientation and procedure for monitoring the higher education quality. The use of prospects of elements in progressive international experience as for organising the monitoring system of higher education quality to reform the national high school have been determined here. That could be especially important taking into consideration the creating of the European Higher Education Area.

What the Overall doesn’t tell about world university rankings: examples from ARWU, QSWUR, and THEWUR in 2013

In the various world university ranking schemes, the Overall is a sum of the weighted indicator scores. As the indicators are of a different nature from each other, Overall conceals important differences. Factor analysis of the data from three prominent ranking schemes reveals that there are two factors in each of the ranking systems. For Academic Rankings of World University, the two factors are both academic in nature with a time element and are negatively correlated. For the QS World University Ranking (QSWUR) and Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THEWUR), there are two factors each, one for academic excellence and one for managerial excellence. The two factors in QSWUR have a low negative correlation, but the two factors in THEWUR are not correlated. These findings do not support the assumption that the indicators are mutually supporting and additive as conceptualised by the ranking providers. To avoid misinterpretation of the Overall, it is suggested that world university ranking needs be re-conceptualised to have a higher-order institutional excellence, comprising two lower-order measures based on academic excellence and managerial excellence. Possible future development is discussed.

Identifying critical performance indicators and suitable partners using a benchmarking template

Purpose – Overall, the UK’s representation in the top 100 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings has declined since 2011. The basic rationale of the project is to improve performance of universities generally and their standings in rankings particularly. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The key research questions of this study ask which performance indicators should be improved and which benchmarking partners should be chosen. Two selected universities have been chosen as featured case studies to illustrate the proposed template. Findings – A user-friendly template for benchmarking has been developed as a tool for self-evaluation and self-improvement by having a systematic comparison of appropriate measures of performance among the universities in the UK. The template can be extended by identifying internal and external benchmarking partners for the corresponding indicators. Research limitations/implications – There is more work to be done during and a...

The operationalization of “fields” as WoS subject categories (WCs) in evaluative bibliometrics: The cases of “library and information science” and “science & technology studies”

Normalization of citation scores using reference sets based on Web of Science subject categories (WCs) has become an established (“best”) practice in evaluative bibliometrics. For example, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings are, among other things, based on this operationalization. However, WCs were developed decades ago for the purpose of information retrieval and evolved incrementally with the database; the classification is machine‐based and partially manually corrected. Using the WC “information science & library science” and the WCs attributed to journals in the field of “science and technology studies,” we show that WCs do not provide sufficient analytical clarity to carry bibliometric normalization in evaluation practices because of “indexer effects.” Can the compliance with “best practices” be replaced with an ambition to develop “best possible practices”? New research questions can then be envisaged.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2012-2013 and Prospects for Science Development in Armenia

Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2012-2013 and Prospects for Science Development in Armenia

Ranking the university stars: are opinions sufficient?

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2013–2014, endorsed by Thomson Reuters (USA), are the only global university performance tables to judge world-class universities across all of their core missions—teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international status. The top university rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments. The top 10 THE World Reputation Rankings for 2014 are listed as follows: 1) Harvard University, 2) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 3) Stanford University, 4) University of Cambridge (UK), 5) University of Oxford (UK), 6) University of California, Berkeley, 7) Princeton University, 8) Yale University, 9) California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and 10) University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). This means that the top 10 consists of 8 universities of the USA and 2 from the UK. This pattern has been rather consistent over the past years. However, a rejoicing fact is that for the first time in history, a Dutch University has entered the top-50: the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft) ranking 42 on the THE World Reputation Ranking list. Other Dutch universities on the THE World Reputation Ranking list (top 100) are the University of Amsterdam (no. 71), the University of Leiden (no. 84), and the University of Utrecht (no. 89). Altogether, a remarkable result for the TU Delft implying that the most prestigious university in the Netherlands is currently located in Delft. This a great achievement for TU Delft most likely due to its nature as a very specialised technical university, offering an excellent international profile in its area of expertise. It also may indicate that technical revolutions largely determine the progress on our globe. According to the information provided on the THE website, http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/, the THE World Reputation Rankings 2014 employ the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands. A spin-off of the annual THE World University Rankings, the reputation league table, is based on nothing more than subjective judgement, but it is the considered expert judgement of senior, published academics—the people best placed to know most about excellence in our universities. As stated before, the THE World University Rankings offers detailed comparative performance information on the world’s top universities against the broadest range of a university’s activities, such as teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international status. To that purpose, each year over 10,000 of academics are invited to provide their expert opinion. These individuals are requested to list a top 15 of universities in their area of expertise. Important data points include acceptance rates, available financial aid, tuition fees, cost of living, the make-up of the student and faculty body, and dropout rates. Consequently, the THE World University Rankings is only based on opinions of students and academics, no less no more. As a result, the outcome just defines the international reputation and with that the status of a particular university. Reputation and status are of course important in recruiting promising students and eminent academics, and obtaining funds and grants. This policy, however, harbours the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy due to positive feedback between belief and behaviour; once a university has been labelled as a centre of excellence, it will predominantly attract and select excellent individuals making the university more excellent: an upward spiral. This is the very reason that there are only marginal shifts in the top 50 over the years, making the achievement of the TU Delft even more special. Is an expert opinion sufficient for grading universities and ranking the stars? Generally, a scientific opinion or scientific consensus refers to the collection of the opinions of many different scientific organisations and entities and individual scientists in the relevant field. In that sense, opinions may herald important information, which may exceed that of factual and passionless knowledge. Is this the reason that we prefer to speak of opinion leaders instead of knowledge leaders?

Rectifying an honest error in world university rankings: a solution to the problem of indicator weight discrepancies

Discrepancies between the nominal and attained indicator weights misinform rank consumers as to the relative importance of the indicators. This may lead to unwarranted institutional judgements and misdirected actions, causing resources being wasted unnecessarily. As a follow-up to two earlier studies, data from the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking (QSWUR) and Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THEWUR) for the top 100 universities were re-analysed. Discrepancies have again been found in the three ranking results, and the problem was rectified by applying score standardisation via T-scaling. The universities were then ranked on the new T-score, which accurately reflect the systems’ indicator weights. Implications for future use of ranking results and refinement of the ranking procedure are discussed.

Research funding is not enough

Universities compete for research money but at the risk of neglecting teaching and maintenance of their infrastructure.

Teaching and learning indicators in university rankings

Quality teaching and learning is critical to producing high caliber University graduates equipped with the knowledge, skills and values to contribute to the knowledge economy and the economic growth and development of countries while ensuring self-efficacy and personal success. Teaching quality measures and indicators have, however, not enjoyed adequate debate and discourse within the higher education sector, and, as such are largely quantitative and measured by proxy in University ranking systems. Proxy teaching indicators used by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings were correlated with U-Multirank indicators applicable to the Faculty of Health Sciences for the period 2007-2011, with the Faculty considered as a microcosm of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. There were no statistically significant differences in the indicators between years. There were just 2 significant correlations, viz., ratio of PhD to Bachelors degrees awarded significantly correlated with throughput from cohort at 95% and 99% while the number of PhDs significantly correlated with graduate employment at 90%. Teaching quality measurement by proxy is thus justifiably contested in University rankings. The challenge for University ranking systems is thus (1) identifying suitable quantitative and qualitative indicators for quality teaching, (2) striking the correct balance between quantitative and qualitative teaching quality indicators, and (3), ensuring that the quantitative/ qualitative indicators address both teaching inputs and teaching impact/learning outcomes.

The Leiden ranking 2011/2012: Data collection, indicators, and interpretation

The Leiden Ranking 2011/2012 is a ranking of universities based on bibliometric indicators of publication output, citation impact, and scientific collaboration. The ranking includes 500 major universities from 41 different countries. This paper provides an extensive discussion of the Leiden Ranking 2011/2012. The ranking is compared with other global university rankings, in particular the Academic Ranking of World Universities (commonly known as the Shanghai Ranking) and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The comparison focuses on the methodological choices underlying the different rankings. Also, a detailed description is offered of the data collection methodology of the Leiden Ranking 2011/2012 and of the indicators used in the ranking. Various innovations in the Leiden Ranking 2011/2012 are presented. These innovations include (1) an indicator based on counting a university's highly cited publications, (2) indicators based on fractional rather than full counting of collaborative publications, (3) the possibility of excluding non‐English language publications, and (4) the use of stability intervals. Finally, some comments are made on the interpretation of the ranking and a number of limitations of the ranking are pointed out.