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Since the mid 1990s of last Century, university rankings have become very popular in China. Six institutions have published such rankings; some of them have also detailed their ranking methodologies. This paper features a general introduction to university ranking in China, and to the methodologies of each ranking discussed. The paper also addresses the characteristics inherent to Chinese university rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'World class universities' (WCU) are an issue of intense debate among the academic community. To define a WCU supposes that only those universities that fit the 'quality' criteria established under benchmarking conditions can be considered as such. The good news is that several dimensions could be used to defined excellence, not only classical academic and research criteria. This paper intends to address conceptual aspects of WCU with regard to relations between university 'mission' development and why, how and when an institution is considered a WCU from non-classical criteria. The main purpose of this paper is to propose new dimensions to rank University Missions. Going beyond teaching and research, the University Third Mission - services to Society - has at least 3 dimensions: a non profit - social - approach; an entrepreneur focus; and an innovative approximation. This paper will consider the various implications that a third mission measurement and benchmark could introduce in the controversial ranking business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents key new developments in the THES - QS World University Rankings in 2007, related to enhancements to the Peer Review, Data Collection and Statistical Aggregation utilised in this ranking as well as discussing the decision to utilise Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) figures for personnel statistics. Indicator correlation is also discussed as well as the role/purpose of the rankings. The paper reflects a continuing effort to refine the measures used in the ranking, QS have recommended some subtle but significant changes to both the methodology and the data collection approach that have been embraced by THES and will have an impact on 2007 results and beyond in order to reach some measure of understanding the relative quality of different higher education institutions around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses one of the weaknesses of many rankings - the exclusion of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) from university and discipline cluster ranking systems and examines some ways in which this situation can be corrected. In particular, it traces the development of indicators such as 'target expanded' citation analysis and tiering or ranking of outlets, including books and conferences as well as journals. It draws on experience in Australia, especially with the attempt to construct consensually derived tiered outlets for numerous disciplines including those in HASS in the context of the introduction of a new Research Quality Framework along the lines of similar exercises in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today the worldwide web (web) is one of the main sources of information and the main showcase for everyone (institutions, business enterprises, individuals, etc.) who wants to be recognized on in the 'real world'. At the academic level, universities have a very important role as a means to communicate scientific and cultural achievements. Web publication by scholars is not only a tool for scholarly communication but it is also a means to reach larger audiences and in general a reflection of the performance of the institutions. There have been several efforts to develop web indicators that can ultimately lead to build a university's rankings. This paper presents the Webometric Ranking of World Universities which is built using a combined indicator called WR that takes into account the number of published web pages (S) (twenty-five percent), the number of rich files, those in pdf, ps, doc and ppt format (R) (12.5 percent), the number of articles gathered from the Google Scholar Database (Sc) (12.5 percent,) and the total number of external inlinks (V) (fifty percent). The results show that there is a larger than expected academic digital divide between higher education institutions in the United States and those in the European Union. This kind of rankings using web indicators should be used to measure universities' performance in conjunction with more traditional academic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004 the Slovak Academic Ranking and Rating Agency (ARRA) was established as an independent body with the main goal of comparing the performance and quality of Slovak higher education institutions (HEIs) and providing the general public, the academic sector, and the government with an independent view of the quality of the country's HEIs. The first two rankings were published in 2005 and 2006 and the latest one was published at the end of 2007. The twenty public universities and their ninety-nine faculties were ranked in clusters according to the Frascati Manual. This paper describes the methodology and indicators used in this ranking exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a case study of the University of Maribor. We emphasize that ranking of heterogeneous young universities without established reputations must be conducted very carefully. Usually, such universities do not appear in lists of the top universities in the world. This should not be understood as a problem, but as an opportunity for development: global university rankings can strongly contribute to university development. Our results show that more successful institutions can have a stimulating effect on the less successful ones. A healthy competition between institutions emerges, representing an important driving force in assuring further development and achieving higher status. The results present an example of good practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on raising the visibility and embedding the quality of university rankings. The authors state that the initial interest in rankings was primarily from the perspective of analysts and researchers interested in gaining a comprehensive picture of indicators describing developments in higher education within individual nations. They further state that positive developments in the way rankings are constructed reduce the risk of bias and distortion.

While the ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) has become more and more popular, there are increasing concerns about the quality of such ranking. In response to such legitimate expectations, in May 2006, the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) developed and endorsed a guideline document - the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions (hereafter called the Berlin Principles), which consist of sixteen descriptive and prescriptive principles for ranking covering four aspects: the purpose and goal of ranking; the design and weighting of indicators; the collection and processing of data; and the presentation of ranking results. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected HEIs rankings according to the Berlin Principles as well as to propose concrete 'Fourteen Criteria' which, if followed, could enhance the quality of ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University rankings often include surveys that involve self-assessments, but little is known about the effects of these self-assessments on results. This paper tests for the existence of leniency effects and differential leniency effects, terms borrowed from the performance assessment literature, with a data set of ratings and rankings of Australian university disciplines by Australian academics. It finds support for the leniency effect - these academics rate and rank their own universities higher than others do. It finds less support, however, for the differential leniency effect - academics at the lower-rated universities do not seem to overrate their universities more than do academics from the higher-rated universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rankings of universities that are based on aggregate measures ignore the discipline coverage within institutions. In this paper, for each of Australia's thirty-seven public universities, performance in research and teaching in broad discipline groups is evaluated and then aggregated up to obtain whole-of-institution rankings. Relative staff numbers are used as weights to aggregate research performance; student numbers are used to weight teaching performance. The performance attributes chosen are those that contribute to international academic standing. We find that the rankings of the Australian National University (ANU) and some technologically oriented universities are raised when scope is allowed for, but elsewhere the changes are minor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How influential has the US News Best Colleges ranking been over the last twenty-five years since it was first started in 1983? In what ways does this influence manifest itself? There is strong evidence of the impact of the US News rankings among consumers, prospective students and their parents, and the higher education establishment in the United States. Their influence has now gone global since the US News rankings, according to some, have been the model for what has become a worldwide trend. This paper will look at all of these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Classification' and 'ranking' are tools for comparing colleges and universities, albeit for different purposes. Although 'classification' focuses on identifying similarities rather than ordering institutions, it is closely intertwined with 'ranking', whether directly through its content, structure, and procedures, or indirectly through the ways it is used and understood by the wider community of users (e.g., researchers, policymakers, institutional leaders, etc.). For this reason, many of the standards, protocols, and best practices established for ranking systems apply as well to the case of classification. This paper examines the interplay between 'classification' and 'ranking' in some detail, and applies the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions which were adopted in May 2006 to the case of classification, focusing on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rankings have become a widespread phenomenon in an increasingly competitive world of higher education. They differ with regard to their aims, objectives, target groups, and with regard to their relationship to quality and quality assessment. Generally, rankings are an external assessment of the performance of higher education institutions; they enable transparency about systems of higher education. This paper discusses the relationship of rankings and quality assurance on an institutional and a system level. A clear conception of the differences between rankings and other forms of assessment of higher education institutions helps to understand the usefulness as well as the limitations of rankings and helps to prevent false or unrealistic expectations of rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas most ranking schemes aim at the identification of the universally best performing universities, value-driven rankings take a focused perspective: they aim at monitoring the progress of some kind of societal agenda based on social values and hence look for progress concerning specific educational contents. The emerging field of education for sustainable development provides a good case for studying evaluation criteria of a value-based ranking. This paper proposes a framework for a stakeholder-based university evaluation and maps the territory of rankings addressing sustainable development. Finally a complementing evaluation is proposed to address identified shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper intends to contribute to the debate on ranking and league tables by adopting a critical approach to ranking methodologies from the point of view of a university benchmarking exercise. The absence of a strict benchmarking exercise in the ranking process has been, in the opinion of the author, one of the major problems encountered in the ranking systems and procedures at all levels, regional, national and international. The benchmarking exercise of ten Canadian research intensive universities at the departmental level should contribute to a re-examination of the typology of the world class ranking systems and suggest reconstruction paths on several major issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the methodical problems of the ranking of Russian universities by the independent ranking agency RatER1 . The main features of this ranking system are public estimations of the quality of the higher education in Russia. The results of the sociological study were processed by the original statistical methods. The procedure involves the opinions of the graduate students, teaching staff, employers and independent experts. The interviews show the current state of the education system in different regions of the Russian Federation. The paper also attempts to provide some recommendations for the development of the proposed ranking method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Alex Usher and Massimo Savino on university ranking and another by Heiko Spitzeck and Claude Patrick Siegenthaler on education for sustainable development.

The Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) has designed a 'Ranking of Excellent European Graduate Programmes'. In its first round, in December 2007, this ranking concentrated on the natural sciences and mathematics. The centre applied a two-step approach for analysis. First, four general indicators were identified for European universities. Second, for those universities that excelled in at least three out of these four indicators which means that they achieved a gold or silver medal, an in-depth analysis was run based on institutional questionnaires and on-line surveys. The results show that Europe in general provides a very high level of research and graduate teaching in the academic fields that were analysed. It is intended to apply this approach to other academic fields in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We would like to show how the French higher education landscape is being influenced by international ranking, particularly that provided by the team at Jiao Tong University - the Shanghai Ranking - by considering the reactions of French institutions. Examining the interactions between rankings, governance, and attractiveness will lead us to question the definition of a 'world-class university' in the French context: in particular, what strategies institutions influenced by the Shanghai Ranking are implementing to improve their international visibility, oriented in this sense by our new government. We will look in passing at the reasons why the Shanghai Ranking has now become indispensable, despite the weakness of some of its indicators. More generally, we will emphasise the fact that giving it the importance that some institution strategies do, with the sole aim of reaching the top, can be harmful to the ranking itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of institutional and program-area rankings on student access to, and choice in, U.S. higher education. It also discusses the impact of rankings on student opportunities after graduation in terms of placement success and earnings. The discussion is informed by the broader research literature in these areas, and includes comparisons to findings for other higher education systems. The author concludes with comments on the likely effects of the newest addition to the rankings scene - so-called 'world' rankings - on access, choice, and opportunity outcomes globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a survey, conducted on league tables and rankings systems worldwide, including seventeen standard ones and one non-standard league table. Despite the capacity of existing league tables and rankings to meet the interest of the public of transparency and information on higher education institutions, ranking systems still are in their "infancy". The authors suggest that, had international ranking schemes to assume a quality assurance role, it would be the global higher education community that would have to identify better practices for data collection and reporting to achieve high-quality inter-institutional comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon numerous requests to provide ranking of world universities by broad subject fields/schools/colleges and by subject fields/programs/departments, the authors present the ranking methodologies and problems that arose from the research by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University on the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields (ARWU-FIELD) in 2006. Using objective indicators and internationally comparable data, the authors ranked five broad subject fields: natural sciences and mathematics (SCI); engineering/technology and computer sciences (ENG); life and agriculture sciences (LIFE); clinical medicine and pharmacy (MED); and social sciences (SOC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shanghai Jiao Tong University1 has published on the Internet an Academic Ranking of World Universities that has attracted worldwide attention. Institutions are ranked according to academic or research performance and ranking indicators include major international awards, highly cited researchers in important fields, articles published in selected top journals and/or indexed by major citation indexes, and performance per capita. Methodological problems discussed here include quantitative versus qualitative evaluation, assessing research versus education, the variety of institutions, the language of publications, selection of awards, etc. Technical problems such as the definition and naming of institutions, the merging and splitting of institutions, and the search for and attribution of publications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies a Bayesian latent variable analysis to the task of determining rankings of universities in the UK and US, on the basis of a set of quality‐related measures. It estimates the degree of uncertainty in the rankings and permits the assessment of statistically significant differences across universities. It also provides a methodology for determining the weighting of various measures that is based on the patterns embedded in the data and compares the latent variable rankings with traditional weight‐and‐sum rankings. Overall, the methodology contributes to a better understanding of ranking efforts and illustrates the need for caution in interpreting distinctions published in traditional ranking systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 20 years ago, the first university rankings entered public attention in the United States. Since then, there have been numerous other efforts to rank or rate universities or university departments. University report cards have become both popular with the public and increasingly important for academic institutions. A detailed examination of 10 report cards from around the world, which evaluate and focus on either undergraduate choice or overall standing, finds that the various schemes share broad principles and approaches but differ considerably in details. Many of these variations are attributable to differences in aims, higher education systems and cultures, and the availability and reliability of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the quality of the Spanish higher education system, focusing mainly on the methodological challenges that the existence of public and private universities represents in the calculation of global higher education rankings. Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of Pennsylvania calculated the first ranking of higher education institutions in Spain, known as Ranking 2000, a few years ago. The report, Excelencia, calidad de las universidades españolas (Excellence: Quality of the Spanish Universities), included a detailed description of almost 100 indicators used, the data from all universities, and correlations between all indicators. In the present Ranking 2005, the authors present more recent data and an updated methodological discussion; finally, an improved selection of indicators supports a refined final index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While rankings are a popular method for comparing the relative quality of higher education institutions, there is much confusion and debate over which indicators to use and how to present the information in ranked format. This article offers some guidelines in both areas as well as questions to consider at each stage of the ranking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University league tables and rankings are produced annually in the United Kingdom by the leading "quality" newspapers using statistical data on universities and colleges published each year. The newspapers claim that the up-to-date independent measures which they provide annually on the changing quality of universities are necessary to guide students in choosing universities in which to enroll. Many, however, are skeptical about the accuracy (as opposed to the precision) of the data, where year-to-year movements in the rankings of institutions are as much artifacts of the data and their manipulation as real changes. Prospective students seem not to be strongly influenced by the annual changes in the league table position of a given institution but are influenced more strongly by competition for places and the quality of the learning environment offered by the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has a highly diversified mass higher education system, consisting mainly of private institutions. In their highly developed and matured "market", higher education institutions have been ranked in terms of selectivity for many years. However, the university rankings that began in the 1990s took a different approach, that is, showing multiple rankings in order to enrich the perspectives of university applicants. This article aims at tracing the development of university rankings in Japan and at explaining the link between rankings and the mature, but drastically changing, Japanese higher education market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]