This blog was originally supposed to be about university ranking in general but is danger of turning into a catalogue of THES and QS errors. I shall try to move on to more varied topics in the future but here is an elaboration of an earlier post on the faculty student ratios in the book Guide to the World's Top Universities, published by QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. (QS) and written by Nunzio Quacquarelli, a director of that company, and John O'Leary and Martin Ince, former and current THES`editors.
In the first column below I have arranged the universities in the THES-QS rankings in alphabetical order. The middle column consists of the student faculty ratio included in the 2006 World University Rankings published in the THES (top 200) and on the topuniversities website. The figure is derived from converting the scores out of 100 in the rankings to ratios and cross-checking with QS's figures for faculty and students at topuniversities. The right-hand column contains the student faculty ratio in the Guide's directory and in the profile of the top 100 universities.
The two figures are completely different. But if you go down three rows you will find the figure is identical or almost identical.
Thus Aachen has a ratio of 14.7 in the Guide. Go down three rows and you will find that in the rankings and at topunivsersities Aberystwyth has a ratio of 14.7.
So, presumably what happened is that someone was pasting data between files and slipped three rows. This simple mistake has resulted in over 500 errors in the Guide.
| University | ranking | Guide |
| Aachen | 12.4 | 14.7 |
| Aarhus | 10.5 | 24.1 |
| Aberdeen | 10.5 | 14.8 |
| Aberystwyth | 14.7 | 15.1 |
| Adelaide | 24.9 | 18.1 |
| Adolfo Ibanez | 14.8 | 20.5 |
| Airlangga | 15.1 | 12.3 |
| Alabama | 18.1 | 10.4 |
| Alberta | 20.5 | 13.1 |
| Amsterdam | 12.4 | 16.1 |
| Antwerp | 10.4 | 24.3 |
| Aoyama Guiken | 13.1 | 13.6 |
| Aristotelian | 16.1 | 15.4 |
| Arizona State | 24.3 | 14.3 |
I have written to Ben Sowter, director of research at QS and to the author's at Martin Ince's address. So far the only response is an automated message indicating that the latter is away.
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