Highlights from the New Webometrics Rankings
Top USA and Canada
1. MIT
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Berkeley
5. Cornell
Top Europe
1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich
4. University College London
5. University of Helsinki
Top Oceana
1. Australian National University
2. University of Queensland
3. Monash University
4. University of Melbourne
5. University of Sydney
Top South East Asia
1. National University of Singapore
2. Prince of Songkhla University
3. Chulalongkorn University
4. Kasetsart Universiy
5. Mahidol University
Top Arab World
1. King Saud University
2. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
3. Imam Muhamed bin Saud University
4. King Faisal University
5. King Abdulaziz university
Discussion and analysis of international university rankings and topics related to the quality of higher education. Anyone wishing to contact Richard Holmes without worrying about ending up in comments can go to rjholmes2000@yahoo.com
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Webometrics Rankings
This is from Ranking Web of Universities
"The July edition of the Ranking Web of World Universities (http://www.webometrics.info) shows important news. Most of them are due to changes done to improve the academic impact of the open web contents and to reduce the geographical bias of search engines. As a result, the US universities still lead the Ranking (MIT with its huge Open Courseware is again the first, followed by Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley), but the digital gap with their European counterparts (Cambridge and Oxford are in the region’s top) has been reduced. Even more important, some of the developing countries institutions reach high ranks, especially in Latin America where the University of Sao Paulo (38th) and UNAM (44th) benefits from the increasingly interconnected Brazilian and Mexican academic webspaces.Several countries improves their performance including Taiwan and Saudi Arabia with strong web oriented strategies, Czech Republic (Charles), the leader for Eastern Europe, Spain (Complutense) and Portugal (Minho, Porto) with huge repositories and strong Open Access initiatives. Norway (NTNU, Oslo), Egypt could be also mentioned.On the other side, the underrated are headed by France, with a very fragmented system, Korea, whose student-oriented websites are frequently duplicated, New Zealand, India or Argentina.Africa is still monopolized by South African universities (Cape Town is the first, 405th), as well as Australian Universities are the best ranked for Oceania (Australian National University, 77th)Other well performing institutions include Cornell or Caltech in the USA, Tokyo (24th) Toronto (28th), Hong Kong (91st), or Peking (104th). On the contrary, in positions below expected we find Yale, Princeton, Saint Petersburg, Seoul and the Indian Institutes of Science or Technology."
This is from Ranking Web of Universities
"The July edition of the Ranking Web of World Universities (http://www.webometrics.info) shows important news. Most of them are due to changes done to improve the academic impact of the open web contents and to reduce the geographical bias of search engines. As a result, the US universities still lead the Ranking (MIT with its huge Open Courseware is again the first, followed by Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley), but the digital gap with their European counterparts (Cambridge and Oxford are in the region’s top) has been reduced. Even more important, some of the developing countries institutions reach high ranks, especially in Latin America where the University of Sao Paulo (38th) and UNAM (44th) benefits from the increasingly interconnected Brazilian and Mexican academic webspaces.Several countries improves their performance including Taiwan and Saudi Arabia with strong web oriented strategies, Czech Republic (Charles), the leader for Eastern Europe, Spain (Complutense) and Portugal (Minho, Porto) with huge repositories and strong Open Access initiatives. Norway (NTNU, Oslo), Egypt could be also mentioned.On the other side, the underrated are headed by France, with a very fragmented system, Korea, whose student-oriented websites are frequently duplicated, New Zealand, India or Argentina.Africa is still monopolized by South African universities (Cape Town is the first, 405th), as well as Australian Universities are the best ranked for Oceania (Australian National University, 77th)Other well performing institutions include Cornell or Caltech in the USA, Tokyo (24th) Toronto (28th), Hong Kong (91st), or Peking (104th). On the contrary, in positions below expected we find Yale, Princeton, Saint Petersburg, Seoul and the Indian Institutes of Science or Technology."
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Ranking Schools by Salary
The Payscale site has produced a ranking of American schools and colleges by the salaries that its graduates earn.
Here are the top five engineering colleges by median mid-career salary:
1. MIT
2. Harvey Mudd
3. Stanford
4. Bucknell University
5. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
the top five Ivy League schools;
1. Dartmouth College
2. Harvard
3. Princeton
4. Yale
5. University of Pennsylvania
the top five liberal arts colleges;
1. Colgate University
2. Bucknell University
3. Swarthmore University
4. Amherst College
5. Haverford College
and the top five state universities;
1. Berkeley
2. Colorado School of Mines
3. Georgia Institute of Technology
4. New Jersey Institute of technology
5. University of California at San Diego.
The Payscale site has produced a ranking of American schools and colleges by the salaries that its graduates earn.
Here are the top five engineering colleges by median mid-career salary:
1. MIT
2. Harvey Mudd
3. Stanford
4. Bucknell University
5. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
the top five Ivy League schools;
1. Dartmouth College
2. Harvard
3. Princeton
4. Yale
5. University of Pennsylvania
the top five liberal arts colleges;
1. Colgate University
2. Bucknell University
3. Swarthmore University
4. Amherst College
5. Haverford College
and the top five state universities;
1. Berkeley
2. Colorado School of Mines
3. Georgia Institute of Technology
4. New Jersey Institute of technology
5. University of California at San Diego.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What does Internationalisation Mean?
In THE-QS rankings universities get 10 per cent for the proportion of international students and international faculty. Does this measure say anything about the quality of a university?
Maybe. But one thing it says something about is simply the size of the country in which the university is located. There is a moderate negative correlation between the score for international faculty of the top 400 universities in the 2008 rankings and population of .332 and of .326 between international students and population.
This may help to explain why Hong Kong universities have been doing so well lately compared with those in Mainland China.
In THE-QS rankings universities get 10 per cent for the proportion of international students and international faculty. Does this measure say anything about the quality of a university?
Maybe. But one thing it says something about is simply the size of the country in which the university is located. There is a moderate negative correlation between the score for international faculty of the top 400 universities in the 2008 rankings and population of .332 and of .326 between international students and population.
This may help to explain why Hong Kong universities have been doing so well lately compared with those in Mainland China.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Paris Rankings are out
L'Ecole des Mines de Paris has produced its third Professional Ranking of World Universities. This is based solely on the number of CEOs of Fortune's top 500 companies. The top 5 in order are Tokyo, Harvard, Stanford, Waseda and Seoul national universities. Five French schools are in the top 20 and in general France performs much better on these rankings than any other, which, one suspects, might be the whole point of the enterprise.
According to University World News
The Paris rankings do correlate quite well with others indicating they are measuring some sort of quality. However, the performance of French, Japanese and Korean schools may say more about the recruitment and immigration policies of their countries than anything else.
Also, one wonders whether producing the CEO of General Motors is indicative of the real quality of Duke and Harvard.
The frightening thing is that it probably is.
L'Ecole des Mines de Paris has produced its third Professional Ranking of World Universities. This is based solely on the number of CEOs of Fortune's top 500 companies. The top 5 in order are Tokyo, Harvard, Stanford, Waseda and Seoul national universities. Five French schools are in the top 20 and in general France performs much better on these rankings than any other, which, one suspects, might be the whole point of the enterprise.
According to University World News
Interviewed in the online higher education publication Educpros, Nicolas Cheimanoff, director of studies of Mines Paris
Tech, explained the aims of the rankings: "In France we were challenged into taking action, to say we could not base arguments exclusively on the Shanghai ranking and construct higher education policy solely on this ranking."We wanted to show at an international level that France is a country where you can study. Our ranking gives visibility to a school, but also to the system of French higher education as a whole."Cheimanoff said Mines Paris Tech had been in contact with Professor Liu, originator of the Shanghai rankings, to suggest Jiao Tong should incorporate the Mines crterion. "He was a priori in favour but only if we included the academic careers of company heads since 1920 as he did for
the Nobel prizewinners. But that's totally impossible."
The Paris rankings do correlate quite well with others indicating they are measuring some sort of quality. However, the performance of French, Japanese and Korean schools may say more about the recruitment and immigration policies of their countries than anything else.
Also, one wonders whether producing the CEO of General Motors is indicative of the real quality of Duke and Harvard.
The frightening thing is that it probably is.
Monday, July 06, 2009
A Ranking System for the Philippines
Another national ranking system is on the way.
See here for more.
Another national ranking system is on the way.
The Commission on Higher Education (Ched) will come up with a ranking system of the best schools in specific fields of study or discipline, an official said today.
“We may come up (with the ranking system) within the
year,” said Ched executive director Julito Vitriolo said in a phone
interview. As of the moment, Vitriolo said Ched is now compiling the
licensure examination results on different fields of study in various colleges and universities nationwide.
See here for more.
IREG-4
Presentations from the fourth International Rankings Expert Group Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, are available here.
Presentations from the fourth International Rankings Expert Group Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, are available here.