Whither the Times Higher Rankings?
Times Higher Education has announced that it will be producing a new ranking system to replace the THE-QS World University Rankings.
THE does not seem to have much idea about where it is going. Its advisory committe (it would be interesting to find out who they are) is reported to have complained that the number of respondents in the peer review is too small and that the citations indicator is biased against the social sciences and the humanities.
Neither of these is very helpful. The small number of respondents is not for lack of trying by QS. They have been sending out nearly 200,000 e-mails a year. I doubt if there is very much anyone can do get many more respondents. What could be done and should be done is to improve the validity of the survey by clearly identifying the group whose opinion is being sought or using databases that are less obviously biased. The second problem could be dealt with quite easily by assigning appropriate weighting to the various dsicipline clusters.
THE has also published comments from readers about future directions for its rankings. Some of these seem unaware of the basic methods of the THE-QS rankings. One, for example wants to see an "increased number of academics interviewed" -- QS never interviewed anyone for its survey. Others want the rankings to include criteria that are of limited global comparabilty such as starting salaries or graduate job prospects.
Several readers are unhappy with what they feel is the unfairly low position of LSE. This would seem misplaced. The rankings are supposed to be of universities not of research institutes and offering a full range of courses ought to be a significant element in the assessment of a university.
Other readers are sceptical about the significance of internationalisation and there appears to be division about whether citations are an adaequate nmeasure of research quality.
The response so far appears to be predominantly British. If THE are going to listen to their readers it is likely that the obvious pro-British and even pro-Oxbridge bias of the old rankings will continue.
Anyone interested in taking part in a survey by Thomson Reuters and THE can do so by going here.
It is not the case that we do not have "much idea about where [we are] going". The whole point of our decision to end our partnership with QS was to start from scratch and develop a new rankings methodology in direct consultation with the international university community. We want academics and universtiy administrators to have confidence in a more rigorous and transparent ranking. It would be wrong to rush into something that is so important to get right. As you note, we are consulting widely on the best way forward, and we have an on-line survey on the go right now. Visit http://bit.ly/ErAag to fill in the survey, leave comments, and to read all of our updates on the development of the 2010 Times Higher Education world universtiy rankings.
ReplyDeleteThe names of our editorial board are published on page five of our magazine every week. The board includes Philip Altbach, head of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College, Sir Drummond Bone, a consultant on international higher education and Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. As a matter of fact, the board is meeting with senior representatives of our new rankings partner, Thomson Reuters, tomorrow, to discuss the way forward. There'll be regular updates on our website, www.timeshighereducation.co.uk and in the meantime we welcome as much input as possible.