The War of the THE-QS Succession
There is a comment by Nunzio Quacquarelli on the QS topuniversities rankings blog.
Here is an extract:
"In October 2009, QS and THE ended their collaboration under which THE was licensed to publish the QS results known as “Times Higher Education (THE) – QS World University Rankings”. Since then, THE have announced they intend to produce their own rankings and have been systematically critical of QS’ methodology as part of their explanation for the split. This is surprising; THE consistently praised the QS methodology throughout the six-year publishing collaboration. Indeed, their former publishing director described it as one of the best partnerships in the history of THE.
Similarly, Ann Mroz, Editor of THE wrote in October 2008: "These rankings use an unprecedented amount of data to deliver the most accurate measure available of the world’s best universities, and of the strength of different nations’ university systems. They are important for governments wanting to gauge the progress of their education systems, and are used in planning by universities across the world."
Phil Baty, Associate Editor of THE wrote only on October 10 2009: “Congratulations on a highly successful campaign on the rankings again this year. The internet is buzzing.” Yet it seems our objectives and methodological principles have subsequently diverged. QS will continue to produce our rankings using citation data from the Scopus database of Elsevier. THE have decided to align themselves with Thomson Reuters’ academic citation database."
Just a few points. The email from me that Mr Quacquarelli quotes - which was a private email -- refers entirely to the media communications campaign carried out by QS with regard to the 2009 rankings: I remain happy to praise their PR skills! It had nothing to do with the methodology of the now defunct THE-QS rankings, which we believe was not fit for purpose.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, we made the decision to end our partnership with QS primarily because we felt that we could provide a far richer, more rigorous and transparent ranking with one of the world's leading research metrics companies, with a reputation for professionalism and authority -- Thomson Reuters. We felt that QS was not an appropriate company for THE to be associated with.
Phil Baty, deputy editor, Times Higher Education