The Shanghai Rankings Part 2

The Shanghai Rankings have had a reputation for reliability and consistency. The latest rankings have, however, undermined that reputation a little. There have been two methodological changes of which one, not counting Proceedings Papers in the Nature and Science and Publications indicators, may not be of any significance. The other is the use of a new list of Highly Cited Researchers prepared by Thomson Reuters covering citations between 2002 and 2012. In this year's rankings this was combined with the old list which had not been updated since 2004.

One result of this is that there have been some very dramatic changes in the scores for Highly Cited Researchers this year. University of California Santa Cruz's score has risen from 28.9 to 37.9, Melbourne's from 24 to 29.3 and China University of Science and Technology's from 7.2 to 24.5 while that of the Australian National University has fallen from 32.3 to 24.8 and Virginia Polytechnic Institute's from 22.9 to 11.4.

This has had a noticeable impact on total scores. Santa Cruz has risen from the 101-150 band to 93rd place, Melbourne from 54th to 44th and China University of Science and Technology from the 201 - 300 band to the 150-200 band. The Australian National University has fallen from 66th place to 74th and Indiana University at Bloomington has dropped from 85th place to the 101-150 band.


In the top 20, this year's ARWU is more volatile than the two previous editions but still not as much as any other international ranking. The top 20 universities in 2013 rose or fell an average of 0.65 places.

Ranking	Average Place Change  of Universities in the top 20
ARWU 2013 -2014	0.65
ARWU 2012-2013	0.25
ARWU 2011 - 2012	0.15
Webometrics 2013-2014	4.25
Center for World University Ranking (Jeddah) 2013-2014	0.90
THE World Rankings 2012-2013	1.20
QS World Rankings 2012-2013	1.70

Looking at the top 100 universities, the ARWU is more volatile than last year's QS rankings with the average institution moving up or down 4.92 places.

Ranking	Average Place Change  of Universities in the top 100
ARWU 2013 -2014	4.92
ARWU 2012-2013	1.66
ARWU 2011 - 2012	2.01
Webometrics 2013-2014	12.08
Center for World University Ranking (Jeddah) 2013-2014	10.59
THE World Rankings 2012-2013	5.36
QS World Rankings 2012-2013	3.97