Times Higher Education (THE) has always had, or tried to have, a good opinion of itself and its rankings.
A perennial highlight of the ranking season is the flurry of adjectives used by THE to describe its summits (prestigious, exclusive) and the rankings and their methodology. Here is a selection:
"the sharper, deeper insights revealed by our new and more rigorous world rankings"
"Robust, transparent and sophisticated"
"the most comprehensive, sophisticated and balanced global rankings in the world."
"a dramatically improved ranking system"
"our dramatic innovations"
"our tried, trusted and comprehensive combination of 13 performance indicators remains in place, with the same carefully calibrated weightings"
"our most comprehensive, inclusive and insightful World University Rankings to date"
The problem is that if the rankings are so robust and sophisticated then what is the point of a dramatic improvement? If there is a dramatic improvement one year is there a need for more dramatic improvements in the next? And are there no limits to the rigor of the methodology and the sharpness and depth of the insights?
THE rankings became much worse this year.
ReplyDeleteWell, they stated that MIT is the best university for social sciences. And still accepted in the academia!
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