We are repeatedly told that the TimesHigher Education (THE) university rankings are trusted by students, governments, and other stakeholders. Perhaps they are. Whether they should be is another matter.
Last October, THE announced the results of its World University Rankings, and there was a chorus of lamentation from leading Australian universities, among others, who apparently trusted THE. It seems that the debate over restricting the admission of international students has damaged the country's reputation, and that has been reflected in the THE reputation survey. which contributes disproportionately to THE's teaching and research "pillars." That has led to declining overall scores, which will be the start of a vicious downward spiral. British and American universities also bemoaned the decline in ranking scores, supposedly due to the lack of funding from hard-hearted governments.
For many academics and administrators, THE has become the arbiter of excellence and a credible advisor to the agencies that dominate Western economy and society. It has even become a preferred analyst for the WEF, which is supposed to represent the finest minds of the corporate global world. This is quite remarkable since there is a big mismatch between THE's pretensions to excellence and its actual practice.
A recent example was the publication of a story about how THE's data analysts had detected collusive activity among some universities in order to boost their scores in the reputation surveys that make up a substantial part of the THE World University Rankings and their various derivatives.
On October 24, David Watkins of THE announced that a "syndicate" had been detected where universities supported each other in the THE Arab reputation survey to the exclusion of non-members. Exactly who those members were was not announced, but it probably included the nine universities that made it to the top 200 in THE World Reputation Survey announced in February 2024, the data for which was included in THE world ranking announced in October 2024. It might also include some universities that had made sudden and surprising gains in the Arab University Rankings announced in November 2023, and the World University Rankings announced last October.
There is a whiff of hypocrisy here. THE is apparently getting upset because universities have probably been doing something that the rankers have condoned or at least ignored. There were signs that something was a bit off as far back as the Arab University Rankings in November 2023. These showed surprisingly good performances from several universities that had performed poorly or not at all in other rankings. In particular, universities in the Emirates were rising while those in Egypt were falling. This was interesting because the results were announced at a summit held in Abu Dhabi that featured several speakers from the Emirates, a development reminiscent of the 2014 summit in Qatar when Texas A and M Qatar was proclaimed the top MENA university based on precisely half a highly cited researcher followed by a similar summit in the UAE in 2015 when that university -- actually a program that has now been wound up -- disappeared, and United Arab Emirates University advanced to fifth place.
Meanwhile, between October 2023 and January 2024, THE was conducting their survey of academic opinion for the World University Rankings. Before 2021, they had relied on survey data supplied by Clarivate, but now the survey has been brought in-house. That, it now appears, was not a good idea. The number of survey respondents soared, and there was a disproportionate number of respondents from the UAE. In February 2024, THE published the results of its reputation survey, which would later become a part of the world rankings.
THE listed only the top 200 universities and gave exact scores for the top fifty. The interesting thing was that nine Arab universities were included whose reputation scores were below the scores for academic reputation in the QS World University Rankings rankings, the scores for global research reputation in the US News Best Global Universities ranking, or scores in the Round University Rankings, if they were actually ranked at all and below their previous scores. They were also above the scores achieved by leading universities in the region in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Lebanon, and they appeared unrelated to other indicators.
It was probably not only Arab universities. Egor Yablokov of E -- Quadrat Science and Education identified several universities whose reputation score appears disproportionate to the overall scores for the THE world rankings.
When the 2025 WUR rankings appeared in October of last year, there were more signs that something was amiss. Universities in the UAE including Abu Dhabi University and Khalifa University, also in Abu Dhabi, did much better than in previous editions or in other rankings. There were other apparent anomalies. Al Ahliyaa Amaan University was ahead of the University of Jordan, the Lebanese American University higher than the American University of Beirut, the American University of the Middle East higher than Kuwait University, Future University in Egypt, and the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology higher than Cairo University and Al Azhar.
Then came the Arab University Rankings. It appears that THE had now taken action against the "syndicate", resulting in them dropping significantly.
In addition to this, there are some trends that require explanation. Many universities in Saudi Arabia and UAE have fallen significantly, while some in Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq have risen. Applied Science Private University, Jordan, has risen from 91-100 to 25, Al Ahliyya Amman University, also in Jordan, from 91-100 to 28, Ahlia University in Bahrain from unranked to 17th, Cairo University from 28 to 8, the University of Baghdad from 40 to 20, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad from 71-80 to 37, An Najah National University, Palestine, 81-90 to 23, and Dhofar University, Oman, from 101-120 to 49.
So, THE have allocated a whopping 41% weighting for reputation, of which 23% is for research reputation, for their Arab University Rankings, compared to 25% for their Asian rankings and 33% for the Latin American rankings. They have introduced a new metric, collaboration within the Arab world, taken over the research and teaching survey from Elsevier, increased the number of respondents, organized prestigious summits, and offered a variety of consultancy arrangements. All of this would create an environment in which exclusive agreements were likely to flourish.
The extreme fluctuations resulting from THE's changes to the reputation indicators have seriously undermined THE's credibility, or at least they ought to. It would be better for everybody if THE simply returned the administration of the reputation survey to Elsevier and stuck to event management, where it is unsurpassed.
No comments:
Post a Comment