UI GreenMetric World University Rankings
Universitas Indonesia has been asking universities to take part in a ranking based on "university sustainability." According to UI:
"The world faces unprecedented civilizational challenges such as population
trends, global warming, and overexploitation of natural resources, oil-dependent
energy, water and food shortages and sustainability. We realize that higher education has a crucial role to play in addressing these challenges. UI
Green Metric raises awareness as it helps assess and compare efforts at
education for sustainable development, sustainability research, campus greening,
and social outreach."
The ranking has six criteria: Setting and Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Change, Waste, Water, Transportation and Education.
The ranking is based entirely on data submitted by universities and that in itself drastically limits its validity. Also, should the promotion of sustainability, however worthy a cause, be a major concern of universities. Is there nobody else taking an interest in such things?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Monday, July 09, 2012
The QS Subject Rankings
QS has produced rankings of universities by subject. These seem to be quite popular, probably because the methodology and weighting varies from one subject to another so that almost everybody can score well in something.
Outside the top forty or fifty in each subject, however, they should not be taken too seriously. They depend on only two or three criteria in varying combinations, the academic survey, the employer survey and citations per paper.
So, citations per paper contribute 50% of the weighting for biology and earth sciences but nothing for English and 10% for philosophy and sociology. A high score for biology could be the result of a large number of citations, indicating -- perhaps -- a substantial research impact. A high score for English (language and literature) is largely due to the survey of academic opinion, a rather dubious instrument.
Anyway, MIT is first for these subjects:
Linguistics
Computer Science
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Economics and Econometrics
Physics and Astronomy
Mathematics
Chemistry
Materials Science
Harvard for these:
Modern Languages
Medicine
Psychology
Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Earth and Marine Sciences
Politics and International Studies
Law
Sociology
Education
Oxford for these:
Philosophy
Geography
History
Stanford for these:
Environmental Sciences
Statistics and Operational Research
Communication and Media Studies
and Cambridge for:
English Literature and Language.
As we get to the lower reaches of these rankings, the number of responses to the surveys or the number of citations gets amaller so that trivial changes in the number of citations will lead .
QS has produced rankings of universities by subject. These seem to be quite popular, probably because the methodology and weighting varies from one subject to another so that almost everybody can score well in something.
Outside the top forty or fifty in each subject, however, they should not be taken too seriously. They depend on only two or three criteria in varying combinations, the academic survey, the employer survey and citations per paper.
So, citations per paper contribute 50% of the weighting for biology and earth sciences but nothing for English and 10% for philosophy and sociology. A high score for biology could be the result of a large number of citations, indicating -- perhaps -- a substantial research impact. A high score for English (language and literature) is largely due to the survey of academic opinion, a rather dubious instrument.
Anyway, MIT is first for these subjects:
Linguistics
Computer Science
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Economics and Econometrics
Physics and Astronomy
Mathematics
Chemistry
Materials Science
Harvard for these:
Modern Languages
Medicine
Psychology
Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Earth and Marine Sciences
Politics and International Studies
Law
Sociology
Education
Oxford for these:
Philosophy
Geography
History
Stanford for these:
Environmental Sciences
Statistics and Operational Research
Communication and Media Studies
and Cambridge for:
English Literature and Language.
As we get to the lower reaches of these rankings, the number of responses to the surveys or the number of citations gets amaller so that trivial changes in the number of citations will lead .
El Naschie vs.Nature
The journal Nature has been totally vindicated. The judgement by Mrs Victoria Sharp has dismissed El Naschie's claims. I would be very surprised if there has ever been a more unambiguous judgement .
To review the case, at the end of 2008 Nature published an article, Self-publishing editor set to retire, which described how Mohamed El Naschie, the editor of the applied mathematics/theoretical physics journal, Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, had published an unusually large number of his own papers, which were of poor quality, without proper peer review. Furthermore, the journal had acquired a falsely high impact factor through self-citation and citation by a limited number of friends and disciples.
El Naschie sued Nature and author Quirin Schiermeier for libel. Now, Mrs Justice Sharp has found for the defendants.
The case is of interest to this blog since it was the citation of El Naschie's papers by himself and a few associates that contributed to Alexandria University's reaching fourth place for research impact in the 2010 Times Higher Education (THE) World university Rankings, powered by Thomson Reuters (TR). El Naschie did not, of course, do it all by himself. TR's methodology inflated his citations because they were recent, because they were assigned to a low citing field, applied maths, and becuse he was affiliated to a university in a low citing region. Since then TR has tweaked its citation indicator to avoid the repetition of such a strange result.
This is a victory for academic freedom although one wonders what would have happened if El Naschie had chosen a critic with a less substantial bank account.
Here are some comments. First place goes to El Naschie Watch which has been following the affairs of EL Naschie for some time.
El Naschie Watch
Nature
BBC News
New Scientist
Guardian
Times Higher Education
The journal Nature has been totally vindicated. The judgement by Mrs Victoria Sharp has dismissed El Naschie's claims. I would be very surprised if there has ever been a more unambiguous judgement .
El Naschie sued Nature and author Quirin Schiermeier for libel. Now, Mrs Justice Sharp has found for the defendants.
The case is of interest to this blog since it was the citation of El Naschie's papers by himself and a few associates that contributed to Alexandria University's reaching fourth place for research impact in the 2010 Times Higher Education (THE) World university Rankings, powered by Thomson Reuters (TR). El Naschie did not, of course, do it all by himself. TR's methodology inflated his citations because they were recent, because they were assigned to a low citing field, applied maths, and becuse he was affiliated to a university in a low citing region. Since then TR has tweaked its citation indicator to avoid the repetition of such a strange result.
This is a victory for academic freedom although one wonders what would have happened if El Naschie had chosen a critic with a less substantial bank account.
Here are some comments. First place goes to El Naschie Watch which has been following the affairs of EL Naschie for some time.
El Naschie Watch
Nature
BBC News
New Scientist
Guardian
Times Higher Education
Friday, July 06, 2012
Power and Responsibility: The Growing Influence of Global Rankings
My article can be accessed at University World News. Comments can be submitted here.
My article can be accessed at University World News. Comments can be submitted here.
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