Auto-Induced Fly Catching

Taking a break from the most exciting or second most exciting educational event this month, I have just received a message from Google Scholar Citations asking if I wanted to add the following to my profile:

AUTO-INDUCED FLY-CATCHING IN KING CHARLES SPANIEL

JG LANE, RJ Holmes

BRITISH VETERINARY JOURNAL 128 (9), 477-&, 1972

Unfortunately, I couldn't claim credit for this work. In 1972 I was still immersed in the Irish Home Rule Debate and the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate.

I wonder whether this was an attempt to develop an environmentally friendly form of pest control or is this a serious mental disorder among certain kinds of dogs?

Is it too late to submit a nomination for the IgNobel awards?

Global Ranking From Russia

A very interesting new set of global rankings appeared seven days ago, the Round University Ranking from Russia. The organization is rather mysterious, although probably not so much in Russia and nearby places.

The rankings are based entirely on data from Thomson Reuters (TR) and the structure and methodology are similar to last year's Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. They include 12 out of the 13 indicators used in the 2014 THE rankings, with only the percentage of research income derived from industry omitted. There are eight more measures making a total of twenty, five each  for teaching, research, international diversity and financial sustainability.

There is a normalized citations indicator with a weighting of only eight per cent, balanced by a simple count of citations per academic and research staff, also with eight per cent.

Altogether the three reputation indicators count for 18 per cent of the weighting compared to 33 per cent in the 2014 THE rankings or 50 per cent  in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) world rankings

To date these rankings appear to have been ignored by the world media except in Russia and its neighbors. Compared to the excitement with which the THE or even the QS or Shanghai rankings are greeted this might seem a bit odd. If the THE rankings were sophisticated  because they had 13 indicators then these are even more so with 20. If the THE rankings were trusted because they were powered by Thomson Reuters so are these. If the survey in the THE rankings was real social science then so is this.

Could it be that the THE rankings are beloved of the Russell Group and its like around the world not because of their robustness, comprehensiveness, transparency or superior methodology but because of the glamour derived from a succession of prestigious events, networking dinners and exclusive masterclasses designed to appeal to the status anxieties of upwardly or downwardly mobile university administrators?

There are some problems with the RUR rankings. There is incoherence about what the indicators are supposed to measure.The methodology says that '[I]t is assumed that "undergraduate" level is the core of higher education' so there is an indicator measuring academic staff per bachelor degree.  But then we have a weighting of eight per cent for doctoral degrees per bachelor degrees.

One excellent thing about these rankings is that the score for all of the indicators can be found in the profiles of the individual universities. If anyone has the energy and time there are some important questions that could be answered . Is the correlation between teaching and research reputation so high that a distinction between the two is redundant? Is income or number of faculty a better prediction of research performance?

The presentation leaves a lot to be desired. Cooper League? The explanation of the methodology verges on the incomprehensible. Can somebody tell RUR to get a competent human to translate for them and forget about the Google Translator?

The economics of the relationship between TR and RUR are puzzling. There are no obvious signs that RUR has a large income from which to pay TR for the data and  I doubt that TR has passed it on for purely altruistic reasons. Could it be that TR are simply trying to undercut THE's attempt to go it alone? If nothing else, it could undermine any THE plans to go into the benchmarking and consulting trade.

Anyway,  here are some first places. No surprises here, except maybe for Scuola Superiore Normale Pisa. You can find out exactly where the strengths of that school are by checking the scores for the twenty indicators.


Overall:                              Harvard
Teaching:                           Caltech
Research:                           Chicago
International Diversity:     EPF Lausanne
Financial Sustainability:    Caltech

China:                     Peking 49th
Russia:                    Moscow State 187th
India:                      IIT Kharagpur  272nd
UK:                         ICL 5th
Germany:                Munich 22nd
France:                    Ecole Polytechnique   19th
Egypt:                     American University Cairo 571st
South Africa:          Cape Town  201st
Brazil:                     Sao Paulo 65th
Italy:                       Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa 66th
Turkey:                   METU 308th
Malaysia:                Universiti Putra Malaysia 513th
Australia:                ANU 77th
Japan:                     Tokyo 47th
Korea:                     KAIST  41st.

More on Alternative Indicators for Ranking African Universities

Continuing with our exploration of how to rank universities outside the world's top 200 or 400 where it is necessary to develop robust and sophisticated techniques of standardisation, normalisation, scaling, regional modification, taking away the number you first thought of (just kidding) verification, weighting and validation to figure out that Caltech's  normalised research impact is slightly better than Harvard's or that Cambridge is a bit more international than that place in the other Cambridge, here is a ranking of African universities according to recommendations in LinkedIn.

There are obvious problems with this indicator, not least of which is the tiny number of responses compared to all the students on the continent. It might, however, be the precursor to a useful survey of student opinion or graduate employability later on.

First place goes to the University of South Africa, an open distance education institution whose alumni include Nelson Mandela, Cyril Ramaphosa and Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Makerere University, the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University do well.

Data was compiled on the 28th and 29th of July. All universities included in the THE experimental African ranking, the top fifty African universities in Webometrics plus the top universities in Webometrics or 4icu of any country still nor included.

Rank	University	Country	Number of LinkedIn Recommendations
1	University of South Africa	South Africa	154
2	Makerere University	Uganda	116
3	University of the Witwatersrand	South Africa	94
4	University of Ibadan	Nigeria	86
5	University of Johannesburg	South Africa	79
6	University of Nairobi	Kenya	75
7	Cairo University	Egypt	67
8	Stellenbosch University	South Africa	63
9	University of Pretoria	South Africa	62
10	Kenyatta University	Kenya	61
11	University of Cape Town	South Africa	60
12	University of Lagos	Nigeria	58
13	Addis Ababa University	Ethiopia	55
14	Obafemi Awolowo University	Nigeria	50
15	Alexandria University	Egypt	47
16	Rhodes University	South Africa	42
17	Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology	Kenya	40
18	American University in Cairo	Egypt	28
19	University of Kwazulu-Natal	South Africa	26
20	University of Ilorin	Nigeria	24
21	University of Zimbabwe	Zimbabwe	22
22	Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology	Ghana	21
23	Helwan University	Egypt	20
24=	North West University	South Africa	18
24=	University of Ghana	Ghana	18
24=	University of Port Harcourt	Nigeria	18
27=	Durban University of Technology	South Africa	16
27=	University of Dar Es Salaam	Tanzania	16
29=	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University	South Africa	14
29=	University of the Western Cape	South Africa	14
31	Cape Peninsula University of Technology	South Africa	13
32	Mansoura university	Egypt	12
33	University of Botswana	Botswana	10
34	Covenant University	Nigeria	9
35=	Zagazig University	Egypt	7
35=	Suez Canal university	Egypt	7
37	Tanta University	Egypt	6
38=	Assiut University	Egypt	5
38=	Université Constantine 1	Algeria	5
40=	University of the Free State	South Africa	4
40=	Universite des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene	Algeria	4
42+	South Valley University	Egypt	3
42+	Université Cadi Ayyad	Morocco	2
42+	University ofTunis	Tunisia	2
42+	University of Namibia	Namibia	1
42+	University of Mauritius	Mauritius	1
42+	Université Cheikh Anta Diop	Senegal	0
42+	Université Mohammed V Souissi	Morocco	0
42+	University of Khartoum	Sudan	0
42+	University of Malawi	Malawi	0
42+	Université Hassan II Ain Chock	Morocco	0
42+	Kafrelsheikh University	Egypt	0
42+	University of Zambia	Zambia	0
42+	Bejaia university	Algeria	0
42+	Minia University	Egypt	0
42+	Benha University	Egypt	0
42+	Universidade Católica de Angola	Angola	0
42+	Université de Lomé	Togo	0
42+	Université Abou Bekr Belkaid	Algeria	0
42+	Beni-Suef University	Egypt	0
42+	Université Omar Bongo	Gabon	0
42+	University of the Gambia	Gambia	0
42+	Université de Toliara	Madagascar	0
42+	Université Kasdi Merbah Ouarg	Algeria	0
42+	Universite de la Reunion	Reunion	0
42+	Université d'Abomey-Calavi	Benin	0
42+	Universidade Eduardo Mondlane	Mozambique	0
42+	Université de Ouagadougou	Burkina Faso	0
42+	University of Rwanda	Rwanda	0
42+	Universite de Bamako	Mali	0
42+	University of Swaziland	Swaziland	0
42+	Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny	Ivory Coast	0
42+	Université de Kinshasa	Democratic Republic of the Congo	0
42+	National University of Lesotho	Lesotho	0
42+	Universidade Jean Piaget de Cabo Verde	Cape Verde	0
42+	N Engineering S of Sfax	Tunisia	0
42+	Université Marien Ngouabi	Republic of the Congo	0
42+	University of Liberia	Liberia	0
42+	Université Djillali Liabes	Algeria	0
42+	Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey	Niger	0
42+	Misurata University	Libya	0
42+	Université de Dschang	Cameroons	0
42+	Université de Bangui	Central African Republic	0
42+	Université de Nouakchott	Mauritania	0
42+	Eritrea Institute of Technology	Eritrea	0
42+	Université de Djibouti	Djibouti	0
42+	University of Seychelles	Seychelles	0
42+	Mogadishu University	Somalia	0
42+	Universidad Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial	Equatorial Guinea	0
42+	Universite Gamal Abdel Nasser de Conakry	Guinea	0
42+	University of Makeni	Sierra Leone	0
42+	John Garang Memorial University	South Sudan	0
42+	Hope Africa University	Burundi	0
42+	Universite de Moundou	Chad	0
42+	Universite de Yaounde I	Cameroons	0

Best German and Austrian Universities if you Want to get Rich

If you want to go a university in Germany or Austria and get rich afterwards, the website Wealth-X has a ranking for you. It counts the number of UHNW (ultra high net worth) alumni, those with US$ 30 million or above.

Here are the top five with the number of UHNW individuals in brackets.

1. University of Cologne     (18)
2. University of Munich      (14)
3. University of Hamburg    (13)
4. University of Freiburg     (11)
5. University of Bonn          (11)

There may well be protests about who should be first. In tenth place is "Ludwig Maximilians University Munich (LMU Munich)", which I assume is another name for the University of Munich, with six UHNW alumni .