A number of different systems exist around the
world for identifying the world's top universities. The most popular academic
rankings systems used in Britain are the 'Shanghai Jiao Tong University'
Academic Rankings of World Universities and the 'Times Higher Education
Supplement' (THES) 'Top Two Hundred Universities'.
The 'Academic Ranking of World Universities'
is published by Shanghai Jiao University in China and ranks the world's
universities using a weighted system that includes research staff being highly
cited in twenty-one wide ranging subject categories (20%), academic staff
winning Nobel Prizes and Field Medals (20%), past graduates winning Nobel
Prizes and Field Medals (10%), articles published in 'Nature and Science'
(20%), the Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index and the Arts
& Humanities Citation Index (20%) as well as the size of the university
(10%). Because of its comparatively non-subjective method of analysis, the Academic Ranking University in world have frequently been mentioned by The
Economist magazine in grading the world's Higher Education Institutions.
The
Shanghai rankings are however criticised for putting too much weight on the Nobel
prizewinners instead of emphasising the broader impact of a university's
scientific and technological output. It is argued that this also results in
skewing the rankings toward the scientific disciplines for which more Nobel
Prizes are awarded. There are 3 Nobel prizes for the scientific disciplines
(physics, chemistry and medicine), 1 for the social sciences (economics), 1 for
the arts (literature) and the Peace Prize. Universities with faculty or past
graduates who have won Fields medals for mathematics are also rewarded, but
awards for similar accomplishments in the arts are not measured.
The THES World's Top Universities are produced
by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
The ranking system is weighed according to the following formula; peer review
(40%), citations in academic journals per staff member for the previous five
years (20%), academic staff to student ratio (20%), recruiter review (10%) and
internationalisation of the university (10%).
The peer review involves selecting academics
of equal numbers from Europe, Asia, North America and the remaining world who
are also selected in equal proportions from engineering and IT, arts and
humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and the life sciences. These academics
are then asked to name the top thirty universities in their subject area. The
peer review is formulated to find the most intellectually active universities.
The 'recruiter review' compiles questionnaire
responses from 736 employers that have recruited from the world's top
universities.
The internationalisation of the university is
given half it's weighting from numbers of international staff and the other
half from numbers of international students. Internationalisation frequently
creates the most contention as academicians contend that it should not come
down to university size, and the smaller universities lose points due to not
having as many international faculty members or students.
No ranking system comes without its criticism.
The growth of education as a worldwide marketplace and the resulting
competition has created demand for a university rating system. A lot of
universities around the world acknowledge the THES World's Top Universities
rankings and actively strive to improve their own place within it.
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