Rankings 09: Talking points

Tell me how University of Toronto beat McGill in every area of expertise and then is ranked lower globally? Is this some kind of twisted logic?

sorry, but this ranking is simply inconceivable, particularly when one looks at how US universities are ranked against each other.

i can't quite understand how the ANU can beat SYDNEY in particular in the arts and humanities

Hilarious! There was a good one in The Onion today too. Keep it up, I can always use another laugh.

One reservation with the 2hole ranking system is that the rankings are becoming the major focus for university's being, and part of the wider zeitgeist of 'bums on seats, iinternational bums preferably as we can screw them for huge tuition fees.' Its a bit like going to the horse racing; its a gambling game, play it well and it means more money for the Universitywhihc translates as : a larger car and loads more perks and freebies for the Principal and his/her cronies. The onus also turns to the building up of huge endowment funds on the US model, by whatever means possible, i.e hedge funds, dodgy multinationals. Nouveau philanthropy rears its ugly head with private donors and companies driving their vision of what education should be for their own narrow ends. . Another aspect of this is the way some unis, in the second hundred who are desperatey trying to break into the top 100, giving huge financial incentives to attract prestigious part time academics to give an impression of 'esteemed scholars' . Lower lever staff, whose toils do little to affect the rankings, are of course still expected to struggle along on their pauper's wages. Of course the international focus does bring one other major advantage: lots of free 'fact finding/networking ' trips abroad for senior management.

cue press releases across the world - University of Poppleton confirmed as 130th ebst University in THE WORLD, up from 134th last year. followed by quote from VC. None of this actually has much use for prospective students as the measures do not include graduate success (the employer review is more related to how much Universities lobby their close employer contacts to vote for them, and how many in the same company you can get to vote for you as there is no limit), student satisfacton (staff student ratios are not an indication of course quality) or progression rates/student performance (impossible to compare accurately across the world). Shame that the Times Higher places so much store on them presumably to partly generate global income from ads to offset the falling sales from the UK Universities - who use cheaper means like social networking, internet and jobs.ac.uk to get their message across and advertise jobs. best of luck to you all - from a University in the top 250.....hurrah! We CAN make the top 200 next year, c'mon!. ps it is also about size -the bigger you are is crucial, even though in the UK it is the smaller Unis with less than 15,000 students who often have the highest levels of student satisfaction and other positive measures, AND are strong for research.

This ranking is fundamentally flawed. On the one hand it tries to - in its own words - "capture the more tangible and measurable elements that make a modern, world-class university", only to make up 50% of the score by surveys which are anything but tangible and measurable and prone to emphasize name recognition rather than measurable parameters. It is no wonder the same angloamerican universities always end up top simply because they enjoy a much higher name recognition. Further, the article does not reveal WHO is surveyed - surely the selection of those surveyed will also have a direct impact on the results of the ranking.

Please explain to me as to how Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam come to respectively beat VU University Amsterdam and Delft University Technology. Knowing what I know, I cannot just see the reasons.

Let's see--U.C. Berkeley is: 2nd in engineering and IT; 5th in life sciences; 3rd in natural sciences; 2nd in social sciences; 4th in arts and humanities; and 39th overall. Hmmm. They must have a really lousy football team.

Science is not bag potatoes to be weighted exactly :)

Where exactly do I find the evaluated factors? I have the impression that this ranking combines economic and scientific factors in a way, that does not express academic excellence as I would define it. Are the criteria and sources of information evaluated for the ranking availabe somewhere?

These Rankings are so flawed. Once again you have incorrectly calculated the citation score for the LSE, and as a result it is languishing in the 60's. How can a world class institution such as the LSE, widely regarded as superior in the UK to UCL (which is 4th), continue to be so low, especially as the LSE have even pointed out the grave error to yourselves in written correspondence. It was 11th a few years back. Can a university dropping 50 odd places really be possible. Sort it out as it is a sort if cheating on your part.

This is a joke, 40% of the score comes from a 9386 responses survey? just a joke, a BRITISH JOKE. LOL

Stanford #16 ? UC Berkeley ranks lower than Sydney, ANU ?? hahah a nice joke indeed.

THES university rankings have always been a joke. When it comes to research the ranking produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University is rightly regarded as the most authoritative. They give much more weight on citations and avoid fuzzy data like questionnaires. There are only 2 UK universities in the top 20 in their rankings. When it comes to student satisfaction I wonder how THES consistently avoids using the most obvious input - the students themselves. If they don't trust the students to be able to evaluate their universities they could at least use a meaningful proxy like the self-reported starting salaries (as is traditionally done by US MBA schools). Also there seems to be over the years a consistent UK/Commonwealth bias when it comes to the survey among academics. I wonder how the sample is constructed. As result, the ranking is full obvious non-sense like UCL's 4th place and Imperial's 5ths place vs. Stanford's 17th and Berkeley's 36th (!). It is as if the survey has taken place in Fawlty Towers.

Another reason why Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is better reputed among academics than that of THES is that the Chinese universities fare rather badly there. So there does not seem to be any behind-the-scenes tweaking of factor weights. The main difference between the SJTU ranking and that of THES is the latter's excessive reliance on fuzzy and easily manipulatable data like surveys. You can get almost any result by tweaking the sample of survey respondents. And, incidentally, the UK universities appear to be doing better in this ranking than on any else. I'd suggest that THES simply does a survey on its page asking one simple question: "Do you think there is a UK bias in this ranking?" I think the result would speak for itself.

In fact, all the rankings are very subjective, especially when sponsored by commercials. If you open the rankings by polling, I believe all the chinese universities will be on the top. However, I really value this ranking as a parent. Good work done anyway.

This is a useful ranking, particularly given the global nature of today's tertiary education. The THES rankings are especially meaningful because of their peer-review element. It is odd that Nick promotes the Shanghai as better reputed among academics (it most certainly is not). The Journal Scientometrics recently published papers showing that Shanghai rankings are not even reproducable using they actual raw data and methods of Liu and Cheng. Obviously, all such tables will have limitations, but their utility is quite obvious. By the way: Well done Princeton - back in the top ten!

I asked my pals which universities they thought were the best in the world. Of course I only speak english, anything else is just rubbish and of course I don´t have any pals in France or Germany. I published my results in The Times Higher Education.

This guide is utter rubbish. I am confused since according the Good University Guide, the University of Exeter is ranked 9th in the UK and yet not included in the top 200. However the University of Liverpool currently ranked 28 is in the list of top 200 universities. How exactly do international faculty and students contribute to a better university? While i do understand diversity is indeed beneficial in education, i fail to see its relevance in terms of academic excellence. Additionally peer and employer's review is also very subjective and irrelevant to the ranking. It's definitely impossible to get an objective measurement and thus leaving this table expose to excessive subjective mind-share hocum. what a joke.

Since peer review is so important in this, it would help if you would explain how the peers are picked. You write, "We consult academics around the world, from lecturers to university presidents, and ask them to name up to 30 institutions they regard as being the best in the world in their field." Do you survey (in English?) every faculty member on every university accredited by... whom? What is the response rate? What is the response rate by country? Having "120,000 data points" sounds impressive, but it would help if we had some knowledge of how that data is representative.

i think african universities are not considered properly in this ranking.or maybe it is the believe most of this people have.the issue is most believe the ranking is bias towards african universities...and for someone like me i will want to know the criteria used in selection and also know reasons why we fall short.because we are part of the world and we are the people who is responsible for our world.

I am interested in your many news.

Honestly, Stanford=16 and Berkeley=39 blow any credibility this survey has out of the water.

40% is too high a fraction for "peer review".

40% is too high a fraction for "peer review".

I just have two methodological questions (which I hope someone could explain me): 1.- Why the total sum of the indicators score multiplied by its own weigth does not equals the overall score? 2.- How it is possible that an institution scores worst in the World ranking than in the all five subject scores?

ETH Zuricn ranked among the top 20 univs, great!!!

this ranking is a black joke,it is all political

I think the subject rankings are solely peer review whereas the overall ranking includes other elements. So it is possible that a university does better or worse overall than in each of the subject rankings. No doubt the voting follows the same principles as the Eurovision song contest. Next year please hire Sir Terry to provide the commentary.

All this english salad is a joke. I recently sent the following mail: I'd like to know how you rank the "best" universities, I'd assume around planet earth -that not in the world-, because something tells me that the soviet union should have more than one university that would make the rank among the best, if not a lot more (after all you don't get to be a leader in scientific issues in our planet if you don't have a good public education). Or is it perhaps restricted to the western world? Maybe it's time you check your parameters. And tha answer I got is to check their methodolgy. And as many comments I read afterwards many of us agree that this is a gigantic english joke (but then the english have a terrible sense of humor). So all the world is a stage. Ja Ja Ha Ha

UC Berkeley and Stanford had single digit rankings in 2004, 2005 and 2006. In the subsequent years, these universities were ranked in the high teens, twentys and thirtys. What happened in the 2006-2007 transition season in California that I missed out on? Similarly, UCL and Imperial have shot up dramatically in the last few years. My simple question - who funds this annual publication and rankings?

Citations should not be restricted to journal articles. Books by academcs which often receive more citations should also be given considered so as to give a better balance to the citation assessments.

Citations should not be restricted to journal articles. Books by academcs which often receive more citations should also be considered so as to give a better balance to the citation assessments.

The Anglo-Saxon model seems to be top dog.

Great news for UCL graduates now that Oxford has been beaten in the top ten race - maybe the British public school feeder system to Oxbridge needs to reset its sights away from the classic duo.

I don't get it Simon Fraser University beat Chalmers University of Technology - I graduated from both and will certify under oath - if required, as to which faculty has the best track record ... oh, and where are the rankings for the campus parties and bars; a far more important aspect than views of dusty crusty academics.

As a Birmingham graduate I am sorry, but not surprised, to see it languishing so far down this and every other table. It is the major university in Britain's second city and has a fantastic campus, why doesn't it do better? It isn't just the university that suffers from this failure; the economic future of the region is jeopardised by it. Birmingham used to be one of the major centres of engineering in the world. It isn't any more. Birmingham University is far down the list for engineering. Why? And is this failure of the university one contributor to the failure of the region? The success of UCL must be credited to its recent Vice Chancellors (Provosts) Sir James Lighthill, Sir Derek Roberts and Malcolm Grant. They were tough, took risks, and had a vision. The staff knew what was wanted of them. And the staff knew what they wanted of a Provost: when UCL got a Provost who didn't fit he left. The new Vice Chancellor of Birmingham needs to learn from that example, and if he doesn't perform the staff need to ease him out. I wish him luck.

Congratulation to University of Malaya, we deserved it. ranked among 180,and i believe that UM will climb to top 150 next year.Thanks THES.

those comments are useful source!

To Mr Meddles Mischief I studied in an Ivy league university , a top-ranking reputed university then, some 30 years ago and had opportunity only recently to visit this university I had time to spend in my old department for a few days and was able to know it as it stands today. I was shocked to find the deterioration which has set in, the quality of teaching and research which had steadily come down. Very few new blood professors. Those who were my professors still were around embedded in concrete tenures, very secure with no chance of retirement for them and they hardly taught anything new and hardly sharpened their research focus. Talked well, did very little. For them it was not yet time for retirement. They got a new president who was in his late 60s, should have been retired by now. Contrary to belief that American universities are dynamic, they often resist changes ( the almost for life tenure has not changed) and a few departments at Stanford and C Berkeley once great departments in these universities have slipped too. I too worked in those top universities there for a few years and can see why my university here has moved up the table dramatically. Our academic staff have statutory retirement age at 65 and my department has exciting new blood who bring in new enthusiasm and ideas.

How I could find the ranking of a university which is not cited among 200? What is the rank of Southern Methodist University (SMU)?

How come such countries like Germany and France that produce many high tech products have low rank universities compared to Australia that produce only Kylie M? Sorry to say but this list is totally a joke...

What decisions is this index designed to influence and why? If I were a parent interested in identifying the best school I can among schools my child might attend, regardless of country in which located, I would be very cautious about using this index. Some of its components are of suspect validity to my mind. Consider "international outlook." As regards American universities, for example, I think a school that does a better job of recruiting women and underrepresented minorities is doing a better job of educating than one drawing students from abroad. In America, drawing students from abroad is primarily an income producing device and while some international students are a benefit a heavy reliance on foreign students suggests a school that is more about raking in money than educating students since foreign students often are treated less well than American born students. Citations per researcher is an interesting quality measure for a school but not without its problems as well. It is a fact that in some fields one can achieve high citations without actually doing that much research. For example, it is commonplace in the biological sciences to credit as a co-author the person who supplies certain biological sample materials used in one's own research with the result that commonly used biological samples can garner a huge number of citations. A university could influence its placement on the list simply by raiding other schools of the faculty with such huge citations. I do not think that is the way to improve the true quality of the school. I think the best way to identify good schools is to ask people in various disciplines to name the best five to ten schools they know of within their discipline other than their own. Though imperfect, that would begin to show the places where quality training and research were happening.

Where is the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) ?

@Hard to Believe Sorry but your immature comments are the only jokes on this website. Kylie Minogue? Are you serious? Why even bring that up, what's your point there?

To Jason - Thank you for the insight. I suppose many top universities (especially the older ones) are very resistive to change. Oxbridge still continue many of their traditions (like the tutorial system) that puts a cap on expansionary strategies. You are very right when you say that some departments in elite universities have dropped in their performance; I wish there was a departmental ranking as well. Nonetheless, I still find it very hard to believe UC Berkeley and Stanford are placed so low down the rankings. I feel there is a significant British bias in these rankings. Imperial can never be ahead of MIT for instance.

Non-English speaking institutions, or developing nations generally don't figure into these simply because they don't have 'international' reputations. They may be great domestically, and still produce top-calibre graduates, but this is an 'International' ranking. The rankings here may be flawed but it at least presents a picture of the international academic world. In reality, there should only be a few criteria in a pure sense that should be considered: - Research and citations produced - Standing and positions held by graduates - Reputation of faculty members and ability to attract international faculty

Utterly farcical! I think they forgot to tell us that the main criteria involved picking names out of a hat, or throwing darts at a copy of the Princeton Review Rankings, and then putting their favorites toward the top.

What credibility can this survey have when it is manufactured by a firm (QS) dedicated to selling services to universities? Huge conflict of interests makes this a sad unreliable joke.

I have a very simple question to ask- on what basis did the Times (or whoever they commissioned to prepare the ranking) present the staff student score? For example, the official statistics (taken from US News college guide) lists the following student faculty ratios: UC Berkeley 15/1 UCLA 16/1 U Michigan 15/1 As you see, Berkeley has the same ratio as U Michigan, and a better one than UCLA. On the other hand, Times claims that Berkeley's staff student score is 25, which is almost 2 times smaller than UCLA's 46, and more than 3 times as worse as Michigan's 85. Given that Times weighs this score quite heavily in the ranking, suggesting that it is somehow a reflection of the "teaching excellence", I find it somewhat surprising that, according to them, Berkeley's teaching quality is so much worse than UCLA's and Michigan. While I also find it controversial that teaching quality is captured by this crude metric, it's more disturbing that their numbers are so far off the official statistics. I hope somebody at Berkeley (and possibly other affected universities) take up this issue with the Times.

I think THES should do more ranking, after all, where do those 5000 and more universities stand ?

Despite all the acknowledged failures of this metric, I would still definitely offer my congratulations to UCL. I think what this particular exercise has shown is that even though one metric doesn't really offer a meaningful global comparison between institutions, it still can, in its essential small dimensioned way, highlight differences. Most people I know here at Oxford hold their UCL colleagues in the highest esteem and are, to be frank, a bit jealous that UCL isn't encumbered with 50+% of its undergrads being there just for the label. Well done. This might wake up a few of the old fogeys here:) See you next year!

I have begun to lose faith in the rankings done by THES. When they were first published in 2004, I thought it was refreshing to have a new method of ranking university, however the constant overrepresentation of British/Australian Universities and almost complete disregard of non-English speaking universities really tarnish its 'international' outlook that it proclaims to be. What relevance do an international faculty and student population have on academic excellence. If anything they drag down university quality since foreigners are usually only admitted for their higher fees, with lowered entrance qualifications. Most international faculty also have poor language skills in their host university, seriously impairing their teaching capabilities. 50% on surveys?? No wonder the rankings fluctuate so violently year after year. This year, UCL and Imperial outranking almost all ivy league Universities has lost all credibility I once gave to the THES.

Despite the criticisms, the idea of ranking universities is great. Obviously there would, in my view, never be a perfect ranking system, THE-QS has embarked on a novel idea to make the universities more competitive globally. While I see merits in the ranking system, I am however at a loss to understand the sampling methodology used in the selection of the peer group.

Despite the criticisms, the idea of ranking universities is great. Obviously there would, in my view, never be a perfect ranking system, THE-QS has embarked on a novel idea to make the universities more competitive globally. While I see merits in the ranking system, I am however at a loss to understand the sampling methodology used in the selection of the peer group.

How can UCL, Imperial College, and Oxford beat high-caliber universities such as MIT, Stanford, Columbia, and UC Berkeley. I cant even believe how could UC Berkeley placed under universities like Sydney, ANU, Edinburgh also Stanford placed under UCL and Imperial College, huh? Man...could you show the world how could this happened? What the significant contribution of UCL and Imperial College to the world for the past decade?...Shanghai Jiatong is better than this...

Tell me....How could Cambridge beat Caltech in Engineering and IT also How could Oxford beat John Hopkins in life sciences and biomedicine?

Tell me....How could Cambridge beat Caltech in Engineering and IT also How could Oxford beat John Hopkins in life sciences and biomedicine?

All you critics of the rankings should read this: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=408881&c=2 There's a chance to get involved to make sure they're improved. Well done THE.

I have read some comments and I think that a lot of them really come down to "Why is Uni X ranked ahead of Uni Y? It shouldn’t be like this!! :(". Well in my opinion these rankings are quite ok. Of course they can be criticized (and I do agree that 40% peer review might be problematic). However I disagree that international experience doesn’t contribute to academic excellence. Knowing about people, cultures, habits, maybe even learn their language a little can have an educational value (especially in social sciences). I think the rankings are worth to be taken into account when choosing a university, but people should use other resources also (and there are others out there). P.S : I think the Guardian University Rankings are a joke :D

It is strange that people have been making so many negative comments of how could some UK universities possibly beat other Ivy League ones. I take it that the many people making these sorts of statements have not themselves done any sort of research or ranking to back up their claims. THE has done this, which is why there are rankings. Ranking is a good thing to do, because it stops people just judging universities on what they have heard to be true. Instead, there is actual evidence. Perhaps the methods can be criticised, but the ranking is based on much more than many peoples' claims that they reckon such-and-such an Ivy League university place is better than such-and-such a non-American institution. I mean, saying "What the significant contribution of UCL and Imperial College to the world for the past decade?" is really just a bit juvenile.

WHERE IS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA? FLORDIA GATORS?

*Australian universities - ANU People. Face up to the reality that your beloved institution does not hold up to your own subjective view of how great it may be. In regards to Australian universities, ANU simply is the better educational institution, at least currently. It may not have been a decade ago, but it has silently crept up the scale to become an outstanding university. This does not happen overnight or by accident. Rather, it has been the result of purposeful planning and execution by all concerned with the ANU. Congratulations once again to ANU for being the outstanding Australian university.

I thought academics are all bright!!

The methodology of ranking represents a dynamic of actual sense of thoughts and actions issued from famous universities. That sounds very interesting.

Guys,........ This is a BRITISH/COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTION THAT'S WHY UCL IMPERIAL COLLEGE OXFORD AND ALL OTHER COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITIES APPEAR TOO MUCH AND TOO "OVERSHACKING" FOR ITS ACADEMIC EXCELLENT. DO YOU CONSIDER ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE (research, prize, achievement) and SOCIETY CONTRIBUTION OR JUST THE REPUTATION AND UK/COMMONWEALTH COUNTRY- BASED MEASUREMENT ? -German universities which have produced many scientists, professors, industrialists, experts have overbeaten by Australian Universities, University of Hongkong, and ALL BRITISH LACKEY UNIVERSITIES/COUNTRIES. -Did you consider the achievement by UC Berkeley and Stanford recently? Could you explain why UC Berkeley and Stanford beaten by ANU or UCL or Imperial College ? -Did you weigh up the starting salary, budget on research, impact for society, invention. etc of the alumnus or academics on particular universities on the year of measurement?

I am stunned that the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) was not ranked higher than 122 in this ranking given UMCP's reputation in Engineering, Computer Science, Math, Business, Econometrics, etc... I believe UMCP was ranked 37th in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in 2009. Maybe we got mixed up with University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Go Terps.

Firstly I respect this criteria and it is considered but I think-as a human work- will be prone to modification and improvement.Let me give you an example:USM( University Science Malaysia) in Penang.Malaysia,I am a PhD student there.The lectuerers are following the talk and chalk methodology,closed minded with dectatorship relations with their students,shallow knowledge,injust in their estimation,the assignments copy paste,the students are committed to recism and discrimination(malay with malay,chinease togother,indian togother,muslims togother,christians togother,I feel I am living in jungle full of herds of animals)) Facilities are very bad:buses polluting the environment,no shelters to protect the students from sun or rain.many bath room or toilettes are broken,dirty,drainages closed.No social activities,many students sleep hungry,they have no clothes,no financialship. In brief I will write a book about it.THE WORST UNIVERSITY I HAVE SEEN AND I CANT IMAGINE THAT I WILL FIND WORSE THAN IT.but it was ranking 111 in the world.Amazing!!!!!