A Brief Review On U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N T HE I SLAMIC C OUNTRIES T HE ISC S EMINAR T EHRAN, I RAN OCTOBER 25 th. – NOVEMBER 1 st Presenter : Prof. Dr. Jafar Mehrad President of the Islamic Science Citation Center (ISC)

During the past few years, ranking universities has been a controversial issue. Among them some have been carried out at national level, such as US News ranking, UK Sunday Times University Guide, Guardian University Guide, Ranking the Universities of Canada by Mclean, CHE University Ranking, Ranking Top Asian Universities by Asia Week. Recently these ranking systems have attracted the attention of policy- makers, scientific society and media. One is Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) which is prepared and published in China. U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES INTRODUCTION

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES INTRODUCTION This system has been ranking the universities of the world since 2003, and the other is Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) which has been presenting the ranking of world universities since In 2010, QS which had long collaborated with THES in ranking the first class universities of the world was separated from it. It has been ranking the world universities independently since then.

Table 1: Assessing Indicators applied by THES in 2004 to determine the top 200 U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES No.IndicatorPercentage 1Peer review Assessment50% 2Citations Per Faculty20% 3Staff Students Ratios20% 4International students5% 5International Staff5% Total100%

Table 2: THES Top- 200 Universities Assessment Indicators U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES No.IndicatorPercentage 1Peer Review Assessment40% 2Citations per Faculty20% 3Staff Student Ratios20% 4International Students5% 5International Staff5% 6International Employers Survey10%

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES These peer review assessments counted for fifty percent in the total score of a university. Four other criteria that have been employed are: each accounts for %20 of the score Research impact in terms of citation per faculty member and staff student ratio each at %5 percent of the total score The percentage of foreign students and staff Thus in the THES ranking, the bibliometric element accounts for 20 percent.

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES The crucial difference between the THES rankings and rankings produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University is that the latter does not include peer review. These bibliometric data are derived from a commercial product, the Essential Science Indicators database, produced by Thomson Scientific (the former Institute for Scientific Information, ISI). Finally the scores used in the ranking were normalized against a score of 100 for top- ranking Harvard University. The Data Derivation

Table 3: Indicators for SHJT rankings U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES No.CriteriaIndicatorCodePercentage 1Quality of EducationAlumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals Alumni10% 2Quality of FacultyStaff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals Award20% Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories HiCi20% 3Research OutputArticles published in Nature and ScienceN&S20% Articles in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index SCI20% 4Size of Institution (Research Output/ Number of Staff ) Academic Performance with respect to the size of an institution Size10% Total100%

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES In the light of the last three-year rankings carried out by SJTU, THES and QS, of all the universities in the Islamic countries only a few universities appeared in the list of world-class universities. Although the methodology used in these surveys are different, they indicate the same conclusion: QS, recently separated from THES, ranks world universities officially

The methodology of this system has been shown in the following table: U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES IndicatorExplanationWeighting Academic Peer Review Composite score drawn from peer review survey ( which is divided into five subject areas) responses in 2009( 2008). 40% Employer Review Score based on responses to employer survey responses in 2009 ( 2008).10% Faculty Student Ratio Score based on student faculty ratio20% Citations per Faculty Score based on research performance factored against the size of the research body20% International Faculty Score based on proportion of international faculty5% International Students Score based on proportion of international students5%

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES The governments of the Islamic countries are well aware of the important role that higher education can play in bringing about socio- economic development. In today’s world, competition has found its way into all aspects of international affairs, and it is why governments, directors and people in charge are seriously involved in this challenging domain. On the occasion of the 3 rd Conference of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research ( Kuwait, 2006), ISESCO proposed the idea of “Ranking the Universities of the Islamic World” to the Ministers of Higher Education attending Kuwait Conference. Being presented in the Ministerial Meeting, the proposal of the establishment of this ranking system was approve d. A fter the movements initiated by Times, QS, and Shanghai in ranking the world universities, the Islamic World also did endeavored to create its own ranking system. Why Ranking?

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES An informal and open-ended meeting was commenced on 20 th of November 2006 at the sideline of the 3 rd Islamic Conference of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Kuwait City, Kuwait. During this meeting a number of issues were agreed upon including: The “core group” comprises the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the COMSTECH, the ISESCO, the SESRIC, and the General Secretariat of the OIC. Establishment of a “core group” with the objective of preparing a draft document on the procedures, criteria and mechanisms to select universities, which will later be presented to the OIC member states.

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES The Organization of the Islamic Countries (OIC) General Secretariat with the cooperation of the Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST), from the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the support of the ISESCO convened another Technical Experts Meeting (TEM) in Tehran, the I. R. of Iran from 19 to 21 st of February The main objectives defined for the Meeting were as follows: Coming up with a document encompassing proposed criteria for ranking universities as well as proposing special procedures and mechanisms for filtering and selection of twenty universities from the OIC region such that they can be promoted to the list of the World Class Universities Formulating proposals for the improvement of the criteria currently available as well as proposing procedures and mechanisms that could be drawn upon for selection of the OIC region universities A comprehensive review of the criteria available for ranking universities

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES To achieve this goal, a number of consultants from the OIC region and Iran, all with relevant expertise, were all called upon to provide the assistance required to the core group. The consultants had the following specialties: Assessment of Science and Technology ScientometricsBibliometrics Higher Education and Quality Manager Sociology of Scientific Research Based upon the information in Table 1 as well as the criteria utilized by the Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking system and the Times Higher Education (THE) and other ranking systems, five major criteria were identified in this Meeting each applicable to the task of ranking the universities of the OIC region.

Table 5: Major criteria for ranking universities from the OIC region. U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CriteriaWeightage Research quality and output50% Quality of education35% International outlook7% Facilities3% Socio-economic impact5%

Table 6: Key Performance Indicators U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CriterionIndicatorWeight Research (Total Weight: 50) A1Research quality17 A2Research performance16 A3Research volume5 A4Rate of growth for research quality5 A5Rate of growth for research performance5 A6Patents2

CriterionIndicatorWeight Education (Total Weight: 35) B1Faculty members with awards6 B2Faculty Highly Cited researchers ISI (international) standards 3 OIC standards 5 B3Ratio of faculty members with PhD to total number of faculty 4 B4Alumni that did win awards3 B5Alumni that become Highly Cited researchers ISI (international) standards 1 OIC standards 2 B6Ratio of faculty to students3 B7Ratio of post graduate students to total number of students 2 B8Rate of growth of post graduate students3 B9Students wining international Olympiads3

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CriterionIndicatorWeight International out-look (Total Weight: 7) C1Ratio of International faculty to Total faculty2 C2Ratio of International students to Total students 1 C3Ratio of faculty members with Foreign Ph.D. degrees to Total number of faculty members with PhD degrees. 1½ C4International conferences organized1½ C5International Exchange Programs Number of operating programs ½ Number of beneficiaries ½

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CriterionIndicatorWeight Facilities (Total Weight: 3) D1Number of book titles per student1 D2Number of journals/periodicals accessible (hard and soft copies) 1 D3Number of university’s research Institutes/Centres 1

U NIVERSITY R ANKINGS I N THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES CriterionIndicatorWeight Socio-economic impact (Total Weight: 5) E1Contracts and consultancies incomes2½ E2Life learning courses1 E3Entrepreneurship programs and industrial linkages 1 E4Number of incubated projects and spin-off companies ½