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University rankings, dissected Răzvan V. Florian Ad Astra association of Romanian scientists Center for Cognitive and Neural Studies, Cluj, Romania.

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Presentation on theme: "University rankings, dissected Răzvan V. Florian Ad Astra association of Romanian scientists Center for Cognitive and Neural Studies, Cluj, Romania."— Presentation transcript:

1 University rankings, dissected Răzvan V. Florian Ad Astra association of Romanian scientists Center for Cognitive and Neural Studies, Cluj, Romania

2 How are indicators used in global university rankings chosen? Best indicator for efficiency of education (and economic efficiency): the salaries of graduates in the first years after graduation (normalized to national averages); obtaining such data is difficult and costly! Many global university rankings use bibliometric indicators; this is because research performance is relevant to universities’ mission, but also because such data is relatively easy to obtain from existing databases.

3 Indicators are evolving The methodology of global university rankings is constantly evolving (THE-QS methodology constantly changed between 2004-2007); New rankings appear; they may dominate in the future “traditional” rankings because of better methodology; Better indicators appear (the eigenfactor as a replacement of the impact factor).

4 Web 2.0 as a source of information for rankings Lots of people are online (e.g., graduates on Facebook, employers on job sites, Linkedin), so it will be easier to perform surveys; From the impact factor, back to peer review: it will be possible to evaluate individual papers by aggregating the feedback of all scientists that read these papers; indexing by databases will not matter anymore (also the problem of evaluating humanities scientific literature, conferences, books, etc. will be solved); Network theory will improve scientometry (Google & the eigenfactor);

5 What should universities do? Do not try to game current indicators; if effects are obtained in ~5 years, the methodologies of rankings will change significantly by then; Just do well your job: –Have graduates that employers will hire on good salaries; –Produce internationally relevant, excellent research; research is likely to still dominate education in rankings in the near future (as data will remain easier to obtain);

6 An example: the methodology of the Ad Astra ranking 2005-2007: the number of ISI indexed papers per faculty was a good proxy for research performance (also inspired by the Shanghai ranking); 2009: 57 Romanian ISI-indexed journals, with no or very low impact factors (except one); ISI-indexed Romanian papers are dominated by papers in Romanian journals, mostly of low quality; hence, the simple indexing by ISI is not anymore a good proxy for research performance; The future Ad Astra rankings will likely change methodology, by counting the domain-normalized impact factor and not just counting papers; a threshold for the domain-normalized impact factor will likely be imposed; CNCSIS also already changed the criteria for the awards they give for ISI papers; Conclusion: universities that invest in internationally-relevant research win, universities that focus on just ISI-indexing their journals loose;

7 What should Romanian universities do to climb the rankings? Allocate resources exclusively on internationally-recognized performance (not seniority, rank / power in hierarchy, etc.); Support excellence, considering the exponentially-increasing efforts to reach higher levels; Specialize (emergence of subject-oriented rankings); Restructure personnel (diaspora as a source of qualified scientists); the proportion of faculty that obtained a degree from a top 500 university as an indicator of potential; Reduce bureaucracy (informatisation, use of electronic signature, etc.); The government should also do its part (funding, bureaucracy, evaluation criteria, etc.)

8 Questions? See also: http://coneural.org/florian/papers/2009_recomandari_rankinguri.pdf (in Romanian) My email: florian@ad-astra.ro


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