Why web-basedrankings ofuniversities shouldnot be neglected
Isidro F. Aguillo
World University Rankings SymposiumIdentifying Excellence and Diversity in International Education: Rankings and BeyondÉcole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris. May 18th 2011
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A rigorous scientific approach to the ranking of universities
Scholars making scientific research– Researchers belonging to the National Research Council (CSIC)
• The largest Spanish research public organization
– Recognised by our peers• 15 years experience in quantitative analysis and evaluation of scholar
communication and academic institutions
• Papers in referred scientific journals, contributions to internationalconferences, reports to governmental bodies
– Funded by public resources• International cooperation projects funded by European Commission
Research Agenda– Promote Open Access initiatives– Global coverage, including universities from developing countries– Building Cybermetrics/Webometrics as an emerging discipline
The Cybermetrics Lab
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A new powerful tool with a significant impact on Higher Education
The problems of the Higher Education Science in the ‘90s– Limited impact, not suitable for students/scholars
• “Experts” driven
• Complex reports, difficult to understand
– Lack of global scenarios• Focus on “US research university” model
International Rankings (ARWU, 2003)– Huge impact, including governments
• Data driven
• Easy to understand, ONE composite indicator (rank)
– World and continental scenarios• Excellence clearly defined
• Useful for both individual universities and national systems
Why Global Rankings of Universities?
ACTIVITY IMPACT
How? A couple of models
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ACTIVITY IMPACT
ARWU (Shanghai) 40% 60%
RANKING
QS 30% 70%
TIMES HE (2010) 35% 65%
HEEACT (Taiwan) 20% 80%
WR (Webometrics) 50% 50%
Customizing the modelMost of the Global Rankings use an arbitrary weighting system, withoutan underlying model
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Feasibility
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It is not so easy, sometimes there is no data, or they are not trusted orthey are not useful
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Quality can be measured by consensus or majority of experts evaluatingthe targeted topic
Surveyo Topic: Perceived (subjective) academic reputationo Expertise: Peers with global knowledge (not available)o Size: Medium (several thousands)
Citation analysiso Topic: Empirical (objective) scientific impact (formal communication)o Expertise: Peerso Size: Small (a few hundreds)
Link analysiso Topic: Quality of academic and other web contentso Expertise: Web-editors (peers and non-peers)o Size: Huge (millions)
Quality
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Surprisingly most of the Rankings are being accepted without a criticalreview of the authorship, the methodology and the results
A critical review
Ranking Missions Indicators Model Results Comments
ARWU Research Scientificexcellence
No model (Top 200)Correlated
World class universities(incomplete, mistakes, old data)
WEBOMETRICS All Activity & Impact(Web)
Impact factorbased
Correlated(relevantexceptions)
World universities(extreme penalties for bad webpolicies, search engines biases)
HEEACT Research Activity & Impact(Papers, Citations)
Striking notexplainedmodel
Correlated World research universities(variables not independent)
LEIDEN Research Impact(Citations/Papers)
Crownindicator
Several“rankings”
World research universities(questioned methodology)
SCIMAGO Research Activity OR Impact(Papers, Citations)
Ranked bysize (!) asdefault
Several“rankings”
World research institutions (nocomposite ranking)
THE All Activities, Prestige(Surveys) &Impact (Citations)
No model Not valid Methodology applied incorrectly,unethical (non-cooperatinguniversities are not identified)
CHEPS All Multi-Rank Customizableby end-users!
No Ranking A collection of colorful smileys
Power-law Distribution
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SCORE
RANK
WR
QS
CWTS
ARWUHEEACT
log-norm
z-score
• Published since 2004, two editions per year(January & July)• The largest and most updated Directorywith more than 20,000 Higher EducationInstitutions from all over the World• The Ranking provides the Top 12,000universities according to web indicators• The hypothesis is that in the 21st centurythe web reflects the organization, activities,research results, knowledge transfer,prestige, and international visibility of theuniversities• If the web performance is below theexpected position could be due to lack ofcommitment to the electronic publication, orbad web practices
Webometrics RankingThe Ranking Web is one of the first World Rankings to be published andcurrently it is the one with the largest coverage
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3484336
15435
5943
6176148
339259
3975
5069414
19266(Top 1000)
WRJan 2011
Geographical coverage
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12
Digital Divide
67115
5069(Top 500)
WRJan 2011
Europe
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58148
43319411
66330
0
23648
23378
1116
16114
16213
20348
11114
10710
10010
958
757
779
676
6410
601
5712
5016
508
519
480
483
632
352
351
31 33
8
334
322
151
91
370
260
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Universities in France
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Different views are correlated but the position of French universities, alsoin the Web ranking, is below expectations
Coverageo Rankings based on research performance where the English is the “lingua
franca” of scholar communication are penalizing French languageo Webometrics takes into consideration also other university missions
including traditional and off campus (distance) teaching in French or transferof knowledge and technology, also in local language
University roleso Research-based rankings describe “World-class” universitieso Web ranking also identify “nation-building” institutions, probably more
important to the local communities (social commitment) and governments(economic and political involvement)
Bad practiceso Surprisingly for the 21st century, there are academic institutions (its leaders or
scholars) that are ignoring the Web: No enough contentso Web policies are inadequate, incorrect or insufficient. Too many institutions,
frequent web domain changes, too few repositories
Comparative Analysis
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French and Norwegian (and others) Higher Education Ministries visitedShanghai for advice!!. Suggestions provided here are tentative:
Rankings should be useful
ARWUoriented
Choose 2-3 universities as World-classcandidates
Increase their budget at the expense of theother universities
Give legal capability for offering bettersalaries and grants
Attract international & national bestcandidates to these universities
Reinforce research capabilities, transferringelite institutes and hospitals
Fire low performers & close not veryproductive or international disciplines(Humanities!)
Webometricsoriented
All the universities should reinforce theirweb presence
Budget should be available to webpublication for …
* Reflecting the institution’s performance* Attracting international students &scholars
* Disseminating the research results* Giving more visibility to “neglected”disciplines (Humanities!)
* Improve the transfer of technology toindustry and other companies
* Increase the knowledge transfer and thecommunity engagement
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Web should be the showcase of the University, the place for publishingits basic info & facts, organisation, activities, policies, results …
Contentso First mission: Traditional and off campus (distance) teaching supporting
pageso Second mission: Research groups and (scientists) personal pages, Research
projects websiteso Third mission: Hosting third parties sites
Quality Contentso Portal of journals / Repository of paperso Media (videos, webinars, objects) and software portalso Data repository / (Web) Archiveo Social commitments
International Contentso Multilingual (also English) versionso Guides to foreign students/scholarso Super-sites
Web strategies
Learning management systems (LMS)
MIT Open CourseWare
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Personal Pages
ENS (?) Repository
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http://hal-ens.archives-ouvertes.fr/
Why not?http://archiveouverte.ens.fr/
Thesis at USP
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Web 2.0: Priorities
Rank Facebook YouTube SocialBookmarking
External Blogs InstitutionalBlogs
1 Campus Life Events Courses Faculty Campus Life
2 Sports Campus Life Projects, Non-Research
Research, PhysicalSciences Events
3 Technology Faculty Research, PhysicalSciences Institution Overall Institution Overall
4 Product Services Courses Events Expert Commentary Institution Sub-Groups
5 Events InstitutionOverall Faculty Events Admissions
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Why the Web?o Web presence is an indicator. Web is reflecting overall performance and not
only online activitieso Web is already the most important scholarly communication toolo Web increases significantly the visibility and impact of the activities and the
results of scholars and researcherso Web is the best channel for online and distance learning, the best showcase
for attracting international talent (foreign students and professors), themeeting point with the society, the economic and industrial stakeholders
Why the Ranking Web?o Webometrics is offering the larger coverage, ranking World-class universities
but also institutions from emerging and developing countrieso Discrepancies on the web ranking informs about problems with the
governance and long-term strategies of the universities, obsolete orinadequate policies and bad web practices
o US universities leadership in Webometrics is showing a concerning and along term threat to the scientific and cultural presence of the Europeans (andtheir languages) in the Web
Summarizing
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Questions? …Thank you!
Contact:Isidro F. Aguillo, HcPhDThe Cybermetrics Lab. [email protected]
Open Forum