The ranking is important to understand something in concrete terms. It helps to locate conditions and problems in a given area of concern and identify effective measures needed for addressing flaws and changing the existing social, economic, educational and other conditions. There are different sorts of ranking including corruption ranking, business environment ranking and ranking of educational institutes especially university ranking. The ranking of educational institutes that locates the respective position of educational institutes has a range of beneficial outcomes for educational institutes and students. It helps to identify which educational institutes are to be preferred for education and the teaching profession. Additionally, it helps the authorities of educational institutes to address flaws and improve educational conditions.
It is notable that rankings are made on the entire educational institutes, departments or schools. Governments, Universities, magazines, newspapers and websites usually conduct the ranking of educational institutes mostly on yearly basis based on a combination of measures. Among the rankings of educational institutes, some rankings are widely known such as the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Leiden University ranking and the Webometrics ranking. Also, some rankings are carried out globally, some are conducted regionally and others are conducted nationally. But all rankings are not well-recognized and each ranking tool uses different sorts of methods or approaches for measuring educational institutes based on several criteria, though a few criteria can overlap among tools.
But rankings that are perceived as a measure of quality do not reflect educational institutes as is deemed because of criteria-oriented, data-based and other causes. One of the most important causes is the difference in the criteria used in ranking educational institutes since there is no universally agreed upon measurement tool. For instance, a range of criteria including academic reputation, graduation rates, research citations and papers published, the internationality of faculty and students and the student-to-faculty ratio is mostly used in ranking universities. But all ranking tools do not include such markers due to their differing purposes. Consequently, different ranking tools locate different positions of a given university. Moreover, any remarkable change in one ranking indicator can sometimes lead to notable positional changes in educational institutes unconvincingly.
According to available sources, Bielefeld University in Germany jumped from position 250 to 166 in the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings in 2019. Since its participation in ranking in 2011, it usually ranked between 201 and 400. Such a jump puzzled the university leadership but it is found that the university ranked 99th in the world and 6th in Germany in citations alone. Moreover, ten articles alone brought as much as 20 percent of Bielefeld’s overall citations in 2019 and 2020 and the rise of the ranking of Bielefeld University was caused by one scholar of the university. Thus, it remains unclear whether the citation of articles published by one or several scholars indicates the better performance of any university and makes a meaningful relationship with ranking.
Moreover, ranking tools mostly put importance on research activity to the exclusion of almost everything else and are overly dependent on the subject mix and size of universities. Sometimes, they are rendered to be fabricated to suit educational institutions that are science-based and significant English language universities. For instance, the Academic Ranking of World Universities only includes publications in Nature and Science, though there are other globally standard and excellent English-language journals. Moreover, there are many academic publications in a few other languages including, but not limited to, French and Japanese that are known to be very rich and could have a considerable impact on research rankings. Besides, there are other limitations including inadequate data from educational institutes and a lack of comparable data in rankings.
No less important is that rankings do not measure some important aspects that are needed to more accurately locate the position of educational institutes. For example, the ranking does not provide the deserving focus on fields such as humanities and arts. Moreover, the contributions of universities to the development of human capital and social development are often ignored in the ranking. Notably, countries are different in their history, traditions and culture and have different perspectives on the establishment of universities. Many universities focus on other important areas including teaching and learning for nation-building, the development of human capital and social development. Consequently, rankings contain under-representations and are not fair enough to accurately reflect the capabilities of universities, though they help to understand the educational qualities of universities.
It is, moreover, pertinent to note that rankings may have some negative educational and social impacts. Critics rightly say that the exclusive focus of rankings on research based criteria can divert the attention of educational institutes away from teaching and social responsibility towards the type of scientific research that is valued by indicators used in ranking tools. Moreover, rankings may promote the homogenization of higher education institutions and, consequently, can make them less responsive and less relevant to immediate contexts. No less important is that the impacts of the ranking are not as well-acknowledged as is deemed. The impacts are more for the higher ranking universities in the world because of many causes including the higher chance of the attraction of funds and international students.
Even though there are flaws in the measurement and impacts are not widely acknowledged, the ranking plays a key role in attracting international students, research funding and investment. In Mongolia and Qatar, for example, scholarships are restricted to students admitted to top-ranked international universities. Universities also use rankings internally to inform decisions about which institutions to partner with. No doubt, rankings affect students seeking government sponsorship to study abroad. Additionally, the ranking plays very effective roles in improving the conditions of educational institutes. Notably, universities with lower ranks are often criticized within and outside of universities at home. Consequently, universities not only allocate more resources to academic disciplines and research fields that can improve their rank but also make efforts to address conditions for improving quality.
But the ranking of educational institutes should not be disregarded, though it needs not to be considered as absolute. Consequently, it is important that flaws in the ranking are well-addressed. Since no ranking measurement tool is perfect, continuous improvement in tools is important. Moreover, the ranking should assess not only the quality of academic and scholastic outputs but also social and learning outcomes that are esteemed and valued by society. In this respect, the integration of multiple criteria and indicators is very important. Along with technological, scientific and research-related measures, other important areas including humanities and arts that are currently less focused need to be given emphasis. Also, universities and governments should not exaggerate the importance of rankings in determining priorities and making decisions.
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