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The latest THE world  rankings have just been announced . For most of the indicators there are few surprises. There are more universities from Japan in the rankings. Oxford is first, followed by Cambridge. The USA contributes the largest number of top universities. China rises steadily. India is as usual is a disappointment.  But, as in previous years, the most interesting thing is the citations indicator, which is supposed to measure research influence. Once again this has produced some very interesting results.  Here are some of the universities in the top 100.  Babol Noshirvani University of Technology: the most influential university in the world for research Brighton and Sussex Medical School: most influential in Europe Brandeis University: most influential in the USA Reykjavik University St George's, University of London: fallen a bit, probably because of Brexit King Abdulaziz University: top university for research influence in the Middle East and Asia  A...

Two examples of how the need to perform well in the rankings is shaping national research and higher education policy. From the Irish Examiner "Ireland must apply for membership of the world-renowned European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in order to combat the effect of Brexit and boost university rankings. That is according to Cork senator Colm Burke as the campaign to join Cern gains momentum, after Ireland recently became a member of the European Space Observatory." From Times Higher Education "France’s programme of university mergers is paying off, improving the research performance and international visibility of its top providers, according to the  Times Higher Education  World University Rankings 2019. Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris , a 2010 merger of numerous institutions, climbed 31 places to 41st this year, becoming the first French university to feature in the top 50 best universities since 2011. PSL made its debut in the...

The philosophy department at the University of Pennsylvania has taken a step away from fairness and objectivity in university admissions. It will no longer look at the GRE scores of applicants to its graduate programme.  The department is good but not great. It is ranked 27th in the Leiter Report rankings and in the 101-150 band in the QS world subject rankings. So how will students be selected without GRE scores? It seems it will be by letters of recommendation, undergraduate GPA, writing samples, admission statements. Letters of recommendation have very little validity. The value of undergraduate grades has eroded in recent years and very likely will continue to do so. Admission essays and diversity statements  say little about academic ability and a lot about political conformism. The reasons for the move are not convincing. Paying for the GRE is supposed to be a burden on low income students. But the cost is much less than Penn's exorbitant tuition fees. It is also claime...

Another indicator for ranking global rankings might be the amount of information that they contain. Here are 17 global rankings in the IREG Inventory ranked according to the number of indicators or groups of indicators for which scores or ranks are given. The median and the mode are both six. The number for U-Multirank is perhaps misleading since data is not provided for all universities.    Number of indicators or indicator groups with scores or ranks Rank Ranking Address of publisher Number of indicators 1 U-Multirank Germany  112 2 RUR Round University Rankings   Russia 20 3 CWTS Leiden Ranking Netherlands 19 4 US News  Best Global Universities    USA 13 5 NTU Ranking   Taiwan 8 6 CWUR University Rankings     UAE 7 7= QS World University Rankings UK 6 7= Shanghai Ranking ARWU China  6 7= UI GreenMetric Ranking Indonesia 6 7= ...

The number of international global universities continues to grow and it is becoming harder to keep track of them. Earlier this year IREG published an inventory of international rankings that included 17 global rankings. Here are those rankings in order of the number of institutions that they rank in the most recent edition. Webometrics is the clear winner, followed by uniRank and SCImago. There are, of course, other indicators to think about and some of these will be covered later. Number of Institutions ranked Rank Ranking Address of publisher Number ranked 1 Ranking Web of Universities (Webometrics) Spain 28,077 2 uniRank University Ranking Australia 13,146 3 SCImago Institutions Ranking Spain 5,637 4 URAP University Ranking by Academic Performance Turkey 2,500 5 U-Multirank Germany  1,500 6 US News  Best Global Universities    USA 1,250 7 T...

Forbes Magazine has an article by Willard Dix that ranks US  ranking sites. The ranking is informal without specifying indicators but the author does give us an idea of what he thinks a good ranking should do. Here are the top five of thirteen: 1.  US News : America's Best Colleges 2.  Money magazine: Best Colleges Ranking 3.  Forbes: America's Top Colleges 4.  Kiplinger's Best College Values 5.  Washington Monthly: College Guide and Rankings . Reading through the comments it is possible to get an idea of the criteria of a good ranking. Rankings should contain a lot of information, they should be comprehensive and include a large number of institutions, they should provide data that helps prospective students and stakeholders, they should be published for several years, if they use surveys they should have a lot of respondents, they should have face validity (a list with a "revolutionary algorithm" that puts non-Ivy places at the top is in 13th place)....