Talk:College and university rankings

Please update this image

Hi Havfunonline2, could you pls. update your table/image "Rankings.PNG" with the new Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings that came out in October 2009? It's a very useful image and it would be nice to see updated. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emanuel Kingsley (talk • contribs) 21:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

+ new Academic Ranking of World Universities that came out in 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.49.115 (talk) 19:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Oceania

Surprising lack of any mention of the Oceanic region i.e. ANZ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.130.37.12 (talk) 02:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Canada Ranking Table

According to Wikipedia:No_original_research, (Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions. The table includes the part of ...any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material... Also, the table needs a citation. Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions. we do not need to break wiki policy.

How is that breaking a wikipedia rule? The table was based on published materials, namely ARWU, THES, Newsweek and Maclean's. There was no personal opinion involved whatsoever. How do you justify that the maker of the table was trying to advance an argument? How you regard the table as an 'original research' is absurd. It was just an arrangement of data from publishd articles. Wisdompower (wisdompower) 11:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

References

The first reference does not link to a specific article; rather, it brings you to the Newsweek homepage. Not helpful at all. If someone could actually find the article, that would be great. The Fwanksta (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Non-US institutions

There seemed to be an implied criticism in the statement about the THES/QS rankings that they contain more non-US institutions than other surveys, as it then went on to mention other criticisms of the rankings. I can't see why this could possibly seen as a flaw in the survey. In fact it implies that the survey is fairer than those which focus on US institutions. I have edited to remove the implication. LP 210.184.34.203 (talk) 04:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Newsweek entry

That external link for "Top 100 Global" schools leads only to Newsweek's homepage. A more complex URL needs to be added.Fdssdf (talk) 05:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Here's a link-http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/eylu/univ/Newsweek_top100_2006.pdfWhsie (talk) 09:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Vanguard rankings

Is anyone else sickened by the fact Vanguard is charging people between $14 and $49 for 30-day access to publicly available (and paid for) information on PhD programs from data collected in 1993? I have edited that entry to clarify where their information comes from. I have also removed the direct link to their website because of what is, in my opinion, not only questionable business practices, but what also seems at the time of the original insertion of that part of the article as a possible violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING by the proprietor of the Vanguard website himself (seen here). It is my belief that the Vanguard portion of the article should be either eliminated or, failing that, replaced with information on the National Research Council surveys of 1982 and 1993 which Vanguard is simply regurgitating and is freely available here. CrazyPaco (talk) 04:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Endorse removal of the Vanguard ranking section. I also think we should include a brief description and a link to the freely available survey data. Logain2006 (talk) 16:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

(Assuming the allegations presented above are correct, and they seem to do so to me) I go further than simply endorsing removal of this section and have actually removed it. If we want to include the NRC survey results in this article then let's do so. --ElKevbo (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

IMO, the NRC rankings should be included, because at the time, they were highly regarded and respected. Budgetary concerns at the NRC have prevented a timely update to those rankings. I would also say the gif for the webometric rankings should be removed. It seems more appropriate for inclusion in the actual wikipedia article on Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, but for this article it seems to draw undue attention and adds undue detail to a relatively obscure ranking with highly debatable metrics.CrazyPaco (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The gif does offer some comparison to the other methods of ranking. Unfortunately, with a quick glimpse, I noticed that it is not entirely correct - there is no such thing as a 40% score for "Academic reputation" in the methodology of the THES ranking. There is a 40% score for peer review, but that’s not the same. Also, it does look like an advertisement. So, I will once again agree. Logain2006 (talk) 20:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

IHEP rankings resource

The Institute for Higher Education Policy, an American non-profit, has just created a Ranking Systems Clearinghouse on their website. This may be a useful for this and similar article. --ElKevbo (talk) 13:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

4icu.org Web Popularity Ranking: evidence of notability

List of some reputable sources mentioning the 4icu.org ranking:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.129.46 (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia links don't establish notability and I'm not quite convinced that the other links do much other than establish that the rankings exist and are included in large listings and press releases. I'm not yet convinced but this is a good start! --ElKevbo (talk) 03:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Could you please explain in more detail what kind of evidence of notability you are referring to? If possible taking the Webometrics or G-Factor rankings as an example to briefly show what type of evidence of notability they provide. Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.129.46 (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the point you're trying to make ("why are you picking on me when there are other "rankings" in this article lacking sufficient evidence of notability") is a very good one. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I don't have time right now to do everything necessary to fix this and related articles (but I plan to remove a lot of material since it is unsupported by verifiable evidence).

To answer the question you actually asked: Please provide evidence that others have stated that the ranking system is important, recognized, notable, etc. Merely reproducing the rankings in a press release doesn't seem like very strong evidence of notability (although it's certainly better than nothing!). Peer-reviewed publications (i.e. academic journal articles) are the gold standard so if you can provide any citations of that kind where this ranking system is studied and taken seriously then that would be very helpful. --ElKevbo (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I understand that you have time to remove new content/rankings for insufficient evidence of notability but no time to remove similar content/rankings which may lack analogous evidence of notability.
I also understand that, according to your reply, a peer-reviewed publication (i.e. academic journal articles) would help assessing the seriousness of the 4icu.org ranking and therefore its notability. I could not find any reference in the Wikipedia Notability guidelines to the need of academic level and/or peer-reviewed sources for establishing the notability of a topic. Moreover, those guidelines apply to the inclusion of an entire topic/article in Wikipedia and mention, I quote, "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopaedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles." and "The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. Notability, in the sense used to determine article inclusion, does not directly affect article content."
Moreover, is an academic/peer-reviewed source needed for each of the over 2,000,000 Wikipedia articles/topics and their internal content in order to establish their notability? I do not think so.

In regard to the evidence of notability I provided, please note that they are not merely and only press releases and/or collection of links. In particular, following the previous numbered list:

1) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Education and Social Science Library
Debuted in 1997, The College and University Rankings Web page is maintained by librarians at the Education and Social Science Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It contains selected rankings and provides "caution & controversy" information related to some academic university rankings. I am confident those librarians have enough knowledge and experience to select and assess whether a ranking is worth mentioning before including it in their education resource.

2) Indiana University IU News Room
This is indeed a press release but it is produced by a large and long established US University. The Indiana University communication office would think twice before releasing a news that may, if proved wrong or misleading, undermine their own reputation or be counterproductive.

5) IOL Diario
Article published in a Portuguese newspaper about the position of the Coimbra University (founded in 1290) in the 4icu.org ranking. The article is in Portuguese where the 4icu.org directory is in English only.

6) Tribuna do Norte
Article published in a Brazilian regional newspaper about the position of the UEL University in the 4icu.org ranking. This is probably based on a press news that UEL has autonomously decided to release after evaluating their ranking in the 4icu.org directory.

8) Wikipedia - Shahjalal University of Science and Technology
This is a Wikipedia article on the Bangladeshi Shahjalal University of Science and Technology edited by Wikipedia contributors that supposedly should follow the same notability guidelines and be able to appraise whether the 4icu.org ranking is relevant and trustworthy.

9) Wikipedia - Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Same as above

(10) Wikipedia - Keio University
Same as above but for the Japanese Keio University established in 1858

(11) Wikipedia - Education in Tokyo
Rankings overview for higher education organisations in Tokyo mentioning the 4icu.org ranking

(12) Wikipedia - Clasificación académica de universidades de Colombia
Article in Spanish about rankings of higher education organisations in Colombia mentioning the 4icu.org ranking

(13) Wikipedia - Ranking de universidades españolas
Article in Spanish about rankings of higher education organisations in Spain mentioning, once again, the 4icu.org ranking

If several Wikipedia contributors from different countries and in different languages have previously assessed the validity and notability of the 4icu.org ranking in their education related articles I do not see why this should not be considered as an additional and independent source of notability.

I perfectly understand that your editing job is volunteer, it has probably limited time resources and it is primarily intended to preserve the integrity, quality and scope of the Wikipedia encyclopaedia, however, I do think that the reference to the 4icu.org rankings, established since 2005, is a valuable and notable resource for this specific Wikipedia article and does follow the Wikipedia guidelines.

Should you be interested in receiving more details about the methodology adopted by the 4icu.org web ranking as a way to better assess its seriousness and notability, I would be happy to provide them to you.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.129.46 (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Image of spreadsheet

Is this image not in violation of WP:OR or WP:SYN? CrazyPaco (talk) 05:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's WP:OR and should be removed. Madcoverboy (talk) 06:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Mychances.net rankings

Mychances.net has a rankings system ( http://college.mychances.net/college-rankings.php ) based on the choices of students admitted to US colleges. As far as I know, these are the only active college rankings using the revealed preference method. The Avery study, mentioned in this article, was a one-time study that used 1999 data. The most recent Mychances.net rankings used data from this year (applicants who received decisions in 2009). 69.87.208.16 (talk) 06:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

GLM internet rankings

Not withstanding the question of whether internet & blogosphere rankings are appropriate for a Wikipedia article on academic rankings (why not include football rankings as well then?), but the GLM rankings seem to be nothing more than a vehicle for the promotion of their TrendTopper MediaBuzz Reputation Management service for College and Universities (see here). Is this actually a legitimate ranking to include? Certainly it doesn't warrant the space it currently consumes in the article, and it is in definite need of a conflict-of-interest disclosure. CrazyPaco (talk) 02:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

IP edits from 70.116.22.174 suggest WP:PROMOTION is being violated by GLM. I removed the rankings because an organization ranking schools by a proprietary system and then selling services to improve an institution's place in those same rankings does not suggest a neutrality necessary for a non-biased, academically-honest ranking system. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

GLM uses citations from the top 5,000 global news print and electronic news media, as well as internet, etc. Academics have no problem here, in fact they see this as a non-unbiased snapshot since it cannot be influenced because the sample size is so large. See this article in the Harvard Crimson, http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524332. The ranking, like all the others, is of a college or university's reputation. You can't influence a handful of deans (US NEWS), or change the rules of your SAT score statistics (Baylor, 2009), or enhance your admission selectivity by including spurious apps to increase your yield.

The Harvard article contains three relevant points:

1. "Indicating that prestige and media coverage seem to be correlated, six of the universities on the Global Language Monitor list also made the U.S. News top ten.",

2. "“Harvard is a brand name,” said Alex S. Jones, a former New York Times journalist who is the director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Policy. “It’s the oldest and best known university in the United States.”

3) "Indeed, the study seems to validate the Harvard Kennedy School’s recent decision to rebrand itself. Known as the Kennedy School of Government until last spring, the public policy and administration changed its shorthand so that it includes the word “Harvard.” The new shorthand reference...is serving to reinforce that we are part of the Harvard University family of premier graduate schools,” said Doug Gavel, a Kennedy School spokesman."

Also, colleges see no link between distinguishing themselves among their six or eight peers and the rankings themselves. Btw, every ranking service has related services from the College Board to US News.

In summary, GLM is using an established brand-ranking technique for ranking a college's most important asset: it's reputation.

If you feel you must cut the size of the citation, fine, but excluding it for issues that colleges find non-existent seems a bit much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.116.22.174 (talk) 13:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The Harvard Crimson is a student newspaper, and none of the points brought forward are relative to the conflict of interest criticisms or blatant WP:Advertising violations. Further, those points don't legitimize the rankings for use in an academic context. There has been no study to correlate academic reputation/ranking with media saturation and GLM's method is not established as it is proprietary and not public. No such correlation is provided by the Crimson article or by GLM on it website (the tiny 6/10 top 10 US News sample is not statistically significant). Further, because the methodology is not publicly available, it can not be scrutinized. There is no way to know whether a school's mentions in the media take into account positive of negative mentions of the institution, how the rankings correlate with university size or research scope, what media and on-line materials are screened (e.g. how is MySpace vs Pubmed utilized?), if the methodologies screen for multiple names or university nicknames, if the methodology accounts for geographical name/location that may confound results, if paid university advertisements are screened out, etc., etc., etc. In light of the comment about US News' rankings being in a "handful of deans", where in actuality 25% of the score comes from surveys sent to 4,273 presidents, provosts, and deans of admission, GLM'S TrendTopper methodology can only be assumed to be based on Paul JJ Payack's sole preference of which criteria is to be included in his secret ranking system, which does not seem open to scrutiny or criticism. Further, in the Crimson article, there is no mention that the rebranding decision by Kennedy had anything to do with the GLM ranking. If this student newspaper article is the basis for GLM's claim that "Harvard...[has] used the rankings as a validation of their recent reputation management decisions" that would be, and I'm being generous, a very misleading statement.

Please provide links or evidence that other rankings are selling services to institutions to enhance their place in those same rankings. I'd especially be interested to find out what services US News & World Report, The Center for Measuring University Performance, Forbes, Times Higher Education, etc have for sale to educational institutions in order to "enhance their standings" in their published rankings. It would be great to provide such information in the article as it would provide important conflict of interest criticisms in their respective sections of the article. Speaking of which, appallingly, in all of GLM's press releases, not once does it disclose that some of the ranked universities may actually be clients. I guess this is not surprising, as in other Global Language Monitor endeavors, "academics" do have large issues with the organization's use of its proprietary PQI algorithm in word counting, and it has been intensely criticized by linguists[15] has even been referred to as a "complete fraud" by Geoffrey Nunberg of Cal-Berkley.[16] The conflict of interest in GLM peddling its TrendTopper "Reputation Management Service" to improve an institution's place in its own proprietary rankings makes the objectivity of the ranking highly suspect, and the the IP edits emanating from GLM to whitewash any mention of those flaws does not aid its legitimacy. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion: adding this to the Other Rankings area "Global Language Monitor ranks the top 200 colleges and universities according to their appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, blogs and social media. In 2008, Harvard topped the Universities list, and Colorado College, the colleges list. In fall 2009, the University of Michigan and Wellesley College topped the lists."

This Reuters articles is making the rounds: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59T4FJ20091030.

CollegeCritic —Preceding undated comment added 13:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC).

I'll went ahead and added that, but I removed the ranking "winners" because that is not within the scope or appropriate context of the article. We'll see how this goes, but I don't see the benefit of continuing to include the questionable GLM TendTopper rankings (and providing them with their own internet Media Buzz) if these issues are going to be promptly edited out by GLM employees. Its own article reeks badly enough of WP:Advertising. However, here's a suggestion for GLM to make your rankings legitimate: Disclose your blatant conflict of interest in your press releases: that your actually sell a service to increase the rankings of the institutions and that some of the institutions in your rankings may be clients. Disclose the methodologies and criteria included in your rankings. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As a long-time veteran of the tech battlefields of Silicon Valley, it does appear that GLM discloses the fundamentals of the PQI in a powerpoint presentation on its site. (See http://www.languagemonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/trendtopper-mediabuzz-overview-1014081.pdf.) In SI parlance, all algorithms are by definition proprietary. It's the highly valued IP of the company. We will, however, disclose much more of our processes and methodologies if you sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Typically NDAs do not allow you to disclose the IP to any other party for a minimum of 18 months to 3 years. The presentation on the site looks like it discloses the components of the methodology but, of course, not the precise formulas. Again, all standard in high tech. One other point, apparently the list of linguists appears quite impressive, but as you probably know, you could line up any number of SI luminaries to loudly and publicly disparage any number of other SI luminaries (e.g., Gates vs. Jobs, Ellison vs. McNealy, etc.) in the harshest possible language.

Evidently, there are strong wills on both sides of these arguments. I am new to this, so I might be naive here, but I modified the article in an attempt to create a balanced (and proper) encyclopedia entry. AnalyticsGuy (talk) 22:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I noticed your balanced entry removes any inclusion of criticism. Despite how it is done in Silicone Valley, GLM with a business model based purely around its proprietary PQI and its obvious knack for self-promotion, should not expect to be viewed similarly to rankings performed in an academic manner, with full disclosure of methodology and the ability to test its methodology through replication, with data sets largely drawn from publicly available "Common Data Sets" for each university, and without the glaring conflict of interests. At least they state in their releases now that they do not influence rankings (possibly because of complaints lodged here?). That is an improvement to be up front with that disclosure, and I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt, although there is no way to actually verify it. In any case, they can in no way be considered academic rankings and the relationship of the rank to academics can be easily dismissed when you see the University of Phoenix is number 37 among universities, among other anomalies. What is good is that they seem to be downplaying the relationship to academics and concentrating on what they are actually measuring, but they are still asserting wild relationships between things like Harvard dropping in their PQI rankings and the hit on their endowment, which percentage-wise, was not much different than the hit every other university's endowment took and is still much large than all other universities. Such statements not only come off as ridiculous, especially when not supported by accompanying study to attempt to validate such a relationship, but will continue be a reason GLM is ridiculed in academic circles. They need to stick to the releasing their results and stop the hollow interpretations, which I assume, is to try make their results seem more interesting or valid. I'm fine with their rank of internet pervasiveness, which begs the question of whether they belong in this article at all (same for G-factor, etc), but if they try to pass it off as anything more it is not going to fly. It is fairly obvious where all the edits for GLM are coming from, and I highly caution about Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. CrazyPaco (talk) 01:01, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

THES?

Why even cite these guys? They're unabashedly biased towards England. They ranked the University of Manchester as tied with the Ecole Polytechnique, in Engineering. Do you realize that British engineering companies actively prefer French engineers over British engineers, largely due to the incredibly weak educatin system in the U.K.? THES isn't fooling anybody.

A better question is how many ordinary French universities beat out Oxbridge in engineering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.190.159.108 (talk) 15:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

And your evidence for this against a respected educational journal is... 129.67.110.19 (talk) 18:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed as far as the general methodological favor of anglophone universities is concerned. But the ranking stresses (the perceived impact of) an institution's scientific output, as opposed to the quality of its education. Thus, X -which is primarily an elite educational institution, not so much a research university- comes out rather mediocre. By the way, that's true for ARWU and HEEACT rankings as well. 147.142.186.54 (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Inaccurate comment

“But we note also that this survey establishes its rankings by appealing to university staff, even offering financial enticements to participate (see Appendix II). Staff are likely to feel it is in their greatest interest to rank their own institution more highly than others. This means the results of the survey and any apparent change in ranking are highly questionable, and that a high ranking has no real intrinsic value in any case. We are vehemently opposed to the evaluation of the University according to the outcome of such PR competitions.”

This objection is largely invalid - institutions cannot vote for themselves in the academic peer review. Also, the academic peer review would be a 'PR competition' if the survey were composed of a random sample of people. In fact, the survey asks academics around the world to name the top institutions within their field of expertise (the idea being to get first-hand opinion from experts, and also to cover the gamut of subjects by surveying experts in a wide range of fields). I think it's fair to say that top academics base their opinion on actual knowledge and experience rather than just 'PR'. Similarly, the employer peer review asks employers which universities have provided them with top graduates - so it's actually a way of factoring educational outcomes into the rankings. Of course to an extent general reputation is likely to have an influence on employer responses, but this is arguably just as useful from a student perspective - it tells you which degrees are highly regarded by employers, thus giving an indication of the 'market value' of degrees from different institutions.Dannybyrne (talk) 13:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Merger of THE-QS and QS ranking articles

Since the break between THE and QS, there have been two separate, almost entirely duplicative articles: Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings covering the same ranking. QS owns the historical data, methodology, and is going to continue to publish the previous ranking under the name "QS World University Rankings". Thus, this ranking essentially just changed names by dropping "THE" from the title. THE is creating its own, brand new ranking, the "Times Higher Education World University Rankings", which has its own, separate, third article. It seems obvious to me that the original Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings needs to be merged into QS World University Rankings, but it has gotten resistance from an editor with what appears to be a WP:COI for THE. There seems to be editors on both sides with COIs. Those editors without COIs, and there seems few such editors in this topic, please add your comments on the merger to the discussion here. Thank you. CrazyPaco (talk) 20:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

G-Factor

I dont think this is notable. It appears to be a once-off publication which is only available on archive.org. The top 300 is also archived. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

USN&WR bias

An unregistered editor is insisting on removing information describing the U.S. News & World Report rankings and replacing it with accusations that it is biased. First, I object to removing the description. Second, I object to inserting the bias allegations given the extraordinary weak sources the unregistered editor has put forth (one is a blog post written by a college student and the other is some sort of crowd-sourced blog-like webpage). Thoughts? ElKevbo (talk) 05:47, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, highly controversial content such as this requires higher quality sources.Rangoon11 (talk) 13:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

ElK, you've been doing the right thing reverting him, but has anyone left a message on his talk page yet?HuskyHuskie (talk) 13:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't left him or her a message and at this point it would probably be better if someone else did so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to antagonize him or her. ElKevbo (talk) 15:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Y Done By the way, while I certainly understand your hesitancy to approach the anon after several back and forths with the edits, this demonstrates why it's so good to welcome an editor the very first time that they edit, so that there is a basis for dialoguing with them on issues that come up later. Is this guy a vandal? My guess is no; I think he's just someone with an opinion that has no idea what our policies are, and if we welcome him, we may get a valued editor. If he is a vandal, then our greeting makes it that much more certain that it's okay to string him up quickly. HuskyHuskie (talk) 16:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)