A Comparative Study on World University Rankings: A Bibliometrics Approach
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Liao, Pei-Yu
Abstract
Ranking activities have started up with the intense competition among universities, especially rankings for international universities. The quality and competitiveness of universities have become important issues for the general public. There are many organizations conducting on ranking activities from different perspectives, and four rankings for world universities out of many others are well-known: “Academic Ranking of World Universities” (ARWU-Shanghai Jiao Tong University), “World University Rankings” (WUR-Times Higher Education Supplement), “Webometrics Ranking of World Universities” (WRWU-Cybermetrics Lab), and ”Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities” (PRSPWU-Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council). This study aims to figure out, in a bibliometrics approach, if there is any relevance or consistence among various ranking results. Four research questions are discussed: (1) the comparison among different ranking results, (2) the correlation between ranking results and each ranking indicator, (3) the correlation among ranking indicators in different rankings, and (4) the impacts on ranking results in term of different citation indexes.
The results show that there is a 55% overlap out of the top 200 world universities announced by ARWU, WUR and PRSPWU from 2007 to 2010, and total rankings of ARWU and PRSPWU have stronger correlation. With consideration of WRWU ranking in 2009 and 2010, the ranking results of all four evaluating organizations tend to reach consistence. In addition, the rankings of certain single ranking indicators are related to their own total ranking, and have strong correlation (such as some ranking indicators used in PRSPWU). That is to say, it is possible to find out ranking indicators with high degree of discriminativeness or representativeness. Finally, using different citation indexes has little influence on ranking results.
Subjects
Bibliometrics
Ranking Indicators
World University Rankings
Type
thesis
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