{"id":45464,"date":"2018-09-28T13:44:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T20:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=45464"},"modified":"2018-09-28T13:44:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T20:44:23","slug":"university-rankings-how-do-they-compare-and-what-do-they-mean-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/university-rankings-how-do-they-compare-and-what-do-they-mean-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"University rankings: how do they compare and what do they mean for students?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nUniversity rankings can be highly influential. They can help prospective students to narrow down their choice of institution and, of course, they also give universities something to brag about.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s elite institutions, Oxford and Cambridge, continue to occupy the top two posts in the latest\u00a0Times Higher Education World University Rankings<\/a>\u00a0And many other UK universities also appear in the\u00a0annual list<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cworld class\u201d universities.<\/p>\n

Rankings<\/a>\u00a0are very much an indicator of a sector that has been \u201cmarketised\u201d. As such, they should probably come with a\u00a0consumer warning<\/a>\u00a0of their own. And although many rankings now offer some explanation of their\u00a0various methods<\/a>, what is less clear is whether the rankings\u2019 different viewers carefully read and understand what the methodologies do \u2013 or what is actually being measured.<\/p>\n

Times Higher Education editor\u00a0Phil Baty claims<\/a>\u00a0their world rankings were developed partly in response to a UK government report that lamented the tendency of British universities to compare themselves to each other rather than to global counterparts.<\/p>\n

Introducing international benchmarks means that\u00a0British universities<\/a>\u00a0now need to perform even better as they enter into competition with the rest of the world \u2013 both in terms of rankings and attracting students. And in this sense, the UK is competing with both elite US institutions and rising Asian challengers.<\/p>\n

How rankings differ<\/strong><\/h4>\n

But has this increased competitiveness brought about a better experience for students at UK universities? The answer is complex. It involves several related questions: what do students care about \u2013 and what should they demand from their universities and their lecturers? In recent years, the question has also been posed as: what kind of experience are students entitled to? Different\u00a0rankings<\/a>\u00a0answer these questions in different ways.<\/p>\n

Students probably care about the quality of teaching first and foremost and, if UK policy discourse is a guide,\u00a0how employable they will be<\/a>\u00a0after gaining their degree. Different ranking organisations address these two issues in various ways. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings says it uses indicators that show evidence of teaching quality but does not directly address the issue of employability \u2013 which is harder to compare across countries.<\/p>\n

The QS World University Rankings<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 another well known league table \u2013 uses a survey of employers to determine which universities have the best reputation for producing skilled graduates. Another approach is that of the\u00a0Academic Ranking of World Universities<\/a>, also known as Shanghai Rankings, which does not claim to measure either teaching quality or employability. Instead, it focuses mainly on indicators surrounding research excellence.<\/p>\n

With these different nuances among rankings, students might be better advised to look at the recently released\u00a0Europe Teaching Rankings<\/a>. The purpose of the Europe Teaching ranking was to produce a league table that would speak more\u00a0directly to students<\/a>\u00a0and, presumably, to their teaching staff who feel neglected by the mainstream ranking tables. But then again, although developed to measure teaching quality, some of the indicators in this ranking have\u00a0been criticised<\/a>\u00a0as measuring the wrong things.<\/p>\n

Choosing a top scorer<\/strong><\/h4>\n

My\u00a0own research<\/a>\u00a0shows how analysts develop these different rankings to respond to, and develop different audiences. Different rankings operate according to different \u201cbusinesss models\u201d. Some develop their products for different audiences specifically to create more opportunities to sell their expertise. Some rankings are better at this than others.<\/p>\n

The Times Higher Education rankings, for example, appear to be among the more successful organisations. From a single university ranking, they now produce rankings of universities in specific world regions \u2013 such as the Asia Rankings, Young University Rankings and are even now developing rankings that address the themes of innovation and social responsibility.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that the results for British universities in the Times Higher Education\u2019s Europe Teaching Rankings vary from those of UK-only rankings \u2013 such as those produced by UK newspapers such as\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>. The Guardian\u2019s rankings and the other national ones are targeted at students doing their A-levels (as well as their parents) who are starting to think about university options. So quite often teaching-oriented UK universities will do better in these national rankings.<\/p>\n

These UK national rankings consider the results of the\u00a0National Student Survey<\/a>\u00a0which aims to measure student satisfaction and is broadly comparable across the UK. These rankings also show the relative performance of different academic departments.<\/p>\n

So, for a British student seeking to study a particular degree in the UK, these rankings might be a better starting point than global rankings. Students from overseas would do well to examine both national as well as global rankings to get a better picture of what is on offer in the UK. The same applies to other countries.<\/p>\n

Given the large number of organisations producing university rankings and league tables, the issue of whether rankings are changing universities into ever more fierce competitors with each other is of course a consideration. And while rankings, such as those released this week, can indeed keep universities on their toes, it\u2019s easy to wonder if a more cooperative rather than competitive sector would be better for both for universities and the students they teach.<\/p>\n

Author Bio: <\/strong>Miguel Antonio Lim is a Lecturer in Education and International Development at the University of Manchester<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University rankings can be highly influential. They can help prospective students to narrow down their choice of institution and, of course, they also give universities something to brag about. The UK\u2019s elite institutions, Oxford and Cambridge, continue to occupy the top two posts in the latest\u00a0Times Higher Education World University Rankings\u00a0And many other UK universities […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":45465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[12055],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-45464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-university-rankings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUniversity rankings: how do they compare and what do they mean for students? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/university-rankings-how-do-they-compare-and-what-do-they-mean-for-students\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"University rankings: how do they compare and what do they mean for students? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"University rankings can be highly influential. They can help prospective students to narrow down their choice of institution and, of course, they also give universities something to brag about. 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