Assessment of University Rankings in the frame of measuring university performance

Abstract

Since the first publication of the Shanghai ranking, the number of university rankings has been vastly growing. Over the years, this has resulted in wide variety of rankings ranging in their scope, underlying methodologies and indicators used. As university rankings receive extensive media attention, it is crucial that ranking results are interpreted correctly. All too often hasty conclusions are drawn without considering the exact meaning of a particular ranking result. However, this is becoming increasingly important as rankings are more than ever seen as a possible evaluation instrument of a university’s performance. During this tutorial, first an overview will be given on the different types of university rankings. Specific attention will be given to worldwide rankings, i.e. the Shanghai, THE, QS, CWTS Leiden ranking and U-Multirank. The underlying methodologies used to measure an indicator performance as well as methods for calculating final ranking scores will be explained. In the second part of the workshop, the attendees will get acquainted with the many different kinds of misinterpretations that frequently occur when evaluating ranking results.