Generally speaking, the so-called four major universities in the world mainly include: US News World University Ranking, US NEWS abbreviated; Times World University Ranking, THE abbreviated; UK International Education Market Consulting Company Ranking, QS; Shanghai Jiaotong University World University Academic Ranking, which is commonly known as soft science ranking, ARWU abbreviated.
Of course, some people say that it is the five rankings, including Wuhan University China Science Evaluation Research Center World University Ranking (RCCSE), or Canada's Ma-clean's Ranking (Ma-clean's). In China, there are also relatively influential Wushulian rankings and alumni association rankings, etc. Due to space limitations, let's talk about the top four.
Historically, the first one to do this ranking was " US News and World Report ". It was once ranked among the top three news magazines in the United States with Times . Later, the circulation was no longer enough and it was almost drunk with the northwest wind. What should I do? Since 1983, it has ranked American universities every year, and the popularity and subscription count have increased. This is today's US NEWS rankings. In addition to university rankings, this institution also ranks American middle schools, hospitals, nursing homes, legal firms, resorts, etc.
In June 2003, Shanghai Jiaotong University Research Center announced a university ranking, It is the world's first dedicated world university academic ranking, which is today's soft science ranking. So far, soft science may be the most humble one among the four rankings, because it clearly states that this is not a comprehensive strength ranking of a university, but only a special university academic ranking. Of course, generally good universities are also research universities, so this ranking is still very meaningful.
in chronological order, followed by THE -QS ranking launched in 2004. At that time, the Times in the UK, jointly launched by the UK International Education Market Consulting Company.
We know that the UK is a country that has brought the education industry to the extreme, and of course it is also the most successful country. This education industry is the pillar industry of the UK. standard textbooks, courses, and examination processes, the higher education industry is a blood-sucking sucking world. Let’s talk about the great power of the East. How many young international students have they sent to others? This topic is quite sensitive, so I won’t talk about it for now.
Chapter 0 In 2010, the two companies went their separate ways and developed THE, namely the Times ranking and the QS ranking, forming the four majors together.
So you see, among these four majors, only one in China is made by Shanghai Jiaotong University , and the other three are in the UK and the United States. Two are media and one is a British education consulting company. is a little bit a little, and the meaning of laymen evaluating insiders.
Over the years, there have been constant controversies about university rankings. For example, in October 2020, U.S. News released the 2021 World University Rankings. In this regard, Qufu Normal University's mathematics subjects surpass Peking University , ranking first in China and 19th in the world; and guess who is the third place after Peking University? It is an unknown Shandong University of Science and Technology , and its score is only 0.1 points less than Peking University.
Why is this?
Because of an indicator, the number of citations in the papers published is particularly high.
But there is a loophole here. Teachers from the same university and the same subject, everyone gathers together to keep warm and quotes papers to each other, and the subject indicators will naturally rise. But on the other hand, you change the indicators, such as National Fourth Round of Discipline Evaluation , Peking University’s mathematics subject is A+, which is located on the top of the head, Qushi University’s is just a B-, at most, that is, the chest position. The mathematics of Shandong University of Science and Technology was not on the list at all.
So in the end, the so-called university ranking is the sum of the scores of a series of indicator systems. As for whether this index system is scientific and reasonable? This is hard to say, I can only say that the four major rankings have their own focus and their own shortcomings.
For example, soft science focuses on scientific research, including Nobel Prize , Fields Medal , high citation number, etc. The more data in this type of data, the higher the ranking of the school. But the problem is that a mathematical genius like Wei Shen may win the Fields Medal in the future, but his teaching level is really not good. It is said that because he does not understand, the number of people who choose courses has dropped sharply.
If universities only value and introduce such faculty, their scientific research scores will increase and their ranking will be high. However, will inevitably be suspected of misleading students, especially undergraduates.
Times ranking pays great attention to social reputation. Its teaching reputation weight is 15% and academic reputation weight is 18%. The total weight in the entire index system is as high as 33%. In other words, subjective evaluation accounts for 1/3, so it is susceptible to human factors. Moreover, it is said that the recycling rate of the Times questionnaire is actually not ideal.
Main ranking second-level indicator
For example, in a round of surveys in 2008, Germany only returned 182 questionnaires and India returned 236 questionnaires. At the same time, the question setting in the questionnaire is also very vague. Moreover, this evaluation system lacks a trade-off on the differences in the number of citations between different fields. To put it bluntly, for example, some papers in the humanities field may have a high academic level, but the number of citations is relatively low compared to science and engineering. In terms of ratings, it is not as good as some "water journals" cited by science and engineering.
As for USNEWS, the index system includes social reputation, scientific research output, and scientific research impact. However, as a university ranking, there are no indicators about teaching quality, which gives people a bit lame.
Main ranking first-level indicator
As for QS ranking, the most criticized thing is to protect the baby, that is, the rankings for Commonwealth countries, especially universities in the UK and Australia are a bit inflated. Of course, whether it is false or not, you can tell that for many British and Australian universities, QS is often dozens or even hundreds of rankings higher than soft science or USNEWS.
Think about it carefully, this is still an inevitable need for the industrialization of education in the UK. In order to attract Chinese students, many universities have a lot of marketing promotion costs and must spend to attract students and promote schools. QS rankings of British local institutions that are close to the waters. Will the QS ranking of domestic universities in China be "targeted injected" into their universities? Maybe maybe, this is not accurate.
Last summary, what should we think about university rankings?
The fact is that no university rankings are perfect, and no evaluation plan or evaluation indicator is generally applicable.
Soft Science believes that it is an academic ranking for universities, so to a certain extent, it is in line with the selection and construction of " Double First-Class " that is in full swing in China today; the evaluation goal of the Times World University Ranking is "Help universities understand what a first-class university is and help students make school choices"; the slogan of
QS is "Provide information and reference for universities to participate in international competition, provide information for the public, and help students choose schools."
So, the above two UK rankings attach great importance to international influence and international cooperation. If domestic students choose to study abroad, they are actually very valuable to pay attention to THE and QS.
USNEWS's evaluation goal is "promote the diversified development of higher education, meet the information needs of parents and students, and provide information for students to choose schools" . In a literal sense, this sentence seems to be purely public welfare, but in fact, the university ranking business is not the only industry of USNEWS. It can even be said that as a media, it should not be the main business for colleges to rank. But now that we have done it, we cannot get up early without profit. Its evaluation value orientation must be both commercial and public welfare content.
In this case, only the QS world university rankings are basically run by a purely commercial institution. The university rankings are its core business, so they are more commercial and focus on business information services.Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why QS is the most successful in market operation among the four major rankings.
The so-called "success" here means that QS is actually no longer limited to educational promotion. It has already had many successful cases in social promotion, and has been endorsed by many governments and enterprises. Many governments and enterprises have set QS thresholds for recruitment, rather than other rankings.
So, for universities, parents, candidates and the vast number of us people, how do you view the university rankings?
I think there are probably a few words -
rankings and data indicators do not think, but people who can think about it.
is not a human data indicator service, but a data indicator service for people.
does not serve the service of data indicators, but data indicators serve the service.
This is probably the ultimate meaning of the university rankings?
