Transcript Slide 1

A Brief Review On
UNIVERSITY
RANKINGS
IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
http://www.isc.gov.ir/
THE ISC SEMINAR TEHRAN, IRAN
OCTOBER 25th. – NOVEMBER 1st. 2010
Presenter : Prof. Dr. Jafar Mehrad
President of the Islamic Science Citation Center (ISC)
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
INTRODUCTION
During the past few years, ranking universities has been a controversial
issue. Among them some have been carried out at national level, such as US
News ranking, UK Sunday Times University Guide, Guardian University
Guide, Ranking the Universities of Canada by Mclean, CHE University
Ranking, Ranking Top Asian Universities by Asia Week.
Recently these ranking systems have attracted the attention of policymakers, scientific society and media. One is Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) which
is prepared and published in China.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
INTRODUCTION
This system has been ranking the universities of the world since 2003, and
the other is Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) which has been
presenting the ranking of world universities since 2004. In 2010, QS which
had long collaborated with THES in ranking the first class universities of the
world was separated from it. It has been ranking the world universities
independently since then.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Table 1: Assessing Indicators applied by THES in 2004 to determine the top 200
No.
Indicator
Percentage
1
Peer review Assessment
50%
2
Citations Per Faculty
20%
3
Staff Students Ratios
20%
4
International students
5%
5
International Staff
5%
Total
100%
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Table 2: THES Top- 200 Universities Assessment Indicators
No.
Indicator
Percentage
1
Peer Review Assessment
40%
2
Citations per Faculty
20%
3
Staff Student Ratios
20%
4
International Students
5%
5
International Staff
5%
6
International Employers Survey
10%
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
These peer review
assessments counted for fifty
percent in the total score of a
university. Four other criteria
that have been employed are:
Research impact in terms of
citation per faculty member
and staff student ratio
each accounts
for %20 of the
score
The percentage of foreign
students and staff
each at %5
percent of the
total score
Thus in the THES ranking, the bibliometric
element accounts for 20 percent.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
The Data
Derivation
These bibliometric data are derived from a commercial product,
the Essential Science Indicators database, produced by Thomson
Scientific (the former Institute for Scientific Information, ISI).
Finally the scores used in the ranking were normalized against a
score of 100 for top- ranking Harvard University.
The crucial difference between the THES
rankings and rankings produced by the
Shanghai Jiao Tong University is that the latter
does not include peer review.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Table 3: Indicators for SHJT rankings
No.
Criteria
Indicator
1
Quality of Education
Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Alumni
Prizes and Fields Medals
10%
2
Quality of Faculty
Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes Award
and Fields Medals
20%
Highly cited researchers in 21 broad HiCi
subject categories
Articles published in Nature and Science
N&S
20%
Articles in Science Citation Index-expanded SCI
and Social Science Citation Index
20%
Academic Performance with respect to the Size
size of an institution
10%
3
4
Total
Research Output
Size of Institution
(Research Output/
Number of Staff )
Code
Percentage
20%
100%
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Although the methodology used in these surveys are different, they indicate
the same conclusion:
In the light of the last three-year rankings
carried out by SJTU , THES and QS, of all the
universities in the Islamic countries only a few
universities appeared in the list of world-class
universities.
QS, recently separated from THES, ranks world
universities officially
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
The methodology of this system has been shown in the following table:
Indicator
Explanation
Weighting
Academic
Peer Review
Composite score drawn from peer review survey ( which is 40%
divided into five subject areas). 9.386 responses in 2009( 2008).
Employer
Review
Score based on responses to employer survey. 3.281 responses
in 2009 ( 2008).
10%
Faculty
Student
Ratio
Score based on student faculty ratio
20%
Citations per Score based on research performance factored against the size
Faculty
of the research body
20%
International Score based on proportion of international faculty
Faculty
5%
International Score based on proportion of international students
Students
5%
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
After the movements initiated by Times, QS, and Shanghai in ranking the world
universities, the Islamic World also did endeavored to create its own ranking system.
Why Ranking?
On the occasion of the 3rd Conference of
Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific
Research ( Kuwait , 2006), ISESCO proposed
the idea of “Ranking the Universities of the
Islamic World” to the Ministers of Higher
Education attending Kuwait Conference.
Being presented in the Ministerial Meeting,
the proposal of the establishment of this
ranking system was approved.
In today’s world, competition has found its
way into all aspects of international affairs,
and it is why governments, directors and
people in charge are seriously involved in this
challenging domain.
The governments of the Islamic countries are
well aware of the important role that higher
education can play in bringing about socioeconomic development.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
An informal and open-ended meeting
was commenced on 20th of November
2006 at the sideline of the 3rd Islamic
Conference of Ministers of Higher
Education and Scientific Research,
Kuwait City, Kuwait. During this
meeting a number of issues were
agreed upon including:
Establishment of a “core group” with the
objective of preparing a draft document on
the procedures, criteria and mechanisms to
select universities, which will later be
presented to the OIC member states.
The “core group” comprises the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Malaysia, the Islamic
Development Bank (IDB), the COMSTECH, the
ISESCO, the SESRIC, and the General
Secretariat of the OIC.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
The Organization of the Islamic Countries (OIC) General Secretariat with the
cooperation of the Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST),
from the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the support of the ISESCO convened another
Technical Experts Meeting (TEM) in Tehran, the I. R. of Iran from 19 to 21st of February
2007. The main objectives defined for the Meeting were as follows:
A comprehensive review of the criteria
available for ranking universities
Formulating proposals for the improvement of
the criteria currently available as well as
proposing procedures and mechanisms that
could be drawn upon for selection of the OIC
region universities
Coming up with a document encompassing
proposed criteria for ranking universities as
well as proposing special procedures and
mechanisms for filtering and selection of
twenty universities from the OIC region such
that they can be promoted to the list of the
World Class Universities
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
To achieve this goal, a number of consultants from the OIC region and Iran, all with relevant
expertise, were all called upon to provide the assistance required to the core group. The
consultants had the following specialties:
Assessment of Science and Technology
Higher Education and Quality Manager
Scientometrics
Bibliometrics
Sociology of Scientific Research
Based upon the information in Table 1 as well as the criteria utilized by the Shanghai Jiao Tong
ranking system and the Times Higher Education (THE) and other ranking systems, five major
criteria were identified in this Meeting each applicable to the task of ranking the universities
of the OIC region.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Table 5: Major criteria for ranking universities from the OIC region.
Criteria
Weightage
Research quality and output
50%
Quality of education
35%
International outlook
7%
Facilities
3%
Socio-economic impact
5%
7% 3% 5%
35%
50%
Research quality and output
Quality of education
International outlook
Facilities
Socio-economic impact
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Table 6: Key Performance Indicators
Criterion
Research
(Total Weight: 50)
Indicator
Weight
A1
Research quality
17
A2
Research performance
16
A3
Research volume
5
A4
Rate of growth for research quality
5
A5
Rate of growth for research performance
5
A6
Patents
2
Criterion
Indicator
B1
Faculty members with awards
6
ISI (international)
standards
3
OIC standards
5
B3
Ratio of faculty members with PhD to
total number of faculty
4
B4
Alumni that did win awards
3
B2
Education
(Total Weight: 35)
Weight
B5
Faculty Highly Cited
researchers
Alumni that become
Highly Cited researchers
ISI (international)
standards
1
OIC standards
2
B6
Ratio of faculty to students
3
B7
Ratio of post graduate students to total
number of students
2
B8
Rate of growth of post graduate students
3
B9
Students wining international Olympiads
3
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Criterion
International
out-look
(Total Weight: 7)
Indicator
Weight
C1
Ratio of International faculty to Total faculty
2
C2
Ratio of International students to Total
students
1
C3
Ratio of faculty members with Foreign Ph.D.
degrees to Total number of faculty members
with PhD degrees.
1½
International conferences organized
1½
C4
C5
International
Exchange Programs
Number of operating
programs
½
Number of beneficiaries
½
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Criterion
Indicator
Weight
D1
Number of book titles per student
1
D2
Number of journals/periodicals accessible
(hard and soft copies)
1
D3
Number of university’s research
Institutes/Centres
1
Facilities
(Total Weight: 3)
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS IN THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES
Criterion
Socio-economic
impact
(Total Weight: 5)
Indicator
Weight
E1
Contracts and consultancies incomes
2½
E2
Life learning courses
1
E3
Entrepreneurship programs and industrial
linkages
1
E4
Number of incubated projects and spin-off
companies
½