News & Views item - August 2005

 

 

University Rankings for 2005 by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. (August 16, 2005)

2005 update
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  Continuing its annual release of rankings of the world's top 500 research universities begun in 2003, the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University has just published its 2005 assessment. Included with the release is a 14 page critique "Academic Ranking of World Universities – Methodologies and Problems" by N.C. Liu and Y. Cheng originally published in Vol. 30, No 2., 2005 of Higher Education in Europe. In it the authors discuss "methodological problems including quantitative versus qualitative evaluation, evaluation of research versus education, variety of institutions, language of publications, selection of awards, and studying or working experience of award winners. Technical problems such as definition of institutions, name expression of institutions, merging and splitting of institutions, searching and attribution of publications are [also] discussed."

 

 

The world's top ten ranked universities and Australian universities ranked in the top 500:

 

World's Top Ten Ranked Universities

1 Harvard University

2 University of Cambridge

3 Stanford University

4 University of California, Berkeley

5 MIT


6 California Institute of Technology

7 Columbia University

8 Princeton University

9 University of Chicago

10 University of Oxford

 

AUSTRALIA'S Top Ranked Universities


56 Australian National University

82 University of Melbourne

101-152 University of Queensland

101-152 University of Sydney

153-202 University of New South Wales

153-202 University of Western Australia

203-300 Macquarie University
 


203-300 Monash University

203-300 University of Adelaide

301-400 University of Newcastle

401-500 Flinders University

401-500 LaTrobe University

401-500 Murdoch University

401-500 University of Tasmania
 

 

 

 

Below are several tables and a chart given by Liu and Cheng:

 

 

 

 

 

In what might be considered an apologia by Liu and Cheng they write:

Education versus Research
Since different stakeholders have different expectations about quality, the quality of higher education institutions is not easy to compare internationally. It would be impossible to rank the quality of university education worldwide because of the huge differences of universities in the large variety of countries and the technical difficulties in obtaining internationally comparable data.
    If one wants to construct a reliable ranking of world universities, the only possible ranking will be a comparative display of research performance. Therefore, the Ranking Group chose to rank research universities in the world by their academic or research performance based on internationally comparable data that everyone could check. No subjective measures were taken. No data is obtained from any kind of university reports.

Finally, Liu and Cheng also indicate some of the plans for future ranking efforts. "The Ranking Group are investigating the possibilities of providing lists of top universities with engineering (technology) or medical orientation, as well as the possibilities of ranking universities by broad subject areas such as social sciences, physical sciences, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine."

 

 


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