News & Views item

Times Higher Education Rankings Called into Question by Melbourne University Academic. (February 19, 2007)

At a symposium of international university rankings experts in Brisbane on February 12 a paper presented by Melbourne University Professor of Higher Education Simon Marginson questioned the validity of the system being employed to compile The Times Higher Education rankings.

As an example, David Rood of The Age reports, Professor Marginson cited "the University of Malaysia to illustrate the "capricious and destructive" nature of The Times rankings. A change in the definition of international students between 2004-05 saw the university's ranking drop from 89 to 169."

Professor Marginson said, "Up to now, we in Australian universities have done better out of The Times rankings than our performance on other indicators would suggest, but it could all turn around and start working against us, too."

And according to Mr Rood the Melbourne professor says The Times rankings are volatile because surveys of employers and academics are open to manipulation, subjectivity and reward marketing over research.

To illustrate the difference, as regards Australian universities, between the two most quoted international systems of ranking the world's universities, that of The Times and Shanghai Jiao Tong University's

The Times Rankings

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Australian National University - 16

University of Melbourne - 22

University of Sydney - 35

University of Monash - 38

University of NSW - 41

University of Queensland - 45

Macquarie University - 82

University of Adelaide - 105

University of Western Australia - 111

RMIT University - 146

Curtin University of Technology - 156

Queensland University of Technology 192

University of Wollongong - 196

Australian National University - 54

University of Melbourne - 78

Between 101 and 200:

University of Western Australia,

University of Queensland,

University of Sydney,

University of NSW.

Professor Marginson notes that Australia's 13 universities in The Times top 200 makes it the third strongest system in the world, before Japan, Canada, and Western Europe. He then delivers the view: "This is plausible in relation to international marketing, but not all round performance."

It should be noted that the overall view of the symposium participants was that the current rankings systems do not evaluate the quality of teaching exhibited by the universities. Certainly Shanghai Jiao Tong University makes the point that it is evaluating the quality of the institution's research.