Relevance of University Rankings: Flaws, Concerns, and the Quest for Reform

Context: 

Recently, A research officer at Loughborough University in the U.K. reported that universities’ quests for higher ranking mirrors the flawed pursuit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the sole measure of a country’s prosperity.

How does the Ranking system work?

• Purpose of Ranking :  They hold significant weight and influence in shaping educational policies and priorities in the higher education sector in many countries.
• Methodology: A ranking system orders the higher education institutes in a place (country, region, etc.) by their accomplishments on various fronts — including 
  • Teaching, research, reputation, industry-focused research, and collaborative efforts. 

Concerns related with the major Global ranking System

• Arbitrary measures of Research Excellence like Citation metric(It gauges how frequently a university’s published research is referenced by scholars worldwide.) 
  • But for the purposes of the ranking, an institute’s performance on each one is translated into a few composite indicators, which are then combined to create a consolidated score.
  • Involvement in such projects provides an unfair advantage as they tend to accrue high citation counts due to the presence of multiple authors.
• Favoritism:  Favor the universities that hosted an important summit of a major university ranking releasing Agency.
• Conflict of Interest: Most entities that compile and publish rankings are private enterprises & these entities consulting with universities to help the latter achieve better ranks in their own systems.
• Data Security: Additionally, by participating in ranking exercises, universities and institutes provide ranking agencies free reign over their data, compromising their data security.

What Changes can be done ?

• The weightage of the citation metric can be reduced , 
• New indicators can be added like
  • Typical research strength (assesses a university’s research prowess compared to others), 
  • Excellence in research (measures the presence of outstanding research areas), and
  • The Network effect of citations (considers the influence of citations from researchers of varying importance.). 
• Compilation & Publication of Ranking should be done by an Independent Agency 
• Ensure Data Security : By End to End Encryption & by Other Privacy measures.

News Source : The Hindu

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