Thursday, October 09, 2008
THES uni rankings
the latest rankings are out and NUS is ranked 30th this year. there are mainly only 2 world university rankings presently, the other being the shanghai one, so to be ranked 30th in the world in one of them is rather not bad.
the methodology of the THES rankings has been much criticised, but essentially it is based on the perception of the university by its peers and by employers, which together account for 1/2 of its scoring system. compared with the shanghai rankings, of which most of the score is based on the number of nobel prize winners and the number of citations garnered by the university, the THES rankings only placed 20% of its score on citations. thus, it can be said that the rankings are a perception index, just like the corruption perception index released by transparency international.
nothing really wrong with this method i feel, since 'perception' is everything when it comes to the recognition of the degree awarded by the institution. a degree, in essence, is a passport to a good career for most individuals; its recognition thus forms a crucial part of its value.
as one can imagine, NUS doesn't fare well in the shanghai rankings (we don't have nobel prize winners!), but perhaps this is a problem posed by sg's small population base rather than the inadequencies of the institution.
the latest rankings are out and NUS is ranked 30th this year. there are mainly only 2 world university rankings presently, the other being the shanghai one, so to be ranked 30th in the world in one of them is rather not bad.
the methodology of the THES rankings has been much criticised, but essentially it is based on the perception of the university by its peers and by employers, which together account for 1/2 of its scoring system. compared with the shanghai rankings, of which most of the score is based on the number of nobel prize winners and the number of citations garnered by the university, the THES rankings only placed 20% of its score on citations. thus, it can be said that the rankings are a perception index, just like the corruption perception index released by transparency international.
nothing really wrong with this method i feel, since 'perception' is everything when it comes to the recognition of the degree awarded by the institution. a degree, in essence, is a passport to a good career for most individuals; its recognition thus forms a crucial part of its value.
as one can imagine, NUS doesn't fare well in the shanghai rankings (we don't have nobel prize winners!), but perhaps this is a problem posed by sg's small population base rather than the inadequencies of the institution.