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Category: Rankings

When the Times Higher Education Rankings Fail The Fall-Down-Laughing Test

You may have noted the gradual proliferation of rankings at the Times Higher Education over the last few years.  First the World University Rankings, then the World Reputation Rankings (a recycling of reputation survey data from the World Rankings), then the “100 under 50” (World Rankings, restricted to institutions founded since the early 60s, with a methodological twist to make the results less ridiculous), then the “BRICS Rankings” (World Rankings results, with developed countries excluded, and similar methodological twists). Between actual

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February 6, 2014 2 Comments

Ten Years of Global University Rankings

Last week, I had the honour of chairing a session at the Conference on World-Class Universities, in Shanghai.  Held on the 10th anniversary of the release of the first global rankings (both the Shanghai rankings and the Times Higher Ed Rankings – then run by QS – appeared for the first time in 2003).  And so it was a time for reflection: what have we learned over the past decade? The usual well-worn criticisms were aired: international rankings privilege, the measurable

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November 15, 2013 1 Comment

Owning the Podium

I’m sure many of you saw Western President, Amit Chakma’s, op-ed in the National Post last week, suggesting that Canadian universities need more government assistance to reach new heights of excellence, and “own the podium” in global academia.  I’ve been told that Chakma’s op-ed presages a new push by the U-15 for a dedicated set of “excellence funds” which, presumably, would end up mostly in the U-15’s own hands (for what is excellence if not research done by the U-15?).  All I can

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November 5, 2013 2 Comments

Concentration vs. Distribution

I’m spending part of this week in Shanghai at the bi-annual World-Class Universities conference, which is put on by the good folks who run the Shanghai Jiao Tong Rankings. I’ll be telling you more about this conference later, but today I wanted to pick up on a story from the last set of Shanghai rankings in August.  You’d be forgiven for missing it – Shanghai doesn’t make the news the way the Times Higher Education rankings does, because its methodology doesn’t allow

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November 4, 2013 4 Comments

Those Times Higher Education World Rankings (2013-14 Edition)

So, yesterday saw the release of the latest round of the THE rankings.  They were a bit of a damp squib, and not just for Canadian schools (which really didn’t move all that much).  The problem with actually having a stable methodology, as the Times is finding, is that there isn’t much movement at the top from year-to-year. So, for instance, this year’s top ten is unchanged from last year’s, with only some minor swapping of places. (On the subject of the

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October 4, 2013 1 Comment

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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