One of the main criticisms of international rankings is that they measure research quality rather than teaching quality. This is especially the case in for the Shanghai Jiao Tong Ranking. The THES Ranking uses proxies like employer surveys, student staff ratios and the number of international students in order to indicate education quality. The best known national university ranking is probably the one of the US News and World Report.  However, their proxies for educational quality (such as selectivity) can not be applied in a standardised global setting.

The most ambitious project to date to rank universities on education quality is the plan of the OECD to rank according to learning outcomes. Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s head of education research explained this in the Economist in November last year:

“Rather than assuming that because a university spends more it must be better, or using other proxy measures for quality, we will look at learning outcomes”

Just as the OECD assesses primary and secondary education in their PISA assessment, it will sample university students to see what they have learned. Once enough universities are taking part, it may publish league tables showing where each country stands, just as it now does for compulsory education. This of course is a very ambitious project, if not over-ambitious. But at the same time, the OECD is probably one of the few international organisations that have the capacity and experience to assess educational outcomesat a (near) global level. Or not?

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) at the University of Ohio recently proposed an alternative ranking of US colleges and universities:

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Filed in: Ranking, USA, World | 6 Comments »

As you might know, I changed countries and positions in the last month, hence my lack of posts (now and probably in the very near future). As some of you might know, I left academia to work at the Nuffic, the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education. This week I started in the department of studies of their Knowledge and Innovation Directorate. One issue I’m currently looking at is the way foreign students choose their preferred study destinations. Market research organisation i-Graduate seems to have found all my answers already… or hasn’t it?

The Guardian reports on a study that looks at what motivates international students to study abroad and what influences their choice of study. I haven’t seen the study and I can’t link to it because it is not available on their website, but looking at the article of the Guardian, it seems to be a case of over-simplification and over-generalisation. According to i-Graduate, the international student population can be divided into five tribes:

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Filed in: Higher Education, Internationalisation, UK, World | 2 Comments »

Once again, there has been a shooting at a university campus in the US. On February 14, a gunman killed five students at Northern Illinois University. The killer died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had been a graduate student in sociology at the university but was no longer enrolled. Sadly, the Northern Illinois shooting is part of a long list of random or semi-random shootings on university and college campuses:

USA / 2008 – February 14: Five people are killed when a man opens fire in a classroom at Northern Illinois University near Chicago, including the gunman who killed himself.

USA / 2007 – September 21: eighteen-year old student Loyer D. Braden shot two seventeen year old Delaware State University students from Washington, D.C.

USA / 2007 – April 16: A gunmen kills 32 people and himself and wounds 15 others at Virginia Tech University in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.

Canada / 2006 – September 13: Kimveer Gill opens fire on the street and inside the college in Montreal’s Dawson College, killing one student and injuring 19 others. Gill kills himself after a battle with police.

USA / 2002 – October 28: Robert Flores, a forty year old failing student of the University of Arizona Nursing College, walks into an instructor’s office and fatally shoots her. A few minutes later, he enters one of his nursing classrooms and kills two more of his instructors before fatally shooting himself.

Australia / 2002 – October 21: Huan Xiang, 37, an honors student at Monash University in Melbourne, shoots and kills two students and wounds five other people.

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Filed in: Higher Education, USA, World | 3 Comments »

In a Nature commentary Barbara Sahakian & Sharon Morein-Zamir (University of Cambridge) discuss the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs in order to boost brainpower. And of course, these ‘Professor’s little helpers’ are also penetrating those places where the brains are (or should be) most heavily used: academia.

For many, it seems that the immediate and tangible benefits of taking these drugs are more persuasive than concerns about legal status and adverse effects. There are clear trends suggesting that the use of stimulants such as methylphenidate on college campuses is on the rise, and is becoming more commonplace in ever younger students. Universities may have to decide whether to ban drug use altogether, or to tolerate it in some situations (whether to enable all-night study sessions or to boost alertness during lectures).

But it’s not just the students. Pills also provide brain boost for academics, according to an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement earlier this year:

Feeling under intense pressure to improve your performance at work? Fatigued by the growing demands of a 24/7 society? These are occupational hazards affecting many of today’s academics.

But the suggestion that an individual’s performance can be improved, and tiredness overcome, simply by popping a pill can shock even those academics who have studied the effects of so-called smart drugs.

According to the THES, no major studies have yet been conducted in the UK to discover the extent to which smart drugs are being used by academics or students. The Times Higher made a journey around British academia to poll the opinions and attitudes about the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs in academia. Here are a few quotes:

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Filed in: Higher Education, Science, World | 1 Comment »

A remarkable letter in today’s correspondence section of Nature. For some odd reason, a group of scientists from Oxford and the National University of Singapore thought it would be a good idea to investigate the level of research activity of scientists during the holidays.

In order to find out how many submissions were made to academic journals on Christmas Day between 1996 and 2006, Richard Ladle, Ana Malhado and Peter Todd searched Google Scholar for articles received on 25 December. Even taking into account the overall increase in the volume of submissions, there were about 600% more manuscripts received by journals on 25 December in 2006 than in 1996.

Proportion of published papers submitted on 25 December relative to mean number submitted on the 25th of the month (excluding weekends) for all other months in that calendar year. R² = 0.69.

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Filed in: Humor, Science, World | Comment »

What defines a global ‘superpower’? In the past, it was the size of national armies or possession of nuclear weapons. But now there is a more important (and peaceful) benchmark: the size and prestige of university systems. And, while the US is still the global higher education ‘superpower’, China will soon be knocking it off top spot if current trends continue.

…a dramatic insight into just how rapidly China is moving in the higher education race… anything anyone in the West can easily imagine… a wake-up call to universities and governments around the world…The UK is in danger of slipping back…

So states a report of BBC news, with the alarming title China’s bid for world domination. A bit over the top if you ask me. The rise of India and China as doom scenarios for the future competitiveness of developed nations: an image frequently used by current university leaders to appeal to their national governments and ask for additional funding. And by the media to spice up a story.

That being said… the BBC report is based on presentations of a recent conference of the Worldwide Universities Network, a partnership of 17 research-led universities from Europe, North America, China and Australia. In my view, it’s one of the most active networks of its kind, with many activities in the field of research cooperation, research mobility, e-learning and the organisation of virtual seminars and many other events.

Also in the field of higher education there has been quite some cooperation. There have been initiatives like ‘Constructing Knowledge Spaces’, concerned with researching and theorising the globalisation of education, the ‘Ideas & Universities‘ project and the ‘Network Horizons Virtual Seminar Series‘ of 2006. Cooperation between Wisconsin and Bristol has even led to a new addition to the higher education blogosphere.

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Filed in: Globalisation, Higher Education, Internationalisation, World | Comment »

I ran into some interesting papers and essays on the issue of English as the lingua franca of contemporary higher education and science. They raise serious questions about the preservation of ‘scientific languages’, the ability to learn and teach in a non-native language, the homogenising tendencies of a lingua franca and even about flexible interpretation of plagiarism…

Some time ago, biophysicist Stefan Klein wrote an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine about languages and science (Dümmer auf Englisch; English translation here: Dumber in English). Klein wants to ensure the future of German as a language of science and presents some good arguments for it. Roughly, his argument is that the move towards English as a lingua franca makes science elitist and (non native English speaking) scientists dumber. For the first issue Klein refers to a seminar he attended:

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Filed in: Culture, Higher Education, Science, World | 1 Comment »

Ok…I seriously had the intention not to pay too much attention to the THES ranking this year. So this will be the last post about it (of course not the last post about rankings in general and their dynamics). I played around a bit with the data in Excel and had a look at it from a country perspective.

I gave a score of 200 for the number one university (Harvard) and 1 for the number 200 (RMIT; U of Cape Town) etc., and than aggregated these scores for every country. The graph below shows that the United States (with 57 universities in the top 200) and the United Kingdom (with 32 universities) are clearly superior to all other countries:

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Filed in: Higher Education, Ranking, World | 11 Comments »

I have probably written more than I should about rankings, and especially the Times Higher Education Supplement list and its flaws and shortcomings, but I just couldn’t resist… Here is a preview of this years results [last year between brackets]:

The full top 100 can be found here

For what it’s worth…

Update: Richard Holmes at the University Ranking Watch has plenty of coverage on the issue. See also University World News for a special issue on the THES ranking and rankings in general.

Related Posts:

International Rankings: a self-fulfilling nightmare?

Counting what is measured and measuring what counts

SJT World University Rankings 2008

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2008

Filed in: Higher Education, Ranking, World | 22 Comments »

Will it be the global equivalent of the Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed and the Times Higher Education Supplement? They at least claim to be ‘the first global window on higher education’ (but of course I‘ve been having a small global window on higher education since 2005;).

What is this about? It’s about a new information resource in higher education: University World News:

With international competition and collaboration between universities growing apace, it has never been more important for higher education managers, researchers, scholars and public officials to keep abreast of developments in their field and in rival and partner institutions worldwide.

University World News is the first high-quality truly international newspaper and website, dedicated to providing such coverage. Supported by some of the world’s most experienced education journalists, and aimed at higher education readers worldwide, it is offering a weekly emailed newspaper plus access to a dedicated news website – free of charge.

Although the composition of its board is a bit biased towards the Commonwealth (except for one Dane), the articles cover countries from Greece to South Africa and from Germany to India and are provided by correspondents scattered across the globe. It’s still a bit low on content but I think they are only in their first week. I’ll keep an eye on it. Only one small thing. If anyone of UWN reads this: please add an RSS feed.

UPDATE: the online news source has exceeded my expectations. It’s highly recommended! Especially their weekly ‘Special Reports’

Filed in: Higher Education, Internet, World | 3 Comments »

The Nobel Prizes for the sciences have been awarded in the past few days. Since I have nothing smart to say about the use of embryonic stem cells, giant magnetoresistance or chemical processes on solid surfaces, I had a look at the careers of the Nobel Prize winners.

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Filed in: Higher Education, Science, World | 1 Comment »

Yesterday was the single most (ok, second most) important annual event for science: the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. The Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1991 for those scientific achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. They ‘celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology’.

In Harvard University, great scientists gathered to hear who would follow in the footsteps of eminent illustrious intellectuals like:

Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Christopher Chabris of Harvard University, for demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it’s all too easy to overlook anything else — even a woman in a gorilla suit. (Winners Ig Nobel Prize for Psychology, 2004)

Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon Fraser University [Canada], Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus [Denmark], and Hakan Westerberg of Sweden’s National Board of Fisheries, for showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting (Winners Ig Nobel Prize for Biology, 2004).

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Filed in: Humor, Science, World | Comment »

While walking through Darling Harbour yesterday – visiting the Fiesta Festival – I had a look at the Earth From Above exhibition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Some of you might have already seen it since the exhibition has been traveling around the world the past years. I thought it was pretty amazing…

Below are a few of my favorites. Click on the pictures to see the larger versions and the stories that go with them, or go here to see them all.

Worker resting on bales of cotton, Thonakaha, Korhogo, Ivory Coast:

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Filed in: Australia, Culture, World | Comment »

The Economist has taken the initiative to start a debate series. In the series, a range of topics will be debated in the Oxford 2.0 style. The first topic being debated is… Education. And you can decide on the topic that’s being discussed.

Five propositions that the Economist sees the most far-reaching and divisive aspects of the education debate, are short-listed . It covers a variety of topics ranging from the place of foreign students to the global digital divide to private contributions in higher ed.

Here are the 5 selected propositions:

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Filed in: Higher Education, Internet, UK, World | Comment »

Cultural orientation toward the future differs between countries and strongly correlates with the level of competitiveness of the country. That was one of the findings of Mansour Javidan and his colleagues in the Project GLOBE (see this month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review). Since 1993, the project examines the inter-relationships between societal culture, organizational culture, and organizational leadership. Through a survey of over 17,000 middle managers in 61 societies, they found clear international differences in several areas, one of them being “future orientation”.

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Filed in: Competition, Culture, World | Comment »