{"id":3263,"date":"2019-05-20T08:16:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T07:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=3263"},"modified":"2019-05-20T08:17:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T07:17:40","slug":"unsustainable-goal-university-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2019\/05\/20\/unsustainable-goal-university-ranking\/","title":{"rendered":"The unsustainable goal of university ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking organisations are seeking to diversify the measures use to evaluate universities. But without addressing the fundamental flaws in their methods, they will crush rather than embrace the rich complexity of our institutions of higher learning<\/em><\/p>\n

\"THE<\/a><\/p>\n

When the Times Higher Education (THE) released their University Impact Rankings<\/a> back in April, the idea of scoring institutions on the basis of their contributions to the UN sustainable development goals<\/a>\u00a0was hailed by THE\u2019s ranker-in-chief, Phil Baty, as ground-breaking<\/a>. The new rankings are certainly innovative, but for many academics it seemed like business as usual. Here was yet another way to slice and dice the data on university performance from a global industry that, although non-existent 20 years ago, has become a permanent feature of the higher education landscape. New rankings come so thick and fast these days \u2013\u00a0Wikipedia lists<\/a> no fewer than 24 different league tables \u2013\u00a0that the temptation is to shrug and pass on to the next thing. But that would be a mistake.<\/p>\n

On the face of it, THE are to be commended for diversifying the scrutiny of university performance beyond the\u00a0debatable measures<\/a>\u00a0of reputation, research prowess or teaching excellence that are most commonly used to compile rankings. This is a sensible move. But fundamental problems remain which afflict all university league tables and are too often overlooked by student and universities \u2013 the major consumers of rankings. Students might be forgiven for not appreciating the uncertainties and incompleteness of the analyses that pull university rankings dangerously close to the realm of fake news, but universities should know better.<\/p>\n

I suspect that most do know better but feel compelled nonetheless by market pressures to jostle for position in rankings that originated in the news media and are still granted widespread coverage. I don\u2019t doubt the rankers\u2019 belief in the valuable service they see themselves providing to the sector; and I\u2019m sure they can justify to themselves the hard-nosed, real-world pragmatism brought to the task of scoring university performance, which may even be shared by some university leaders. But we can\u2019t afford to side-step the fractured logic at the heart of league tables \u2013 the simplistic quantification and aggregation of incomparable qualities \u2013\u00a0which tears at the intellectual integrity that is surely still central to the idea of the university. We need to find better ways to set the standards for the multiple and various dimensions of university life so that, as they evolve in a constantly changing world, they can continue to enrich the societies and communities in which they are rooted.<\/p>\n

And now perhaps, it is the turn of the rankers to shrug at the ramblings of yet another disgruntled academic. It\u2019s all too easy to criticise and carp, they might say, but what about solutions? Students and governments rightly want to know about standards of performance, so who is going to hold universities to account?<\/p>\n

Well here\u2019s an idea: let\u2019s try do it together. Cynics, please look away now. Let\u2019s take at face value the higher aspirations for the health and impact of universities found in the mission statements of rankers and our institutions of higher learning, and proceed in the hope that they might help us jointly to unpick the tangle of political, commercial, and institutional interests that sustains the rankings industry in its present form.<\/p>\n

Even if there is the will to do that \u2013 and I concede it remains an open question \u2013 the technical challenges are formidable. But before we can devise solutions, we need to understand the problem. We can start to get to grips with that by looking at how the THE put together its University Impact Rankings. To their credit, the THE provide a detailed description<\/a> of how how they go about scoring universities. Let\u2019s look at the big picture first. Here\u2019s the summary of how the overall rankings are compiled:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use carefully calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons across three broad areas: research, outreach, and stewardship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 17 UN SDGs and we are evaluating university performance on 11 of them in our first edition of the ranking (click on a category below to view its specific methodology):<\/span><\/p>\n