Links: Global Ranking of Universities

1. D.D. Guttenplan in NYTimes: Re-evaluating the college ranking game.

   So who will rank the rankings?

   That was the inescapable question when representatives of the four leading ranking organizations sat on the same panel at a conference here last month.

   As Bob Morse, the research director for U.S. News and World Report, pointed out, rankings have become a fiercely competitive global business.

   So the presence of Mr. Morse; Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education Rankings; Nian Cai Lui, originator of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (better known as the Shanghai rankings); and Ben Sowter of the QS World University Rankings would have been enough to make the gathering “a historic event,” Mr. Morse said.

   But in addition to trading friendly digs at their competitors’ methodologies, the rankers had to listen to some stinging criticism — not just from disgruntled academics complaining that their institutions have been undervalued, or education ministers responding to an absence of their country’s universities on a given list, but from their own invited guests. Even the conference host, Michael Arthur, the president of University College London, took a jab.

2. Aisha Labi in NYTimes: E.U. Seeking Better Clarity on Rankings:

   A new international effort to gauge the performance of universities went online last month promising to be a nuanced tool for students and institutions in the contentious field of global rankings.

   The project is U-Multirank, which was announced in 2011, backed by the European Union and aims to foster greater transparency about higher education globally, including in the United States. But while its approach has received praise, some experts say it still has a way to go before achieving its goals, and some higher education groups have already raised questions about its methods.