Friday, September 17, 2010

Arizona State University is once again ranked among top world universities


The Times Higher Education magazine has just published its 2010-11 World University Rankings using a sophisticated new methodology that constitutes the most detailed, rigorous and comprehensive study of global university performance ever undertaken.

The Times Higher Education link for the top 200 universities in the world may be accessed at this link: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

"We would like to congratulate Arizona State University for its performance in this year's rigorous rankings," said Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education. "Being ranked 161 in the world top 200 is an impressive achievement. The top 200 universities in the world represent only a tiny fraction of world higher education and any institution that makes it into this table is truly world class."

ASU also was ranked 73rd among North American universities.

Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings explained some of the changes:

"Our tables are based on rigorous data provided by Thomson Reuters, and for the first time an invitation-only reputation survey of over 13,000 verified academics was conducted. This ensures that we have very high-quality data, both qualitative and quantitative.

"As global higher education is becoming more competitive than ever, inclusion in this year's ranking is an impressive achievement for any institution. These rankings are the gold standard for world-class research institutions."

The 2010-11 Times Higher Education World University Rankings represent a "year zero," thanks to a new methodology developed after consultation with 50 sector leaders, the magazine's editorial board and website feedback.

The new methodology, with data supplied by Thomson Reuters, the world's leading research data specialist, places less importance on reputation and heritage than in previous years and gives more weight to hard measures of excellence in all three core elements of a university's mission - research, teaching and knowledge transfer.

It also is the only global ranking system that includes a section dedicated to the teaching and learning environment - including the first-ever global survey of institutions? teaching reputation. In all, it includes 13 separate performance indicators, across five broad categories:

• Teaching - the learning environment (based on an institution's income, student-academic staff ratio, degrees awarded, undergraduate-graduate mix, undergraduates admitted, reputational survey) - 30 percent
• Citation impact - a normalized measure of research influence (a university's research influence, measure by the
number of times a published work is cited in other academic's papers) - 32.5 percent
• Research volume, income and reputation (based on papers published per academic and research staff, research income, reputational survey) - 30 percent
• International mix - staff and student ratios (ratio of international to domestic students, academic staff) - 5 percent
• Industry income - measuring knowledge transfer (research income fromindustry, per academic staff) - 2.5 percent

Arizona State University's results in full:

Teaching, The Learning Environment - 43

Research - volume, income and reputation - 44.1

Citation - research influence - 66.9

Industry Income - innovation - N/A

International mix - staff and students - 24.1

Overall Score – 50.3

Editor's note: No Philippine university, including the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University  made it to the top 200 in 2010-11. U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman blames The Times Higher Education's faulty methodology for U.P.'s refusal to participate in the annual survey which is increasingly seen as the gold standard' for world-class research institutions. However, many world-class institutions such as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, and several state-run universities in Asia, including those located in South Korea and China have regarded the methodology as acceptable. We urge U.P. to reconsider its stand of outright refusal to participate in the surveys, so that it at least knows how it ranks among its peers and can correspondingly strategize on how to improve its world-rankings from that baseline. Several candidates for U.P. President have emphasized that U.P. needs to become a true research university, which the Times Higher Education Survey Research gives a 30% weight for a university's overall score and is made up of volume, income and reputation (based on papers published per academic and research staff, research income, and reputational survey).

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