1. Why are we doing the ranking?
Our original purpose of doing
the ranking was to find out the gap between Chinese universities and
world-class universities, particularly in terms of academic or research
performance. It has been done for our academic interests without any
outside support.
Upon the request of colleagues and friends from various countries,
we published the ranking on our website and update it annually. We
hope our Academic Ranking of World Universities will help you to compare
and identify universities worldwide by their academic or research
performance.
2. How many universities have we ranked?
We have scanned every university
that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medals, Highly Cited Researchers,
or papers published in Nature or Science. In addition, we scanned
major universities of every country with significant amount of articles
indexed in major citation indices. In total, we have scanned more
than two thousand universities.
Although we publish only the top 500 universities, we have actually
ranked more than one thousand universities. We regret that we will
not be able to provide you with information on the ranking of universities
beyond the top 500.
3. Is our academic ranking objective?
The quality of universities cannot be precisely measured
by mere numbers. Therefore, any ranking is controversial and no
ranking is absolutely objective. People should be cautious about
any ranking including our Academic Ranking of World Universities.
It would be impossible to have a comprehensive ranking of universities
worldwide, because of the huge differences of universities in the
large variety of countries and the technical difficulties in obtaining
internationally comparable data. Our ranking is using carefully
selected indicators and internationally comparable data that everyone
could check.
4.
Are there any problems with the ranking?
There are many
methodological and technical problems. Methodological problems include:
the proportion of indicators on teaching and services, the weight
of per capita performance, the type of institutions (comprehensive
or specialized), the language bias in publications, the selection
of awards and the experience of award winners. Technical problems
include: the definition of institutions, the attribution of publications
and awards, and the history of institutions.
For more detailed discussions, please read our paper "Academic
ranking of world universities - methodologies and problems",
which is a paper presented at the meeting of International
Ranking Expert Group and subsequently published in Vol. 30,
No 2., 2005 of "Higher Education in Europe".
5. What are the major changes in 2005?
After analyzing the numerous
comments and suggestions from all over the world, we have made two
major modifications in our ranking of 2005. Articles indexed in
Arts & Humanities Index are included for the first time. When
calculating the total number of articles indexed in the three citation
indices, a special weight of two was introduced for articles indexed
in Social Science Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation
Index.
Another thing worthy noting is that both Humboldt University - Berlin
and Free University - Berlin were not ranked in 2005. This is because
both universities claimed to be the successor of Berlin University
before World War II, and they could not agree on how to divide the
Nobel prizes won by the old Berlin University.
6. What are we planning to do in 2006?
We will listen to your opinions carefully and update
our ranking in August 2006 again. Your comments and suggestions
will be very much appreciated!
We are studying on the classification of universities. Next year,
we hope to provide you with the list of top universities with engineering,
sciences, social sciences, life sciences, or medicine orientation,
extracted from the list of top 500 world universities.
We are also investigating the possibility of ranking broad subject
areas. Next year, we hope to provide you with the ranking of broad
subject areas including engineering, sciences, social sciences,
life sciences, and medicine.
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