International ranking systems for universities and institutions: a critical appraisal

Table 5 Focus on extremes of excellence vs averages, appropriate field adjustment, time frame of measurement and credit allocation problems of Shanghai and Times ranking systems

	Focus*	Field adjustment	Time frame of measurement	Credit allocation
Shanghai
Alumni, Nobel/Fields	Very extreme excellence	Not all fields represented	Typically very remote	Problematic
Faculty, Nobel/Fields	Very extreme excellence	Not all fields represented	Typically remote	Problematic
Faculty, highly-cited	Extreme excellence	To some extent	Remote (1981–1999)	Problematic
Nature/Science articles	Extreme excellence	Uneven per field	Recent (last 5 years)	Reasonable***
Number of articles	Average excellence	None	Very recent (last year)	Reasonable***
Size	Not applicable**	None	Sources unclear	Straightforward
Times
Peer opinion	Varies per expert	To some extent	Varies per expert	Varies per expert
Recruiter opinion	Not applicable**	None	Varies per recruiter	Varies per recruiter
International faculty	Not applicable**	None	Sources unclear	Straightforward
International students	Not applicable**	None	Sources unclear	Straightforward
Student-faculty ratio	Not applicable**	None	Sources unclear	Straightforward
Citations per faculty	Average excellence	None	Recent (last 5 years)	Reasonable***

*Whether excellence is appraised based on the extremes or the average of the distribution of performance.
**Indicators pertain to the whole institution, so they are average indicators, but as per Table 4 they are unlikely to be more than low/modest indicators of excellence.
***Decisions need to be made regarding allocation of credit for multi-authored papers, variable credit according to authorship position etc

ISSN: 1741-7015