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UNSW president and vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs at the National Press Club . Photo : Kym Smith / News Corp Australia
The bigger picture
Aggregate rankings model offers broader view of university performance .
By Wade Zaglas
As Australia continues its slow and
difficult recovery from COVID-19 , the status of our universities will be increasingly important in attracting and retaining international students once borders fully reopen .
In a recent article for The Conversation , UNSW president and vice-chancellor Professor Ian Jacobs and UNSW deputy vice-chancellor Professor Nicholas Fisk highlighted that our university sector has benefited from nearly three decades of unbroken growth and geopolitical stability . However , both consider Australia ’ s high number of international students as “ the standout contribution ” to the sector .
Considering Australia ’ s relatively low population in contrast to other developed countries , it is remarkable that only the US can boast a bigger international student cohort in absolute terms . This is testament to the reputation and status many Australian universities have built up over the years .
Of course , university rankings help to build and sustain status , a quality many international students and their families prioritise most when considering their university options .
But as the UNSW academics assert , a proliferation of different global rankings has created a level of confusion , with each ranking system prioritising a different performance measure and thus ranking the same university differently .
So , which rankings model is best ? And how can that be determined ?
For Fisk and Jacobs , a solution to this problem is the newly developed Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities ( ARTU ). Conceived in 2019 by a team led by Fisk and Daniel Owens , executive director ( Research ) at UNSW , and further developed late last year , the academics argue that the model “ overcomes the flaws of singling out performance in any one ranking ”.
Simply put , the ARTU “ broadens the scope of assessment ”, taking into account a range of performance measures , including research citations , academic reputation and research impact , as well as other key qualitative and quantitative measures , such as teaching quality and graduate salaries . The new model also helps to negate the “ inherent imperfections ” of considering only one individual ranking system on its own , the academics explain .
“ The ARTU rank is based on the aggregate score for each university in these three rankings ,” Jacobs told Campus Review .
“ So , a university scoring 21 , 30 and 29 respectively in the three rankings would have an aggregate score of 70 . Universities are then ranked in order of their aggregate score and this aggregate ranking is available on the ARTU website .”
The three mainstream ranking or “ scoring ” systems included in the ARTU are considered to be the most influential in the world : Quacquarelli Symonds ( QS ), Times Higher Education ( THE ) and Academic Ranking of World Universities ( ARWU ), ensuring the most
authoritative comparisons . By “ condensing ” these three ranking systems and assessing a broader range of performance measures , Fisk and Jacobs believe the ARTU “ gives a single broad overview of a university ’ s position ”.
And , according to the UNSW academics , the ARTU rankings model shows Australia ’ s universities are in better shape than perhaps ever before , with Australia boasting seven universities in the top 100 globally , equating to seven per cent of the world ’ s top universities .
The ARTU also shines a light on other key achievements , such as the fact that Australia now has 13 universities in the top 200 globally , up from eight just two years ago . Additionally , as well as ranking fourth in the world in absolute terms ( behind the US , the UK and Germany ), on a per population basis Australia ranks second only to the Netherlands for nations with more than 10 million people .
Both Fisk and Jacobs emphasise that , while “ rankings are not perfect ”, they are “ the best surrogate measure of global standing that we have and they are here to stay , whether we like them or loathe them ”.
For instance , in a point brought home by Australian National University vicechancellor Professor Brian Schmidt in the Sydney Morning Herald last year , rankings do not assess or indeed support many institutions ’ missions .
“ Everyone says [ rankings ] don ’ t matter , but they do ,” Schmidt told the SMH .
“ I think most vice-chancellors , certainly around the world that I know , agree with me . They really do worry about the distortionary effect on our missions and the choices we make .”
For example , Schmidt said that investing in First Nations studies resulted in ANU ’ s rankings going backwards . The ANU vice-chancellor also said the companies that develop the major rankings arbitrarily prioritise science and engineering while overlooking a host of other performance indicators , including humanities research , teaching quality , and disciplines such as local literature and history .
“ No ranking method is perfect and there are many characteristics of universities not captured or poorly captured by the rankings , but ... rankings are here to stay whether we like them or not ,” Jacobs told Campus Review . ■
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