University Rankings for Higher Education Institutes in Thailand.

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a brief assessment of world university ranking systems and their indicators, focusing on the two most reliable and well-recognized ranking systems – QS University Rankings (QS) and Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings; and recommends these as the most appropriate for higher education institutes in Thailand to follow as a reference. QS and THE have kept their indicators and weightings relatively static over the past three years and reflect the many factors that are important to developing a world-class university. Thai universities should adopt these university ranking indicators into their world-class initiative strategies. Finally, this paper draws conclusions about the fifteen indicators that Thai universities should focus on to improve their quality and rankings.

Keywords: University rankings, Indicators, World-class university

INTRODUCTION

Several organizations rank uni- versities, including Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rank- ings (QS), Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), SCImago In- stitutions Rankings (SIR), Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), U.S. News & World Report, CWTS Leiden Rank- ing (Netherlands), and four interna- tional colleges and universities. With many choices, universities and others interested in rankings typically select one reliable and well-recognized rank- ing system to follow as a reference. In recent years, most Thai universities have used either the QS or THE rank- ings as their reference; stemming from when these two popular rankings used to be jointly published. Although published separately since 2009, their methodologies remain similar. THE is a leading university ranking orga- nization and its World University Rankings are globally recognized by students, researchers, governments bodies, funders, and, of course, uni- versities themselves (Elsevier, 2016). Research performance data account for a significant proportion of THE’s overall rankings, with a weight of 38.5% spread across citations (30%), research productivity (6%), and inter- national collaboration (2.5%).

Both QS and Times Higher Ed- ucation announce their Asia rank- ings in June and world rankings in September, while QS announces its rankings by subject in March and Times Higher Education in Septem- ber. (The most recent results of the world, Asian and subject rankings of QS and Times Higher Education are presented in the appendix.)

Table 1. QS Rankings indicators.

UNIVERSITY RANKINGS INDICATORS

Tables 1 (QS) and 2 (THE) show the ranking indicators and weightings for the past three years.

QS and Times Higher Education use many similar indicators, although the terminology varies somewhat – for example, reputation survey, facul- ty-to-student ratio, papers per faculty, research productivity, citations, in- ternational faculty, and international students. However, some of the indi-cators are unique to each ranking sys- tem – employer reputation, inbound exchange, outbound exchange, and faculty with Ph.D are unique to QS; while doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio, doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio, institutional income, research income, international collaboration, and industry income are unique to Times Higher Education. These dif- ferences are why older universities well known to peers tend to rank higher than newer universities with

Table 2. Times Higher Education (THE) rankings indicators.

QS, and universities that emphasize technology transfer to industry tend to rank higher with Times Higher Education.

QS has not adjusted its indicators or weights for the World University Rankings in three years. However, they did add one new indicator (fac- ulty with Ph.D. at 5%) and adjust- ed other weightings for their Asia University Rankings in 2016-17, increasing the weight of the employer reputation indicator from 10% to 20% and reducing the weights of the faculty-per- student, paper-per-facul- ty, and citations-per-paper indicators by 5%.

The Times Higher Education World Rankings made even few- er changes to their indicators and weights over the past three years, and likewise only to the Asia rankings system. They reduced the weight of the research reputation survey by 3% and, correspondingly, increased the weights of the research income and research productivity indicators by 1.5% each. In addition, they reduced the weight of the teacher reputation survey by 5% (from 15 to 10%), adding this to the industry income indicator (from 2.5 to 7.5%).

Significantly, Times Higher Edu- cation changed the citation database for its World and Asia rankings in 2016-17 from ISI to Scopus, bring- ing it in line with QS. Furthermore, because Times Higher Education included books and book chapters for the first time, more common with the arts, humanities, and social sciences, research in these fields now carries more weight.

Salmi (2009), based on an assess- ment of indicators, chose the Times Higher Education rankings as the most relevant in developing its guide- lines for the Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities, and indicat- ed that there are:

…three complementary sets of fac- tors at play in top universities: (a) a high concentration of talent (fac- ulty and students), (b) abundant resources to offer a rich learning environment and to conduct ad- vanced research, and (c) favorable governance features that encourage strategic vision, innovation, and flexibility and that enable insti- tutions to make decisions and to manage resources without being encumbered by bureaucracy.

As the QS rankings emphasizes survey-based, reputation indicators more than THE, it may be more susceptible to reputational bias; in addition, changes in perceived reputa- tion may lag changes in performance metrics. THE expanded its rankings from the top-200 to the top-400 institutions in 2015. QS has ranked a top-600 since its inception in 2010.

WORLD UNIVERSITY RANK- INGS BY SUBJECT

QS uses four components to rank universities by subject:

1. Academic reputation
2. Employer reputation
3. Research citations per paper
4. H-index (measures both the productivity and impact of published research)

The QS World University Rank- ings by Subject weight the indicators for each subject differently, based on the different publication rates in each field. (QS, 2017).

The Times Higher Education University Ranking by Subject uses five main components, similar to its World and Asia University Rankings, as follows:

1. Teaching
2. Research
3. Citations
4. International outlook
5. Industry income

As with QS, Times Higher Edu- cation also weights the indicators for each subject differently, due to the different research cultures and pub- lication rates across academic fields. (THE, 2017).

CONCLUSION

QS and Times Higher Educa- tion have kept their indicators and weightings relatively static over the past three years. These indicators are not simply for ranking purposes, but reflect the many factors that are important to developing a world-class university. If universities focus on the following, their quality will improve and the ranking will follow:

• Academic Reputation (by sur- vey) – Universities must find ways to publicize themselves to foreign researchers and develop positive at- titudes towards their universities, as well as publicize themselves to well-known editors of prestigious journals.

• Employer Reputation (by sur- vey) – The quality of students must be developed so that future employers are satisfied with a university’s graduates as employees.
• Faculty-Student ratio (staff-to- student ratio) – More staff per student tends to correlate with higher quality teaching and learning.
• Doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio – A higher doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio indicates more emphasis on graduate studies and research.
• Faculty with Ph.D. (doctor- ates-awarded–to–academic-staff ratio) The more doctorates on the teaching staff, the higher its education level and research ability.
• Papers per Faculty (research productivity) – The more published the faculty, the more innovative and research-oriented the university.
• Citations per Paper – The more citations per paper, the more innova- tive or groundbreaking the research.
• Citations per Faculty – The more citations per faculty, the more widespread is the innovative research across the university.
• H-index – This measures both the productivity and impact of pub- lished research; the higher the H-in- dex, the higher the quality of the research output.
• International Faculty (interna- tional-to-domestic-staff ratio) – A university’s ability to attract interna- tional faculty reflects quality and more global or world-class offerings.
• International Students (inter- national-to-domestic-student ratio)

• Likewise, the more international the student body, the more diverse its perspectives and the more global the university.
• Inbound Exchange – This indi- cates an institution’s success in attract- ing students from overseas, important for diversity, broader perspectives, and quality.
• Outbound Exchange – The more student outbound exchange, the more a university’s student body gains global perspective.
• International collaboration – Through international research col- laboration, a university’s researchers and students gain access to a larger and more global talent pool.
• Industry income - This reflects a university’s ability to attract funding from and collaborate with the private sector.

Thai Universities should adopt the World Bank’s Guidelines of Estab- lishing World-Class Universities and University Ranking Indicators into their world-class initiative strategies. Chiang Mai University (CMU) launched its World-Class Initiative Strategy in 2013 organized around the five groupings of THE indica- tors – teaching, research, citations, international outlook, and industry income. However, CMU has yet to define performance indicators for the teaching and industry income categories. To improve research and citations, CMU has launched and/or focused on several special programs, including: Adjunct Professorship Project, contracting retired researchers to publish, post-doctoral fellowships, publishing special issues of the Chiang Mai University Journal of Natural Science, and further developing the university’s Centers of Excellence. These programs helped the university to dramatically increase its research output; one measure, publications in Scopus, increased from 1,023 in 2013 to 1,519 in 2016, an increase of nearly 50%. Yet, this has not been enough to move CMU within the top-400 in the world rankings as targeted. CMU needs to focus on other indicators as well, such as faculty-student ratio and industry income.

REFERENCES

Elsevier. (2016). University rankings research performance report for customers university

Rayanakorn, M. (2011). Global rank- ing of higher education insti- tutions, Chiang Mai Journal of Science, 38(2), i-iv

Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class univer- sities, The World Bank. doi: 10.1596/978-0-8213-7865-6

QS. (2017). QS world university rank- ings. (http://www.topuniversities. com/qs-world-university-rank- ings). Accessed 24/1/2017.

QS. (2017). QS World university rankings by subject. (http:// www.iu.qs.com/university-rank- ings/subject-tables). Accessed 24/1/2017.

THE. (2017). THE world univer- sity rankings. (https://www. timeshighereducation.com/ world-university-rankings). Ac- cessed 24/1/2017.

APPENDIX – Thai University Rankings

Table 1. QS and Times Higher Education (THE) University Rankings 2016-17 of Thai universities.

Table 2. QS World University Rankings by subject 2016 of Thai universities.

Source: http://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings/2016

Table 3. Times Higher Education World University Rankings by subject 2016-17 of Thai universities

Source: www.timeshighereducation.com