A new perspective on university ranking methods worldwide and in the Arab region: facts and suggestions

ABSTRACT

This study reviews three university ranking methodologies: Quacquarelli Sysmonds University Rankings, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities. It also aims to suggest two new methodologies, one for World University Ranking and one for Arab University Ranking, and to propose data collecting tools for the new indicators if any. An online survey which elicited quantitative data and two focus-group discussions which produced qualitative data were used. The results of the survey show that the importance of some indicators as ranked by the respondents was similar to those found in the three international ranking systems, while others were not. The focus-groups suggested new weights for the indicators, since ranking systems overlook the differences between the institutions, resulting in unfair assessment of universities in the Arab region. Thus, new sub-indicators were proposed for both ranking systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• quality assurance
• Arab region university ranking
• Quacquarelli Sysmonds University Rankings
• Times Higher Education World University Rankings
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor-in-chief for their useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).