IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/compst/v36y2021i2d10.1007_s00180-020-01033-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comprehensive world university ranking based on ranking aggregation

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Zhang

    (College of Systems Engineering, National University of Defense Technology)

  • Yu Xiao

    (College of Systems Engineering, National University of Defense Technology)

  • Jun Wu

    (Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai
    Changsha University)

  • Xin Lu

    (College of Systems Engineering, National University of Defense Technology)

Abstract

Many university rankings have been proposed in recent decades. The remarkable divergence among various rankings leads to confusion for decision-makers. In this paper, we propose to generate a comprehensive world university ranking by aggregating existing individual university rankings. We present a new graph-based rank aggregation method by defining a competition graph of universities, in which each node represents a university and each directed edge represents an outranking relation between two universities. We propose to measure the quality of a university by the out-in degree ratio based on which we rank all universities. Moreover, We evaluate the effectiveness of our comprehensive world university ranking from the perspectives of normality and impartiality, respectively. It is shown that the aggregated ranking will be applied as a blend integrating all the information from individual university rankings and can efficiently eliminate the outliers and regional partiality as a “smoother”.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Zhang & Yu Xiao & Jun Wu & Xin Lu, 2021. "Comprehensive world university ranking based on ranking aggregation," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 1139-1152, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:compst:v:36:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s00180-020-01033-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s00180-020-01033-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00180-020-01033-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00180-020-01033-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murat Perit Çakır & Cengiz Acartürk & Oğuzhan Alaşehir & Canan Çilingir, 2015. "A comparative analysis of global and national university ranking systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 813-848, June.
    2. Domingo Docampo, 2013. "Reproducibility of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities results," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 567-587, February.
    3. Saisana, Michaela & d'Hombres, Béatrice & Saltelli, Andrea, 2011. "Rickety numbers: Volatility of university rankings and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 165-177, February.
    4. Gualberto Buela-Casal & Olga Gutiérrez-Martínez & María Paz Bermúdez-Sánchez & Oscar Vadillo-Muñoz, 2007. "Comparative study of international academic rankings of universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 71(3), pages 349-365, June.
    5. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2005. "Fatal attraction: Conceptual and methodological problems in the ranking of universities by bibliometric methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 62(1), pages 133-143, January.
    6. Wade D. Cook & Moshe Kress, 1990. "A Data Envelopment Model for Aggregating Preference Rankings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(11), pages 1302-1310, November.
    7. Griffith, Amanda & Rask, Kevin, 2007. "The influence of the US News and World Report collegiate rankings on the matriculation decision of high-ability students: 1995-2004," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 244-255, April.
    8. Henk F. Moed, 2017. "A critical comparative analysis of five world university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 967-990, February.
    9. Ellen Hazelkorn, 2007. "The Impact of League Tables and Ranking Systems on Higher Education Decision Making," Higher Education Management and Policy, OECD Publishing, vol. 19(2), pages 1-24.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daraio, Cinzia & Bonaccorsi, Andrea & Simar, Léopold, 2015. "Rankings and university performance: A conditional multidimensional approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(3), pages 918-930.
    2. Vicente Safón, 2019. "Inter-ranking reputational effects: an analysis of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE) reputational relationship," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 897-915, November.
    3. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Elvira Curiel-Marin & Manuel Torralbo-Rodríguez & Mónica Vallejo-Ruiz, 2018. "Questioning the Shanghai Ranking methodology as a tool for the evaluation of universities: an integrative review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2069-2083, September.
    4. Mehdi Rhaiem & Nabil Amara, 2020. "Determinants of research efficiency in Canadian business schools: evidence from scholar-level data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 53-99, October.
    5. Csató, László & Tóth, Csaba, 2020. "University rankings from the revealed preferences of the applicants," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(1), pages 309-320.
    6. Murat Perit Çakır & Cengiz Acartürk & Oğuzhan Alaşehir & Canan Çilingir, 2015. "A comparative analysis of global and national university ranking systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 813-848, June.
    7. Csóka, Imola & Sebestyén, Géza & Neszveda, Gábor, 2019. "Tudományos teljesítmény mérése a magyar felsőoktatás gazdasági képzéseiben [Measuring scientific performance of business and economics faculties in Hungarian higher education]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 751-770.
    8. Osmo Kivinen & Juha Hedman & Kalle Artukka, 2017. "Scientific publishing and global university rankings. How well are top publishing universities recognized?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 679-695, July.
    9. Angel Meseguer-Martinez & Alejandro Ros-Galvez & Alfonso Rosa-Garcia & Jose Antonio Catalan-Alarcon, 2019. "Online video impact of world class universities," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(3), pages 519-532, September.
    10. Zsolt Tibor Kosztyán & Beáta Fehérvölgyi & Tibor Csizmadia & Kinga Kerekes, 2021. "Investigating collaborative and mobility networks: reflections on the core missions of universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3551-3564, April.
    11. Olcay, Gokcen Arkali & Bulu, Melih, 2017. "Is measuring the knowledge creation of universities possible?: A review of university rankings," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 153-160.
    12. Berlemann, Michael & Haucap, Justus, 2015. "Which factors drive the decision to opt out of individual research rankings? An empirical study of academic resistance to change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1108-1115.
    13. Jacek Pietrucha, 2018. "Country-specific determinants of world university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1129-1139, March.
    14. Kristof Witte & Lenka Hudrlikova, 2013. "What about excellence in teaching? A benevolent ranking of universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 337-364, July.
    15. Domingo Docampo & Lawrence Cram, 2019. "Highly cited researchers: a moving target," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 1011-1025, March.
    16. Saisana, Michaela & d'Hombres, Béatrice & Saltelli, Andrea, 2011. "Rickety numbers: Volatility of university rankings and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 165-177, February.
    17. Manuel Muñoz-Suárez & Natividad Guadalajara & José M. Osca, 2020. "A Comparative Analysis between Global University Rankings and Environmental Sustainability of Universities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-19, July.
    18. D. Docampo & D. Egret & L. Cram, 2015. "The effect of university mergers on the Shanghai ranking," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 104(1), pages 175-191, July.
    19. Dmitry Kochetkov, 2023. "Review of the Russian-language academic literature on university rankings and a global perspective," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. Jeongeun Kim, 2018. "The Functions and Dysfunctions of College Rankings: An Analysis of Institutional Expenditure," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(1), pages 54-87, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:compst:v:36:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s00180-020-01033-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.