IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v124y2020i3d10.1007_s11192-020-03575-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-defined information indices: application to the case of university rankings

Author

Listed:
  • A. Ferrer-Sapena

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

  • E. Erdogan

    (Marmara University)

  • E Jiménez-Fernández

    (Universitat Jaume I)

  • E. A. Sánchez-Pérez

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

  • F. Peset

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

Abstract

University rankings are now relevant decision-making tools for both institutional and private purposes in the management of higher education and research. However, they are often computed only for a small set of institutions using some sophisticated parameters. In this paper we present a new and simple algorithm to calculate an approximation of these indices using some standard bibliometric variables, such as the number of citations from the scientific output of universities and the number of articles per quartile. To show our technique, some results for the ARWU index are presented. From a technical point of view, our technique, which follows a standard machine learning scheme, is based on the interpolation of two classical extrapolation formulas for Lipschitz functions defined in metric spaces—the so-called McShane and Whitney formulae—. In the model, the elements of the metric space are the universities, the distances are measured using some data that can be extracted from the Incites database, and the Lipschitz function is the ARWU index.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Ferrer-Sapena & E. Erdogan & E Jiménez-Fernández & E. A. Sánchez-Pérez & F. Peset, 2020. "Self-defined information indices: application to the case of university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2443-2456, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03575-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03575-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03575-6
    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/s11192-020-03575-6?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. Cinzia Daraio & Andrea Bonaccorsi, 2017. "Beyond university rankings? Generating new indicators on universities by linking data in open platforms," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(2), pages 508-529, February.
    2. 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.
    3. J. M. Calabuig & H. Falciani & E. A. S'anchez-P'erez, 2019. "Dreaming machine learning: Lipschitz extensions for reinforcement learning on financial markets," Papers 1907.05697, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2020.
    4. Feiheng Luo & Aixin Sun & Mojisola Erdt & Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar & Yin-Leng Theng, 2018. "Exploring prestigious citations sourced from top universities in bibliometrics and altmetrics: a case study in the computer science discipline," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 1-17, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Isidro F. Aguillo & Judit Bar-Ilan & Mark Levene & José Luis Ortega, 2010. "Comparing university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(1), pages 243-256, October.
    7. Ruth A. Pagell, 2014. "Bibliometrics and University Research Rankings Demystified for Librarians," Springer Books, in: Chuanfu Chen & Ronald Larsen (ed.), Library and Information Sciences, edition 127, pages 137-160, Springer.
    8. Kuang-hua Chen & Pei-yu Liao, 2012. "A comparative study on world university rankings: a bibliometric survey," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(1), pages 89-103, July.
    9. Anthony F. J. Raan & Thed N. Leeuwen & Martijn S. Visser, 2011. "Severe language effect in university rankings: particularly Germany and France are wronged in citation-based rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(2), pages 495-498, August.
    10. M. L. Bougnol & J. H. Dulá, 2013. "A mathematical model to optimize decisions to impact multi-attribute rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(2), pages 785-796, May.
    11. Marina Dobrota & Milica Bulajic & Lutz Bornmann & Veljko Jeremic, 2016. "A new approach to the QS university ranking using the composite I-distance indicator: Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(1), pages 200-211, January.
    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. 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.
    2. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio, 2014. "Beyond university rankings ? Generating new indicators on European universities by linking data in open platforms," DIAG Technical Reports 2014-12, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    3. Ibrahim Shehatta & Khalid Mahmood, 2016. "Correlation among top 100 universities in the major six global rankings: policy implications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1231-1254, November.
    4. Milica Maricic & Jose A. Egea & Veljko Jeremic, 2019. "A Hybrid Enhanced Scatter Search—Composite I-Distance Indicator (eSS-CIDI) Optimization Approach for Determining Weights Within Composite Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 497-537, July.
    5. 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.
    6. Marlo M Vernon & E Andrew Balas & Shaher Momani, 2018. "Are university rankings useful to improve research? A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Massucci, Francesco Alessandro & Docampo, Domingo, 2019. "Measuring the academic reputation through citation networks via PageRank," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 185-201.
    9. Feiheng Luo & Aixin Sun & Mojisola Erdt & Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar & Yin-Leng Theng, 2018. "Exploring prestigious citations sourced from top universities in bibliometrics and altmetrics: a case study in the computer science discipline," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 1-17, January.
    10. 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.
    11. Telcs, András & Kosztyán, Zsolt Tibor & Banász, Zsuzsanna & Csányi, Vivien Valéria, 2019. "Felsőoktatási ligák, parciális rangsorok képzése biklaszterezési eljárásokkal [How to rate higher education systems partial rankings using bi-clustering methods]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 905-931.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Vicente Safón, 2013. "What do global university rankings really measure? The search for the X factor and the X entity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(2), pages 223-244, November.
    15. Jacek Pietrucha, 2018. "Country-specific determinants of world university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1129-1139, March.
    16. Hira Khan & Khairul Anuar Mohammad Shah & Jamshed Khalid & Majed Ageel A Harnmal & Anees Janee Ali, 2020. "Globalization and University Rankings: Consequences and Prospects," International Journal of Higher Education, Sciedu Press, vol. 9(6), pages 190-190, December.
    17. F. Cugnata & G. Perucca & S. Salini, 2017. "Bayesian networks and the assessment of universities' value added," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(10), pages 1785-1806, July.
    18. 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.
    19. Shahryar Rahnamayan & Sedigheh Mahdavi & Kalyanmoy Deb & Azam Asilian Bidgoli, 2020. "Ranking Multi-Metric Scientific Achievements Using a Concept of Pareto Optimality," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-46, June.
    20. Meng-Chen Zhang & Bo-Wei Zhu & Chao-Meng Huang & Gwo-Hshiung Tzeng, 2021. "Systematic Evaluation Model for Developing Sustainable World-Class Universities: An East Asian Perspective," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-20, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reinforcement learning; Metric space; Lipschitz extension; Shanghai; ARWU; University ranking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C60 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - General
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • C88 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Other Computer Software

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03575-6. 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.