‘University rankings a measure of wealth rather than quality’
Dublin Institute of Technology research and enterprise director Prof Ellen Hazelkorn made her comments as University College Cork comes under scrutiny for its efforts to improve its position in a top higher education league table.
It has been placed on a watchlist for any unusual scoring patterns in the academic survey that makes up 40% of marks that determine the QS World University Rankings.
The organisers contacted UCC this week after learning some staff sent international colleagues an email, suggested to them by their president Dr Michael Murphy, highlighting the importance it places on an improved academic reputation and asking them to sign up for the QS survey.
Prof Hazelkorn believes ranking systems reflect more on a college’s wealth than necessarily the quality of its teaching or research.
With peer review and academics’ perceptions of the best universities forming a high proportion of scores on the most dominant rankings, she said it was hugely subjective and very questionable.
“It’s fraught with problems, people couldn’t possibly know enough about institutions to actually make a fair judgment,” she said.
“What UCC have done is more direct than what other institutions are doing in different ways. But, in the US for example, all the universities send each other their fancy catalogues just before the rankings come out.”
UCC believes it has acted within the rules and said academics wouldl use their judgment and not be influenced by the letter.
Prof Hazelkorn said it was very concerning that profound changes were being made to higher education in some countries based on ranking results, and said the Government and Higher Education Authority here were to be applauded for not pushing things in that direction.
“These things don’t measure quality, they measure wealth, and universities should never be slaves to them. There are a lot of things that could be done about positioning yourself [higher] but institutions need to get on with their main business, it’s not the be-all and end-all.”
At an EU presidency conference on higher education in January, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said a narrow focus on rankings threatened the pursuit of excellence in universities. He was launching an alternative EU ranking system which aims to include wider measures, of more interest to employers, than those in existing systems.
