Five varsities move up in world rankings

PETALING JAYA: Universiti Malaya (UM) is leading the charge of Malaysian institutions in the QS World University Rankings 2018, moving up by 19 places to 114th position

Mashup indices of development

Countries are increasingly being ranked by some new"mashup index of development,"defined as a composite index for which existing theory and practice provides little or no guidance to its design. Thus the index has an unusually large number of moving parts, which the producer is essentially free to set. The parsimony of these indices is often appealing -- collapsing multiple dimensions into just one, yielding unambiguous country rankings, and possibly reducing concerns about measurement errors in the component series. But the meaning, interpretation and robustness of these indices are often unclear. If they are to be properly understood and used, more attention needs to be given to their conceptual foundations, the tradeoffs they embody, the contextual factors relevant to country performance, and the sensitivity of the implied rankings to changing the data and weights. In short, clearer warning signs are needed for users. But even then, nagging doubts remain about the value-added of mashup indices, and their policy relevance, relative to the"dashboard"alternative of monitoring the components separately. Future progress in devising useful new composite indices of development will require that theory catches up with measurement practice.Economic Theory&Research,Information Security&Privacy,Governance Indicators,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Debt Markets

Measuring the Impact of Universal Pre-School Education and Care on Literacy Performance Scores

The objective of this paper is to simulate the effects of universal pre-school education and care (PSEC) on reading performance scores and educational inequalities in the UK and Sweden. We utilize the PISA 2009 data and start by estimating a fixed effects multilevel model for each country in order to determine the returns to PSEC attendance. Then we simulate the effects of universal PSEC provision using counterfactual data. More precisely, after estimating the multilevel model, we progressively universalize PSEC participation starting with the lowest economic, cultural and social status (ESCS) decile and moving up to reach the top decile. At each stage of the universalisation process we compute the average predicted performance scores for each ESCS decile and for each country as well as their dispersions. This allows us to measure the change in average predicted literacy scores and the change in the level of inequality. Our findings show that all social groups benefit from universalizing PSEC with the lowest groups getting the highest additional benefits from universalisation. Further, the international rankings of both Sweden and the UK improve after the universalisation of PSEC. The UK moves 12 positions up the OECD league table and Sweden moves up seven positions. We also find that inequalities in test scores drop until reaching a minimum when the lower seven ESCS deciles are attending PSEC and then starts to increase again. In conclusion, our findings clearly show that universalising PSEC would be an effective policy instrument that boosts educational performances while reducing inequalities in their distribution

Utah Women in STEM Education: A 2019 Update

According to a recent article in Utah Business Magazine, Utah had the strongest job growth in the nation in 2018, with no signs of slowing down. Forbes ranked Utah second in their 2018 Best States for Business scorecard, moving it up from third the previous year. Given the increase in the number of high-tech firms in Utah, it should come as no surprise that many jobs are based in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. In fact, Utah contains three of the top 100 best cities for STEM jobs in the United States, including Salt Lake City (#8), Provo (#26), and Ogden (#41). These rankings are based on a combined score that includes professional opportunities, STEM-friendliness, and quality of life. Provo ranked first in the nation for the single category of “Highest STEM Employment Growth.

Career Transitions and Trajectories: A Case Study in Computing

From artificial intelligence to network security to hardware design, it is well-known that computing research drives many important technological and societal advancements. However, less is known about the long-term career paths of the people behind these innovations. What do their careers reveal about the evolution of computing research? Which institutions were and are the most important in this field, and for what reasons? Can insights into computing career trajectories help predict employer retention? In this paper we analyze several decades of post-PhD computing careers using a large new dataset rich with professional information, and propose a versatile career network model, R^3, that captures temporal career dynamics. With R^3 we track important organizations in computing research history, analyze career movement between industry, academia, and government, and build a powerful predictive model for individual career transitions. Our study, the first of its kind, is a starting point for understanding computing research careers, and may inform employer recruitment and retention mechanisms at a time when the demand for specialized computational expertise far exceeds supply.Comment: To appear in KDD 201

Monotonic Incompatibility Between Electing and Ranking

Borda a proposé une méthode qui attribue des points à chacun des m candidats. Condorcet a proposé une méthode qui attribue des points à chacun des différents m! classements des candidats. La première est plus appropriée pour élire. La seconde est plus appropriée pour classer. Chacune satisfait une certaine monotonie. Leurs monotonies sont incompatiblesChoix social, Borda, Condorcet, monotonie, incompatibilité, élire, classer.

Vertical occupational mobility and its measurement

This paper describes a number of alternative approaches to devising a vertical occupational scale and compares the outcomes of different scales on calculations of occupational mobility. The paper describes the conceptual issues relevant to calculating occupational mobility and documents the measurement error embedded in the choice of measure, as applied to different data sets. The ranking schemes used include SOC (9) major codes ranked by mean occupational hourly earnings, Hope-Goldthorpe collapsed 36-point scores, a 15-category SOC ranking based on educational qualifications, and a 77 category ranking based on 2-digit SOC90 occupations, wage rates, educational qualifications, training and job tenure. These ranking schemes are applied to data from the 1958 NCDS cohort between the ages of 23 to 33 and 33 to 42, and to 1.25 year transitions in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey panel data. The calculations carried out show that variations in the extent of vertical occupational mobility, both upward and downward, had systematic elements. The extent of mobility was found to vary by the composition of the individuals´ data particularly in terms of lifecourse stages and gender, the number of categories in the ranking scheme, attrition in the data and flows out of employment over the mobility period, and changes in labour market conditions over time. However, the sizes of these effects were very variable

Ranking Universities: Criteria and Consequences

This Supplement to 'Higher Education Digest' Number 59 brings together a number of items addressing the issue of university rankings. The first piece explores some of the background to the debate: the impact of rankings, the main criticisms and broader issues of policy and principle. It arose from an initial review of the literature for current research on university league tables and their impact on institutional behaviour undertaken by CHERI and Hobsons Research, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). A brief description of the various strands of this research project follows. One of the weightier volumes on university ranking that has emerged recently is editors Sadlak and Lui’s 'The World-Class University and Ranking: Aiming Beyond', and a summary of this collection of papers is also featured in this supplement. Many of this book’s authors are members of the International Rankings Expert Group (IREG) and one of the Group’s key contributions has been to draw up a set of 'Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions', with the explicit aim of evaluating and improving ranking practice. The Principles are included here as one succinct statement of good practice. But many critics question the very principle of creating hierarchies of institutions, and Ulrich Teichler provides a personal reflection on this subject to conclude this Supplement