World university rankings and subject ranking in engineering and technology (2015-2016): a case for greater transparency

Abstract

There has been a great deal of interest in the ranking of academic and research universities across the world, especially in developing economies including India. Ranking lists are periodically released by many for-profit agencies, including Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). All universities vie for a ranking in them, and wish to be listed in the top 100. These ranking exercises are based partly on hard data and partly on the perception of the university. Ranking helps students choose universities and funding agencies supporting research, and add to the overall reputation of universities. Lack of transparency in providing access to the critical data used in the ranking exercise for public scrutiny/verification has drawn intense criticisms on the accuracy and credibility of the process. In this paper, fallacy of recent ranking exercise carried out by THE is illustrated with a study of two institutions in Asia