[yvonne]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/uni...kings.html

See all those schools with the words federal or national in their names? Those are public universities, as are a good many others. Kindly dispense with this provincial "best public university in the world" nonsense.

[yvonne]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/uni...kings.html

See all those schools with the words federal or national in their names? Those are public universities, as are a good many others. Kindly dispense with this provincial "best public university in the world" nonsense.

[Hulk01]

Not disagreeing with your conclusion, but how is this list a vote of confidence for public universities?  That doesn't look like a strong showing to me, Y.

[Hulk01]

Not disagreeing with your conclusion, but how is this list a vote of confidence for public universities?  That doesn't look like a strong showing to me, Y.

[CTcard]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/uni...kings.html

See all those schools with the words federal or national in their names? Those are public universities, as are a good many others. Kindly dispense with this provincial "best public university in the world" nonsense.

I know not to take this too seriously, but just a quick point ...
Essentially every university on this list not from the United States is a public university. There are very few good private universities in the rest of the world.

[CTcard]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/uni...kings.html

See all those schools with the words federal or national in their names? Those are public universities, as are a good many others. Kindly dispense with this provincial "best public university in the world" nonsense.

I know not to take this too seriously, but just a quick point ...
Essentially every university on this list not from the United States is a public university. There are very few good private universities in the rest of the world.

[fullmetal]

Whoa, Tsinghua beat out Peking?  That's got to chap some hides over there...

[fullmetal]

Whoa, Tsinghua beat out Peking?  That's got to chap some hides over there...

[yvonne]

Yep, pretty much every university in the UK is publicly funded, except the assets don't belong to the government, and the staff are not civil servants. The public/private distinction matters only in the U.S. 

I just get tired of reading that drivel from the folks on the other side of the Bay.

[yvonne]

Yep, pretty much every university in the UK is publicly funded, except the assets don't belong to the government, and the staff are not civil servants. The public/private distinction matters only in the U.S. 

I just get tired of reading that drivel from the folks on the other side of the Bay.

[CTcard]

I just get tired of reading that drivel from the folks on the other side of the Bay.

Well their drivel has support elsewhere, including some somewhat more reputable (in my world) rankings.
http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html

Of course that is no reason not to ridicule them at every opportunity.

[CTcard]

I just get tired of reading that drivel from the folks on the other side of the Bay.

Well their drivel has support elsewhere, including some somewhat more reputable (in my world) rankings.
http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html

Of course that is no reason not to ridicule them at every opportunity.

[yvonne]

Valid if a university's sole purpose is technical research. That was debatable a decade ago, but it seems the world is moving in that direction.

[yvonne]

Valid if a university's sole purpose is technical research. That was debatable a decade ago, but it seems the world is moving in that direction.

[CTcard]

Valid if a university's sole purpose is technical research.

non-technical research = ?


-----------
Yep, the Shanghai rankings are research based - which is only one thing a university does. The advantage of this ranking is that at least it defined what it wanted to rank, and their data is believed to be more or less accurate. Neither is the case for many other ranking systems. The disadvantage is obvious - as you point out.

[CTcard]

Valid if a university's sole purpose is technical research.

non-technical research = ?


-----------
Yep, the Shanghai rankings are research based - which is only one thing a university does. The advantage of this ranking is that at least it defined what it wanted to rank, and their data is believed to be more or less accurate. Neither is the case for many other ranking systems. The disadvantage is obvious - as you point out.

[yvonne]

Social sciences, archaeology, humanities, arts. Some say Elaine Pagels, in the Religion Department at Priceton, made ground-breaking discoveries, for example.

[yvonne]

Social sciences, archaeology, humanities, arts. Some say Elaine Pagels, in the Religion Department at Priceton, made ground-breaking discoveries, for example.

[CTcard]

Social sciences, archaeology, humanities, arts. Some say Elaine Pagels, in the Religion Department at Priceton, made ground-breaking discoveries, for example.

Got it.

At least some of the categories you cite are covered in the Shanghai rankings, if not necessarily weighed to the extent you would find appropriate.

One place they look for publications is in the Social Science Citation Index - and their is a note that they weigh papers there at a factor of two. Archaeology publishes in Nature and Science - featured (too) prominently in the Shanghai numbers.

It's true that the humanities are pretty much ignored here, with somebody like Elaine Pagels a good example. It would appear she would bring little to no credit to Princeton despite being extremely notable in her field. The prizes she has won (MacArthur, National Book Award) are not on the list they consider. Since she publishes books in a field that publishes books, I doubt she would would rate as a highly cited scholar or have many publications in the indices listed.

So, the treatment of the humanities is a major weakness of the Shanghai rankings. It isn't necessarily a weakness of that school in the east bay. The Times (London) also does rankings, and they have the East Bayers at #9 in Arts and Humanities broadly - behind three public-ish home-country favorites and the usual American private schools (with Stanford #1). There are other versions of this as well, of course.
https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/w...ection/asc

[CTcard]

Social sciences, archaeology, humanities, arts. Some say Elaine Pagels, in the Religion Department at Priceton, made ground-breaking discoveries, for example.

Got it.

At least some of the categories you cite are covered in the Shanghai rankings, if not necessarily weighed to the extent you would find appropriate.

One place they look for publications is in the Social Science Citation Index - and their is a note that they weigh papers there at a factor of two. Archaeology publishes in Nature and Science - featured (too) prominently in the Shanghai numbers.

It's true that the humanities are pretty much ignored here, with somebody like Elaine Pagels a good example. It would appear she would bring little to no credit to Princeton despite being extremely notable in her field. The prizes she has won (MacArthur, National Book Award) are not on the list they consider. Since she publishes books in a field that publishes books, I doubt she would would rate as a highly cited scholar or have many publications in the indices listed.

So, the treatment of the humanities is a major weakness of the Shanghai rankings. It isn't necessarily a weakness of that school in the east bay. The Times (London) also does rankings, and they have the East Bayers at #9 in Arts and Humanities broadly - behind three public-ish home-country favorites and the usual American private schools (with Stanford #1). There are other versions of this as well, of course.
https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/w...ection/asc