The increasing focus on international university rankings reflects the fact
that global competitiveness is ever more driven by knowledge. The ranking systems
condense a vast amount of information and data collected to measure the knowledgeproducing
and talent-catching capacity of universities. Easy-to-recall league tables
facilitate communication to stakeholders and customers. However, ranking systems
emphasise vertical differences between institutions while masking their horizontal
differences. There are enormous differences in methodology in ranking criteria,
weightings, proxies for quality, choice of indicators, data sources, and use of surveys.
The more prominent ranking agencies include the Times Higher Education which
focuses more on international reputation, combining subjective inputs, and quantitative
data. The ARWU focuses exclusively on objective indicators. The validity of some of
these measurements is sometimes questionable, and there appears to be a bias towards
larger institutions which have greater resources and stronger reputations. Nevertheless,
the rankings have highlighted reputational differentiation and intensified competition
for students, faculty, funding and researchers. More importantly, rankings impact on
institutional strategic policy and direction as well as university missions. Increasingly,
the visibility and influence of a global university is measured less by the size of its
physical campus or the importance of its home city, than by its presence and
prominence on the Web. The Webometrics Ranking of Universities offers an
alternative ranking system that rates universities based on their Web presence and
accessibility.
Keywords: Activity, City Ranking, Data sources, Indicators, Inlinks, Maximum
rank difference, Proxies for quality, Ranking analytics, Ranking criteria, Surveys,
Visibility, Webometrics, Weightings.
