What's in a name? The impact of reputation and rankings on the teaching income of English universities

This study examines the impact of universities’ reputation on teaching income and demonstrates how strongly reputation may affect the fees that they can charge. Higher Education is increasingly competitive and international, and institutions are preoccupied with national and international prestige. Research output is demonstrably central to reputation and, specifically, to global rankings, but less has been written about the benefits of high prestige for teaching income and the ability to charge high fees. This article uses English data to show the impact when fees are partially deregulated. Public universities with high rankings in global league tables and on domestic measures can command teaching income per student which is very much higher (in this case typically more than a third) than lower‐prestige institutions. This financial return to prestige further increases universities’ incentives to seek high positions in league tables and establish a reputational brand.     

Student satisfaction,league tables and university applications: Evidence from Britain

We investigate the impact of information about student satisfaction on university choice, using data from the UK's National Student Survey (NSS) and on applications to undergraduate degrees. We show that NSS scores have a small statistically significant effect on applications at the university-subject level. This effect operates via the influence of the NSS on a university's position in separately published, subject-specific league tables, suggesting that information contained in the league table rankings is more salient. The impact of rankings is greater for more able students, for universities with entry standards in the upper-middle tier, and for subject-departments facing more competition.     

The Impact of League Tables on University Application Rates

In the UK, the popular use of league tables in assessing the comparative standing of universities has escalated to such an extent that most UK national newspapers now publish them. A review of literature to date suggests there has been little academic research undertaken to establish the value of such tables or to assess their impact upon student application rates. This paper explores the relationship between league position and application rates in the UK, using rankings from the Sunday Times as an example, with important lessons for higher education across the globe. Results show that in the period when league tables were newly introduced, there was a significant negative association between league table position (ranked from highest to lowest) and the change in application rates (that is, the higher the league position, the faster the growth in applications) an association that subsequently weakened and may have even have reversed. The paper goes on to explore the notion of various divisions within the overall league table, suggesting that there are effectively two 'selecting' divisions, typically choosing from a surplus of applicants, and two 'recruiting' divisions, typically working to avoid an applications shortfall against target numbers.     

加强和改进新时期高校团学活动的思考

高校团学活动是培养青年学生成长成才的重要载体,对学生教育管理发挥着重要的作用。近年来,随着社会环境和高等教育形势的变化,高校团学活动的效果较难满足学生的需求。新时期改进高校团学活动要以广覆盖、基层化、重实效为原则,以注重活动创新、创立特色品牌、加强社团建设为方法,着力提高团学活动质量。     

University Strategy in an Age of Uncertainty: The Effect of Higher Education Funding on Old and New Universities

This paper explores the effects of changes in funding arrangements, and particularly in tuition fees, on universities and their strategic responses to these changes. Using data from interviews with senior managers in four universities, it finds the most prestigious, pre‐1992, university largely unaffected by tuition fees and the others responding to changes in application patterns and intake. However, the effects of tuition fees on university strategy are not easily separated from other changes in the funding of Higher Education, and universities’ strategies were strongly influenced by the need to reduce costs and to generate income. A second major concern of all four universities was quality, both of inputs such as students and staff and of outputs, in degree results and ratings in employability, research, teaching and other activities. Marketing was assuming a position of increasing importance, with universities striving to develop a ‘brand’ to attract students, staff and funding.     

College Rankings as an Interorganizational Dependency: Establishing the Foundation for Strategic and Institutional Accounts

Higher education administrators believe that revenues are linked to college rankings and act accordingly, particularly those at research universities. Although rankings are clearly influential for many schools and colleges, this fundamental assumption has yet to be tested empirically. Drawing on data from multiple resource providers in higher education, we find that the influence of rankings depends on constituencies?? placement in the higher education field. Resource providers who are vulnerable to the status hierarchy of higher education?C?Ccollege administrators, faculty, alumni, and out-of-state students?C?Care significantly influenced by rankings. Those on the periphery of the organizational field, such as foundations and industry, are largely unaffected. Although rankings are designed largely for stakeholders outside of higher education, their strongest influence is on those within the higher education field.     

Language games: University responses to ranking metrics

League tables of universities that measure performance in various ways are now commonplace, with numerous bodies providing their own rankings of how institutions throughout the world are seen to be performing on a range of metrics. This paper uses Lyotard's notion of language games to theorise that universities are regaining some power over being placed on league tables by creating narratives that manipulate their rankings to promote their own strengths. This paper examines the findings of a study involving university responses to global rankings throughout 2016 produced by two major ranking bodies, Times Higher Education and QS Top Universities. The existing literature has established that ranking tables can be used as a vehicle for humiliation and can produce terrors for all those involved. Thus, the significance of this study's findings is in new ways of theorising university responses to appearing on league tables at a time when academia is a high‐stakes activity where institutions’ abilities are measured and reported on at a global scale.     

Higher Education

We attempt to prove the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, a phenomenon of propitious selection may arise on the higher education market: When talented university entrants favor applying to branded universities, the latter are able to automatically build up a positive reputation without having to actually improve the quality of their educational process. We have performed an econometric modeling and regression analysis on a set of data that were obtained from a survey of Moscow university freshmen to show that high school graduates with high scores on the Unified State Exam (USE) really are oriented toward branded universities and that these prospective students believe that obtaining a prestigious degree is even more important than entering any particular profession. Entrants lack complete information about the quality of education at any given university. The analysis of university rankings presented in this article shows that they are unable to completely solve this information asymmetry since they contain signal distortions introduced by their ranking methodology. These rankings primarily prioritize the research activity of faculty members, and they ignore their teaching performance and work with students. Therefore, often universities design their policies in such a way as to privilege the criteria that are used in rankings, and they focus on improving precisely these indicators at the expense of other considerations. As a result, branded universities are able to distinguish themselves from conventional higher education institutions not by actually providing higher quality educational services, but by selecting the best applicants and benefiting from the powerful peer effect of having these students study together. In this way, these universities can produce excellent graduates that ensure their positive reputation in the eyes of employers and at the same time increase their brand value by raising their position in the rankings.     

大学排名的影响与作用分析——以“世界大学学术排名”为例

大学排名已成为一种全球性现象,世界上几乎所有高等教育规模较大的国家都有大学排名存在。由于排名从宏观上提供了大学问可比的、有时甚至是关键的信息,在一定程度上满足了外界和大学自身了解大学的需求,因此能够长期存在并产生巨大影响。本文以上海交通大学高等教育研究所发布的"世界大学学术排名"为案例,分析了大学排名活动在经济全球化和高等教育国际化背景下所发挥的作用和产生的影响.     

The reporting of university league table employability rankings: a critical review

Which are the best and worst universities in the UK for getting a job when you graduate? This question attracts readers of the employability rankings in national league tables. This study critically reviews the employability measure used in the rankings and its subsequent reporting in public news and commentary sources, such as national and local media, student and advisory websites as well as universities and the publishers themselves. A debate that is constrained by a reproduction of the content and apparent neutrality of the employability measure in the tables is revealed. Universities themselves are the most frequent commentators, and echo the content of the tables fairly uncritically. Analysis leads to a consideration that participants in higher education may not be served well by a proliferation of information that can lead to simultaneous over-simplification and obfuscation that does not result in clarity or trust. I will argue that prospective students and their advisers need to review information that is available critically, and that universities individually and collectively should facilitate the production of a more nuanced narrative about graduate career pathways that is not controlled by marketing and metrics.     

Is students’ energy literacy related to their university’s position in a sustainability ranking?

Abstract

University rankings are increasingly important internationally, and in the UK include a sustainability ‘Green League’. However, there is little evidence about experiences of studying in ‘sustainable universities’. We report an empirical study at five universities in varied positions in the Green League, exploring students’ energy literacy, environmental attitudes and perceptions of their institution’s energy-saving efforts. Although the link to energy literacy is not clear, findings suggest that there are significant differences between students’ environmental attitudes at universities placed at different points in the league. In addition, students at higher ranked universities are more positive about their university’s energy-saving efforts, suggesting that these institutions may exhibit more overt manifestations of sustainability. This is important since students report being more likely to choose energy-conservation behaviours if there is visible representation of energy use. The study is the first to attempt a comparison between universities at different positions in a sustainability ranking.     

Global rankings in the Nordic region: challenging the identity of research-intensive universities?

Global university rankings currently attract considerable attention, and it is often assumed that such rankings may cause universities to prioritize activities and outcomes that will have a positive effect in their ranking position. A possible consequence of this could be the spread of a particular model of an “ideal” university. This article tests this assumption through an analysis of a sample of research-intensive universities in the Nordic region. Through document analysis and interviews with institutional leaders and staff from central administration, the study explores whether high-ranked Nordic universities take strategic measures as a response to global rankings, and whether the traditional identities of the universities are changing, as they are influenced and affected by the rankings. The study shows that rankings have a relatively modest impact on decision-making and strategic actions in the Nordic universities studied, and that there are few signs of rankings challenging the existing identities of the universities in this region.     

Performance Indicators and League Tables: A Call for Standards

League tables are weighted combinations of scores on performance indicators. The Times newspaper publishes an annual league table of British universities and the focus of this article is the 1994 table. The scores of ninety-six universities on fourteen performance indicators are ranked using weights which 'reflect the interests of students'. The league table is intended as a resource which allows students to compare universities and therefore it is important for both students and universities that valid inferences can be drawn from its use. The table fails to meet any of the technical requirements which would assure its internal construct validity. The educational measurement literature requires that validity inquiry must include consideration of social consequences and it is demonstrated that the technical shortcomings of the Times table could have significant adverse impact, even in the top ten universities. It is argued that universities should forsake their current stance of non-co-operation and develop a shortlist of demanding technical standards, linked to the educational measurement literature, which could be referenced in effective attacks upon poorly constructed league tables.     

对首届篮球大超联赛常规赛战术运用的分析

通过对首届大学生篮球超级联赛比赛中战术运用统计和对大超联赛常规赛比赛录像的观察，综合分析参加大超联赛各球队在常规赛中比赛各阶段，以及围绕核心球员的战术运用情况，提出要引进高水平教练，更新训练观念，加强基本功和战术训练，提高大超联赛比赛质量的方法和建议。     

Where Are the Global Rankings Leading Us? An Analysis of Recent Methodological Changes and New Developments

This article is based on the analysis of the changes in global university rankings and the new ‘products’ based on rankings data in the period since mid-2011. It is a summary and continuation of the European University Association (EUA)-commissioned report ‘Global University Rankings Their Impact, Report II’ which was launched in April 2013. It covers the changes in the ranking methodologies which have been the most visible in the CWTS Leiden Ranking and Webometrics and which have replaced some indicators with newly designed ones. Changes have been made in other rankings as well, but they are less visible. A new U21 ranking was launched in 2012. It is an attempt to rank national higher education systems rather than individual universities. New rankings by conventional ranking providers have demonstrated that in reputation rankings or reputation indicators the scores drop even more sharply than in the most élitist rankings and therefore can be used for even narrower groups of universities. Several ranking providers have started their own data collections and combine ranking data with the data from the newly established data collections and use them for several multi-indicator classifications or profiling tools. QS has been most productive and has added not only classification and profiling tools, but has also launched a ranking of student cities, and ‘stars’ that universities can obtain. Generally, the rankings’ impact is growing. Let us see where it will bring us. At the same time, some rankings providers have changed language and explain the biases, flaws and misunderstandings created through misuse of rankings or using ranking indicators without proper knowledge.     

基于CRM理论探讨大学管理学生方式

与众多的企业面临客户流失问题一样,大学也面临着生源流失的问题。很多大学将日趋激烈的生源竞争问题聚焦于学校办学质量的差异上,表现为各大学争夺各种排名次序来吸引更多的生源。然而,大学客户的最终价值并未体现出大学排名的效果,越来越多的学生毕业后失业。大学应该致力于优质的学生管理,提高学生满意度和毕业生价值,通过与学生建立良好关系获得长远发展。     

Measuring Quality: A Comparison of U.S. News Rankings and NSSE Benchmarks

College rankings and guidebooks have become big business. The prominent role played by rankings and guidebooks is problematic because the criteria used to evaluate institutions have little to do with the quality of education students receive. Designed as an alternative to college rankings, NSSE assesses student engagement in activities that contribute to learning and success during college. This study compared the NSSE scores for 14 AAU public research universities with their rankings by U.S. News and World Report.     

Measuring the international standing of universities with an application to Australian universities

Globalisation has meant an increased demand from students, employers, and academics for indicators of the international academic standing of universities. In this paper we examine the broad methodological issues involved in measuring international academic standing and apply our conclusions to data for 38 Australian universities. Determinants of the international academic standing of universities are grouped into six broad categories: standing of academic staff, quality of undergraduate intake, quality of undergraduate programs, quality of graduate programs, resources, and peer opinion. The relative importance of each of these attributes is ascertained though a worldwide survey of university presidents, rectors and vice-chancellors plus Australian deans, thus reducing the need for subjective weighting by the researchers. The empirical findings are used to weight quantitative performance data for Australian universities and the results compared with two other recent worldwide rankings of universities.     

公共问责与市场竞争：大学排名难以承受之重

理想的大学排名目的和意义在于,作为服务于公共问责的有益工具,为排名使用者提供关于大学教育质量的可靠信息,同时激励大学提升质量。然而,当前大学排名所采用的大部分指标与院校选择性程度高度相关,为学生提供的大学教育质量信息不充分;且由于大学排名主要是大学教育作为准商品参与市场竞争的产物,指标设计偏重于高等教育对训练人力和发展科研的价值,忽视学生个人发展、教育公平等这些隐蔽但影响深远的社会价值,导致高等教育生态恶化,社会不公加剧。要解决这些问题,＂教育增值＂评价的发展是一个可能的改进途径,但不是根本的解决之道。归根结底,大学排名只是众多评价方式之一,不应也不可能承担质量评价的全部责任。

Abstract：

The idealistic purpose of university ranking is to encourage the self-improvement of universities as well as providing reliable information to users on higher education quality for public accountability.Nevertheless,most current rankings advocate indices related highly to the academic selectivity of institutions,while having nothing to do with quality of their performances.At the same time,since the rankings are mostly pushed by competition among universities as quasi-merchandise,it was inevitable that some social values of higher education as labor training and research were emphasized more than others such as student individual development and social justice,which are more invisible but influential from a long term.The rankings therefore ruined the ecology of higher education competition and made social injustice more serious.Value-added evaluation might bring some light to the darkness of rankings but not the primary way to solve the problem since it is functioned as one of the many measures in quality assessment.     

大学排名与世界一流大学建设--第一届"世界一流大学"国际研讨会述评

本文从世界一流大学的排名、世界一流大学的特征、世界一流大学的建设等三个方面,对第一届“世界一流大学”国际研讨会提出的若干观点做了简要的述评,既探讨了世界一流大学排名的方法论问题,也探讨了这类排名对世界一流大学建设的积极与消极影响,提出应该尽可能趋其利而避其弊,以促进我国的世界一流大学建设。