E R M A N ARTIFICIAL PLANTS G LESSONS IN & the THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE ‘FIXING B U D G E T ’
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ANU’S R A N K I N G S R E B O U N D 23 SEPTEMBER 2 0 1 4 - NO. 12, VOL 66 - WORONI.COM.AU - FACEBOOK & TWITTER
CAMPUS NEWS
On 16th September 2014 the QS Group published the 10th edition of their annual QS World University Rankings. The Australian National University was ranked 25th in the world, moving up two places from its 2013 ranking. The ANU retained its spot as 1st in the country, followed by The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney, The University of place. Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Margaret Harding, announced this achievement through e-mail at 11am of the same day. She congratulates students and and goes on to say that “it is the our international reputation for She mentions that worldwide university rankings tend to be imperfect measures, but that in the very least they “tell The methodology used by QS Group in compiling their ranking is divided six fold in the following manner: The methodology used by the QS Group for compiling their ranking has six divisions, and these are: Academic Reputation
ALEX CATALAN-FLORES & JACOB INGRAM
(a reputational survey of almost 63,700 academics worldwide), Employer Reputation (another reputational survey of almost 28,800 respondents worldwide), Student-to-Faculty Ratio (number of employed academic
to be ranked within the top 50 of the Shanghai Ranking. At a national level, The University of Melbourne was ranked 1st in the country, followed by the ANU, the University of Queensland and The University of Western Australia.
enrolled), Citations Per Faculty (the number of papers being cited in other papers from other
The methodology used in compiling the Shanghai Ranking is divided as follows: The Shanghai Ranking also uses
years), International Faculty Ratio (proportion of international academics in relation to domestic academics) and International Student Ratio (proportion of international students in relations to domestic students). Academic Reputation consists of 40% of the rank, with Student-to Faculty Ratio and Citations Per Faculty consisting of 20% each, Employer Reputation at 10% and both international indicators consisting of 5% each.
methodology. These are: the alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; Nobel Prizes (except for the Literature and Peace categories) and Fields Medals; the number of Thomson Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researchers’ in 21 subject areas; the number of papers published in Nature and Science between 2009 and 2013; the total number of papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index in 2013; and Per Capita Performance (the weighted scores of the above
Yet the QS ranking was not the only ranking to be released recently, as on the 20th August the 2014 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (colloquially known as the Shanghai Ranking) was released. The ANU was ranked 74th in the world, a drop of eight places from the previous year. The University of Melbourne climbed 10 places from 54th in 2013 to 44th in 2014, setting the record
number of full-time academic ANUSA President Cameron Wilson commented that he was glad to see the results, and noted
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that has built up a good international
without handing down a debt Woroni published a piece on 24th July 2014 regarding the ANU’s drop in the ranking published by the Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR). According to an explanatory paper of the CWUR’s methodology, the subjectivity of student surveys is one of the main drawbacks of other university rankings such as QS and Times. The Shanghai Ranking is the only other major publication that does not use student surveys, but CWUR places excessive weight on research-based indicators without properly assessing the quality of education and training of students. The next major ranking this year will be the 2014 edition of the World University Rankings by Times Higher Education, set for publication on 2nd October 2014.