Scientometrics
Volume/Issue:
Volume 92: Issue 1
A comparative study on world university rankings: a bibliometric survey
Authors:
Kuang-hua Chen Department of Library and Information Science, National Taiwan University, 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt RD, Taipei 10617, Taiwan sophie.peiyu@gmail.com

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Pei-yu Liao Department of Library and Information Science, National Taiwan University, 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt RD, Taipei 10617, Taiwan sophie.peiyu@gmail.com

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Pages:
89–103
Online Publication Date:
12 Apr 2012
Publication Date:
01 Jul 2012
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0724-7
Keywords:
Bibliometrics; Ranking indicators; World university rankings
Restricted access

Abstract

Recently there are many organizations conducting projects on ranking world universities from different perspectives. These ranking activities have made impacts and caused controversy. This study does not favor using bibliometric indicators to evaluate universities’ performances, but not against the idea either. We regard these ranking activities as important phenomena and aim to investigate correlation of different ranking systems taking bibliometric approach. Four research questions are discussed: (1) the inter-correlation among different ranking systems; (2) the intra-correlation within ranking systems; (3) the correlation of indicators across ranking systems; and (4) the impact of different citation indexes on rankings. The preliminary results show that 55 % of top 200 universities are covered in all ranking systems. The rankings of ARWU and PRSPWU show stronger correlation. With inclusion of another ranking, WRWU (2009–2010), these rankings tend to converge. In addition, intra-correlation is significant and this means that it is possible to find out some ranking indicators with high degree of discriminativeness or representativeness. Finally, it is found that there is no significant impact of using different citation indexes on the ranking results for top 200 universities.

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Cover Scientometrics
Scientometrics
Print ISSN:
0138-9130
Online ISSN:
1588-2861

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1978
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)

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