University rankings and medical physics

In recent years there has been a move to quantify many aspects of higher education productivity. To this end, this author previously published on the role of the h-index and how it is being used as a quantifier of research productivity of the individual researcher [1, 2]. 
 
Also of interest in recent years has been the focus in higher education circles with regards to league tables and the rankings of universities, with much anticipation each year among university administrators, funding agencies and students when the various ranking agencies publish their latest ranking lists [3]. Such rankings, now a standard feature, are playing a significant role in a changing higher education landscape with implications for many. 
 
Despite ongoing debates about the use and validity of university rankings, they are becoming increasingly popular and enabling students as consumers to compare institutions within a country and around the world as they make decisions regarding which university to potentially attend. Further, many university vice-chancellors, presidents, rectors and administrators see rankings as having potential influence on their organisational missions, strategies, personnel, recruitment, and public relations [4, 5]. Furthermore, rankings often drive the allocation of resources with decision makers and administrators sensitive to the resulting prestige that may be associated with ranking performance [6]. Government and funding agencies are also increasingly using rankings as a policy instrument to assess the performance of higher education institutions [7]. 
 
As well as university rankings and league tables occupying the attention of higher education leaders and policy makers, much has been written in the literature on this topic along with numerous international conferences and seminars having been held [8].


Introduction
In recent years there has been a move to quantify many aspects of higher education productivity. To this end, this author previously published on the role of the h-index and how it is being used as a quantifier of research productivity of the individual researcher [1,2].
Also of interest in recent years has been the focus in higher education circles with regards to league tables and the rankings of universities, with much anticipation each year among university administrators, funding agencies and students when the various ranking agencies publish their latest ranking lists [3]. Such rankings, now a standard feature, are playing a significant role in a changing higher education landscape with implications for many.
Despite ongoing debates about the use and validity of university rankings, they are becoming increasingly popular and enabling students as consumers to compare institutions within a country and around the world as they make decisions regarding which university to potentially attend. Further, many university vice-chancellors, presidents, rectors and administrators see rankings as having potential influence on their organisational missions, strategies, personnel, recruitment, and public relations [4,5]. Furthermore, rankings often drive the allocation of resources with decision makers and administrators sensitive to the resulting prestige that may be associated with ranking performance [6]. Government and funding agencies are also increasingly using rankings as a policy instrument to assess the performance of higher education institutions [7].
As well as university rankings and league tables occupying the attention of higher education leaders and policy makers, much has been written in the literature on this topic along with numerous international conferences and seminars having been held [8].

History of university rankings
The practice of university rankings dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century with the publication in the United Kingdom of Where We Get Our Best Men. In this study the backgrounds of ''England's most prominent and successful men of the time'' were evaluated with particular reference to where each studied. A consequence was the listing of universities ranked by the number of distinguished alumni that the ranked universities could lay claim to [9].
Subsequently in 1925, graduate programs in United States universities were ranked on the basis of peer reputation [10]. Significant published rankings of universities however did not commence until 1983 when the US News and World Report started ranking college undergraduate C. Baldock (&) Executive Dean of Science, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia e-mail: clive.baldock@mq.edu.au education programs with this ranking becoming an annual event from 1987.
Since 2003 numerous university rankings have been published with some now becoming particularly well known and popular. Some of the most well known rankings include the academic ranking of world universities (ARWU) from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, the QS World University Rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and more recently the Leiden University Rankings.
By 2009 at least 33 ranking systems of higher education systems from around the world were in use [11] and by 2011 at least 50 national ranking systems and 10 ranking systems of global significance were being published [8].

How rankings and league tables work
League tables and university rankings endeavor to simplify and summarise entire institutions into single, numerical comparators or indicators. Rankings systems operate by comparing institutions on a range of comparators, with the number of comparators varying significantly, from just a few in the simplest case to several dozen in the case of the most complicated. Specific areas of institutional activity or types of institutional output can therefore be compared between institutions [12].
In most cases, league table systems use comparator data to calculate a composite score such as a university's research publication output and its reputation. Once scores have been derived for each comparator, they are generally weighted according to importance. The weighted scores from all comparators are then summed to calculate an overall final score for each institution. The choice of comparator and the weight given to each makes an enormous amount of difference in the final output with the publishers of the rankings generally deciding the choice of comparators and weightings and in so doing defining so-called 'quality'.
Many have long criticized what they describe as the inflated influence of university rankings, saying that their methodology and data are problematic [13]. Many critics have pointed out that the methodologies used tend to focus too much on research, and pay insufficient attention to other key factors, such as other forms of scholarship to that of research and how well a university teaches its students to think critically and to innovate [3].

Examples of university rankings and the ranking of Australian universities
The three most influential and widely observed international university rankings are the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARMU)
ARWU is compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and has provided an annual global ranking of universities since 2003. It was originally funded by the Chinese government to measure the gap between Chinese and so-called 'world class' universities. As a comparator, ARWU includes the number of articles published by Nature or Science and the number of nobel prize winners and fields medalists (mathematics). A criticism of the ARWU ranking is that it is biased towards research and the sciences and does not measure the quality of teaching. Table 1 shows the 2013 ARWU Ranking of Australian universities.

QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings are annual university rankings published by QS and provides an overall rankings as well as ranking for individual subjects. QS originally published its rankings with the times higher education from 2004 to 2009 as the times higher education-QS world university rankings. Their collaboration however ended in 2010. QS subsequently published solely using the preexisting methodology, while times higher education created a new ranking with Thomson Reuters, published as the times higher education world university rankings. Table 2 shows the 2013 QS World University Ranking of Australian universities.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (or THE World University Rankings) are annual world university rankings published by the Times Higher Education (THE) with data supplied by Thomson Reuters that provides citation database information. Included are overall and the subject rankings. Table 3 shows the 2013 Times Higher Education World University Ranking of Australian universities.

Relevance to medical physics
As indicated in this article, university rankings enable students as consumers to compare institutions within a country and around the world as they make decisions regarding which university to attend. Students will potentially make future choices of what and where to study, whether it be a postgraduate course in medical physics or enrolling in a PhD in biomedical engineering, and based on where a university lies in a particular ranking. Such choices will not necessarily be based on which postgraduate academic programs are of higher 'quality'. To those working in a clinical environment in the disciplines of medical physics or biomedical engineering, such issues that face those in universities are not always evident. To this end, this article brings the issue of league tables and university rankings to the attention of individuals. This is of particular importance as more practicing medical physicists and biomedical engineers aspire to have an academic aspect to their portfolio of activities.
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