Talk:Academic Ranking of World Universities

Changes and further work
Recent changes seemed to have erased a lot of useful information about other rankings, though it did add some new information about the first one. Since information provided by earlier users about other existing rankings was neutral (and well supported by references, which are openly available on the web - and from quite reliable sources), it should definitely stay. As a result, I put back some of the old content (with some brushing-up & additions), but I saved the useful parts of the new stuff most recently added (i.e. the description of criteria of the Shanghai ranking).

Further work (to be done by me when I have more time or by other contributors, of course): the section about the Slovenian study could be detailed, especially w.r.t.  criteria description. Furthermore, the Webometrics study probably should be given a separate section and much more details (I will try to do that now). By the way, I believe there is another ranking that is also comprehensive for all technical universities - I can write on it when I have time to study their criteria (this weekend, probably). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Papertiger (talk • contribs) 20:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Link doesn't work
"One refinement of the Webometrics approach is the G-Factor methodology, which counts the number of links only from other university websites. The G-Factor is an indicator of the popularity or importance of each university's website from the combined perspectives of the creators of many other university websites. It is therefore a kind of extensive and objective peer review of a university through its website - in social network theory terminology, the G-Factor measures the 'nodality' of each university's website in the 'network' of university websites"  The link "G-Factor" does not work .--YoavD 07:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization?
I see that Shanghai Jiao Tong University's ranking is capitalized, but is there a good reason the article is? I'd like to move it to "Academic rankings of world universities" (case sensitive). Comments? --Matt 06:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Is that wiki? If yes, then I agree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.171.125 (talk) 05:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Page repurposed: 23 June 2007
Somewhere along the line, this article became confused. Its proper topic is the Academic Ranking of World Universities(sic) published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The article about university rankings generically is College and university rankings. I have pruned this article accordingly, and transferred a small amount of material over to the above page. — mholland (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

What about the "grandes écoles"?
Apparently, this ranking doesn't take into account the "grandes écoles" ("super" school), broadly used in France and to some extent in Switzerland and which could be compared to american "Institutes of technology". Yet, many world geniuses have been trained there : Henri Poincaré (French polytechnique),Albert Einstein (Swiss polytechnique), Alfred Sauvy (French HEC), Edouard Branly (French ENS), etc. You can call me a chauvinist (I'm french) but I am quite sure that French Polytechnique would outrank many american universities if a comparison was made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitch1981 (talk • contribs) 19:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Albert Einstein studied at ETH Zürich which is a german-swiss polytechnique. Not french-swiss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.149.154.39 (talk) 08:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the precision, pal. Nevertheless, that's not my point. I just want this article to point out that this ranking doesn't take into account structures which train many of the genius of tomorrow. For instance, one the 2002 medal fields winner was trained in french ENSMitch1981 13:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It may well be a criticism of ARWU, but unless you can find a source that says its has been criticised for this there is nothing to add to the article.Billlion 21:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Irreproducibility of Rankings and don't get into an edit war
The comment about controversy over rankings is not personal opinion. It was supported by a wikilink. I have reintroduced the comment and added an additional two wikilinks to support the comment. It is appropriate as the ARWU is not the only ranking whose methodology has been criticized. Mentioning other that controversy surrounds other rankings is relevant to proper context. Vantelimus (talk) 09:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Flags and Lists
Shouldn't this article also include other sources for ranking? Are there any others that are world wide? On a different subject, I added little flag icons to quite a few items on the list, but rather willy-nilly. Pick your school and make sure it has a flag. Or just add flags for the remaining schools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.171.125 (talk) 05:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should have other sources. ARWU is a specific ranking done at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (see www.arwu.org). That is, "Academic Ranking of World Universities" is the name of a specific ranking, not a catagory of rankings. Vantelimus (talk) 09:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

weird and almost certainly mistaken thing
why is the university of istambul ranked at number 11 on the article? the ARWU has Cornell on that spot, and for that matter where is Cornell on that list? Seems to me it was an intentionally misleading edit on the part of some U of Istambul enthusiast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.164.99.45 (talk) 02:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent additions to criticism
There have been some recent modifications to the criticism section that make unsupported statements about Asian and Chinese bias. Unless these statements are justified, they merit removal. Vantelimus (talk) 08:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense
This ranking is a huge hoax. Do they really want to make us believe that any cheap state university in the U.S. is better than all leading universities in Europe or elsewhere on this planet??!! It is proven that the system that these Shanghai guys use totally corrupts the outcome. An example: It is very clear that German, Italian, Russian scientists are less frequently quoted, because they write in languages that barely any American scientists understands. Vice versa, German, Italian and Russian scientists all know English and can quote Americans. According to this system, this means that the Americans do better work; according to any logical thinking, the opposite is true... And that's just one example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rudefuss (talk • contribs) 02:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You don't really need to share your opinion about the ranking. It's just an article. It doesn't matter if you think it's a hoax or whatever. Look at the ranking methodology. It's not even proven that it's corrupt. That's an opinion. Maybe they learned English because it's pretty much mandatory in most schools worldwide -_- They use their own methodology to rank the universities of the world, and there's nothing you can change. The article is only here to convey the results. 24.17.36.128 (talk) 00:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS according to "The Times"
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=431&pubCode=1&navcode=148

http://ri.epfl.ch/webdav/site/ri/shared/Rankings.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinmartiini (talk • contribs) 15:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"One of the best known rankings published"
Do not believe the opening sentence is neutral; will add template accordingly. EXTERNAL source is needed to have it be credible.

-Herenthere 05:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally and is and one of the best known rankings published.[1]


 * Nice catch. No need to template; I removed it. ElKevbo (talk) 05:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Youth Incorporated Magazine?
There are two citations/links to Youth Incorporated Magazine's ranking of universities included in this article, which seem to be both spurious and commercial. I see no reason to believe that this magazine ranking is noteworthy enough to be included. I believe it corrupts the article and should be removed. portlandjosh@yahoo.com on February 9, 2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.121.9.50 (talk) 20:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Youth Inc rankings are presented by the Times of India, India's largest newspaper. Also, after studying their methodology and universities included, they seem very reliable and genuine. On what basis should the citations be removed? What makes any of other rankings any more genuine or better?

Title
I do not agree with the title. This is the "Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities". The present title suggests that this is some kind of universal agreed-by-everyone ranking, which is not so. Also, I do not know how it can be "objective", if it starts considering only 1200 insitutions. How are they selected? What about the others? Has anyone ever discussed this? Popopp (talk) 12:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's called "Academic Ranking of World Universities" (ARWU) and the article's 1st sentence gives the "Shanghai" qualification. I don't think any reader would be in doubt about the provenance. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:11, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with the essential neutrality of the article; the title, too, should be neutral, in my opinion. Hi Popopp (talk) 20:58, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The table
The ranking table is messy. Can someone fix it? Maybe, we can adopt the format of those in the pages of QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The table
Why are is ranking criteria for Macedonia featured prominently at the bottom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.5.199.208 (talk) 14:40, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Both Greater China Ranking and Macedonian HEIs Ranking are regional league tables shown after the global ones and they're arranged alphabetically. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 09:39, 15 August 2015

Coverage of the league tables
I think the coverage of the general overall and alternative tables here should be shrunk from top 100 to 50 for easy maintenance. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 09:39, 15 August 2015

Shrinking the Coverage
To facilitate regular updates, I suggest that we reduce the coverage of the global table from top 50 to simply top 10, like those regional ones. It's quite hard to rearrange all those institutions for the right places while at the same time filling in all the previous ranks for new comers. In dialogue with Biomedicinal 18:39 Tuesday, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Shanghai Ranking VS ShanghaiRanking
The article constantly references the ranking's issuing company as "Shanghai Ranking Consultancy" whereas the company, by all accounts, seems to label itself as "ShanghaiRanking Consultancy" (note the lack of space between the first two words). See, for instance, their website at http://www.shanghairanking.com/. Should this not be reflected in the article? Vadim Galimov (talk) 16:08, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Language use
I've removed terms like "praised" and "condemned", which are overly dramatic and biased. I replaced them with neutral terms like "received positive feedback" or "was criticised", or took some out altogether, just leaving the parts that are backed up by secondary sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PumpkinKitten (talk • contribs) 07:34, 14 September 2020 (UTC)