League tables of British universities

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League tables of British universities which rank the performances of universities in the United Kingdom on a number of criteria, have been published every year by The Times newspaper and several other newspapers since the early 1990s. The factors used to assess universities include quality of teaching and research (which are assessed by external inspectors), entry standards and dropout rates. These league tables have become increasingly popular over the last few years and other papers such as The Guardian now publish their own tables annually. These tables are often used by students when deciding to which universities to apply. Some league tables are more specific, ranking universities on their strength in individual subjects, and not just overall teaching and research across a range of subjects.

Although the various tables differ slightly in how they assess universities, the same names tend to dominate the top positions. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge have typically headed the lists. Cambridge has generally fared better, claiming first place in most of the newspapers' tables, with Oxford normally in second position. Oxford has recently been top of some lists though. However, The Sunday Times, which compiles its own tables using slightly modified criteria has placed Cambridge top for nine years running up to 2006. The only times since the inception of the tables that another university broke this trend were in 1999 and 2000, when Imperial College London overtook Oxford for second place in the Sunday Times Good University Guide[1].

Third place is taken by a variety of contenders (usually Imperial College, though the London School of Economics has placed third a few times). It is difficult to form a list of other high-achieving universities due to the different methodology used between league tables. However, a list of universities that have been in the overall Top 10 in all three big rankings (The Times, The Sunday Times and The Guardian) since the inception of these tables is:

Contents

[edit] Sutton Trust

The Sutton Trust, an educational charity has produced a list of 13 universities identified as those with the highest average rankings in surveys published by The Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and Financial Times in 2000.[1] The Sutton Trust believe that these top universities should do more to widen access and increase their state school intake.

[2]

On top of this, the THES - QS World University Rankings list of the 'World's top 200 Universities' in 2006, placed Glasgow, Manchester and King's College London, among, and in some cases higher, than the names mentioned above[3][4].

It should be noted that inclusion in the overall top ten does not indicate excellence in any particular field, and some universities with a very good reputation for specific subjects (especially vocational subjects) never enter the overall top ten.

League Tables, which usually focus on the full-time undergraduate student experience, commonly omit reference to the Open University and Birkbeck, University of London both of which specialise in teaching part-time students. These universities, however, often make a strong showing in specialist league tables looking at research, teaching quality, and student satisfaction (for example, Birkbeck was ranked 13th in the last Research Assessment Exercise - 2001 - by The Guardian[5], and the Open University was ranked first, and Birkbeck fifth in the 2006 Student Satisfaction survey according to the BBC[6]).

Traditionally the post-1992 universities have done less well in the University rankings. However, in recent years some of the new universities have steadily moved up the league tables and can now sometimes be found in the top half of all universities. The Guardian 2004 tables were especially favourable to some post-1992 universities, Middlesex was ranked 19th overall, and Oxford Brookes was ranked 26th. In the most recent tables, published in 2007, the following Universities were ranked in the top fifty by one or another table: the University of Plymouth,Robert Gordon University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Bournemouth University, Oxford Brookes University.

[edit] The Times's methodology (2007)

The Times University rankings take into account eight factors.[7] Student satisfaction and a universities research output were weighted by 1.5 and each factor score was multiplied by 10 in order to give each university a score out of 1000 for each university.

  • Student Satisfaction – Measured by the National Student Survey 2005, This is a measure of student’s opinions of their university and so does not necessarily measure the quality of an institution, especially as there is usually no basis for relative comparison.
  • Research – Data was taken from the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise which measured British universities' research output.
  • Entry Standards- The universities average UCAS tariff score. Data was taken from the Higher Education Statistics Agency
  • The student-staff ratio- Data was taken from the Higher Education Statistics Agency
  • Library and Computing spending- Average expenditure per student Data was taken from the Higher Education Statistics Agency
  • Facilities spending- Average expenditure per student on sports, careers services, health and counselling
  • Good Honours – The percentage of students graduating with a good degree.'Good' being defined as a first or 2.1
  • Graduate prospects – The percentage of UK graduates in graduate employment or further study. This data is taken from HESA's survey of Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE).
  • Completion – The percentage of students who manage to complete their degree

[edit] The Guardian's methodology (2008)

The Guardian’s league tables use six different criteria. The Guardian does not provide the raw data for any of these criteria but instead assigns a mark out of 10. The weighting given to each criteria is given in brackets. The Guardian gives no weight to the research output of a university.[8]. The Guardian Online provides the facility to sort the table by any of the criteria. The Guardian also provides ranks for individual subjects.

  • Teaching quality - as rated by graduates of the course (10%) – This data was taken from the National Student Survey.
  • Feedback - as rated by graduates of the course (5%)
  • Spending per student (17%)
  • Staff/student ratio (17%)
  • Job prospects (17%) - from DLHE
  • Value added - comparing students' degree results with their entry qualifications (17%)
  • Entry score (17%)

[edit] The Web Ranking of UK universities (2008)

As the Web is already the main scholarly communication tool and it collects results of all the activities and missions of universities (teaching, research, third mission), the Webometrics Ranking of UK universities is not only showing the electronic publication performance of these institutions but also an overall glimpse of their quality. The Web ranking takes into account web activity (pages, documents and papers) and visibility (external inlinks) and it is very sensitive to bad practices in URL naming such as duplicate web domains (Imperial and Cardiff are specially affected). The January 2008 edition ranked the Top UK universities as follows:

WORLD RANK UNIVERSITY SIZE VISIBILITY RICH FILES SCHOLAR
27 UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 11 26 74 96
37 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 50 36 49 104
57 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON 117 55 54 138
60 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 132 70 68 79
77 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON 102 141 87 30
103 UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW 133 95 124 259
116 IMPERIAL COLLEGE 92 101 235 299
132 UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK 113 208 221 60
144 NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY 121 74 340 459
151 UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 250 155 119 276
165 UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM 272 198 93 213
174 UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD 401 72 241 356
194 UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL 360 112 325 345
235 UNIVERSITY OF YORK 330 245 238 353
246 UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM 190 304 286 407
248 LANCASTER UNIVERSITY 293 291 207 415
278 DURHAM UNIVERSITY 263 318 242 525
280 OPEN UNIVERSITY UK 425 211 440 472

[edit] Good University Guide

 It has been suggested that The Good University Guide be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The Good University Guide is another series of rankings. It is published on line only at www.thegooduniversityguide.org.uk and allows users to adjust the main ranking to meet their individual requirements. This is achieved by varying the weightings attached to the criteria used to create the main table. It also publishes league tables of Universities in 61 subject areas, as well as a wealth of information on bursaries and scholarships, crime rates and so on.

The Guide is produced by Mayfield University Consultants, who until 2007 compiled the rankings for The Times. It rated Cambridge above Oxford in its first tables, published on July 30, 2007.

The Times Higher Education Supplement has published league tables of universities on an international scale. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Edinburgh, Manchester, King's College London, Bristol, Warwick, SOAS, Glasgow, Birmingham, Nottingham and Queen Mary all appear within the top 100.[9].

[edit] Daily Telegraph 'table of tables'

The Daily Telegraph created a 'table of tables' bringing together the results 6 different league tables.[10] The league tables it used were from The Daily Telegraph itself, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times and an employability score taken the opinions of more than 200 firms that regularly recruit graduates. However, even this, has its flaws. Some tables place York as high as second place, such as The Guardian, although employers rank it as low as twenty-ninth. Therefore, finding an aggregate to judge all tables by is difficult. [11]

[edit] Sex-ratio and other tables

The Daily Mail, The Sun and other media outlets have republished statistical data on the ratio of female to male undergraduates that is researched by Push.co.uk. Push also publishes a wide range of tables and data about UK universities[12]. The statistics show that the Royal Veterinary College has the highest ratio of females to males (80:20)[13] and Imperial College London has the highest ratio of males to females (63:37)[14].

[edit] Criticism

University league tables have been subject to varying degrees of criticism. There has been criticism of attempts to combine different rankings on for example research quality, quality of teaching, drop out rates and student satisfaction. Sir Alan Wilson, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Leeds argues that the final average has little significance and is like trying to ‘combine apples and oranges.’[15] Other criticisms he made included the varying weights given to different factors, the need for universities to 'chase' the rankings, the often fluctuating nature of a university's ranking, and the catch-22 that the governments desire to increase access can have negative effects on league table rankings.[16]

The Guardian, World's Best-designed Newspaper 2006, suggests that league tables may affect the nature of undergraduate admissions in an attempt to improve a university's league table position.[17]

Roger Brown, the former Vice Chancellor of Southampton Solent University argues the limitations of comparative data when comparing Universities.[18]

The Guardian league table has a peculiar feature of ranking quite highly courses given by departments that have recently closed down. For example mathematics at Bangor[19] which closed in 2006 was rated fifth in the UK in the "2008" league table, Hull also did reasonably well considering it too no longer had a mathematics department or degree. The Guardian later published a correction[20].

Use of data from the National Student Survey has been another area of controversy as the survey has been boycotted by some universities.

Professor Geoffrey Alderman writing in the Guardian makes the point that by including the percentage of 'good honours' this can encourage grade inflation so that league table position can be maintained.[21]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ www.suttontrust.com/reports/entryToLeadingUnis.pdf
  2. ^ www.suttontrust.com/reports/entryToLeadingUnis.pdf
  3. ^ Times Higher Education - Education news, resources and university jobs for the academic world
  4. ^ QS Top Universities: THES - QS World University Rankings - top university rankings from around the world
  5. ^ RESEARCH~Subject~Subjects~Xinst/All~Xinst/All~~~2 | Interactive guides | EducationGuardian.co.uk
  6. ^ BBC NEWS | Education | Student satisfaction survey results
  7. ^ University league table 2007 | Good University Guide - Times Online
  8. ^ What the tables mean | University guide | EducationGuardian.co.uk
  9. ^ Paked.net: THES World University Rankings 2007 - The World's Top 200 Universities
  10. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/graphics/2003/06/27/unibigpic.jpg;jsessionid=TGNWKTF3UJNBNQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0
  11. ^ Nick Higgins and Cliff Pettifor From Learning to Earning 2004, Trotman 2003, ISBN 0856608491
  12. ^ http://www.push.co.uk/files/file/vital.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.push.co.uk/document.aspx?id=09818c0f-b86e-4008-bcf1-493665112223
  14. ^ http://www.push.co.uk/document.aspx?id=80b8eb52-ae37-4808-a50f-e69651ceaea0
  15. ^ Reporter 485 | 28 October 2002 | University league tables
  16. ^ Reporter 485 | 28 October 2002 | University league tables
  17. ^ Funding council to investigate university league tables | higher news | EducationGuardian.co.uk
  18. ^ Tables can turn | comment | EducationGuardian.co.uk
  19. ^ Mathematics News
  20. ^ http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2008/story/0,,2093444,00.html (accessed 11/7/2007)
  21. ^ League tables rule - and standards inevitably fall | comment | EducationGuardian.co.uk

[edit] External links