Rank your own!
Worried about the methodology (and agenda) of existing university ranking organisations?
Consider this institutional citation count. Note that a variant of this proposed measure is also used, and heavily weighted, by those other ranking organisations. Indeed it is probably the biggest, and least subjective component in the mix. It is based on the number of citations to research papers written by staff members.
Its easy – go to this Web page
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors
(I know you get an error message) and input the name of a university in the box at the top and click on “Search Authors”. Then, starting from the top count down (1,2,3..n) through the staff until your count n is greater than the citation count for the next staff member. Lets call this the institutional or i-index. For example type “Dublin Institute of Technology” without the quotes, click on Search Authors, count down through the list, not forgetting to click Next to move to the next page. You get a score of 13. Not bad! (Note all these counts were observed on January 10th, and are liable to change in the meantime)
Now let’s try and calibrate the method using some world famous universities. In major ranking exercises Harvard and Stanford often comes out ranked number 1 or 2, and Oxford typically 4 or 5. According to the proposed method Harvard scores 233, Stanford scores 159 and Oxford 126. Looks about right.
For Irish Universities (and some prominent ITs) the ranking is (drum roll please!)
Lots of interesting observations can be made. Obviously DCU comes out on top – so no surprise there
. Drilling down a little deeper, and from a purely parochial
point of view, observe that Computing is still far and away the dominant
research school within DCU.
Colleagues from other universities (and departments!) might complain that their staff have not “signed up” with Google Scholar. My response is – if you choose to hide your light under a bushel, who is to blame? You or the bushel?
But of course I accept that as more academics sign up with Google Scholar, the more accurate the measure will become. I have observed that academic applicants for jobs now often attach their Google Scholar citation profile, so its use is rapidly becoming more widespread. Certainly if I am to interview an academic for a research post, it’s the first place I look, and I know that internationally colleagues are doing the same.
Worried about the methodology (and agenda) of existing university ranking organisations?
Consider this institutional citation count. Note that a variant of this proposed measure is also used, and heavily weighted, by those other ranking organisations. Indeed it is probably the biggest, and least subjective component in the mix. It is based on the number of citations to research papers written by staff members.
Its easy – go to this Web page
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors
(I know you get an error message) and input the name of a university in the box at the top and click on “Search Authors”. Then, starting from the top count down (1,2,3..n) through the staff until your count n is greater than the citation count for the next staff member. Lets call this the institutional or i-index. For example type “Dublin Institute of Technology” without the quotes, click on Search Authors, count down through the list, not forgetting to click Next to move to the next page. You get a score of 13. Not bad! (Note all these counts were observed on January 10th, and are liable to change in the meantime)
Now let’s try and calibrate the method using some world famous universities. In major ranking exercises Harvard and Stanford often comes out ranked number 1 or 2, and Oxford typically 4 or 5. According to the proposed method Harvard scores 233, Stanford scores 159 and Oxford 126. Looks about right.
For Irish Universities (and some prominent ITs) the ranking is (drum roll please!)
- DCU – 40
- UCD – 38
- UCG – 34
- TCD – 26
- QUB – 26
- UCC – 22
- Maynooth – 15
- DIT – 13
- Ulster– 11
- Limerick- 11
- Waterford IT – 5
Lots of interesting observations can be made. Obviously DCU comes out on top – so no surprise there
. Drilling down a little deeper, and from a purely parochial
point of view, observe that Computing is still far and away the dominant
research school within DCU.Colleagues from other universities (and departments!) might complain that their staff have not “signed up” with Google Scholar. My response is – if you choose to hide your light under a bushel, who is to blame? You or the bushel?
But of course I accept that as more academics sign up with Google Scholar, the more accurate the measure will become. I have observed that academic applicants for jobs now often attach their Google Scholar citation profile, so its use is rapidly becoming more widespread. Certainly if I am to interview an academic for a research post, it’s the first place I look, and I know that internationally colleagues are doing the same.
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