A professor in Taiwan has developed a “rank simulation system for world universities.” What does that mean and who cares?
I have talked before about manipulation of college rankings. The system developed by the professor allows universities to make assumptions to see how it might improve their world wide ratings. Would publishing an article in Nature magazine improve a universities rankings? How about hiring a highly cited researcher from another university?
So what? None of the factors have anything to do with improving the education students receive. It is simply a system to manipulate rankings to try and show that one university is better than another using made up criteria.
And if you don’t think this is a big deal here in the US, the ranking simulation system will be going on sale so universities around the world can learn the best way to manipulate data. If successful, I assume we will soon see similar software allowing colleges to decide how manipulating US News rankings can improve their ranking. And that will not improve the universities or the education received by students.
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