Introducing Ranking Systems

Progressing, improving and eliminating the negative aspects of universities, makes them competitive with their counterparts at the national and international levels. Comparing and measuring the performance of each of these institutions requires accepted rules and regulations and appropriate tools. Ranking systems are used as one of the appropriate and common tools to show educational, research and commercial excellence. There are ranking systems in the world, each of which evaluates universities differently and based on different indicators. The type of indicators, the weight of the indicators, the subject and the number of universities covered by these ranking systems usually differ from each other. The total number of indicators of each ranking system ultimately shows the score and rank of universities. Among the hundreds of global and international ranking systems, the comprehensive ranking systems of QS, Times, Leiden and Shanghai are more famous and popular in the world and are used in many scientific texts.

Indexes and Ranking Indices

Currently, in order to evaluate research performance and rank universities, similar indices are used, such as the number of scientific productions, the number of citations, H-index, highly cited articles, the number of awards won, the number of selected registration licenses, the number of faculty members, the number of graduate and undergraduate students, etc. Production Index: The production index indicates the number of scientific productions published by faculty members or any university students. In other words, at least one of the authors must have an organizational affiliation with the relevant university. This index indicates the quantity of scientific productions. Citation Index: A qualitative index, the total number of citations received by each university in the years in which scientific universities are produced in provincial databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar) is examined. Hirsch Index: The Hirsch Index of a researcher is equal to h, if h of his articles each received the least h citations and his other articles received less than h citations. The Hirsch index is based on the collection of highly cited articles and the number of citations received. This index can be used as an indicator of the quality of articles published by an individual, organization, or country. Highly cited articles: A highly cited article is an article that has had a great impact on scientific and research works since its publication and has received a lot of citations. According to the Institute for Scientific Information, the founder of this citation science, a highly cited article is one that is among the top 1% of highly cited articles in its field. Number of international awards: Scientific awards are considered as a quality and criterion for evaluating the performance of individuals, institutions, and universities. So that many global ranking systems have assigned scores to winning international awards. Number of patents: The number of patents registered in registered organizations, such as the European Patent Office, the United States, and Germany.

International ranking systems for universities

Increase visibility and reputation

Attract foreign capital

Increase access to international grants

Increase international cooperation

Help internationalize universities

Increase credibility

Performance

Attract more students