"The global ranking of the Department of Mathematics of Qufu Normal University overwhelms Qingbei" has aroused concern and left more doubts.

  A few days ago, USNews, known as one of the top four universities in the world, released its latest list. The ranking of mathematics shows that the first place in Asia is Qufu Normal University, a provincial university located in Shandong, surpassing Beijing, which ranks second. Universities, the third place is also Shandong provincial universities, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University ranked sixth.

  On the 23rd, Bai Yuzhen, a professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences of Qufu Normal University, told a reporter from the Beijing News that the ranking was an institutional behavior of USNews and had nothing to do with the school.

"We know what the strength of our school's mathematics subject is, and we also know that there is a gap with the Mathematics Department of Peking University."

  Outside of the list, it may be a one-sided pursuit of individual indicators.

At the end of 2016, Qufu Normal University made the subject of mathematics a first-class discipline in the province, and filled in the construction target task book. Among them, from 2016 to 2020, the school will need to complete 80 academic papers every year, of which 60 are included in SCI (Science and Technology Document Retrieval System) about.

Paper citations are an important indicator of ranking

  A few days ago, in the ranking of mathematics subjects of domestic universities in China released by USNews, the mathematics subject of Qufu Normal University ranked first in the country, overtaking Peking University and Tsinghua University.

Shandong University of Science and Technology also ranked third, surpassing famous universities such as Tsinghua University and Fudan University.

  After the announcement of the list, heated discussion arose.

Some believe that the two universities in Shandong are using loopholes in the ranking rules to improve their rankings.

  According to data, the USNews World University Rankings are published by "US News and World Report", and are listed as the four more authoritative world university rankings along with the Academic Ranking of World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and QS World University Rankings.

  According to the official website of USNews, there are 13 evaluation criteria for world university rankings. Among them, bibliometric indicators account for the highest proportion at 65%, followed by reputation measurement indicators, accounting for 25%, and scientific research achievement measurement indicators 10%.

  Some scholars pointed out that based on this rule, a school wants to improve its rankings, it only needs to do two things: one is to use various incentives to increase the number of papers published by the school; the other is to require the teachers and students of the school to win by quantity Cite each other in the paper.

USNews World University Rankings Judgment Standard.

Screenshot

  Among the public indicators, Qufu Normal University ranks relatively high in the data related to "paper citation".

  Among them, "standard paper citation impact", "the percentage of the total number of publications that account for the top 10% of citation rate", and "the percentage of the total number of papers and publications that account for the top 1% of citation rate" ranked first. Indexes such as the total number of citations of papers and the number of publications in the top 10% of citation rates are among the top four.

  Several other data show that the school's mathematics major is relatively low in the rankings involving international academic research.

  In addition, the 2019 USNews Chinese University Mathematics Rankings show that Peking University and Fudan University ranked first and second respectively, while Qufu Normal University and Shandong University of Science and Technology are not in the top 15 lists.

2019 USNews Chinese University Mathematics Ranking.

Data map

"The ranking is done by foreign institutions and has nothing to do with the school"

  On the afternoon of the 23rd, Bai Yuzhen, a professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences of Qufu Normal University, told the Beijing News that he also saw the rankings published by USNews, but he believed that this was an institutional behavior of USNews and had nothing to do with the school.

  "We don't care about the results of this ranking, we just need to do our own work." Bai Yuzhen said.

  Bai Yuzhen mentioned that different world university ranking systems have different emphasis and reference standards. They know what the strength of the school's mathematics subject is, and they also know that there is a gap between the mathematics department of Peking University.

"Maybe in another ten years, we will not be able to shake the position of No. 1 in the Mathematics Department of Peking University."

  According to the official website of the School of Mathematical Sciences of Qufu Normal University, its School of Mathematical Sciences was founded in 1955.

In December 2016, the subject of mathematics was rated as a first-class subject in Shandong Province.

In the national university mathematics subject level evaluation organized by the Ministry of Education in 2012, the mathematics subject ranked 28th in the country; the mathematics and applied mathematics major was a nationally renowned major (four-star); the mathematics undergraduate major was awarded the provincial university major for five consecutive years Number one.

  The Ministry of Education's Degree and Graduate Education Development Center carried out the fourth round of national subject evaluation in 2017. The results showed that in mathematics, the evaluation result of Qufu Normal University was B-, while the evaluation result of Peking University and Fudan University was A+ , Tsinghua University’s assessment result is A.

"Shandong University ranks high, thanks to the large number of papers"

  Shandong University of Science and Technology, ranked third in the USNews ranking of mathematics subjects, has also attracted much attention.

  On the afternoon of the 23rd, the head of the Department of Systems Science (Data Science and Engineering Department) of the School of Mathematics and System Sciences, Shandong University of Science and Technology told the Beijing News that international university rankings have different standards, and the USNews ranking is not comprehensive.

  The above-mentioned person in charge said frankly that Shandong University of Science and Technology is not a 985 or 211 university. The school's mathematics subject ranking is at the middle level of domestic universities, and it is not ranked third in the country as published by USNews.

"Our school ranks high, mainly due to the number of papers."

  As for other indexes such as talents and platforms, the above-mentioned person in charge believes that there is a big gap between Shandong University of Science and Technology and well-known universities such as Peking University.

  In recent years, Shandong Province has required provincial universities to build first-class disciplines at the provincial level, which will receive funding after the evaluation.

The above-mentioned person in charge explained that there are many indicators for selection, such as funds, projects, award-winning content, papers, talents, etc.

"For the essay indicators, college teachers can write two or three essays if they can write one or two essays according to their personal ability, and write as many as they can."

  As for whether the school deliberately took advantage of the ranking loopholes this time to increase its position in the rankings of foreign universities, the person in charge denied it.

"We are only doing what we can do under the requirements of relevant policies (constructing provincial-level first-class disciplines)."

According to the USNews ranking of mathematics majors of Chinese universities, Qufu Normal University ranked first.

Source: US News World University Rankings website

Educational scholars: the standard of the paper cannot assess the quality of the university

  According to the official website of the Shandong Provincial Department of Education, in 2016, the Shandong Provincial Department of Education's "Notice on Announcement of the List of Shandong Province's First-Class Discipline Construction Projects" showed that with the approval of the Provincial Department of Finance, in 2016, the natural sciences project construction disciplines each funded 25 million. yuan.

  The above list shows that the mathematics discipline of Qufu Normal University has been selected into the list of first-class disciplines in Shandong Province.

  In addition, at the end of 2016, Qufu Normal University filled out the construction target task book for mathematics as a first-class discipline in the province.

The above task book shows that from 2016 to 2020, 80 academic papers need to be completed every year, of which about 60 are included in SCI.

  Regarding the above phenomenon, Xiong Bingqi, a well-known educational scholar and deputy dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, told the Beijing News that if colleges and universities do not care about the quality of teaching, but instead use papers as the standard, they will deviate from the school's human-centric orientation.

  Xiong Bingqi believes that domestic universities do not need to care too much about these rankings.

These rankings will select the index common to all universities, namely papers for ranking, and will emphasize the number of papers and the citation rate of papers.

"In fact, the number of papers and citation rates can be artificially faked, and cannot be used as an important indicator to evaluate a university."

  Beijing News reporter Liu Ruiming and intern Zhou Siya