China News Service, Beijing, May 11 (Reporter Yuan Xiuyue) Recently, some media confirmed that Renmin University of China will withdraw from the international university rankings.
In addition, Nanjing University has made it clear that international rankings will no longer be used as an important construction goal for school development and discipline construction.
Lanzhou University also stated that it has not participated in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
A number of colleges and universities dropped out of the international university rankings, which quickly caused heated discussions online.
Some netizens said that only by withdrawing from such commercialization rankings can they return to academic research more.
Some people think that you can optimize your own evaluation system, and you can't read all the rankings, and you can't ignore them.
QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022
What is the World University Ranking? Is it reliable?
In recent years, some university rankings with certain social influence in the world have received more and more attention in China.
At present, there are four world university rankings recognized worldwide, namely QS World University Rankings, THE Times Higher Education World University Rankings, US News World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
Yu Qingzeng, an associate professor at the School of Education of Soochow University, introduced that the QS ranking emphasizes the soft power of universities and focuses on examining academic reputation and employers' evaluation of graduates.
The THE rankings give about 30% weight to teaching and scientific research.
The US News rankings emphasize academic research, and another important indicator is the school's overall reputation.
ARWU values objective indicators such as the number of scientific research achievements, such as the number of Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, and the number of papers published in top academic journals.
Yu Qing said that none of the university rankings is absolutely authoritative, and the reason for the large discrepancies in the rankings is that their focuses are different.
In addition, some experts have analyzed that the various rankings of universities, whether comprehensive or single, have played a certain positive role in the development of higher education in my country, but the excessive emphasis, especially linked to the allocation of resources such as funding, has also brought about inconvenience. Less problems, such as some ranking-oriented single-distorting university functions, subjective indicators affecting rankings, etc.
More importantly, such rankings involve too many business operations, which inevitably brings objection and impartiality. Some domestic university rankings have also reported incidents of manipulating rankings by charging "consulting fees".
Experts pointed out that how to design university evaluation indicators that are conducive to the development of universities and discipline construction, and how to guide the direction of university rankings, is a difficult problem before us.
Data map: Peking University welcomes the registration of 2020 undergraduate freshmen.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
What does it mean to drop out of the university rankings?
Expert analysis
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, told Chinanews.com that the evaluation of universities is based on multiple dimensions, and the ranking is only an explicit way.
The university ranking itself is divided into two kinds: media ranking and academic ranking. Like QS, these are actually mainly media rankings.
In his view, from the perspective of the situation in various countries in the world, the real first-class universities do not have the same standards. "Outstanding is different excellence, and first-class is also different first-class."
Chu Zhaohui said that in the past 20 years, some Chinese universities have been very concerned about rankings and international rankings. Therefore, some universities have colluded with foreign ranking agencies and conducted gray transactions.
He believes that the ranking should be diluted, the utilitarian nature of the ranking should be reduced, and the influence of non-professional and non-academic factors on the ranking should be reduced.
At the same time, Chu Zhaohui also reminded that university evaluation has played a key role in the development of universities, and simply rejecting them is not advisable.
Xiong Bingqi, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, wrote an analysis that the attitude of these universities to the world university rankings should be said to be a major change.
He believes that the university rankings are actually a kind of social evaluation of universities, and it is one of the basis for educated people to choose universities and social institutions to choose partners. Universities can use university rankings as a reference for running schools, and analyze the progress of running schools. There are deficiencies and problems, but it cannot be "only ranking".
This is the rational approach to university rankings.
At the same time, he pointed out that when a university announces "withdrawal" or "rejection" from the World University Rankings, the ranking institutions will not rank the university, because some rankings use public data and do not need to be provided by the school.
The key is that universities should not be overwhelmed by the "ranking", they should run the school as they should, and stick to their own positioning.
If a university downplays fame and fortune, it will not care about the university rankings, let alone become a university in the rankings, which is also conducive to guiding the public to treat university rankings rationally.
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