The Times Higher World University Rankings 2007

[stevemiddie]

The Times Higher World University Rankings 2007 were released on 9 November 2007.

It is available from the official web site: http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/

Or, if you don't wan tto sign of for the trial, I found a copy here.

I wonder where Chulalongkorn University ended up this time round.

A big surprise to see NO Thai uni,s in the list.

Chula was 121 in 2005, 161 in 2006, and now it has completely dropped out of the top 200.

They stopped paying tea money then.

[hyperdimension]

Chula was 121 in 2005, 161 in 2006, and now it has completely dropped out of the top 200.

I did some digging around and noted all mentions of Thai universities and Thailand in the past ranking results.

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2005top200.html:

Chulalongkorn University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2005next300.html:

Prince of Songkla University

Chiang Mai University

Kasetsart University

Thammasat University

Khon Kaen University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2005restoftheworld.html:

Chulalongkorn University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2005socialsciences.html:

Chulalongkorn University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2006top200.html:

Chulalongkorn University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2006restoftheworld.html:

Chulalongkorn University

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2006peerre...eanalysis.html:

Thailand

http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/2007next200.html:

Chulalongkorn University

Mahidol University

You can see that in 2007 Chulalongkorn University was ranked 223 and Mahidol University was ranked 284.

Edited January 12, 2008 by hyperdimension

[mbkudu]

When I first read this title topic I thought it was going to be a link to a US magazine that promotes hydroponics, indoor lighting,

how to conceal high electricity bills from the state, and getting the highest THC content possible. Silly me dyslexic.

[jbowman1993]

I had the opportunity last year to attend a presentation by a representative from the one of the world university rankings companies. The gentleman in question did a complete evaluation of my school (Mahidol University), and it was his opinion that our ranking would rise considerably in the new future. He explained that most world ranking evaluations draw a great deal of their information from the university's own websites. There is no secret "university inspector" going around evaluating all of the schools. During the presentation, he gave many suggestions on how our school could more clearly present information on its website, for the benefit of those doing the ranking research. His presentation stressed other areas that could be improved as well.

It should be noted that these ranking agencies are in fact BUSINESSES. They make their money doing consulting work of this type, from universities like mine, who are interested in bettering their rankings.

The consultant said that the improvement would be gradual, and it would take 3 years for improved reporting to cycle through with its fullest impact (the 3 years having to do with the peer review cycling process, or something like that). The results have already paid off for Mahidol, as the 2007 rankings saw MU rise from 322 in 2006 to 284 in 2007. That is quite a significant increase in only one year, and the only real change was the redesign of the website, and rethinking how information is forwarded to the ranking companies. This this was only the first year, we would expect to see similar improvements in the next 2 years, as the 3 year cycle of reporting comes around.

I think this factor might one of the key reasons why many Thai universities are not ranked, or are ranked very low. Just by making simple changes to our website, we saw dramatic results.

In case any of you were interested, lol. Maybe its just me.

[madjbs]

Well it doesn’t seem like a very reliable way to rank things. Many of the Thai unis have very poor English web pages and I doubt these companies have anyone reading the much better Thai versions, do they? Interestingly, Thammasat doesn’t subscribe to any of these ranking services any more.

[Stephen Cleary]

I agree with some of the other posters that this ranking is pretty crap.

I mean great local institutions like Rajaphat and Rakhamhaeng aren't on that list!

Edited January 23, 2008 by Stephen Cleary

[hyperdimension]

I've been playing with the search engine on that site (http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/search.html)

It's interesting to compare the number of results returned by different searches for countries.

Thailand: 8

Singapore: 37

Indonesia: 3

Philippines: 2

Korea: 34

Korea, North: 0

North Korea: 0

Taiwan: 23

Malaysia: 13

Argentina, 11

India: 26

Myanmar: 0

Cambodia: 0

Laos: 0

Vietnam: 0

Brunei: 0

From this, it appears that Thailand has not been as bad in university education as other south-east asian countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei). The only other south-east asian country it has been far behind is Singapore.

Edited January 23, 2008 by hyperdimension

[Xangsamhua]

I've been playing with the search engine on that site (http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/search.html)

It's interesting to compare the number of results returned by different searches for countries.

Thailand: 8

Singapore: 37

Indonesia: 3

Philippines: 2

Korea: 34

Korea, North: 0

North Korea: 0

Taiwan: 23

Malaysia: 13

Argentina, 11

India: 26

Myanmar: 0

Cambodia: 0

Laos: 0

Vietnam: 0

Brunei: 0

From this, it appears that Thailand has not been as bad in university education as other south-east asian countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei). The only other south-east asian country it has been far behind is Singapore.

Thailand, I'm afraid, is a long way behind Malaysia, too, if you take into account the population difference (Thailand 65 million; Malaysia 25 million - fewer universities in the latter). I'm surprised about Vietnam.

[hyperdimension]

Here's some quick/hack research I've just done on universities in south-east asian countries.

The table is sorted in order of People/university.

[/b]
[font="Courier New"][font="Lucida Console"][font="Courier New"][size=1][size=2]Country     People      Universities People/university Ranking search Ranking search     Ranking search results
                                                      results        results/University /people               
Brunei      391,450     [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei#See_also"]2[/url]            195725            0              0.00%              0.0000000000%         
Singapore   4,680,600   [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Singapore"]22[/url]           212755            37             168.18%            0.0007904969%         
Malaysia    27,544,000  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Malaysia"]127[/url]          216882            13             10.24%             0.0000471972%         
Philippines 88,701,000  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_Philippines"]316[/url]          280699            2              0.63%              0.0000022548%         
Cambodia    13,971,000  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Cambodia"]40[/url]           349275            0              0.00%              0.0000000000%         
Thailand    62,828,706  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Thailand"]152[/url]          413347            8              5.26%              0.0000127330%         
Myanmar     55,400,000  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Myanmar#List_of_universities_in_Burma"]65[/url]           852308            0              0.00%              0.0000000000%         
Vietnam     87,375,000  [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Vietnam"]69[/url]           1266304           0              0.00%              0.0000000000%         
Laos        6,521,998   [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Laos-related_topics#Universities_and_colleges_in_Laos"]2[/url]            3260999           0              0.00%              0.0000000000%         
Indonesia   234,693,997 [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Indonesia"]67[/url]           3502895           3              4.48%              0.0000012783%         

[/size]

[/size][/font][/font][/font]

Not counting Brunei (tiny population), Singapore has the highest number of universities for its population and gets the most ranking results for its universities.

Malaysia has around the same people/university ratio as Singapore but have less ranking results.

Thailand is a far third, in the middle for south-east asian countries.

Indonesia has very few univerisites for such a large population.

Philippines gets very few ranking results even though it has the most universities in south-east asia.

In the Myanmar information that I came across it states "There are 101 universities, 12 institutes, 9 degree colleges and 24 colleges in Myanmar, the total 146 higher education", but I've only counted the ones whose names are actually listed on the page. The statistics out of that country can't be relied upon too much.

These findings are dependent on the quality of the data, which I mostly obtained from wikipedia. I did this out of casual interest and had only spent around an hour on this research.

Edited January 24, 2008 by hyperdimension

[jbowman1993]

Interesting work guys. Thanks!

[jbowman1993]

Mentioniong how important websites are to university rankings, my university unveiled their newly redesigned website, which easily becomes the best website for a university in Thailand. If other universities follow suit, its fair to say that they will probably see a more accurate ranking in the next year or two, as information is passed to the rankers more easily.

http://www.mahidol.ac.th/

[hyperdimension]

Mentioniong how important websites are to university rankings, my university unveiled their newly redesigned website, which easily becomes the best website for a university in Thailand. If other universities follow suit, its fair to say that they will probably see a more accurate ranking in the next year or two, as information is passed to the rankers more easily.

http://www.mahidol.ac.th/

I think that's the one of the nicest and cleanest looking Thai web sites I've ever seen... and one that doesn't show an irrelevant Royalty tribute page first!

Most Thai web sites are so ugly. e.g. check out the Royal Thai Police web site... what a joke! Also check out the Chainat Provincial Police web site... a Police web site with a love song in the background! Ah they're such softies.

I often visit the FHM Thailand web site, but the home page has an annoying video ad that isn't even relevant (lotto) and it plays automatically every time you view the page! I much prefer looking at the unofficial FHM Girl Next Door web site than the official one!

It's also interesting to see that English is the default language... almost every Thai web site I've visited shows up in Thai by default and there may or may not be an English version. I assume it's because Mahidol wants to be perceived as an "International University", in the same class as univerisities in the west.

In comparison, check out the Chulalongkorn University web site. What do you see first? A funny looking picture of an old lady! Imagine what someone from another country (e.g. an employer) would think.

Edited March 22, 2008 by hyperdimension

[Rumpole]

Check the "Academic Ranking of World Universities" (produced by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) for comparison.

They have rankings for years 2003 to 2007.

And there are no Thai universities on that one, either.

Shanghai Jiao Tong rate themselves in the range 203-304 out of the top 500, so it's not just a promotional exercise. The university is highly regarded in China.

Their criteria include prizes and medals won by alumni and staff, "articles published in Nature and Science" by staff and articles cited, plus a value given to all that by dividing the scores by the number of staff members at each institution.

A bit late coming back to this one. I wasn't questioning either Jiao Tong's credentials or the partiality of its list. Simply making the point that as far as the international (or even regional) academic community is concerned, Thai universities barely register.

[PeaceBlondie]

rump, you need to post more often. Are you still in China?

[Rumpole]

rump, you need to post more often. Are you still in China?

No, I left China two and a half years ago to take up a senior management position at a Cambodian university.

I've been fairly busy and am trying to wean myself off discussion boards. I do still look in from time to time though.