The Global Academic Rankings Game provides a much-needed perspective on how countries and universities react to academic rankings. Based on a unified case methodology of eleven key countries and academic institutions, this comprehensive volume provides expert analysis on this emerging phenomenon at a time when world rankings are becoming increasingly visible and influential on the international stage. Each chapter provides an overview of government and national policies as well as an in-depth examination of the impact that rankings have played on policy, practice, and academic life in Australia, Chile, China, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Global Academic Rankings Game contributes to the continuing debate about the influence of rankings in higher education and is an invaluable resource for higher education scholars and administrators as they tackle rankings in their own national and institutional contexts.

The Global Academic Rankings Game provides a much-needed perspective on how countries and universities react to academic rankings. Based on a unified case methodology of eleven key countries and academic institutions, this comprehensive volume provides expert analysis on this emerging phenomenon at a time when world rankings are becoming increasingly visible and influential on the international stage. Each chapter provides an overview of government and national policies as well as an in-depth examination of the impact that rankings have played on policy, practice, and academic life in Australia, Chile, China, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Global Academic Rankings Game contributes to the continuing debate about the influence of rankings in higher education and is an invaluable resource for higher education scholars and administrators as they tackle rankings in their own national and institutional contexts.

Gathering unique and thoughtful contributions from leading international scholars, this timely Research Handbook offers diverse perspectives on university rankings twenty years after the first global rankings emerged. It presents an in-depth analysis that reflects the current state of research on rankings, their influence and impact.

This book is intended to provide the reader a thorough grasp on Global University Ranking Systems (GURSs). Many educational authorities throughout the world have recently started regularly assessing the effectiveness of their educational institutions based on their global rankings. Moreover, some institutions use the indicators of these rankings as an objective in their strategic plan, however, many academics do not trust such systems, believing that they deceive their educational institutions, that these rankings are inaccurate and may be biased, and thus do more harm to their universities’ programmes than good. In this book, the author draws attention to the role of higher education institutions and how important it is to make global ranking indicators part of their strategic plans, and thus, it is imperative for all academic and administrative members to work together on planning and implementing them in order to advance the academic performances and strengthen those indicators, which consequently leads to raising their rankings at the league tables of the major Global University Rankings (GURs). The author discusses the ranking indicators from the perspective of academic performance and focuses on the challenges facing higher education institutions at various levels, especially improving the five main academic pillars that the rankings outcomes are based on: teaching and learning, research and publishing, strategic planning, internationalisation, and reputation.

How the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The traditional academic imperative to “publish or perish” is increasingly coupled with the newer necessity of “impact or perish”—the requirement that a publication have “impact,” as measured by a variety of metrics, including citations, views, and downloads. Gaming the Metrics examines how the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced radically new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The contributors show that the metrics-based “audit culture” has changed the ecology of research, fostering the gaming and manipulation of quantitative indicators, which lead to the invention of such novel forms of misconduct as citation rings and variously rigged peer reviews. The chapters, written by both scholars and those in the trenches of academic publication, provide a map of academic fraud and misconduct today. They consider such topics as the shortcomings of metrics, the gaming of impact factors, the emergence of so-called predatory journals, the “salami slicing” of scientific findings, the rigging of global university rankings, and the creation of new watchdogs and forensic practices.

Analysing rankings in diverse higher education settings, this book draws on discourse analysis, theory, ethnography, and case studies, to consider the question of how knowledge is produced and shared.

Global rankings and the Geopolitics of Higher Education is an examination of the impact and influence that university rankings have had on higher education, policy and public opinion in recent years. Bringing together some of the most informed authorities on this very complex issue, this edited collection of specially commissioned chapters examines the changes affecting higher education and the implications for society and the economy. Split into four interrelated sections, this book covers: The development of rankings in higher education, how they have impacted upon both the production of knowledge and its geography, and their influence in shaping policymaking. Overviews of the significance of rankings for higher education systems in Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, South America, India and North America. An analysis of rankings in relation to key concerns that pervade contemporary higher education. Examination of the role rankings are likely to play in the future directions for higher education. This is a significant scholarly work that analyses in depth an important development in higher education systems, and which is likely to have an important influence upon how we understand the higher education policy-making process – past, present and future. It provides new analysis and conceptual understanding for researchers, and firm evidence for policy makers to use when addressing the value of rankings in measuring the quality of their institutions. Besides bringing together a powerful cast of academics, this book incorporates contributions from heads of important international higher education organisations – from both those involved in making and also in administering key decisions. This timely, reflective and accessible book forms crucial reading for those studying the subject of rankings, as well as the broader implications and unintended consequences of rankings on national higher education policies. Extending beyond academic researchers and students, this book will also be of significant interest to policymakers, higher education leaders and key stakeholders.