Is the ranking system of colleges flawed
Introduction:
- It is challenging to rank universities and other institutions in a country with the diversity of India. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), developed in 2016 by the Ministry of Education, identifies the primary measures by which institutions’ performance may be evaluated. Since then, organizations across the nation, such as colleges and universities, eagerly await their rankings in this well acknowledged system each year.
NIRF position:
- Five factors make up the total score that NIRF uses to evaluate institutions: outreach and inclusivity (10%), perception (10%), research and professional practice (30%), graduation outcomes (20%), teaching, learning, and resources (30%), and professional practice (30%).
- Within the academic world, there has been criticism of the creation of these measures, the transparency of the methodology used, and the framework as a whole.
- They focus heavily on bibliometric metrics, therefore the evaluation’s part on research and professional practices receives the lion’s share of their attention.
- Currently, the NIRF produces rankings for a variety of categories, such as “Overall,” “Research Institutions,” “Universities,” and “Colleges,” as well as for specific professions like engineering, management, pharmacy, law, etc.
- The rankings are a helpful resource for prospective students navigating India’s confusing higher education landscape.
Bibliometrics:
- The term “bibliometrics” describes the measurable aspects of research, including the quantity of papers written, how frequently they are cited, and journal impact factors.
- The advantage of using bibliometrics as a tool for assessing research output is that it requires less time and resources than subject-specific experts’ qualitative judgments, which are labor- and resource-intensive.
- However, authorities have been cautioned against using bibliometrics as the only method of evaluation by experts in scientific policy.
- They argued that as bibliometric measurements fall short in capturing the nuanced aspects of scientific performance, we require a more thorough evaluation methodology.
Issue with relying too much on bibliometrics:
- The NIRF has come under question for the efficiency and objectivity of its methodology for ranking universities.
- For instance, the NIRF uses commercial databases like “Scopus” and “Web of Science” to acquire bibliometric data; however, these institutions are not impervious to mistakes or fraud.
- The NIRF’s publication-metrics index solely considers research papers, excluding books, book chapters, monographs, non-traditional outputs like popular articles, workshop reports, and other forms of grey literature. These additional creative contributions are not taken into account.
- As a result, the NIRF unintentionally encourages scientists to focus on work that is more likely to be published in journals, particularly international journals, and to overlook research that the NIRF isn’t likely to be interested in.
- This disadvantages writing on regional and local issues because international periodicals prefer writing about topics with a wide audience.
Transparency of NIRF:
- University rankings are debatable. There are issues with the NIRF, Times Higher Education, and QS World University Rankings.
- The requirement for transparency regarding the information that is acquired, the sources and techniques utilized to gather it, and the procedure used to calculate the final score has been emphasized by experts.
- The NIRF is only partially transparent because it doesn’t provide a complete picture, while disclosing its methodology to the public.
- A methodology for assessment and grading has been created using bibliometric data. However, there might be a discrepancy between the labels they use for quantity and quality of study. The designations in question are ambiguous and possibly misleading.
Conclusion:
- There is always a degree of uncertainty in university rankings, no matter how precise the techniques. By creating a mentality that values measurements over the excellence in research and education that the organization is trying to quantify, the NIRF’s emphasis on rankings has the potential to foster unhealthy competition among institutions.
