Quacquarelli Simmonds
Originally starting out as a partnership between Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds, before splitting in 2007 into two separate rankings powered by separate ranking compilers (although today both use Scopus). While the Times Higher preferred to break their rankings into ever increasing numbers of metrics, ostensibly to reduce the impact of outliers and gaming, and to improve the descriptive richness of the ranking (whether it achieves this goal is debateable – adding more indicators to a composite score does not necessarily increase its descriptive power), the QS ranking still depends largely upon the same six indicators it did at its inception.
Like the Times Higher, the QS ranking is composed to be more of a consumer’s guide than the ARWU or CWTS, and so its main scope is to present the university as an attractive study or research location, rather than to present its research profile per se.
Compiling Team and Financing
Quacquarelli Symonds is an international British education consultancy, adivising on corporate and recruitment strategy, as well as promoting events worldwide for prospective students. Because of this its rankings are projected more towards student choice than institutional performance.
The ranking is produced in partnership with Scopus for the citation sections. Scopus is owned by the publishing conglomerate Elsvier Reed.
Internal data reporting process
Additional data not available from public sources are reported to Quacquarelli Symonds via the Core platform.
Specificity and importance
The QS ranking is high profile, and tends to generate large headlines both here and abroad. According to their press office, topuniversities.com receives over 30 million unique views per annual cycle. Over 50% of these are in the 18-24 age category however, showing its prominence as a study choice tool. As such, it should be considered one of the most prominent rankings, and so good performance should be a priority.
Weaknesses
The QS relies heavily on a reputation survey, with its attendant issues of halo effects, the problem of a lack of privileged knowledge of institutions. This is especially true of the employer survey metric. The employer survey is also heavily skewed into a few industries. 12% is made up of consulting and professional services, a further 8.5% in banking and financial services, 10% in engineering, but only 5% in education, 1.4% in mining, 1.4% in lawThe QS survey also accumulates responses year on year in order to boost its number of respondents, so the score is actually a reflection of 5 years of responses. Therefore the score does not represent the current year’s reputation, but the sum of the years 2012-2017. Similarly, it should be remembered that for citations, this does not represent the current year, but the last five in sum.
Methodology
| Area | Metric | Weighting | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reputation Survey | The survey collects the cumulative resposes over five years of conducting the research. It is now based on 70,000 responses of academics asked to comment on areas of which they have specific knowledge. 3.5% of respondents have specific knowledge of Brazil, and so are permitted to comment (larger than Germany, France or the Netherlands). | 0.4 | External: conducted by Quacquarelli Symonds. Specific detailshere. Respondents taken from previous iterations, World Scientific, Mardev-DM2 and academic signup campaigns. |
| Employer Reputation | Following a focused effort in BRICS countries to increase participation, this sample now involves over 40,000 responses gathered over five years. Respondents are asked to comment on their industry, level of experience, and top international and domestic universities. Following a change in methodology,international and domestic responses will contribute 50% each to an institution’s final score, rather than the previous 70% to international responses. This should favour our universities. 3.56% of respondents have specific experience of Brazil. | 0.1 | A full breakdown of the survey format is availablehere, and details of the 2018 edition are availablehere. |
| Faculty-student ratio | Taken as the proportion of FTE faculty to FTE students to represent accessiblity of staff. | 0.2 | Internally Reported data, mixed with data from IBGE and MEC. QS are open to other data sources suggested. |
| Citations per faculty | A productivity measure taken from the Scopus index per FTE staff. | 0.2 | Details of the metric arehere |
| International Faculty Ratio/ International student ratio | FTE international students- domestic students and FTE international staff-domestic staff. International is determined by citizenship and not residency or hiring location; Brazilians returning from abroad are not counted. Permanent residents, however, should be counted as international. | 5% each | Details here |
Methodological details
Normalisation Like most rankings, the QS is normalised using a z-score, defined by this equation:
z = (x – μ) / σ
This means that outliers are removed from the sample, as it is defined across a normal distribution based on the mean score.
| INDICATOR | MEAN (Μ) | STANDARD DEVIATION (σ) |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Reputation | 77.39 | 52.89 |
| Employer Reputation | 18.20 | 11.11 |
| Faculty Student | 0.10 | 0.04 |
| Citations per Faculty | 37.55 | 29.70 |
| International Faculty | 0.18 | 0.12 |
| International Students | 0.16 | 0.10 |
The effect of this however, is that as more universities are added, the metrics closely correlated with high academic performance (such as citations) have means that gradually shift downwards, as new entrants to the ranking tend not to perform as well as existing participants, meaning that institutions above the mean start to bunch together. Because of this, since 2016 QS only takes the means of the top 700 institutions in order to space out the top of their rankings a little better, meaning that many universities scored lower in this ranking despite maintaining position. For some of the more descriptive indicators less tied to performance, such as faculty: student ratio, the mean does not shift as much.
Areas for focus
A large part of this ranking is given over to efficiency/intensity measures from FTE staff and students. This can be highly variable across work regimes and degree structures. It will be imperative to make sure that only the currently active students on full degree programs are included, and only currently active members of teaching staff are counted (as fractions according to their hourly responsibilities; FTE is the sum of teaching hours added up to one full time teaching member.
Definitions and Concepts
Full Time Equivalent
Full Time Equivalent (FTE) is the total number of full-time personnel it would take to meet the commitments currently met by both the full-time and part-time personnel. If there are no part-time personnel, then FTE figure is equal to the headcount figure. A student/staff can be represented more than once as an FTE if a student/staff is taking a full-time program and a part-time program, he/she will be counted into the Full-Time Headcount AND Part- Time Headcount.
FTE = full-time count + (part-time count/3)
Example:
- number of full-time local faculty student/staff = 3000
- number of part-time local faculty student/staff = 100
- number of full-time international faculty student/staff = 800
- number of part-time international faculty student/staff = 50
Headcount number of faculty student/staff = (3000 + 800) + (100 + 50) = 3950
FTE of faculty student/staff = (3000 + 800) + ((100 + 50)/3) = 3850
Faculty Staff
Total number of academic faculty staff who are responsible for planning, directing and undertaking academic teaching only, research only or both academic teaching and research within Higher Education Institutions.
- Includes: vice-rectors, deputy vice-rectors, rectors, professors, heads of school, associate professors, assistant professors, principal lecturers, readers, tutors, researchers, research fellows or postdoctoral researchers who contribute to teaching or research or both at the university for a minimum period of at least three months.
- Excludes: research assistants¹, PhD students who contribute to teaching, hospital residents who do not teach and/or undertake research in addition to clinical duties, exchange scholars and visiting faculty staff who are members of a different university.
- Academic faculty staff and staff that hold an academic post but are not active due to retirement or honorary appointment should also be excluded.
The important distinction is that staff counted as ‘research only’ should be academically involved in that research and should be likely to publish research outputs. A research assistant, in our understanding, is any individual who is not conducting their own research and is therefore not likely to publish research outputs. Said individual is (only) involved in research in terms of operational execution, such as a lab technician or equipment operators
International Faculty
Number of academic faculty staff who contributes to academic teaching or research or both at the university for a minimum period of at least three months and who are of foreign nationality.
– The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship.
- Inclusion and exclusion mirrors those for academic faculty staff.
- It is important to note that visiting international faculty staff who are of foreign origin but members of a different university should not be counted under this category.
- In case of dual citizenship, the deciding criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained.
Students
Undergraduate
Total number of students pursuing a Bachelor’s level or equivalent degree.
- This includes programmes designed to provide intermediate academic and/or professional knowledge, skills and competencies leading to a first tertiary degree or equivalent qualification. (UNESCO ISCED-2011 Level 6)
- This excludes certificates/diplomas and associate’s degrees.
- Total number of students pursuing a Bachelor’s level or equivalent degree.
Number of undergraduate students who are foreign nationals and who spend at least three months at the university. (This figure is a proportion of the ‘total numberof undergraduate students’.)
- The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship.
- In case of dual citizenship, the ‘deciding’ criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained. – Exclude all exchange students.
As for summer school and/or language students, if they take up a particular (language) course that is outlined as ‘undergraduate degree program’ and the student can earn credits towards their final degree they should be included under ‘international undergraduate students’. Summer school and/or language students who take part in a course not contributing to a degree qualification should be counted under ‘Total International Students’.
Foreign dual degree students can be included under ‘international undergraduate students’ if they fulfil above criteria, spend at least three months at the university, earn credits towards their final degree and have the university’s name written on their diploma. Number of undergraduate students who are foreign nationals and who spend at least three months at the university. (This figure is a proportion of the ‘total number of undergraduate students’).
- The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship.
- In case of dual citizenship, the ‘deciding’ criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained.
- Exclude all exchange students.
- As for summer school and/or language students, if they take up a particular (language) course that is outlined as ‘undergraduate degree program’ and the student can earn credits towards their final degree they should be included under ‘international undergraduate students’. Summer school and/or language students who take part in a course not contributing to a degree qualification should be counted under ‘Total International Students’.
- Foreign dual degree students can be included under ‘international undergraduate students’ if they fulfil above criteria, spend at least three months at the university, earn credits towards their final degree and have the university’s name written on their diploma.
- Number of undergraduate students who are foreign nationals and who spend at least three months at the university. (This figure is a proportion of the ‘total number of undergraduate students’.)
- The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship.
- In case of dual citizenship, the ‘deciding’ criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained.
- Exclude all exchange students.
- As for summer school and/or language students, if they take up a particular (language) course that is outlined as ‘undergraduate degree program’ and the student can earn credits towards their final degree they should be included under ‘international undergraduate students’. Summer school and/or language students who take part in a course not contributing to a degree qualification should be counted under ‘Total International Students
Postgraduate
For clarity, ‘graduate’ and ‘postgraduate’ are synonyms to embrace all students pursuing Masters, Doctoral or similar degrees. The term ‘graduate’ is more broadly used in US institutions and ‘postgraduate’ in British and European institutions.
- Total number of students pursuing a higher-level degree (Master and Doctorate), including both taught and research postgraduates (e.g. PhD students)
- That refers to programmes designed to provide advanced academic and/or professional knowledge, skills and competencies leading to a second tertiary degree or equivalent qualification (UNESCO ISCED-2011 Level 7) and programmes designed primarily to lead to an advanced research qualification, usually concluding with the submission and defence of a substantive dissertation of publishable quality based on original research. (UNESCO ISCED-2011 Level 8)
- Total number of students pursuing a higher-level degree (Master and Doctorate), including both taught and research postgraduates (e.g. PhD students).
International Postgraduate
Number of graduate / postgraduate students who are foreign nationals and who spend at least three months at your university. (This figure is a proportion of the ‘total number of graduate/postgraduate students’.)
- The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship. – In case of dual citizenship, the ‘deciding’ criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained. – Exclude all exchange students. – As for summer school and/or language students, if they take up a particular (language) course that is outlined as ‘postgraduate degree program’ and the student can earn credits towards their final degree, they should be included under ‘international postgraduate students’. Summer school and/or language students who take part in a course not contributing to a degree qualification should be counted under ‘Total International Students’.
- Foreign dual degree students can be included under ‘international graduate/postgraduate students’ if they fulfil above criteria, spend at least three months at the university, earn credits towards their final degree and have your university’s name written on their diploma.
- Number of graduate / postgraduate students who are foreign nationals and who spend at least three months at your university. (This figure is a proportion of the ‘total number of graduate/postgraduate students’.)
- The term ‘international’ is hereby determined by citizenship.
- In case of dual citizenship, the ‘deciding’ criteria should be ‘citizenship obtained through birth’, basically first passport obtained. Universities’ perfomance (2016-2017)
Related Rankings
- QS Latin America Rankings
- QS World Universities Rankings Top 50 Under 50
- QS World Universities Rankings by Subject
- QS Graduate Employability Rankings
- QS System Strength Rankings