Abstract

The recent worldwide rankings of universities have been controversial in respect of the indicators chosen to judge universities, and for perceived disciplinary, linguistic and national biases. Each ranking has chosen different indicators and compilation methods make its judgment. Consequently there is wide variation in the scores of individual universities below the top fifth or sixth ranked in each table. Rankings across years show losses and gains in the performance of individual universities that appear hard to account for as occurring in a period of just twelve months. This study analyzes data from the widely acknowledged ranking systems up to the most recent (2010) tables in an attempt to amplify and clarify the indicators that might be thought relevant to the process of ranking. An indicator used across all rankings is citations. An analysis shows that ranking on citations is inconclusive and quite disputable. A few institutions only show some consistency of rank. Uncertainty will remain until the question of the purpose and use of such tables is adequately addressed.