Methodology: A simple overview
The Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings were conceived to present a multi-faceted view of the relative strengths of the world's leading universities. The research yields results on over 600 "in the round" and 300 in each of five broad faculty areas. The overall rankings are compiled based in six distinct indicators:
| Indicator | Explanation | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Peer Review | Composite score drawn from peer review survey (which is divided into five subject areas). 9,386 responses in 2009 (6,354 in 2008). | 40% |
| Employer Review | Score based on responses to employer survey. 3,281 responses in 2009 (2,339 in 2008). | 10% |
| Faculty Student Ratio | Score based on student faculty ratio | 20% |
| Citations per Faculty | Score based on research performance factored against the size of the research body | 20% |
| International Faculty | Score based on proportion of international faculty | 5% |
| International Students | Score based on proportion of international students | 5% |
Weightings are decided upon by Times Higher Education based on their opinion of the importance of the measured criteria balanced against the appropriateness of the indicator to evaluate the intended measure.
Academic Peer Review
The Academic Peer Review is the centrepiece of the THE - QS World University Rankings and is based on an online survey distributed to academics worldwide. Results are compiled based on three years worth of responses totaling 9,386 in 2009. Respondents are not permitted to submit their own institution or to respond more than once (their latest response is counted). Weightings are applied both geographically and by discipline to ensure as fair a representative spread as possible.
Employer Review
Similar to the Academic Peer Review, this indicator is based on a global online survey, this time distributed to employers. Results are again based on three years worth of "latest response" data. Geographical weightings are again applied to ensure fair representation from key regions of the world.
Faculty Student Ratio
Faculty Student Ratio is used in many ranking systems and evaluations in the world, and whilst it may not be a perfect measure of teaching quality, it is the most globally available and accessible measure of commitment to teaching. An indication that the institution in question has sufficient staff to teach its students.
Citations per Faculty
Citations are a widely used, conventional measure of research strength. A citation is a reference to one academic publication in the text of another. The more citations a publication receives the better it is perceived to be, the more highly cited papers a university publishes, the stronger it can be considered to be. As a measure this is somewhat geared towards scientific and technical subjects, which is why it doesn't carry more weight. The source used in this evaluation is Scopus, the world's largest abstract and citation database of research literature. The latest five complete years of data are used. The total citation count is factored against the number of faculty in order to take into account the size of the institution.
International Factors
In today's increasingly globalized world, the most successful universities have to attract the world's bet students and faculty. Simple evaluations of the proportion of international students and international faculty serve as indicators of an institution's international attractiveness.
These indicators are then combined using standard statistical methods to yield the overall scores you will see in the results tables. If you are interested in greater detail, this section of the website contains a wealth of in depth information on how the rankings are compiled.