The new multidimensional and user-driven higher education ranking concept of the European Union

Higher education rankings constitute a important but controversial topic due to the methodologies applied in existing rankings and to the use being done of these interpreting their results for purposes which they were not designed for. At present there is no international ranking can responds to the needs of all users and that is methodologically sound by considering the various missions of higher education institutions, mainly due to a narrow focus on research giving less importance to other missions in which higher education institutions can excel beyond research such as teaching quality, knowledge transfer, international orientation, regional engagement etc. The European Commission is currently involved in the implementation of a new higher education ranking methodology, characterised by taking into account a diversity of missions and the diversity of existing higher education institutions. The final aim is to create a tool allowing users to choose the performance indicators of their interest and providing them with a personalised ranking according to their interests. This paper describes the motivation for designing such a tool, the principles of the methodology proposed, as well as the steps foreseen to have it ready for end users by 2014.     

Rankings,standards, and competition: Task vs. scale comparisons

Research showing how upward social comparison breeds competitive behavior has so far conflated local comparisons in task performance (e.g. a test score) with comparisons on a more general scale (i.e. an underlying skill). Using a ranking methodology ( Garcia, Tor, & Gonzalez, 2006) to separate task and scale comparisons, Studies 1–2 reveal that an upward comparison on the scale (e.g. being surpassed in rank), rather than in the mere task (e.g., being outperformed), is necessary to generate competition among rivals proximate to a standard (e.g. ranked #3 vs. 4, near “the top”); rivals far from a standard (e.g. ranked #203 vs. 204), on the other hand, still tend to cooperate. Study 3 illustrates this finding with player trades in Major League Baseball. Study 4 further shows how an implicit scale comparison, instead of the commonly assumed explicit task comparison, may account for those classical competition findings in the literature. Study 5 then reveals how scale ranking becomes all important in the proximity of a standard, leading rivals to tolerate even an upward scale comparison to increase their proximity to the standard. Implications for the increasingly popular “forced ranking” management systems (e.g., at General Electric) are also discussed.