# University Ranking by Academic Performance

The University Ranking by Academic Performance,[1] abbreviated as URAP, was developed in the Informatics Institute[2] of Middle East Technical University. Since 2010, it has been publishing annual national[3] and global[4] college and university rankings for top 2000 institutions. The scientometrics measurement of URAP is based on data obtained from the Institute for Scientific Information via Web of Science and inCites. For global rankings, URAP employs indicators of research performance including the number of articles, citation, total documents, article impact total, citation impact total, and international collaboration. In addition to global rankings, URAP publishes regional rankings for universities in Turkey using additional indicators such as the number of students and faculty members obtained from Center of Measuring, Selection and Placement ÖSYM.

## Methodology

URAP gathers data from international bibliometric databases such as Web of Science and InCites provided by the Institute for Scientific Information. URAP uses data of 2,500 Higher Education Institutions (HEI) with highest number of articles published. The overall score of each HEI is based on its performance over several indicators. Of 2500 selected HEIs, the top 2000 are included in the rankings published by URAP. Field based rankings are performed on 23 fields based on Australia ERA.[5]

### Indicators

URAP uses 6 main indicator to measure the academic performance. These indicators are number of articles, citation, total documents, article impact total, citation impact total, and international collaboration. The raw bibliometric data underlying URAP's 6 main indicators have highly skewed distribution. To address this issue, the median of the indicators have been used. The Delphi system was conducted with a group of experts to assign weighting scores to the indicators. Total score of 600 is distributed to indicators. URAP uses additional indicators for ranking universities in Turkey including the number of students and faculty members. The following table shows the indicators used for global rankings in URAP as of 2014.

Indicator Objective Weight (out of 600) Source
Number of Articles Scientific Productivity %21 InCites
Citation Research Impact %21 InCites
Total Documents Scientific Productivity %10 Web of Science
Article Impact Total Research Quality %18 InCites
Citation Impact Total Research Quality %15 InCites
International Collaboration International Acceptance %15 InCites

#### Number of articles

Number of articles is used as a measure of current scientific productivity which includes articles indexed by Web of Science. This indicator covers articles, reviews and notes. The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %21.

#### Citation

Citation, as an indicator in URAP ranking, is a measure of research impact. It is scored according to the total number of citations received. The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %21.

#### Total documents

Total documents is the measure of sustainability and continuity of scientific productivity. The total document count covers all scholarly literature provided by the Web of Science database, including conference papers, reviews, letters, discussions, scripts, and journal articles. The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %10.

#### Article Impact Total (AIT)

Article Impact Total (AIT) is a measure of scientific productivity adjusted by the ratio of institution's Citation Per Publication (CPP) to the world CPP in 23 subject areas. The ratio of the institution's CPP and the world CPP indicates whether the institution is performing above or below the world average in that field. This ratio is multiplied by the number of publications in that field and then summed across the 23 fields, as shown in the following formula:

${\displaystyle AIT=\sum _{i=1}^{23}{\Bigg [}{\Bigg (}{\frac {CPP_{i}}{CPP\_{World_{i}}}}{\Bigg )}*Articles_{i}{\Bigg ]}}$

The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %18.

#### Citation Impact Total (CIT)

Citation Impact Total (CIT) is a measure of research impact corrected by the institution's normalized CPP with respect to the world CPP in 23 subject areas. The ratio of the institution's CPP and the world CPP indicates whether the institution is performing above or below the world average in that field. This ratio is multiplied by the number of citations in that field and then summed across the 23 fields, as shown in the following formula:

${\displaystyle CIT=\sum _{i=1}^{23}{\Bigg [}{\Bigg (}{\frac {CPP_{i}}{CPP\_{World_{i}}}}{\Bigg )}*Citations_{i}{\Bigg ]}}$

The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %15.

#### International collaboration

International Collaboration is a measure of global acceptance of the institution. International collaboration data, which is based on the total number of published studies conducted in collaboration with foreign universities, is obtained from InCites. The weight of this indicator in the overall ranking is %15.

## Commentary and reception

URAP covers considerably more institutions than other major ranking systems. In a section about URAP in “Where Are the Global Rankings Leading Us? An Analysis of Recent Methodological Changes and New Developments” published in the European Journal of Education it is mentioned that ”While it is less well-known than SRG, ARWU, THE, and QS, it is interesting because it published a list of 2000 universities, while the above rankings cover a maximum of 700 universities.”[6] This is also mentioned in the “EUA report on Ranking for 2013 “ published by the European University Association. It indicates that URAP, along with SCImago ranking system, “fill an important gap in the rankings market in that their indicators measure the performance of substantially more universities, up to 2000 in the case of URAP and over 3000 in SCImago, compared to only 400 in THE, 500 in SRC ARWU, NTU ranking and CWTS Leiden, and around 700 in QS.”[7]

URAP is mentioned as one the four ranking systems that solely measure the academic performance. The other three are Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities , CWTS Leiden Ranking, and SCImago Institutions Rankings.[8] URAP excludes teaching indicators, such as student quality and teaching performance, from global rankings and only covers research-oriented indicators.[6][9] In the “International Benchmarking in UK higher Education”[10] report of the Higher Education Statistics Agency, URAP is listed among the benchmarking resources for measuring academic. In the same report, URAP is categorized in the “whole university rankings” along with Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE), QS World University Rankings, Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), CHE Excellence Rankings, RatER Global University Ranking of World Universities, Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, 2010 World University Ranking, SIR World Report, CWTS Leiden Ranking, U-Multirank, European Research Ranking, Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR), and Professional Classification of Higher Education Institutions.

### URAP in Research, Books, and Reports

URAP is mentioned and used in several studies based on, or referring to, global rankings. In the “World University Ranking Systems: An Alternative Approach Using Partial Least Squares Path Modeling”[8] article, published in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management,[11] Urap is incorporated in the suggested model as one of the nine major worldwide university ranking systems along with ARWU, QS, Times, Webometrics, Taiwan. Leiden, SIR, and CWUR. In the same article, URAP is categorized among the ranking systems that are based solely on publication performance. The other ranking systems in the same category are Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities , CWTS Leiden Ranking, and SCImago Institutions Rankings.

The following is a list of some of the books, peer reviewed articles, and conference proceedings that have covered URAP or have incorporated it in their models or comparisons.

• Where Are the Global Rankings Leading Us? An Analysis of Recent Methodological Changes and New Developments, European Journal of Education [6]
• World university ranking systems: an alternative approach using partial least squares path modelling, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management [8]
• Sustainable Development and Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Transformation of Learning and Society[12]
• Determinants of University Choice: A Study on Economics Departments in Turkey, Journal of Higher Education.[13]
• Collecting University Rankings for Comparison Using Web Extraction and Entity Linking Techniques, Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Research, and Industrial Applications.[14]
• URAP-TR: a national ranking for Turkish universities based on academic performance, Scientometrics.[15]
• Using VIKOR methodology for ranking universities by academic performance, Journal of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research (JMSOR).[16]
• Global University Rankings and Their Impact, EUA Report in Rankings 2013, European University Association.[7]
• Contributions of Turkish academicians supervising PhD dissertations and their universities to economics: an evaluation of the 1990–2011 period, Scientometrics.[17]
• A Type-2 Fuzzy MCDM Method for Ranking Private Universities in İstanbul, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering, 2014.[18]
• Adoption of Web 2.0 in academic libraries of top African universities, The Electronic Library.[19]
• Examining Job Description to Develop Job Performance Indicators for Higher Education Institution Based on MBNQA Education Criteria, Journal of Education & Vocational Research.[20]
• Methodology for comparative analysis of university rankings, with the Mediterranean and Black sea region countries taken as an example, Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research.[21]
• Software Quality in Academic Curriculum: A Case Study in Turkey, 12th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA).[22]
• University Ranking Lists:A directory., 2013 Report, Division of Analysis and Evaluation, University of Gothenburg.[23]
• The "ASERF E News Bulletin on Education" published by Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation compares the ranking results of THE with other ranking systems, including URAP and QS, for the top 10 universities in some countries.[24]

### URAP in Press

• Thomson Reuters partners with Times on university rankings[25]
• Press release of University of Tübingen, released on 03.04.2013, covered the ranking of the university based in URAP.[26]
• Turkey and Arab states announce new HE collaboration, University World News[27]
• Power and responsibility – The growing influence of global rankings, University World News[28]
• 10 Turkish universities rank among top 500, Hurriyet Daily News[29]
• The report of inclusion of five Romanian universities in international rankings based on QS, URAP, U-maltirank, and other ranking systems.[30]

### URAP in university reports and websites

Annual URAP ranking results are used by a number of listed universities to indicate their academic performance. The following is a short list of links to university pages that has mentioned URAP results either independently or in conjunction with other ranking results.

## Criticism

The indicators used in URAP are absolute values and size-dependent making it biased towards larger institutions.[7][9] According to the “EUA report on Ranking for 2013“ published by the European University Association, URAP disregards books, excludes studies in arts and humanities areas, and under-represents social sciences. Furthermore, URAP does not employ any compensation for different publication cultures due to the lack of field-normalization of the results of bibliometric indicators. The report further states that “The results of the indicator on citation numbers in particular, as well as those on publication counts, are thus skewed towards the natural sciences and especially medicine.” It also states that excluding teaching indicators by URAP makes its focus solely on research-oriented institutions.[7]

The “University Ranking Lists: A directory” report published by the Division for Analysis and Evaluation of the University of Gothenburg points out a problem that might arise from including more than 500 institutions in the ranking system. It states that “It [URAP] lists 2000 universities, and the purpose is to provide a ranking that covers not only institutions in the Western elite group. This purpose contrasts starkly with other ranking producers’ decisions not to publish more than the 400-500 top positions of their lists, since they do not consider their methods reliable below that level. [URAP] do not comment this problem.”[23]

## Notes and references

1. ^ "University Ranking by Academic Performance". Retrieved 23 March 2015.
2. ^ "Middle East Technical University, Graduate School of Informatics". Retrieved 23 March 2015.
3. ^ "URAP Türkiye Özel Bölümü" (in Turkish).
4. ^
5. ^ "ERA 2015, Excellence in Research for Australia". Archived from the original on 2015-04-01. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
6. ^ a b c Rauhvargers, Andrejs (March 2014). "Where Are the Global Rankings Leading Us? An Analysis of Recent Methodological Changes and New Developments". European Journal of Education. 49 (1): 29–44. doi:10.1111/ejed.12066.
7. ^ a b c d Rauhvargers, Andrejs (2013). Global university rankings and their impact : report II (PDF). Brussels: European University Association. p. 65. ISBN 9789078997412. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-08. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
8. ^ a b c Jajo, Nethal K.; Harrison, Jen (11 July 2014). "World university ranking systems: an alternative approach using partial least squares path modelling". Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. 36 (5): 473. doi:10.1080/1360080X.2014.936090.
9. ^ a b "The URAP Ranking". IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
10. ^ Boxall, Mike; Webb, Andrew; Ramsden, Brian (2011). International Benchmarking in UK Higher Education. London: PA Consulting Group. p. 11. Archived from the original on 2015-03-30. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
11. ^ "Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management". Taylor and Francis.
12. ^ Fadeeva, Zinaida; Galkute, Laima; Mader, Clemens; Scott, Geoff (2014-10-31). Sustainable Development and Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Transformation of Learning and Society. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 29. ISBN 978-1137459138.
13. ^ Çokgezen, Murat (2012). "Determinants of University Choice: A Study on Economics Departments in Turkey". Journal of Higher Education. 4 (1): 23–31.
14. ^ Bassiliades, Nick (2014). Collecting University Rankings for Comparison Using Web Extraction and Entity Linking Techniques. Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Research, and Industrial Applications Communications in Computer and Information Science. Communications in Computer and Information Science. 469. pp. 23–46. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-13206-8_2. ISBN 978-3-319-13205-1.
15. ^ Alaşehir, Oğuzhan; Çakır, Murat Perit; Acartürk, Cengiz; Baykal, Nazife; Akbulut, Ural (2014). "URAP-TR: a national ranking for Turkish universities based on academic performance". Scientometrics. 101 (1): 159–178. doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1333-4.
16. ^ Nisel, Seyhan; Nisel, Rauf (2013). "Using VIKOR Methodology for Ranking Universities by Academic Performance". Journal of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research (JMSOR). 2 (1): 86–92. doi:10.5176/2251-3388_2.1.37.
17. ^ Kutlar, Aziz; Kabasakal, Ali; Ekici, Mehmet Sena (2013). "Contributions of Turkish academicians supervising PhD dissertations and their universities to economics: an evaluation of the 1990–2011 period". Scientometrics. 97 (3): 639–658. doi:10.1007/s11192-013-0973-0.
18. ^ Erdoğan, Melike; Kaya, İhsan (2014). "A Type-2 Fuzzy MCDM Method for Ranking Private Universities in İstanbul" (PDF). Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering. London.
19. ^ H. Wordofa, Kebede (April 2014). "Adoption of Web 2.0 in academic libraries of top African universities". The Electronic Library. 32 (2): 262–277. doi:10.1108/EL-07-2012-0077.
20. ^ Citra Sondari, Mery (2013). "Examining Job Description to Develop Job Performance Indicators for Higher Education Institution Based on MBNQA Education Criteria". Journal of Education & Vocational Research. 4 (4): 101–108.
21. ^ Moskovkin, Vladimir M (2013). "Methodology for comparative analysis of university rankings, with the Mediterranean and Black sea region countries taken as an example". Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research. 18 (11): 1656–1665. doi:10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2013.18.11.70120 (inactive 2019-02-22).
22. ^ Pusatli, O Tolga; Misra, Sanjay (2012). "Software Quality in Academic Curriculum: A Case Study in Turkey". 12th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA). Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: IEEE. pp. 162–166.
23. ^ a b "University Ranking Lists:A directory" (PDF). University of Gothenburgh. 2013. p. 21.
24. ^ "ASERF E News Bulletin on EDUCATION" (PDF). Apeejay Stya Education Research Foundation. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
25. ^ "Thomson Reuters partners with Times on university rankings". Research Information. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
26. ^ "Tübingen No. 5 in Germany – URAP 2012 World University Rankings" (PDF). University of Tübingen. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
27. ^ "Turkey and Arab states announce new HE collaboration". University World News. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
28. ^ Holmes, Richard. "Power and responsibility – The growing influence of global rankings". University World News.
29. ^ "10 Turkish universities rank among top 500". Hurriyet Daily News.
30. ^ "Five Romanian universities included in international rankings". Romania Insider. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
31. ^ "THE UPC IN THE MAIN UNIVERSITY RANKINGS". Retrieved 23 March 2015.
32. ^ "Profile of Newcastle University's rankings over recent years" (PDF). http://www.ncl.ac.uk/. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-01. Retrieved 2015-03-07. External link in |website= (help)
33. ^ "Current Rankings". Newcastle University. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
34. ^ "University Rankings". Mahidol University. Archived from the original on 2015-08-31. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
35. ^ "Global Standing". Seoul National University.
36. ^ "Annual Report for the year ended March 31, 2013" (PDF). University of Calgary.
37. ^ "University of Pittsburgh Ranks No. 22 Globally for Scholarly Publications". University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
38. ^ "UCD News. UCD ranked in top 200 for 22 subjects out of 30 categories in QS World University Rankings". University College Dublin. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
39. ^ "Griffith's global rankings in 2011" (PDF). Griffith University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-21. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
40. ^ "Facts and Figures" (PDF). University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Retrieved 24 March 2015.