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The University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) is a
university ranking College and university rankings order the best institutions in higher education based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while others assess institutions worldwide. Ranking ...
developed by the Informatics Institute of
Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. The university emphasizes research and education in engineering ...
. Since 2010, it has been publishing annual national and global college and university rankings for top 2000 institutions. The
scientometrics Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scholarly literature. Scientometrics is a sub-field of informetrics. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academi ...
measurement of URAP is based on data obtained from the
Institute for Scientific Information The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysi ...
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 Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
using additional indicators such as the number of students and faculty members obtained from Center of Measuring, Selection and Placement
ÖSYM The Measuring, Selection and Placement Center ( tr, Ölçme, Seçme ve Yerleştirme Merkezi, ÖSYM) is the body responsible for organizing the national level university entrance examination Student Selection and Placement System, and several other ...
.


Methodology

URAP gathers data from international bibliometric databases such as Web of Science and InCites provided by the
Institute for Scientific Information The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysi ...
. 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.


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 Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
including the number of students and faculty members. The following table shows the indicators used for global rankings in URAP as of 2014.


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: AIT = \sum_^ \Bigg \Bigg( \frac \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: CIT = \sum_^ \Bigg \Bigg( \frac \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.


Current rankings


Global ranking


Rankings by field

*https://urapcenter.org/Rankings/2020-2021/fields


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 The ''European Journal of Education'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal on education, published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of Jo ...
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.” This is also mentioned in the “EUA report on Ranking for 2013 “ published by the
European University Association The European University Association (EUA) represents more than 800 institutions of higher education in 48 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and exchange of information on higher education and research policies. Members of t ...
. It indicates that URAP, along with
SCImago The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator is a measure of the prestige of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the prestige of the journals where the citations come from. Rationale Citati ...
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.” URAP is mentioned as one of the four ranking systems that solely measure the academic performance. The other three are
Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities or NTU Ranking is a ranking system of world universities by scientific paper volume, impact, and performance output. The ranking was originally published from 2007 to 2011 by the ...
,
CWTS Leiden Ranking The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an annual global university ranking based exclusively on bibliometric indicators. The rankings are compiled by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (Dutch: ''Centrum voor Wetenschap en Technologische Studies'' ...
, and SCImago Institutions Rankings. URAP excludes teaching indicators, such as student quality and teaching performance, from global rankings and only covers research-oriented indicators. In the “International Benchmarking in UK higher Education” report of the
Higher Education Statistics Agency The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) was the official agency for the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative information about higher education in the United Kingdom. HESA became a directorate of Jisc after a merger in 20 ...
, 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 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...
(THE),
QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for th ...
, Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), CHE Excellence Rankings, RatER Global University Ranking of World Universities,
Webometrics Ranking of World Universities The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, also known as Ranking Web of Universities, is a ranking system for the world's universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web content (number of web page ...
, 2010 World University Ranking, SIR World Report,
CWTS Leiden Ranking The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an annual global university ranking based exclusively on bibliometric indicators. The rankings are compiled by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (Dutch: ''Centrum voor Wetenschap en Technologische Studies'' ...
, U-Multirank, European Research Ranking,
Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities or NTU Ranking is a ranking system of world universities by scientific paper volume, impact, and performance output. The ranking was originally published from 2007 to 2011 by the ...
, 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” article, published in the ''Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management'', 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 The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities or NTU Ranking is a ranking system of world universities by scientific paper volume, impact, and performance output. The ranking was originally published from 2007 to 2011 by the ...
,
CWTS Leiden Ranking The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an annual global university ranking based exclusively on bibliometric indicators. The rankings are compiled by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (Dutch: ''Centrum voor Wetenschap en Technologische Studies'' ...
, 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 * World university ranking systems: an alternative approach using partial least squares path modelling, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management * Sustainable Development and Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Transformation of Learning and Society * Determinants of University Choice: A Study on Economics Departments in Turkey, Journal of Higher Education. * Collecting University Rankings for Comparison Using Web Extraction and Entity Linking Techniques, Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Research, and Industrial Applications. * URAP-TR: a national ranking for Turkish universities based on academic performance, Scientometrics. * Global University Rankings and Their Impact, EUA Report in Rankings 2013, European University Association. * Contributions of Turkish academicians supervising PhD dissertations and their universities to economics: an evaluation of the 1990–2011 period, Scientometrics. * A Type-2 Fuzzy MCDM Method for Ranking Private Universities in İstanbul, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering, 2014. * Adoption of Web 2.0 in academic libraries of top African universities, The Electronic Library. * Examining Job Description to Develop Job Performance Indicators for Higher Education Institution Based on MBNQA Education Criteria, Journal of Education & Vocational Research. * Software Quality in Academic Curriculum: A Case Study in Turkey, 12th International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA). * University Ranking Lists:A directory., 2013 Report, Division of Analysis and Evaluation, University of Gothenburg. * 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.


URAP in Press

* Thomson Reuters partners with Times on university rankings * Press release of
University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...
, released on 03.04.2013, covered the ranking of the university based in URAP. * Turkey and Arab states announce new HE collaboration, University World News * Power and responsibility – The growing influence of global rankings, University World News * 10 Turkish universities rank among top 500, Hurriyet Daily News * The report of inclusion of five Romanian universities in international rankings based on QS, URAP, U-maltirank, and other ranking systems.


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. * The comparison of the latest results and previous results of URAP, along with other ranking systems, Provided by the
Polytechnic University of Catalonia The Technical University of Catalonia ( ca, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, , es, link=no, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña; UPC), currently referred to as BarcelonaTech, is the largest engineering university in Catalonia, Spai ...
. * The profile of the rankings of
Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick unive ...
from 2010 to 2014 and the current ranking results according to URAP and other ranking systems. * URAP ranking results for top 16 universities of Thailand for 2013-2014 for
Mahidol University Mahidol University (Mahidol), an autonomous research institution in Thailand, had its origin in the establishment of Siriraj Hospital in 1888. Mahidol had an acceptance rate for Medicine of 0.4% as of the 2016 academic year. Becoming the Univers ...
. The report also includes the results for 2012-2013 and the results of all major ranking systems * The report of the global standing of
Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the three " ...
including the URAP results for 2014-2015 * On page 32 of the "Annual Report for the year ended March 31, 2013" of the University of Calgary has used URAP results for 2012 to compare the university with its top 5 peers. * The report of the ranking of
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univer ...
based on URAP results since 2010. * News report of the ranking of
University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...
based in URAP and QS. * Global ranking in 2011 of the
Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian ...
based in ARWU, QS, THE, Leiden, and URAP. * On page 6 of the "Facts and Figures" report published by the
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
URAP result is used to justify that their ranking in other systems is not a "one-off success story".


Criticism

The indicators used in URAP are absolute values and size-dependent making it biased towards larger institutions. According to the “EUA report on Ranking for 2013“ published by the
European University Association The European University Association (EUA) represents more than 800 institutions of higher education in 48 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and exchange of information on higher education and research policies. Members of t ...
, 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. The “University Ranking Lists: A directory” report published by the Division for Analysis and Evaluation of the
University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 st ...
points out a problem that might arise from including more than 500 institutions in the ranking system. It states that “It
RAP Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
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.
RAP Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
do not comment this problem.”


See also

* College and university rankings


Notes


Notes and references


External links


Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Ranking by Academic Performance University and college rankings