133
Utrecht University chose not to be included on the Times Higher Education rankings (nltimes.nl)
submitted 11 months ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/europe@feddit.de
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It is “virtually impossible to capture the quality of an entire university with all the different courses and disciplines in one figure," the university said.

Utrecht University said it did not provide any data to the makers of the British trade magazine Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, so they couldn’t determine a score. According to Utrecht University, the rankings place “too much emphasis on scoring and competition,” while the university says it considers collaboration and openness of scientific research to be more important.

top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Tvkan@feddit.de 67 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

University rankings are prime examples of "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

The amount of worthless papers, international exchanges etc. I've seen at my university is astounding.

[-] bernieecclestoned@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Nothing is perfect, but it seems reasonable to rank universities based on their performance in education attainment and research?

[-] oroboros@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

How do you rank research output consistently. Every university is expected to create their own exam content, how do you effectively measure education attainment across universities?

[-] 0x815@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes, in the business world this often comes with the Icarus paradox, a phenomenon that eventually leads to a business's failure by the very elements that brought its temporary success before.

[-] fristislurper@feddit.nl 18 points 11 months ago

I think this is quite a common criticism to have, but a top-100 uni like this probably profits from keeping the status quo. Takes a bit of courage to step up.

[-] Anekdoteles@feddit.de 7 points 11 months ago

Not courage, but integrity. It's easy to criticize anything, if you don't have to pay any price. You can either cuddle yourself comfortly in your nice words or act on them, but only the latter is what counts.

[-] HowRu68@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Good someone , i.e. Utrecht, started to bail out of the current ranking system. Continental Universities are hard to compare with British & American ones, afaik. The teacher- student contact is more on the foreground compared to the latter.

Ergo, if teachers need to write papers all the time to maintain ranking, they'll have actually less time to bother with teaching and maintaining contact with students progress & question. Imo, this is a very important element in (higher) education. *Edit

[-] dth@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

utrecht uni w! munir would be so proud.

[-] oroboros@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Sounds like a great university!

[-] dth@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

it sure is! my (unofficial) national hero on human rights (who got murdered by dictatorship regime back then) went there to study.

this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
133 points (97.2% liked)

Europe

8324 readers
1 users here now

News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures

Rules

(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)

  1. Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
  2. No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
  3. No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.

Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
poVoq@slrpnk.net