Living with the ratings

In this article, we will answer the following questions:

• University rankings for whom and for what?
• How is the ranking practice in some developed countries?
• How are universities ranked?
• Does Vietnam have university rankings yet?
• What are the challenges for Vietnamese university rankings?
• Why do they say “We have to live with the ratings?”
• Which way is the university ranking in Vietnam going?

1. University rankings for whom and for what purpose?

University rankings serve mainly the following purposes:

• University rankingsto improve qualityUniversities and university rankings have become a global trend.
• Some governments and universities use rankings.to decide the amount of wagesfor each educational institution. For example, the Malaysian government has set up a national committee to look into how the country's public universities are building their standing in the world.
• International rankings forstudents and parents choose schoolsRobert J. Coelen, argues: Rankings are becoming increasingly popular globally in an era when universities are competing for global students as a resource.
• University rankings toSchools plan their own direction of operation.

2. How is the ranking practice in some developed countries?

American news magazine (US News)initiated the annual ranking of American colleges and universities in 1983. The Princeton Review, Inc., has published its annual ranking of the best colleges. The first was published in 1991. The center evaluates the performance of universities. The German University Exchange Service and the German weekly news magazine Stern have published the Centers for Higher Education Development rankings of 250 German universities since 1998.University Rankings in Canadabased on perceived quality and value. Two annual rankings of Canadian universities are produced by Maclean's magazine and The Globe and Mail. Canadian universities also feature prominently in rankings by international magazines such as The Princeton Review (USA), The Times Higher Education Supplement (UK), and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (China). Advantages of the education systemAustraliais the high quality and uniform training. Each Australian university has its own strengths and meets the strict regulations of the Australian Government on training regulations. Currently, there is no official Government ranking of universities in Australia. But Ross Williams and Nina Van Dyke of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research published an international ranking of Australian universities in 2004. The British Sunday Times first reported the rankings of British universities in 2001.Thus, it can be said that the United States is the birthplace of university rankings, and then university rankings spread globally.MagazineAsia Weekalso published a list of the best universities in Asia from 1997 to 2000. The magazine ceased publication in 2001.In China, people have tried to answer 2 questions: 1/ What is a world-class university; 2/ How far is the gap between China's top universities and world-class universities. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) conducts a survey, evaluation and ranking of the world's top universities. According to SJTU, world-class universities are universities in the top 100. China currently has only 2 top universities in the top 200, 6 in the top 300, 15 in the top 400, 18 in the top 500. Below is the ranking of the top 20 universities in China in 2010:

1. Peking University
2. Tsinghua University
3. Zhejiang University
4. Fudan University
5. Nanjing University
6. Wuhan University
7. Shanghai Jiaotong University
8. Beijing Normal University
9. Sun Yat-sen University
10. Renmin University of China
11. Nankai University
12. Huazhong University of Science and Technology
13. Sichuan University
14. Jilin University
15. University of Science and Technology of China
16. Harbin Institute of Technology
17. Shandong University
18. Xi'an Jiaotong University
19. Xiamen University
20. Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

3. How are universities ranked?

Ranking universities is a difficult and complex task. The question is how to evaluate and compare two universities. Currently, there are two types of rankings:

• Ranking of universities by position table
• University rankings but no table of positions

3.1. Ranking of universities according to position tableUniversity rankings are lists of specific groups of institutions (within a country), ranked relative to some common criteria in descending order. University rankings are often presented as “place tables,” listed from best to worst. Place tables are produced by publishers. In some respects, university rankings share some characteristics with “consumer guides.” University rankings are, after all, judgments intended to inform society. University rankings, in terms of level, come in two different forms: international or national university rankings and departmental rankings. National rankings are those in which all or most universities are evaluated against each other. This is the first form of university ranking, for example, the one initiated by US News and other countries have followed suit. In most cases, all universities in a country are compared to choose a “flagpole” from the “bundle of chopsticks”. Of course, the universities being compared have similar characteristics, from which, there are rankings for a group of schools. Faculty (field) rankings are based on comparing the departments of specific schools with similar departments in other schools. These rankings are usually national in scale and involve professional schools such as business, law, and medicine. There are many of these types of position rankings and they often go into detail. Some of the criteria of some ranking organizations are described below:US News and World Report

• Academic excellence through a survey of principals and deans: weight 25%
• Dropout rate and graduation rate: weighted 20%
• Facilities (class size, professor salary, professor qualifications, full-time professor ratio): weight 20%
• Student selection score: weight 15%
• School expenditure per student: weight 10%
• Alumni contribution rate to school fund: weight 5%
• Graduation rate after adjusting for spending and admission scores: 5% weight

Times Higher Education Supplement (THES)

• Evaluation of lecturers from other schools: weight 40%
• Number of graduates working in global companies: weight 10%
• Percentage of professors who are foreign: weight 5%
• Percentage of students who are foreign: weighted 5%
• Student/Professor Ratio: 20% weighting
• Number of citations per professor: weight 20%

Shanghai Jiaotong University (China)

• Number of alumni winning Nobel and Fields medals: 10% weighting
• Number of professors winning Nobel and Fields prizes: weight 20%
• Number of scientific articles cited many times: weight 20%
• Number of scientific articles in the journalNatureandScience: weight 20%
• Number of scientific articles in journals in SCIE, SSCI directory: weight 20%
• Achievements of professors and lecturers: weight 10%

3.2. Ranking without position tables: CHE methodThere is another ranking method. The Centre for the Development of Higher Education (CHE) in Germany does this. The CHE publishes its annual rankings together with a number of its media colleagues. The CHE conducts regular surveys of approximately 130,000 students and 16,000 teachers, across nearly 250 universities. These student surveys are extensive and ask a number of questions about both the student experience and their satisfaction with their university. Faculty surveys are often conducted to compile data for a particular criterion. This criterion is known as “insiders’ choice” (For example, in the survey, professors might be asked to name the top three universities in their field of teaching and research). The rankings have a number of criteria using independent data sources. About two-thirds of the criteria are based on survey results, while the remaining data comes from third-party sources. The CHE ranking does not use data sourced from the schools being evaluated. The CHE ranking of German university faculties differs from the rankings in two notable ways. First, as mentioned above, it does not scale or combine the scores of individual criteria. The data for each faculty under each criterion is presented separately, and the faculties are not ranked in order. CHE does this on the basis that it is pointless to combine widely disparate criteria into a single general system. Instead of a simple ranking, all criteria must be presented for all schools. This means that these “rankings” are difficult to use and difficult to read. And this approach has the huge advantage that the “rankings” are all posted on a website. The peculiarity of this ranking is that, since CHE does not calculate the proportions for the rankings, this creates conditions for the users themselves to actually create their own proportions and rankings by selecting certain criteria on the basis of the website's data, providing information about the school. And so, the assessment of the quality of the university lies with the users of the ranking system.... The second peculiarity of CHE is that, within each criterion, they do not attempt to divide the rankings in order.

4. Does Vietnam have university rankings yet?

Although there is no official ranking, in Vietnam there are initially some unique types of “university rankings”. There are two ways to rank universities in Vietnam:4.1. Ranking of “folk” - informal according to input standardsCurrently in Vietnam, although not publicly announced, it is implicitly understood that there are three types of Vietnamese universities:

Type	Criteria
Type 1	24 points (8 points x3 subjects)
Type 2	Average score between type 1 and floor score
Type 3	Floor score

This “folk” ranking is based on the input criteria. This criterion is also one of the ranking criteria of many rankings in the world, but it is not comprehensive. A university cannot be evaluated solely by the input criteria. A comprehensive ranking must evaluate both “input”; “training process” and “output”.4.2. Xranking by standards, according to the views of some universities;For example, Hanoi National University advocates that “- To rank, ... universities will be divided into three groups according to the highest degree that the schools are allowed by the Ministry of Education and Training to train. Accordingly, there will be three groups of schools: the group with postgraduate training up to the doctoral level, the group with training up to the master's level and the group with training up to the university level. The ranking of universities needs to reflect the two main activities of the school: teaching and scientific research. In scientific research, it must include technology transfer to serve the needs of economic and social development. Universities are ranked in the same group according to each field of teaching and scientific research.” (Nguyen Phuong Nga,Vietnam University Rankings: Are They Objective and Reliable?). Currently, no Vietnamese university has a position in the ranking of top universities in Asia or the world. Below is the ranking order of 7 Vietnamese universities as reported by many mass media.

STT	School name	Ranking
		ASEAN	World
1	Ho Chi Minh City University of Science	28	1920
2	Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology	36	2190
3	Can Tho University	47	2532
4	Vietnam National University, Hanoi	54	2850
5	Hanoi University of Science and Technology	62	3156
6	University of Technology - Vietnam National University, Hanoi	90	4217
7	Ho Chi Minh City National University	96	4462

5. What are the challenges for Vietnamese university rankings?

Below we present some cultural features as one of the reasons that make it difficult to develop universities in general and to rank Vietnamese universities in particular.5.1. Traditional cultural traits: Study to become an official, study to get rich, we do not have the cultural trait of "studying to do science"In fact, the Vietnamese university system originates from a viewpoint that has become a cultural feature of the majority of us: “We train a large number of scientists and engineers. But in the context of low economic development, without enough facilities to use them, engineers are not practitioners but cadres, living on degrees and titles... Young people and their parents are calculating a certain path: studying to get degrees, entering the payroll and living off the state for benefits and scholarships. Preparing for life by cultivating "character" (moral assessment, political activity capital) and degrees, not by independent careers.” (Tran Dinh Huou).5.2.Cultural trait of "showing the beautiful and covering up the ugly"Where will the rankers get accurate data when the majority of us have been taught by our fathers: “show the beautiful and hide the ugly”. This way of behaving makes the data sources, in many cases, unreliable: “Since 2007, the Ministry of Education and Training has deployed a survey of the current situation of universities with 53 criteria.5.3.Cultural features“nine out of tenIt is an obstacle when we check each otherVietnam is a nation that values ​​love, people like a way of doing things "nine out of teninstead of an accurate way of doing it. The fact that external evaluation teams evaluate other universities carries with it this traditional cultural trait, making the evaluation data even from external evaluation teams less objective, and accordingly, the evaluation that is supposed to be the most objective becomes distorted. Based on this situation and condition, Vietnam's ranking still faces many difficulties, first of allthe accuracy of the figures provided on the one hand and the ranking criteria on the other. Which criteria should we choose to rank Vietnamese universities? Assuming that we choose the criteria of Shanghai Jiaotong University as the criteria to evaluate Vietnamese universities, the first two criteria account for 30% of the weight, we reach /0/. Number of alumni who won Nobel and Field Prizes: weight 10%; Number of professors who won Nobel and Field Prizes: weight 20%. Next criteria: Number of scientific articles cited many times: weight 20%; these criteria are too difficult for Vietnamese universities; How many articles do we have published in journals?NatureandScience (weight 20%) etc.? So what criteria are used to measure Vietnamese universities?

6. Why do we say “We have to live with the ratings?”

6.1. University rankings are not only a challenge for Vietnamese universities but also a challenge for universities worldwide.The battle for good professors and students at universities has forced universities to look back at their position to “know who they are” in the international arena. Pierre de Maret, former Rector of the Libre de Bruxelles University (Belgium) and a member of the European University Association, said: “Today, rankings have become a part of education, whether we like it or not.” He affirmed that rankings “have a direct impact on the government level and really wake up many things.” It can be said that, in the world, university rankings are an approach to improve the quality of universities and have become a global trend.So it can be said that, at the national level, whether we like it or not, we are forced to live with rankings.as commented by Professor Nguyen Van Tuan:“In recent years, in many countries around the world, a university ranking syndrome has formed. Despite the warnings of knowledgeable people that this is just a "playground" for university giants, the mentality of "sitting on the same mat" has almost become a global obsession.6.2. Overhead and underfoot in Vietnamese playgrounds Suppose that each of us sitting here is studying or working in a low-ranking unit. meaning "underdog"In the Vietnamese ranking playground, a ranking will make us feel"inferior to older sister"and of course we wouldn't want any rankings to appear. That's why,Since the evaluation of schools will also disadvantage the lower ranked schools, it is understandable that many colleges and universities feel hesitant to participate in this work. This “hesitation” mentality appears not only among managers and lecturers but also among students of lower ranked universities. From the perspective of these universities, the ranking is no different from “living with the flood”.Is that why "while students are excited about being ranked, most university presidents are worried about it". Whether they want it or not, universities in Vietnam are forced to participate in the "ranking" game. In July 2007, the Prime Minister issued a decision on planning the network of colleges and universities for the period 2006 - 2020. Accordingly, Vietnam strives to have 10 universities by 2010, each with at least one faculty or training field meeting international quality criteria, 20 schools by 2015 meeting the above criteria, and 2020 having one university in the top 200 in the world. Thus, Vietnamese universities not only need to be present in the "home ground" of Vietnam to determine their rankings, but also have to "reach out" to a wider playing field than the "regional" level; “Asian” and “International”.

7. Some recommendations (Which direction is university ranking in Vietnam going?)

7.1. Use strategy "retreat step by step", "overthrow each part"in university rankings. During the war, we used this strategy to move forward to achieve complete victory, it is thought that this is also the strategy that should be applied in university rankings in our country today. This is also a ranking trend in Europe. This trend introduces a university ranking style that only includes rankings of faculties and fields (for example, history, economics, biology...) as in the case of CHE rankings in Germany, Guardian rankings in the UK, La Repubblica in Italy.7.2. The rankings should not attempt to be ranked.We can learn from CHE’s ranking method, that is, in each criterion, they do not try to divide the ranking in order. Universities and colleges are only divided into 3 groups: good, average and poor. This ranking method is especially suitable for our country because it is suitable for the psychology and culture of Vietnamese people.7.3. University rankings require data from a variety of sources.Because of the “achievement” mentality and the cultural traits analyzed above, the published data of schools in some cases do not objectively reflect their achievements; therefore, it is necessary to collect information from many different sources to ensure the honesty of the data.7.4.Need to mountrankingwithstandard. “Ranking” not only has the meaning as presented above, but it also helps people find “standard” schools on the basis of which other schools can compare. The concept of “standard” is understood as (1) “the chosen basis for comparison, to follow to make it right" or (2) "an object chosen as a sample to represent a unit of measure”, and (3) “what is accepted as correct by rules or habits in society".Benchmarking is an evaluation activity.Benchmarking is, in fact, the process of evaluating an organization’s internal operating methods and then identifying, discovering, and emulating those organizations that stand out from other organizations of the same type as the best. One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is that, in their evaluation, they limit their evaluation activities to their own internal ones. Internal evaluation is necessary, but forcing yourself to go outside and surpass yourself in comparison with other organizations is a good way to achieve success.Why should we conduct benchmarking?A review of the literature suggests that benchmarking is necessary for a number of reasons, including: (1) Benchmarking provides a systematic approach; (2) Benchmarking establishes the scope for required improvement; (3) Benchmarking brings external standards into the assessment of internal activities; (4) Benchmarking identifies new ideas and innovative approaches; (5) Benchmarking clarifies, encourages, and provides a framework for change; (6) Benchmarking allows for the incorporation of “best practices” into the organization of a benchmarked unit; (7) Benchmarking reduces subjectivity in decision making based on accurate, transparent data; (8) Benchmarking helps organizations learn from each other; (9) Benchmarking fosters connections and creates networks. By highlighting problem areas as well as potential for improvement, benchmarking provides and creates incentives for change and sets goals for improvement. Furthermore, the emphasis on the awareness of “model units” creates a tool for setting and developing strategies to achieve the set goals. Thus, benchmarking is a comprehensive method for improving the practice of an organization. It highlights the areas that need improvement. It provides objective data to illustrate the requirements in problem areas and on that basis helps units build planning models and proceed to improve their problem areas. Thus, it can be said that “ranking” helps people find units that are “on top” while “benchmarking” helps units that are “on bottom” have “models” to compare and improve to make progress together. Up to now, the awareness of accreditation, evaluation, benchmarking or university ranking in Vietnam is still a new issue. That leads to ambiguity in the perception of many people. There is an opinion that accreditation in general and "ranking" in particular are purely to show off achievements, rather than an effort to find out the limitations to improve and move forward. Referencing the accreditation results of other units to compare and find the strengths of the sample unit to learn from is not yet of interest to many people. Referencing other universities is not a regular activity of universities and colleges. Is it true that "accreditation"; "ranking"; "benchmarking" are things that "need to be done immediately" by universities and colleges?

References

1. Antony Stella & Da vid Woodhous,Benchmarking in Australian Higher Education: A thematic Analysis of AUQA Audit Reports; Australian Universities Quality Agency
2. Kauko Hamalainen;Kimo Hamalainen; Minna Kaartinen-Kaoutaniemi;Dorte Kristofferen-Benchmarking in Improvement of Higher Education;European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. Helsinki
3. Nguyen Van Tuan,University rankings: need to make methods transparent;http://tuanvannguyen.blogspot.com/2008/11/xp-hng-i-hc.html
4. Nguyen Phuong Nga;Vietnam University Rankings: Are They Objective and Reliable?(Tuoi Tre newspaper)
5. Pham Do Nhat Tien (Dr. of Science)University rankings and new approaches to university rankings, Communist Magazine June 28, 2009
6. The world is "obsessed" with university rankings,http://vietnamnet.vn/giaoduc/2008/10/808854