THE IMPACT OF “WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS” ON RESEARCH AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Local relevance and community engagement are better indicators of ‘excellence’ in the university

Leslie Chan @lesliekwchanCentre for Critical Development StudiesUniversity of Toronto Scarborough

I INTERNACIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON EXCELLENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION Universidade Federal do Sul da BahiaPorto Seguro, BrazilNov. 11-12, 2014

Key argument

Local relevance and community engagement are better indicators of ‘excellence’ in the university

A relevância local e o envolvimento da comunidade são melhores indicadores de "excelência" na universidade

Some questions• Why the proliferation of world university rankings?

• What are they supposed to “measure”?

• What constitutes “excellence” and “quality”?

• Should there be a homogenized yardstick?

• Por que a proliferação de rankings universitários mundiais?

• O que eles supostamente "medem”?

• O que constituem a "excelência" e a "qualidade”?

• Deve haver um critério homogeneizado?

• What do they make visible and render invisible?

• Implications for policy and governance?

• How to address the imbalances and inequity?

• How to reconcile the “local” and the “global”?

• O que eles tornam visível e deixam invisível

• Quais as implicações para a política e governança?

• Como lidar com o desequilíbrio e a desigualdade?

• Como conciliar o "local" e o "global"?

Some personal background…

Alguns antecedentes pessoais...

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/ccds/

Shanghai Jiao Tong ranks universities by measuring objective indicators of academic or research performance. These include: alumni and faculty winning prestigious prizes and medals; highly cited researchers; articles published in Nature and Science; articles indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution.

Open Access and the global scientific production system

Acesso Aberto e o sistema de produção científica mundial

Figure 1. Unequal contribution and participation in science.

Chan L, Kirsop B, Arunachalam S (2011) Towards Open and Equitable Access to Research and Knowledge for Development. PLoS Med 8(3): e1001016. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001016http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001016

Alperin, Juan Pablo (2014): World scaled by number of documents in Web of Science 2011 by Authors Living There. Figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.953177. Retrieved 14:56, Nov 11, 2014 (GMT)

Personal Context

http://www.bioline.org.br

Journals on Bioline

http://goo.gl/cfR0dD

OPEN ACCESS ?

Will Open Access change the current power structure of global scientific production and dissemination?

Centre

Periphery

O Acesso Aberto mudará a estrutura de poder da produção científica mundial e sua disseminação?

Proliferations of “World University Rankings”…

Proliferações de “Rankings Mundiais de Universidades"

• Now over 40 countries with national ranking

• Over a dozen international or global rankings

• Some by national institutes, research centers, but many are by transnational media companies

• First ranking of Brazilian universities was launched in 2012

• Agora, mais de 40 países com rankings nacionais

• Mais de uma dúzia de rankings internacionais ou globais

• Alguns de institutos nacionais e centros de pesquisa, mas muitos são de empresas transnacionais de mídia

• O primeiro ranking de universidades brasileiras foi lançado em 2012

Why Ranking? Para quê Rankings?

• A form of “consumer’s guide” for students and parents

• Stimulate friendly competition among institutions

• Differentiate types of institutions and their strengths

• Framework for national assessment, accountability, quality assurance

• Contribute to debate on the definition of “excellence” and “quality” of higher education

• Uma forma de "guia do consumidor" para alunos e pais

• Estimular a competição amigável entre as instituições

• Diferenciar tipos de instituições e seus pontos fortes

• Quadro de avaliação nacional, responsabilidade, garantia de qualidade

• Contribuir para o debate sobre a definição de "excelência" e "qualidade" do ensino superior

• http://ruf.folha.uol.com.br/2014/

http://www.shanghairanking.com/

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

http://thomsonreuters.com/

What rankings leave outO que os rankings deixam de fora

• Do not reward good teaching and pedagogy

• Transformation of students

• Fitness-for-purpose• Community connection and engagement

• Não recompensa o bom ensino e a pedagogia

• A transformação dos estudantes

• A adequação à finalidade

• O contato e o engajamento comunitário

The “Market” Imperative

O imperativo do "Mercado"

http://thomsonreuters.com/

http://ke.thomsonreuters.com/#/index.html

“Today's rating assignment reflects the University of Cambridge's outstanding market position, significant amount of liquid assets and strong governance structure. It also takes into account an expected increase in the university's debt-to-revenue ratio to a modest level.Moody's notes that the University of Cambridge, which recently celebrated its 800th anniversary, enjoys an extraordinarily strong market position, as a global leader in education and research, supported by strong publishing and assessment businesses. It has been successful in recruiting top quality students and faculty and in securing significant research funding from various sources inside and outside of the United Kingdom.”

Moody’s assessment of Cambridge University 2011

…there is a lot of fatalism around us. An immobilizing ideology of fatalism, with its flighty postmodern pragmatism, which insists that we can do nothing to change the march of social-historical and cultural reality because that is how the world is anyway. The most dominant contemporary version of such fatalism is neoliberalism.

Paulo Freire, 2001, 26

Benjamin D. Hennig and Phil Batyhttp://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=4214

Palgrave MacMillan. March 2011.

“What started as small-scale, nationally focused guides for students and parents has become a global business that heavily influences higher education and has repercussions well beyond academe”

A cautionary example

Um exemplo de advertência

http://www.capes.gov.br/component/content/article?id=7209%3Ainternacionalizacao-da-producao-cientifica-e-tema-de-reuniao-do-portal-de-periodicos

University of Cape Town, circa 2011

http://www.nature.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/nature/journal/v454/n7203/full/454398a.html

Nature Vol 454|24 July 2008http://www.nature.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/nature/journal/v454/n7203/full/454398a.html

“The publish-or-perish mentality that has arisen in China, with its focus on Western journals, has unintended implications that threaten to obviate the roughly 8,000 national scientific journals published in Chinese”

“A mentalidade publicar-ou-perecer que surgiu na China, com seu foco em jornais ocidentais, tem implicações imprevistas que ameaçam eliminar cerca de 8000 revistas científicas nacionais publicadas em chinês"

“When setting agendas, governments in developing countries must be careful in allocating their resources for science to achieve a balance between following the science frontier globally and addressing crucial domestic needs. A balance should also be struck between generating knowledge and disseminating and using knowledge.”

“Ao definir agendas, os governos dos países em desenvolvimento devem ser cuidadosos na alocação de seus recursos para a ciência, para alcançar um equilíbrio entre seguir a fronteira da ciência mundial e atender às necessidades domésticas cruciais. Um equilíbrio também deve ser atingido entre a geração de conhecimento e a disseminação e uso do conhecimento”

http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2286

Case studies of university and civil society collaboration

http://www.scielo.org/php/index.php

Alternatives?

Alternative measurement

http://www.u-multirank.eu/

Community Engagement

http://nerche.org/

http://www.guni-rmies.net/

http://pascalobservatory.org/about/introduction

Final remarks Considerações Finais

• Importance of Contexts• Ranking tools are not value

neutral and we need tools and frameworks designed for social inclusion

• Re-examine the missions of the university and fitness-for-purpose

• From “elitist excellence” to “social and societal” excellence

• Need to have buy-in from policy makers and university leaders

• Importância dos contextos

• Ferramentas de rankings não tem um valor neutro e precisamos de ferramentas e estruturas projetadas para a inclusão social

• Reexaminar as missões da universidade e adequação aos fins

• Da "excelência elitista" à excelência "social e societal”

• Precisa do apoio de políticos e líderes universitários

Initiatives based in the global South?Please share you ideas:

@lesliekwchan@ocsdnetchan@utsc.utoronto.ca