Some Guidelines for Academic Quality Rankings

Academic quality rankings are a controversial, but enduring, part of the educational landscape—controversial because not everyone agrees that the quality of a school or a programme can be quantified (Casper, 1996), and enduring because of the lack of other publicly attractive methods for comparing institutions (Sanoff, 1998). While the lack of appealing alternatives has legitimated the use of rankings in the eyes of many (but not all), there is still a lively debate over the issue of how to rank (Hattendorf, 1993). This article addresses the “how to” issue by offering some general guidelines for academic quality rankings. The discussion is presented in three parts and is couched in an American context. The first section of the paper outlines the conceptual categories that underpin many ranking efforts. It describes the strengths and limitations of some of the methods used to collect information on each, and offers some guidelines for the selection of ranking indicators. The second section examines the popular weight-and-sum approach to presenting this information in ranked format and explores its limitations for the evaluation of educational quality. The third section draws on the findings of the previous two and presents a list of things to consider at each stage of the ranking process. Before proceeding, it is worth defining what an academic quality ranking means. According to Webster (1986), an academic quality ranking: