University Rankings and the ChatGPT – Two Answers

University Rankings and the ChatGPT – Two Answers

Headline, Studies
One of the two answers was written by Dr. György Fábri PhD, the editor-in-chief of our site, and the other by chatGPT. How can you decide which one is which?? And which do you agree with? Can replace ChatGPT the university rankings? No, chatbots like ChatGPT cannot replace university rankings. University rankings are usually compiled by independent organizations using various criteria such as academic reputation, research output, student satisfaction, and employability of graduates. They are a form of evaluation and comparison of universities based on a set of specific criteria. On the other hand, ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model that can generate human-like text based on the input it receives. It can answer questions and provide information, but it does not have the capability to evaluate or rank universities.…
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Academic Freedom: a new aspect that is now measured

Academic Freedom: a new aspect that is now measured

Analysis and Trends, Headline
Academic Freedom Index (AFI) was published on March 11 for the second time since it’s launch in 2020. AFI is a collaborative initiative of researchers at  Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, the V-Dem Institute, the Scholars at Risk Network, and the Global Public Policy Institute to measure the degree of academic freedom of the countries of the globe. The index consists of five indicators on academic freedom, each of which is coded by country experts on a predefined scale from 0 to 4 and on a country-year basis: the freedom to research and teach the freedom of academic exchange and dissemination the institutional autonomy of universities campus integrity the freedom of academic and cultural expression The second edition of the openly available data is based on contributions by almost 2,000 country experts from…
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Leiden Ranking and the others

Leiden Ranking and the others

Analysis and Trends, Headline
Leiden Ranking is special from the aspect, that it only works with factual data about publication performance, while other global rankings use normalized data (see more details: STABILITY AND DYNAMICS: SUMMARY OF GLOBAL RANKING INDICATORS 2021) by Dóra Czirfusz Therefore analysing Leiden’s results with other world rankings may give us an interesting slice of the world of higher education rankings, considering that information of Leiden list gives us a more objective picture about universities’ performance. As the number of ranked institutes and the forms of published data vary in almost each ranking, we computed a derived score (similar to overall scores published for several rankings) for each institution for every ranking, showing what percentage of institutions performs better than a given university in the list.[1] This score allows us to…
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Stability and dynamics: summary of global ranking indicators 2021

Stability and dynamics: summary of global ranking indicators 2021

Analysis and Trends, Headline
Six indicators are used to establish the ARWU overall ranking (“Shanghai-ranking”), the instructor's scientific activity (publications and awards) is weighted by a total of 80%, and the quality of education and individual scientific performance are included by  10 percent each. In contrast, only five indicators are considered in the ranking of subjects, with different weights by subjects.[1] Publication activity is measured on the basis of the Web of Science database (this is also used by Leiden ranking), citations are calculated from the InCites database, just as the indicator of international collaboration. The following indicator also measures publication performance, which is calculated on the basis of studies published in the authors' best-rated journals (listed here), and finally uses the indicator of scientific awards given by lecturers, which is based on different…
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International Ranking-Conference 2020 Budapest – Partnership with the IREG!

International Ranking-Conference 2020 Budapest – Partnership with the IREG!

Global Ranking Monitor, Headline, Projects
An international ranking conference is organising by Eötvös Lorándt University in Budapest in early April 2020, with a special thematic: Reflections of Social Science Analysis on the University Rankings. The preparation of the event was supported by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology and its organization is supported by the PADE Foundation established by the Hungarian National Bank. The importance of the conference is enhanced by the fact that IREG is a partner in the event.
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University Rankings as a Special and Highly Effective Form of Communicating Scientific Excellence*

University Rankings as a Special and Highly Effective Form of Communicating Scientific Excellence*

Headline, Studies
Excellent scientists or scientific products represented scientific excellence for lay audiences and the media traditionally. The Zeitgeistof accountability and affordability has amplified the role of various rankings in this. Among the lists of citations, impact factors, publication indexes, etc., the university rankings raise the highest interest in the media and among science policy makers as well. The actors of science need to be able to recognize the nature of these rankings, beyond the methodological dynamics and problems. Because rankings are not mainly about higher education performance. These rankings show society’s media centered nature and its effect on the academic world. In this context there is a direct lesson for science and university communicationa: rankings are the media phenomenon of a postmodern mass democracy. They are considered postmodern, because scientific and instructional…
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Ranking Workshop in Budapest: New Cooperations

Ranking Workshop in Budapest: New Cooperations

Headline, Projects
The Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Faculty of Education and Psychology welcomed three leading ranking experts for a two-day visit in Budapest. The idea of this event comes from the research of the ELTE’s Social Communication Research Group, which carries out a special project analysing rankings on the academic level and implementing these in the practice of higher education management. The ELTE, one of the flagships of the Hungarian higher education, for the improvement of international positions of other universities too, considered it important to organise a meeting for Hungarian university representatives and ranking experts. [caption id="attachment_4836" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Waldemar Siwinski, Gero Federkeil, Dmitry Grishankov[/caption] The three guests are important figures of the international ranking world and members of the Executive Committee of IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence: Waldemar…
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Dispersible Meritocracy

Dispersible Meritocracy

Headline, Studies
/Part of Volume "Measured or Communicated? – University Rankings as the Media Representations of Higher Education" by Gyorgy Fabri My argument therefore is based on the notion competence hat there has been a much wider change in the social perception of the rankings, which points far beyond the issue of rankings. The professional (scientific and educational) performance of universities had been acknowledged by a social consensus several hundreds of years old as part of the competence of the academic world – and this changed drastically by the end of the 20th century. And this is not obvious in the sense that it is quite difficult to give an answer within higher education to the question why the professional activities of a university professor or a student wishing to study should be…
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