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Comparative study of international academic rankings of universities

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Abstract

International academic rankings that compare world universities have proliferated recently. In accordance with latter conceptual and methodological advances in academic rankings approaches, five selection criteria are defined and four international university rankings are selected. A comparative analysis of the four rankings is presented taking into account both the indicators frequency and its weights. Results show that, although some indicators differ considerably across selected rankings and even many indicators are unique, indicators referred to research and scientific productivity from university academic staff have a prominent role across all approaches. The implications of obtained data for main rankings consumers are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agencia de Calidad, Acreditación y Prospectiva de las Universidades de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Oscar Vadillo-Muñoz

  2. Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, 18011, Granada, Spain

    Gualberto Buela-Casal, Olga Gutiérrez-Martínez & María Paz Bermúdez-Sánchez

Authors
  1. Gualberto Buela-Casal
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  2. Olga Gutiérrez-Martínez
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  3. María Paz Bermúdez-Sánchez
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  4. Oscar Vadillo-Muñoz
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Correspondence to Olga Gutiérrez-Martínez.

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Buela-Casal, G., Gutiérrez-Martínez, O., Bermúdez-Sánchez, M.P. et al. Comparative study of international academic rankings of universities. Scientometrics 71, 349–365 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1653-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1653-8

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