University ranking is a popular and quantitative method to assess tertiary education institutions. However, rankings are prone to biases and limitations and must be viewed with caution.
This article is a literature review of studies that explore the issues related to university rankings. It offers a succinct overview of the topics, methodologies, variables and types of rankings analysed. It also identifies challenges and future perspectives.
In this way, the purpose of the article is to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of university rankings and to improve their legitimacy. The selection of the articles is based on their explicit centred discussion of university rankings, guaranteeing their direct relevance to the aim of the review.
The articles reviewed discuss diverse aspects of the phenomenon of university rankings: impact, challenge and controversy, methodology, underlying criteria and issues related to students and teachers. The authors use different research approaches, including comparative analyses, interviews and statistical analysis.
While it is important to remember that the position of a university in the ranking does not reflect its teaching quality, it is worth pointing out that being highly ranked can help to increase the visibility of a university and facilitate its communication with potential students, faculty members and researchers.
The most reliable and useful university ranking is probably the QS World Rankings which takes into account a number of factors, such as academic reputation (worth 30 percent), research output (15 percent), international student ratio and international staff ratio (10 percent each). The full methodological framework can be accessed here.