Dear Lotfi,

The trouble is the major component of all ranking system is the grant; i.e. how much money comes into the university. This also directly controls the quality of research.  The US government is a very generous with the research grants, hence the US universities attract good students from around the world. Europe lagging behind the US and struggling to keep up with research quality component; they can't component on the grant component.

The third world university are just struggle. They don't get  government grants and they loos their students. Some of them can't afford to have a decent library. 

In a loosing game do you blame the mangers?  player? Rules of the game ? 

We hardly can blame the rules of the game.  mangers  must play with the hand they are dealt with. 

Dear Lotfi,

The trouble is the major component of all ranking system is the grant; i.e. how much money comes into the university. This also directly controls the quality of research.  The US government is a very generous with the research grants, hence the US universities attract good students from around the world. Europe lagging behind the US and struggling to keep up with research quality component; they can't component on the grant component.

The third world university are just struggle. They don't get  government grants and they loos their students. Some of them can't afford to have a decent library. 

In a loosing game do you blame the mangers?  player? Rules of the game ? 

We hardly can blame the rules of the game.  mangers  must play with the hand they are dealt with. 

DEAR PROF. SIROUS

YOUR ANSWER IS VERY WISE, I'D LIKE TO ADD MORE, IN ARABIC WORLD (ALMOST) NO EXACT FUND SO THIS LEAD ARABIC RESEARCHER TO CONDUCT THEIR RESEARCHES IN EUROPE OR THE USA, SO THIS MAKE EUROPE UNIVERSITIES AT THE TOP RANKING ALL OVER THE WORLD.

First of all, one needs to know best -- with respect to which criteria?

Some rankings are geared towards the needs of (future) students while others are focused on the academic performance, see e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_of_universities_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings

Dear Prof Yasseri:

Thank you for your response, for this case many universities of the third world will find a good reason to justify their rankings (no grants from the governments)!!

For Dr.Emad Kamil Hussein, i agree with you, due to the bad policies of the governments towards the developemnt of the research we lose each year our best students and researcher.

For Dr.Artur Sergyeyev, thank you for these additions

Thank you again for your contribution

To me personally, i dont see any value in the published ranking of Indian Universities. They are mostly paid publications

Hi Krishnan,

I am in tow minds to agree or disagree with you, but I more agree than disagree. 

Those who pay for their publications need exposure and this is the only way to get exposure.  By getting feedback you can improve yourself. 

My hope is this: in the long run the quality of their work improve and universities pay to buy their publications and hence no payment to the publishers.

Please remember that publishing is a business. Some journals succeed  by geeting libraries to pay for the publishers. Some publishers came up with idea to charge authors instead.

I accept that quality of paid publication is low, but it is a start.  I don't believe any answer should come with a qualifier. 

Dear Sirous Yasseri 

To quote from Higher education....."Many institutions failed to put their best foot forward, when it came to supplying quality data. The point being emphasized here is “quality”. Some of the institutions were definitely casual in supplying the data sought. Reliability of an exercise like this depends entirely on the reliability of the data. This is clearly an area in which further work is needed. Institutions need to appreciate that supplying honest and reliable data is important for their own image of how they want to be seen by their pupils and the World at large".

http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/nirf_booklet_FINAL_02_04_16_01-00PM.pdf

I personally feel it is baseless.

Dear Krishnan Umachandran:

I share with you a part of your reasons to disqualify some paid journals, but a lot of others have a good rankings(and good impact factor by the way!) although they are a paid journals, how can we explain this!

Dear Niranjan Biswal:

Sorry to say that i disagree with, time to time this classification pulled the attention of scientists and the goverments, and universities them selves celibrate (if i've used the good expression) their good rankings, so it is important as i thought

For Professor Bachir Achour (from Biskra university, Algeria), this is his point of view:

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and now maintained by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, has provided annual global rankings of universities since 2003, making it the earliest of its kind. The ARWU is known for "relying solely on research indicators", and "the ranking is heavily weighted toward institutions whose faculty or alumni have won Nobel Prizes": it does not measure "the quality of teaching or the quality of humanities."

http://www.shanghairanking.com/

With my best regards

Prof. Bachir ACHOUR

1. If ranking of universities is the way forward to improve quality then I believe a unified system must be established between THE, QS and others. Currently, it is too biased towards a research university rather then a teaching university.

2. My current thoughts of ranking by THE, QS and others is its business like nature....it is definitely costly for most universities.

3. Ranking is time consuming for the organisation and the faculty member (better used of time for research, publication, teaching etc etc).

4. Old and established universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, MIT, Harvard by reputation alone will always be highly looked at by peers. So what will happen to the young or new universities...? Will ranking help?

@ Dr Napoleon and Dr Abdul Aziz good response