In Shanghai Ranking, the most important factors is introducing a composite indicator, combining with a weighting system a series of indicators.Webometrics uses link analysis for quality evaluation as it is a far more powerful tool than citation analysis or global surveys.

The subject College and university rankings has produced much debate about rankings' usefulness and accuracy. The expanding diversity in rating methodologies and accompanying criticisms of each indicate the lack of consensus in the field. For rankings of United States universities in particular, see Rankings of universities in the United States.

For details see:

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

A Comparison of Three Major Academic Rankings for World

Universities: From a Research Evaluation Perspective

http://jlis.lis.ntu.edu.tw/article/v9-1-1.pdf

http://www.moneycrashers.com/factors-choose-college/

It is a tough question but important, too. The answers may be quite different and even contradicting. In my opinion, first variable can be the qualification and experience of teaching faculty, then number of successful students produced yearly, and the contribution of it's students in innovating knowledge and technology etc.

In the U.S., many universities call themselves research universities, while many colleges term themselves mainly teaching colleges. Ranking therefore follows the university´s mission statement(s) current at a given time. My University of Connecticut prided itself on its research. Therefore research grants and awards for research performed appeared high on its list, with teacher ratings coming next, and administration last. If a university appreciates performance like innovative surgery and outstanding musical recitals, this would appear along with research. Many community colleges take pride in service to the community. This service would then take priority over all other college functions.

The QS rankings incorporate citation per faculty member data from Scopus, faculty/student ratios, and international staff and student numbers.

--The citations and faculty/student measures ( 20 per cent of score)

-- the international staff ( five per cent)

-- student data ( five per cent ).

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

In my opinion "research output" is the most important factor. Now defining the phrase "research output"is not an easy task. But I think how the research did change the course of the field or will be changing is a big factor which should be considered by experts before ranking a university.

Beyond the divide between teachig and research. In my opinion, the factors that contribute to the ranking of universities must integrate both teaching quality as reflected by some of the known important indicators, and research quality as reflected by the scientific quality of its research in terms of relevance, publications, and practical ramifications.

The compounded effect of both should constitute the lion's share in the final ranking score. The other remaining share could be internal administration, quality of the premises and facilities...etc

Along with the above mentioned factors, I think that the publications of that university plus the number of high-ranking instructors and professors can be effective in evaluating/ranking universities.

By publications I mean high profile articles published in online journals by that university.

In my "humble" opinion, there is no ideal system available for ranking/evaluating universities worldwide. I do not accept a system that is tailored to fit the universities that are located in the rich developed countries.

The existence of different systems for ranking/evaluating is not a "healthy" sign.

The approach to this subject could be simplified more as follows:

Universities are centers of teaching & research, so a system which relies only on research indicators is deficient,

Students learn in a typical university "theoretical & practical" courses and they are also taught how to conduct & engage in a research topic. This means that the quality of teaching, sciences & research, is of prime importance.

After this "dual" process of teaching, the students will get their degrees. Therefore, there has to be a way to measure their performances, in the places they went to, in order to rank/evaluate their universities accordingly.

I totally agree with Dr. Matar. Different measures were set to rank universities which can be guidlines for them to step up in its ranking. However, many of the universities which worked to distinguish itself by excellence in teaching and research got the rank as a by product rather than working for it. Hence, in my humble opinion. ranking should take into consideration universities' abilities to maintain and run a system that can ensure a high academic teaching and research standards that fulfills the needs of their communities they mainly serve. Hence, I agree that there should be a ranking that helps developing communities makes the best of its local universities by setting the benchmark of how able these universities to develop their own communities first rather than benchmarking with universities in the developed world. For example, publishing a research in reputable journals (as a metric for ranking) doesn't necessarily mean that the university served its community. Thanks. @AlDmour.

Dear colleagues: I see most of you discussing factors such as teaching, research, etc., but no one has asked the first question that I think we should be asking: Why do we need to rank universities? The answer to this question is vital. How can we say what we need to consider into a ranking, if we don't know what is the purpose of ranking institutions on a hierarchical continuum?

Universities are often specialized, covering some research topics not others, or being so-called stronger for some research domains and weaker for other? Are different research domains ranked (e.g. mathematical is higher ranked than psychology)? I don't think so, or it would not be very wise to rank different research domains .

"Rich, developed countries," ha! Dear Kamal, I wonder if anybody in the U.S. could teach a course on the major theme of visions of Arab culture in U.S. literature as well as your Dr. Marwan at Hashemite University. It is a good thing that university evaluations do not cross international borders. I can speak only for the Humanities, but I would imagine that in the social sciences, courses in the so-called developing countries could teach us more than a few pedagogical lessons.

Currently there are three approaches to what constitutes excellence in higher education:

1 - resources / reputation, which emphasizes the importance of the institution through the rankings, faculty achievements, levels of research, material and financial resources.

2 - The client-centered model, which focuses on student experience, quality practices, programs, faculty, employers and, most importantly, student satisfaction with programs, services and facilities.

3 - model of strategic investment focuses on ROI, cost benefit analysis, cost control, productivity, retention.

The problems of the rankings of whole institutions begin with the definition of its object. Universities are large and complex, and their quality is essentially multidimensional. Have strengths and weaknesses; can excel in research and weak in teaching; with highly productive research groups may have other mediocre; programs along with excellent graduates, other stagnant giving a poor and outdated training.

In the States college rankings are major marketing tactics. The quality of education and research often seems to have less importance. What seems to be to the fore is the notion that parents get value for money for the amount they pay to the institution and the rankings help to justify paying too much money for education.

Is there an answer to the ranking question? Research quality, teaching quality, student satisfaction, community benefit and very hard to assess and maybe all of these are beyond the reach of most establishments. Perhaps we should be aiming for smaller more specialised colleges? In the US endowments are major factors that have only a correlation to educational or teaching quality but which administrators love to stress.

There are various factors that should be considered for the evaluation/ranking of a University. These are:

•Quality of their education. Most of the top universities have been providing quality education to its students for many decades. These universities have designed effective curriculum for the students. The curriculum of a university provides a convenient help to educate and equip the students with all of the modern skills and knowledge so that they can effectively and successfully perform their professional duties in their respective fields of work.

•The teachers and professors of a university are considered as an extremely important part of its education system and an important factor for the evaluation/ranking of a University. A professor has to understand his subject very well and he has to be capable enough so that he can also deliver the knowledge effectively to its students. All of the top universities understand the fact very well that a university cannot perform well if the professors and faculty members of the university are not skilled and capable enough. That is why all of these universities have hired the experienced and capable professors that are providing quality education to their students.

•The evaluation system used by the University for its teachers and professor throughout their teaching career. The process of evaluation starts even before the appointment and continue till the end of their jobs with the universities.

There are several world ranking systems for universities. Each of the ranking system uses a different set of indicators to evaluate the universities of the world. These indicators include, among others, the following:

•The range of offered subjects and programs

•Academic reputation

•Employer reputation

•Numbers of foreign students

•Ratio of students and faculty members, the ratio of international faculty and the local faculty

•Number of PhDs

• Number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals

•Highly cited researchers and high quality papers and books published

•Public and private funding for the University activities

In some rankings they use:

1) Number of professors with Ph.D.

2) International recognization of the universities who have issued the Ph.D. of the professors.

3) Academic production of books in academic presses with referees

4) Who these academic presses are.

5) Number of paper in recognized and indexed in good bases with double blind peer review.

6) The impact factor of the academic production mainly who and where the books and papers are cited

7) Degree of internationalization of its student,professors and researchers

8) Where the graduates are working. Network.

9)Quality and number of facilities and amount of resources per students, professors and researchers.

10) Good administration practices and services to professors, students and researches

11) Prizes, awards and grants obtained by the academic community

There are at least to main theories about diplomas.

1) There are signals, is not important what you know but the fact that you have been in school. You have pay for it.

2) Diploma refects the amount of knowledge and human capital you have adquired in school.

The idea of rankings is to inform the people where you get 2 and not only 1.

I believe,

Global student placements should rank first,

Research achievements, global cognizance is important,

Money spent on education,

Money spent on research,

Time management in all activities,

Transparent management,

Good faculty, research and teaching,

Turnover each year,

one can go on!

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings

Academic peer review (40%)

Faculty student ratio (20%)

Citations per faculty (20%)

Recruiter review (10%)

International orientation (10%)

The other tool that can be used to rank Universities is research/ researcher's visibility on the. Thus the more researcher publish their research paper in high profile journals their work is and hence the better ranking of their institution.

What also is occasionally scored are the future positions and achievements of students after they left the university, i.e. after they left the 'nest' (= long-term fitness consequences per university placed in an evolutionary Darwinian framework)

Often, individual researchers find themselves in situations where it is useful to evaluate and compare different research institutes and universities. When looking for research partners or open postdoctoral research posts one should always look into the background of the organization and its status.

One can evaluate and compare research institutes and universities in several different ways. Different bodies that compile and maintain different ranking lists offer search and analysis facilities through their databases; this provides extensive opportunities for evaluation and comparison.

The most well know ranking list of world universities is maintained by the "Shanghai Jiao Tong University." Every year, 500 of the world's "best" universities make the List.

Factors that should be considered for the evaluation/ranking of a Universities are

1) Academic offerings i.e. the quality of the education: Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals awarded to alumni.

2) Faculty resources, i.e. the quality of the staff: Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals awarded to staff

3) Quality of Research

4) Facilities / Technology

5) Financial aid

6) Student life

7) Size & location of campus

8) Social

9) Personal needs and interests.

The main purpose of universities is education. It is very hard if not impossible to evaluate the universities by some formal criteria. May be a valid method would be to find best universities by elimination. At first step eliminate all universities where there is some sort of corruption in the education system. Afterwards, from the remaining list eliminate universities where there can be detected cases of plagiarism and other type of unfair attitude among researchers and professorship. If afterwards there remain any universities then it will be not difficult to arrange them.

Hi,t

This is very good and important question..The answers were very beneficial .

Good teaching staff,well prepared curriculum ,good facilities and well prepared students that would compete in the work market raise the reputation of any educational institute .

The most important factors in evaluating/ranking universities may include: teaching and assessment, curriculum, student support, learning resources, contacts with community, and quality management.

I have heard of another factor in evaluating extremely elite universities (particularly in the U.S.): alumni endowment.  In other words, grateful graduates of top universities donate moneys or properties to the universities. Those universities then compare the total amounts-- or endowments-- among themselves.  The greater the endowments, the presumption is that the more successful the donors have been after graduating. There arises a second presumption: the university of the donor has been largely responsible for that donor´s success. All this accounts for the greater prestige of universities with high alumni endowments: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc.

This is true, dear Kamal, yet the quality of research that I have read from universities in the developing world can favorably compare with that of elite universities in the US. 

Alumni endowments are rare even in the U.S. but have become a point of pride among the elite universities and cannot be underestimated in a nation of multiple colleges and universities which take the endowed universities as their models in many different respects: teaching, research, administration, and curriculum patterns.  

Yes most common factors are: Research, monies spent on research, employ-ability of graduates, success of graduates. but there are another factors should be take in consideration its the international activities involvement for academic staff.

As i observed in the first 300 universities, they have accreditation from international accreditation bodies such as; AACSB, WQUIS and ABET, as these bodies cover all the used criteria in world rank system.

Regards

1) Student body

2) student teacher ratio

3) research and publications

4) PhD produced

5) PhD faculty

6) International student body

7) Foreign faculty (permanent and visiting) 

8) strong QEC

9) active International linkages with exchange programs

10) library (books,journals,e-library and online library)

11) Labs

12) Clinical/field/cumminity based exposure ( whatever applicable).

13) Employee ability of its graduates.

Many things as mentioned by Dr. She's but the most important one I think research and publications and also the nobelist researchers numbers.

Regards