Thursday, July 10, 2008

What's Happened to Malaysia?


It's that time of year again. A few days ago I received an invitation to take part in the THES-QS "peer review" Last year it came via World Scientific, the Singapore-based publishing company whose subscription list has been used by QS to construct their list of "smart people " who pass judgement on the world's universities. This year it came directly from QS. I do not know whether this means that QS is now using the THES subscription list as its database. If so, we can expect to see some wild fluctuations in the "peer review" and hence the overall rankings in October.



Anyway, here is message from QS.





It's that time of year again. Each year the response to the academic peer review for the Times Higher - QS World University Rankings goes from strength to strength.
QS and Times Higher Education are committed to making these rankings as strong and robust as they can be. Many enhancements have been made to the system in the last 12 months (you can read about them on http://www.topuniversities.com/) but amongst the most important has been your help in increasing the response to our academic peer review questionnaire.
Put simply... your opinion counts. Please share it with us.
You'll notice some slight differences to the survey this year - mainly in that we have included a lot more universities - as a result there are two questions about universities - one asking about those around the world, and a second asking about your own country specifically.
Please be as accurate and honest as possible. Help us make sure that your university contributes a representative response to the survey this year.
http://research.qsnetwork.com/academic
The deadline for response is July 15th.
At the end of the survey, from a selection of offers, you will have the chance to either...
Opt for a $100 discount on delegate's fee for QS APPLE (Asia Pacific Professional Leaders in Education Conference & Exhibition) 2009 in Kuala Lumpur
Enter a draw to win your university a free exhibition table at the QS World Grad School Tour (the world's leading circuit of Masters & PhD recruitement fairs) in a city of your choice
Receive a month month trial subscription to Times Higher Education
Thank you for taking the time to share your opinions with us, and please look out for the results of the Times Higher - QS World University Rankings 2008 - due to be published on October 9th.
Many thanks,
Ben SowterHead of ResearchQS



I was disappointed that I would not have a chance of getting a BlackBerry this time around. I started to fill out the form but stopped when I noticed something very odd. There are no Malaysian universities listed this year. Possible explanations are:



A. For some reason, QS have decided that no Malaysian university is of sufficient quality to even be included in the survey. This is unlikely considering some of the others that are included.



B. QS state at the start of the survey that the respondent's own university will be excluded from consideration. Since I work at a Malaysian university it is to be expected that that particular university would not show up. Perhaps some sort of error has meant that all Malaysian universities have been excluded from the list presented to me.



C. QS have made a principled decision that respondents are not allowed to choose any university in the country in which they work. This would be a good idea and therefore can probably be ruled out straightaway.



D. QS just forgot about Malaysia.



E. A computer error that affected me and nobody else.



Based on past experience, D seems the most likely, followed by B. If D, then in October Malaysian universities are going to get zero on this year's "peer review" and therefore will fall even further in the rankings. There will no doubt be an mass outbreak of soul searching in Malaysian universities and jeering by the opposition. If B, The fall will not be so great but Malaysian universities would still suffer if they are the only ones who cannot receive votes from within the country.



I appeal to any reader of this blog who has completed or is about to complete the THES-QS survey to let me know whether they have also noticed the omission of Malaysian universities or of any other country.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Richard,
It looks like answer C is the right one. After the question you refer to, you get to choose the best universities from your own country.

Anonymous said...

Richard,
I followed the link research.qsnetwork.com/academic and completed the survey. I'm at an Australian university (a big one). Malaysian universities were there. It is strange in the way it asks the questions and it seems lots of unis were missing - i couldn't find SUNY??

Anonymous said...

Malaysian unis present when i did it now. I just went from your link - research.qsresearch.com/academic

Did notice alot of unis missing - couldn't see SUNY

Anonymous said...

Dear Richard,

You may be surprised to hear that I am a frequesnt reader of your blog. Much of your analysis is detailed and shrewd. In fact, whilst I have declined to comment in the past we have kept an eye on your blog and, in some areas, chosen to make improvements based on your observations.

This last post regarding the inclusion of Malaysian institutions is, however, particularly unhelpful.

Firstly, each year, our first course is to invite prior respondents to update their opinion. We will be sending out emails through World Scientific in the coming weeks - there has, as yet been no change to our attempts to attract response.

Secondly, your observations regarding Malaysia are symptoms of your having neither read the question nor had the patience to proceed to the next page.

We have simply separated the international and domestic context in the peer review and employer reviews in an attempt to gather intelligence on a larger number of institutions without making the main list unmanageable. Such is clearly explained in the section introduction and question text.

Since you know doubt declared a "domestic" knowledge of Malaysia, Malaysian institutions are excluded from the main list and listed in a separate and subsequent question.

So... ultimately, your scenario C is nearest the mark.

We haven't removed the possibility to respond on your own country, but we have separated it so that we can do some more analysis on response dynamics and, potentially, more effectively counteract country biases.

I look forward to your continued detailed analysis and, perhaps, the completion of your peer review response.

Best wishes,

Ben Sowter
Head of Research
QS

Anonymous said...

Dear Richard,

I just completed the QS survey. In fact, universities from your country of residence are excluded only from the first screen. After having selected universities worldwide / regionwide, a second screen asking to select universities from your country of residence is presented. From that list one's own university is excluded. It is not mentioned how the selection of universities from the country of residence will be handled.

Best regards,
Tim

Tim.Engels
[at] ua.ac.be
University of Antwerp, Belgium