WOSA 2018 Ranking and Rating Higher Education Institutions – Do they have a role in Quality Improvement? Prof C R Muthukrishnan 9th September, 2018 wosa2018 crm

WOSA 2018 themes Theme 1 – Achieving Excellence through Learning Outcomes. Theme 2 – Role of Industry in Technical Education. Theme 3 – Ranking and Rating Higher Education Institutions – Do they have a role in Quality Improvement? Theme 4 – Linking Government Funding with Quality. Theme 5 –Use of ICT in Accreditation in Large Jurisdictions wosa2018 crm

Accreditation, Ranking, Rating NBA – Programme-wise, Tier I/ Tier II based on OBE, and SAR Ranking: NIRF RATING : Initial spadework on for some time wosa2018 crm

Reference: Article in The Hindu BusinessLine published on 31 March, 2017 , The writer is Director, IIM – Ahmedabad Initial thinking and spadework had started in NIRF prior to the reference publication. wosa2018 crm

Focus on Quality of Professional Education and its improvement is one of the main purpose of all the three, namely, Accreditation, Ranking and Rating. They also serve other distinct purposes wosa2018 crm

A Quote : Webster, D.S. Academic Quality Rankings of American Colleges and Universities, Springfield: Charles C Thomas, 1986 Nonetheless, just as democracy, according to Winston Churchill, is the worst form of government, except for all the others so quality rankings are the worst device for comparing quality of colleges and Universities, except for all others. wosa2018 crm

Academic Quality rankings may not be perfect; however they are enduring - for the lack of any other publicly available information on the relative quality comparing institutions. They require informed usage with discretion. wosa2018 crm

NIRF – initiative of MHRD. Many or Most earlier rankings are commissioned by private, commercial entities. Voluntary Participation by institutions. The response has been good. To accommodate diversity of institutions, categories have been followed (Overall, Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Colleges, Architecture, Law, Medical) The choice(s) of category to apply are in accordance with few parameters / exercised by the institutions. Ranks are declared each year based on data of the preceding year submitted by the institutions wosa2018 crm

The main data /information serving as input to the ranking process are Faculty Accomplishments, Student Achievements and Institutional resources – academic /physical /financial It is worth noting that in accreditation , the processes , deployment of resources to produce outcomes and improvement based on feedback are in play in a large measure. wosa2018 crm

Rating in contrast with Ranking Ranking gives a serial total order among the institutions in a group. A group, to a good degree, comprises closely similar institutions and Programmes. Ranking is uni-dimensional and hence competitive by nature. Rating: Institutions are looked at individually as per yardsticks in several dimensions and in each, they are graded. Rating is indicative. wosa2018 crm

Some Examples of Rating Assessment of student performance - grades in courses and transcripts Feedback on teaching by students, usually based on questionnaire PEO assessment from alumni and employers based on questionnaire wosa2018 crm

An illustration >100,<150 100 99 98 97 96   >100,<150 100 99 98 97 96 TLR Teaching, Learning & Resources 49.13 57.52 57.01 63.62 56.04 59.06 RP Research & Professional Practice 5.42 2.54 2.23 11.4 5.71 12.3 GO Graduation Outcome 55.23 57.97 62.4 48.16 61.36 48.68 OI Outreach & Inclusivity 53.56 57.19 56.96 36.89 53.06 29.64 PR Perception 3.59 5.97 2.6 3.09 Total 166.93 181.19 178.6 162.7 176.17 152.77 Score 32.36 35.84 35.95 36.00 36.10 36.22 wosa2018 crm

What does the illustration tell us Combining different aspects into a score with weightages is information lossy - simple and useful but limited. More details would offer wider basis for identifying scope for improvement. Rating can offer to the users (students. Parents, funding agencies, industry) a view wherein they can focus on what is important for them in a more significant way. wosa2018 crm

Summing up Many of the points raised with respect to ranking are about how they are perceived and used. The information from ranking is coarse and abstract and somewhat difficult to use for improvement by institutions. However, the scheme of parameters and metrics are available in the nirf website and with the institution- submitted-data, some additional inferences for improvement are possible. Rating would provide a more lucid picture for stake-holders It is feasible to integrate ranking and rating. This would require research and augmented design of the system. wosa2018 crm

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